It is worth noting here that during the colonial period, slave rebels
were tried for high treason (slaves who murdered their masters were tried
for petit treason).  Everyone in the king's domains -- free or slave --
was a subject of the king and so owed that absolute allegiance the breach
of which was treason.  So the case of Billy reflects a revolutionary
break with the English legal system --  treason in America is a crime
only of citizens.  At the same time, one might note that, while Americans
ceased defining slave rebellion as a form of treason, they still treated
it as such in the area of punishments: hanging, dismemberment and
open-air display of severed heads and other body parts as gruesome warnings.

David Kiracofe
College of Charleston
Department of History
66 George Street
Charleston, SC 29424

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