As Black Women’s History Month gets underway, the release of a new book that tells the stories of enslaved Black women who were charged with crimes by their owners couldn’t be timed any better.
Written by Dr. Tamika Nunley, a historian
As Black Women’s History Month gets underway, the release of a new book that tells the stories of enslaved Black women who were charged with crimes by their owners couldn’t be timed any better.
Written by Dr. Tamika Nunley, a historian and professor of history at Cornell University, “The Demands of Justice: Enslaved Women, Capital Crime, and Clemency in Early Virginia” specifically addresses the previously unreported testimonies of enslaved Black women facing crimes such as poisoning, theft, murder, infanticide, and arson.
“The Demands of Justice,” which was released on Tuesday, offers precious context about the history of America’s criminal justice system and how it treated enslaved Black women, in particular.
Keep reading to find an excerpt from “The Demands of Justice” below:
In 1705, the colonial legislature of Virginia passed a measure that compensated slaveholders for executed enslaved people at market value. The law revealed some important truths about the presence of slavery in America, the first being the political and economic commitment of the state to protect the property interests of enslavers and the second pointed to the reality of enslaved people’s resistance. A lesser-known aspect of the history of American slavery is the story of how enslaved women and girls violently contested bondage.
From the very beginnings of the history of colonial Virginia to the American Civil War, enslaved women and girls stood accused of poisoning and murdering white Virginians, committing acts of infanticide, and setting plantations ablaze. While these acts did not occur every day, tensions mounted and the atmosphere of forced bondage proved conducive to a climate of violence and desperation throughout the nineteenth century. Evidence of enslaved women’s responses to the everyday realities of physical, mental, emotional and sexual violence appeared throughout the court dockets, auditor’s records, executive office papers, and newspapers of early Virginia.
In 1851, the auditor of public accounts issued compensation to the family of Gerard Mason for the execution of Agnes, an enslaved woman accused of murdering Mason. Mason came from an elite Virginia family that included his more famous relative, George Mason; a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and revered Founding Father. A number of local newspapers reported on the case including the Alexandria Gazette which opined that “beyond a rational doubt, that Mr. Mason was killed in his bed, most probably whilst asleep, by blows inflicted with an ax by the accused.” Reports of the incident pointed to the criminality of the enslaved woman and the malicious intent behind the crime. But the news coverage failed to account for the power dynamics between Mason and the enslaved on his Prince William County estate.
Four years before Agnes appeared in the news for killing Gerard Mason, the local jailor held him in custody for the murder of an enslaved woman named Katy. Locals who conducted daily business transactions selling wood, making repairs, and arranging for the exchange of go