Slavery and Crime in Missouri, 1773-1865

by Harriet C. Frazier

Overview

Slavery and its lasting effects have long been an issue in America, with the scars running deep. This study examines crimes such as stealing, burglary, arson, rape and murder committed against and by slaves, with most of the author's information coming from handwritten court records and newspapers. These documents show the death penalty rarely applied when a slave killed another slave, but always applied when a slave killed a white person.

Despite Missouri's grim criminal justice system, the state's best lawyers were called upon to represent slaves in court on serious criminal charges, and federal law applied to all persons, granting slaves in Missouri protection that few other slave states had. By 1860, Missouri's population was only 10 percent slave, the smallest percentage of any slave state in America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786443314
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	07/04/2011
Series:	History/United States
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	536,571
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Harriet C. Frazier, attorney and retired law professor in the Criminal Justice Department at University of Central Missouri, also has a Ph.D. in English. She lives in Kansas.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     
List of Illustrations     
Preface     

1. Spanish Colonial Administration     
2. Early American Rule     
3. Noncapital Territorial Wrongdoing     
4. Slave Elijah's 1818 Trial on a Charge of Conspiracy     
5. The 1820 Missouri Constitution and Its Background     
6. Costs in Criminal Cases     
7. Against Themselves: Black-on-Black Crime     
8. White Perpetrators, Black and Mulatto Victims     
9. Noncapital Statehood Crime, White and Black     
10. Capital Cases: Girls and Women     
11. Capital Crimes by Coerced Boys and Men     
12. Capital Crimes by Wandering Boys and Men     
13. Rape: The Crime, Its Punishment, and Its Pardons     
14. Antebellum Lynchings of Blacks, Slave and Free     

Appendices     

Notes     
Bibliography     
Index     

Editorial Reviews

comprehensive…an interesting and illuminating account of law and society in a slaveholding jurisdiction…valuable…recommended”—Catholic Library World; “illustrates superbly the major discontinuity in American slave law...excellent”—Civil War Book Review; “depth and extensiveness of research”—The Mount Newsletter; “important…a delight”—The Kansas City Star; “extensive primary and secondary research...a wealth of substantiated information...presents a part of history often purposely overlooked...gives a more complete record of the American experience”—Gateway: The Quarterly Magazine of the Missouri Historical Society; “the first comprehensive history of Missouri’s slaves as perpetrators and victims of crime…detailed index…useful”—The Cuba Free Press; “comprehensive”—St. Louis Post Dispatch.

From the Publisher

depth and extensiveness of research

The Mount Newsletter

illustrates superbly the major discontinuity in American slave law...excellent

Civil War Book Review

comprehensive...an interesting and illuminating account of law and society in a slaveholding jurisdiction...valuable...recommended

Catholic Library World

...depth and extensiveness of research...

Mount Newsletter