History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol 1: Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as CitizensWilliams, George Washington
History
History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol 1: Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens
Williams, George Washington
African Americans -- History; Liberia; Sierra Leone
"William Smith, Esq." now took the floor to sum up. He told the jury
that it was "black and hellish" to burn the town, and then kill them
all; that John Hughson, by his complicity in this crime, had made
himself blacker than the Negroes; that the credit of the witnesses was
good, and that there was nothing left for them to do but to find the
prisoners guilty, as charged in the indictment. The judge charged the
jury, that the evidence against the prisoners "is ample, full, clear,
and satisfactory. They were found guilty in twenty minutes, and on the
8th of June were brought into court to receive sentence. The judge
told them that they were guilty of a terrible crime; that they had not
only made Negroes their equals, but superiors, by waiting upon,
keeping company with, entertaining them with meat, drink, and lodging;
that the most amazing part of their conduct was their part in a plot
to burn the town, and murder the inhabitants,--to have consulted with,
aided, and abetted the "black seed of Cain," was an unheard of
crime,--that although "with uncommon assurance they deny the fact, and
call on God, as a witness of their innocence, He, out of his goodness
and mercy, has confounded them, and proved their guilt, to the
satisfaction of the court and jury." After a further display of
forensic eloquence, the judge sentenced them "to be hanged by the neck
'till dead," on Friday, the 12th of June, 1741.
The Negro girl Sarah, referred to above, who was before the jury on
the 1st of June in such a terrified state of body and mind, was
re-called on the 5th of June. She implicated twenty Negroes, whom she
declared were present at the house of Comfort, whetting their knives,
and avowing that "they would kill white people." On the 6th of June,
Robin, Caesar, Cook, Cuffee, and Jack, another Cuffee, and Jamaica were
arrested, and put upon trial on the 8th of June. It is a sad fact to
record, even at this distance, that these poor blacks, without
counsel, friends, or money, were tried and convicted upon the evidence
of a poor ignorant, hysterical girl, and the "dying confession" of
Quack and Cuffee, who "confessed" with the understanding that they
should be free! Tried and found guilty on the 8th, without clergy or
time to pray, they were burned at the stake the next day! Only Jack
found favor with the court, and that favor was purchased by perjury.
He was respited until it "was found how well he would deserve further
favor." It was next to impossible to understand him, so two white
gentlemen were secured to act as interpreters. Jack testified to
having seen Negroes at Hughson's tavern; that "when they were eating,
he said they began to talk about setting the houses on fire:" he was
so good as to give the names of about fourteen Negroes whom he heard
say that they would set their masters' houses on fire, and then rush
upon the whites and kill them; that at one of these meetings there
were five or six Spanish Negroes present, whose conversation he could
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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