A Social History of the American Negro - Being a History of the Negro Problem in the United States. Including - A History and Study of the Republic of Liberia by Benjamin Brawley
page 177 of 545 (32%)
page 177 of 545 (32%)
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[Footnote 1: Bennett letter.] [Footnote 2: See _City Gazette_, August 14, 1822, cited by Jervey.] [Footnote 3: Official Report, 44.] As a result of this effort for freedom one hundred and thirty-one Negroes were arrested; thirty-five were executed and forty-three banished.[1] Of those executed, Denmark Vesey, Peter Poyas, Ned Bennett, Rolla Bennett, Batteau Bennett, and Jesse Blackwood were hanged July 2; Gullah Jack and one more on July 12; twenty-two were hanged on a huge gallows Friday, July 26; four more were hanged July 30, and one on August 9. Of those banished, twelve had been sentenced for execution, but were afterwards given banishment instead; twenty-one were to be transported by their masters beyond the limits of the United States; one, a free man, required to leave the state, satisfied the court by offering to leave the United States, while nine others who were not definitely sentenced were strongly recommended to their owners for banishment. The others of the one hundred and thirty-one were acquitted. The authorities at length felt that they had executed enough to teach the Negroes a lesson, and the hanging ceased; but within the next year or two Governor Bennett and others gave to the world most gloomy reflections upon the whole proceeding and upon the grave problem at their door. Thus closed the insurrection that for the ambitiousness of its plan, the care with which it was matured, and the faithfulness of the leaders to one another, was never equalled by a similar attempt for freedom in the United States. [Footnote 1: The figure is sometimes given as 37, but the lists total |
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