The first volume of the Dictionary of Virginia Biography contains an insightful biography of Billy, an enslaved person indicted in Prince William County during the American Revolution for treason against Virginia. He was sentenced by the county court to be hanged. Henry Lee and William Carr, judges who dissented in the case, along with Mann Page, argued to Governor Thomas Jefferson that a slave, being a noncitizen, could not commit treason. Billy received a gubernatorial reprieve and then a legislative pardon in 1781.

The biography in the DVB is by Philip J. Schwarz, author of Twice Condemned: Slaves and the Criminal Laws of Virginia, 1705-1865. He concludes that this exemption of enslaved persons from prosecution for treason seems to have continued in Virginia into the Civil War.

The case, as Phil Schwarz states, forced white leaders in Virginia to confront the logic of slavery. Because slaves had none of the protections of citizenship, they therefore could not be subject to the law of treason.

Anyway, read the biography and read Phil's book.

John

-------Original Message-------
From: [log in to unmask]
Sent: 03/11/03 06:12 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Corps of Colonial Marines and Virginia

>
> John;

Did your research take you to the point of investigating whether any
slaves
were tried for treason due to their going over to the British side, or
whether they could have been tried for treason under US law?  Since a
slave
was considered chattel instead of a human being, I wondered how that
worked.

JDS

To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
at <a target=_blank
href="http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html">http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html</a>
>

John T. Kneebone
5107 Caledonia Road
Richmond, VA 23225
[log in to unmask]
804-231-1774

To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html