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Slave Prosecutions and Punishments in York County, Virginia, 1700 to 1780

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Slave Prosecutions and Punishments in York County, Virginia, 1700 to 1780 W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 1995 The Master's Mercy: Slave Prosecutions and Punishments in York County, Virginia, 1700 to 1780 Anne Romberg Willis College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the African American Studies Commons, African History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Willis, Anne Romberg, "The Master's Mercy: Slave Prosecutions and Punishments in York County, Virginia, 1700 to 1780" (1995). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539625945. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-8eh2-0488 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE MASTERS' MERCY SLAVE PROSECUTIONS AND PUNISHMENTS IN YORK COUNTY, VIRGINIA 1700 to 1780 A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of American Studies The College of William and Mary in Virginia In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Anne R. Willis 1995 APPROVAL SHEET This thesis in submitted in partial fulfillment the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts ne kormperg Willi Approved, May 1995 ---------- J5T— - Robert Gross KfeVLn P.Jtell y L u > IV Thad W. Tate TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv LIST OF TABLES v ABSTRACT vi INTRODUCTION 2 CHAPTER I. THE DEVELOPMENT OF SLAVERY IN COLONIAL VIRGINIA: THE LAW, YORK COUNTY, AND THE PEOPLE 6 CHAPTER II. THE GENTLEMEN JUSTICES AND SLAVE CRIME: THE OYER AND TERMINER TRIALS IN YORK COUNTY, VIRGINIA 34 CHAPTER III. ENSLAVED VIRGINIANS: SLAVE CRIME AND WHITE JUSTICE 7 8 CONCLUSION 109 APPENDIX 117 BIBLIOGRAPHY 2 85 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The writer wishes to thank Professor Robert Gross for his interest and support in this study. His criticism led to a more penetrating analysis of the material and to more profound conclusions. I would also like to express my appreciation to Professors Kevin P. Kelly and Thad W. Tate for their reading and invaluable criticism of the work. Ms. Sharon Zuber and Ms. Bertie Byrd were extremely helpful in editing and assembling the text. The Department of Historical Research of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has been extremely generous in their sharing of information and support for this project. In addition it would have been impossible to complete this project without the encouragement and insightful suggestions made by members of my family. iv LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Population Sizes in York County, Virginia; 1701-1776 28 2. Estimated Population Sizes for York County 29 3. Oyer and Terminer Court Justices: 1700-1780 43 4. York County Oyer and Terminer Slave Trials; 1700-1780 51 5. Annual Prosecution Rates per 1,000 Slaves in York County; 1700-1774 52 6. Adult Slave Crime Rates in York County; 1700-1780 53 7. Prosecutions of Slave Crime in York County; 1700-1780 55 8. Annual Rates for Violent and Property Crimes per 1,000 Adult Slaves in York County from 1700-1780 56 9. Annual Rates for Violent and Property Crimes in York County; 1700-1780 57 10. Places Crimes Were Committed in York County; 1700-1780 58 11. Yorkhampton Tithable List 62 12. Pleas of Accused Slave Felons 67 13. Slave Crime Committed by Single Slaves and Groups of Slaves 85 14. Residences of Accused Slave Felons in York County 97 15. Slave Crime and the Seasons 99 16. Places Crime Were Committed in York County 102 v ABSTRACT This study was undertaken to see what could, be learned about the county court's practice of justice for accused slave felons in York County, Virginia from 1700 to 1780. It was hoped that the study would reveal both how the gentlemen justices conducted the trials and how they treated those slaves that they found innocent or guilty and how those trials impacted on the lives of slaves themselves. The oyer and terminer court records from the York County Court Records Project of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation were used for this analysis. York County was chosen as the focus of this study because the boundaries of the county included the densely settled urban areas of the port of Yorktown and the capital city of Williamsburg as well as a long settled rural plantations. The gentlemen justices of each county were empowered by the laws of slavery to try all accused slave felons within their jurisdiction in a trial without a jury where they determined guilt and set the punishment for those slaves convicted. The justices adhered strictly to the procedures determined by the law, but practiced their own discretionary justice with only a single challenge to their authority by Governor Francis Fauquier. The slave crime in York County increased at a greater rate than the growth of the African-American