This was not technically a judicial beheading, which would suggest that
a slave was executed by having his head cut off. The head was cut off
and stuck up in a conspicuous place after the slave was hanged. Jim
Watkinson is quite correct in his earlier message that the beastly
practice of mounting the head of an executed slave on a pike was not
uncommon in colonial Virginia. It served as a potent warning to other
slaves not to misbehave. I have seen more than a few references to this
practice in newspapers and in court order books, but I do not recall an
Alexandria example.

News of such events sometimes got into the newspapers. Don't neglect the
Maryland Gazette, which was published in Annapolis, and often contained
news from Virginia counties in the Potomac watershed,sometimes news that
did not get printed in Williamsburg. Philadelphia newspapers, of which
there were several at the time, also sometimes picked up information
that did not make it southward into the Williamsburg newspapers.

Two English periodicals that immediately occur to me are the ANNUAL
REGISTER and the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, but those were monthly
publications and would not have such specific date citations as this.
However, often times when a printer was setting type for something that
he'd seen in another publication, he used the date line of the other
publication. Which is to say, an American publication of 20 February
1768 might be the source for the story as originally published. So an
English periodical might be dated from two to ten months later.

The order to cut off the executed slave's head and stick it on a pike
should have been entered in the Fairfax County Order Book at the time of
the condemnation of the slave to death, but I seem to recall that the
order book is incomplete for that period. One of the leading justices of
the peace, such as a George Mason or a George Washington, would probably
have been present at the time; but if they didn't mention the episode in
their surviving letters, their silence could readily be attributed to
the fact that such an event was not excessively unusual.

There's an outside chance that after the execution the slave's owner
might have petitioned the General Assembly for the recovery of the value
of the executed slave, and the record of the petition in the Journals of
the House of Burgesses might furnish clues for finding sources for the
event.

Brent Tarter
The Library of Virginia
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Visit the Library of Virginia's web site at http://www.lva.lib.va.us

-----Original Message-----
From: Leslie Morales [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2003 3:26 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Slave Beheadings


_The History of Old Alexandria, Virginia From July 13, 1749 to May 24,
1861_ by Mary G. Powell (Richmond: William Byrd Press, 1928) notes:

"An old English magazine at the Alexandria Library, dated February 20,
1768, gives an account of an execution of some slaves at Alexandria who
had plotted to poison their overseers, some of whom died in consequence.
The slaves were hanged and their heads put on pikes on the chimneys of
the Court House and jail where they long remained, a revolting
spectacle, and warning to evil doers.  In the memory of some of our
older citizens these pikes, which were on the jail chimneys for the
purpose of exposing the heads, still remained until the jail was
remodelled for a police station."
-- Powell, page 41

Someone suggested the title might be "Gentleman's Quarterly" but we do
not have this magazine in our manuscripts collection.  At this writing,
we are unable to locate any references to this incident.  The Alexandria
Gazette didn't begin publication until  1784.  It is not mentioned in
the Virginia Gazette Index under "insurrections" or "poison*."
Meanwhile, we are working our way through about 20 cites in Swem's
"poisoning, by slaves."

Has anyone on the list ever heard of this particular incident -- or of
judicial beheadings elsehwere in the state?

Many thanks.

Leslie Anderson Morales, Reference Librarian
Alexandria Library, Special Collections
717 Queen Street
Alexandria, VA 22314  USA
Phone:  703.838.4577 x 207
FAX:  703.706.3912
Special Collections Gateway:
http://www.alexandria.lib.va.us/lhsc/special_collections_home.html

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