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Killing Black Women: Capital Punishment During Slavery [View all]
The arm of “justice” came down hard on these slave women who chose to resist their oppression by killing their white owners. “Virginia executed Jane Williams in 1852 for slashing to death with a hatchet her master’s wife and infant. Reportedly, Jane’s owner mistreated her badly and had threatened to sell Jane without also selling her child (p.67).” One can only imagine the anguish that Jane felt in terms of the daily abuse and indignity of her existence, the final straw had to have been the prospect of being sold away from her child.“Virginia authorities burned alive Eve for poisoning her master Peter Montague with a glass of milk. Executioners afterward quartered Eve’s burnt body and displayed it publicly (p.66).” There is no information as to why Eve killed her master but we could certainly imagine her motives. Sexual control over slave women by white owners was critical to slavery and white owners relied on the routine sexual abuse of slave women as much as they did other forms of brutality. “One southern planter vulgarly declared that White rape of slave women explained the ‘absence of Southern prostitution and the purity of white women (p.72).”
“Seventy-year old Robert Newsome bought 14-year old Celia and forced sexual relations on her immediately and repeatedly. One night when Newsome went to Celia’s cabin to abuse her, she struck him with a stick and killed him instantly. Celia was pregnant for the third time by Newsome and was very ill when he last approached her. At her trial, the court was concerned only with whether Celia had a right to defend herself against her master’s assault. The trial judge made it clear that Celia did not have that right. To the court, Celia had no sexual rights over her own body because she was Newsome’s property and she ought to have submitted to Newsome’s demands. Celia was guilty of murder and hanged 4 days before Christmas in 1855.”
http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/2010/11/09/killing-black-women-capital-punishment-during-slavery/
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