population. Male slaves far outnumbered females in slaves prosecuted. The rate of violent crime prosecuted did not increase, but the rate of property crime accelerated significantly after 1740. The gentlemen justices responded by ordering more convicted slaves to hang. All punishment for convicted slaves was physical and violent unlike most of the crime allegedly committed by slaves. There was only a single prosecution of two slaves for suspected slave rebellion and insurrection and they were both acquitted. The slaveholding regime in York County was secure and not threatened by their slaves during the period under study. The determinations of the justices undoubtedly helped provide that security. The contradiction of slavery which defined slaves both by law and practice as property and as a human beings held responsible for their antisocial behavior pervades the practice of "justice" for both masters and slaves creating unresolvable tensions that shaped the lives of all free and enslaved persons who lived in the communities of York County. vi THE MASTERS' MERCY PROSECUTING AND PUNISHING SLAVES IN YORK COUNTY, VIRGINIA 1700 to 1780 INTRODUCTION At the courthouse in Yorktown, Virginia, on May 28, 1763, Cuffy, a Negro man held in slavery by the Reverend James Fox of Gloucester County, was tried for the attempted murder through poisoning of ten members of the Walter Lenox family of Williamsburg. Six gentlemen justices of the York County Court, under Governor Francis Faquier's commission of oyer and terminer, heard and decided Cuffy's case. Identified as chattel property, Cuffy was also described in the court proceedings as "a person of wicked mind and disposition" and was accused of "wickedly and maliciously intending to murder and destroy the sd. Walter Lenox and his family."1 Testimony was heard from sundry witnesses and, although apparently none of the persons died, Cuffy was found guilty by the justices and sentenced to hang on June 17, 1763. His value was set at £ 60, and the parson Fox was compensated for his lost property by the General Assembly. The court proceedings of Cuffy7s trial demonstrate dramatically the legal, moral, and social problems inherent in Virginia's slave society. As a person of African 1 York County Court Records Project, York County Court Order Book (The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Virginia) JO (3) 504-05. 2 3 descent, Cuffy, or his ancestors before him, had been removed forcibly from his own culture, transported to Virginia where he was an outsider "natally alienated" from the society that had enslaved him.2 We know that the Reverend James Fox was empowered by the laws of slavery to compel Cuffy to obey his will and surrender his independence, but Cuffy, not the Reverend James Fox, was held responsible by the court for his own through the law, tried to have it both ways by defining slaves as chattel property and holding them responsible for their criminal behavior Cuffy7s legal status in the colony as an "outsider" and totally subject to his master's will conditioned the justice Cuffy received. In addition the nature of slavery itself compromised the law and its practice. This study is based on the surviving records of York County's oyer and terminer courts which were ad hoc bodies summoned into being whenever the regular courts were not in session. 3~)|c'By 1692 separate systems of justice were 2See Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1982) 35-76. 3Black's Law Dictionary defines "oyer and terminer" as "a half French phrase applied in England to assizes, which are so called from the commission of oyer and terminer directed to the judges, empowering them to 'inquire, hear, and determine' all treasons, felonies, and misdemeanors. This commission is now issued regularly, but was formerly used only on particular occasions, as upon sudden outrage or insurrections in any place." J. Baker, in An Introduction to English Legal History notes that "powerful commissions of oyer and terminer were first issued in 1305 to deal with the armed gangsters known as trailbastons." 4 established in Virginia for free and enslaved persons^ By law the Virginia Assembly empowered the justices of county courts with a writ from the royal governor, to prosecute all slaves accused of committing a felony immediately after the slave's capture to make a public example of the slave's crime and his punishment. My essay is an analysis of the contradiction inherent in all slaveholding societies where the conflicting interests of the master class demanded that slaves be considered both property to be bought and sold and human beings to be held accountable for their antisocial acts. To illustrate how this contradiction played out in York County, Virginia, I will examine the power relations and tensions that embroiled both the gentlemen justices and accused slave felons as they faced each other in courts of oyer and terminer.
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