Name/Title
Slavery and Crime in Missouri, 1773-1865Entry/Object ID
2014.1.1Description
Slavery and Crime in Missouri, 1773-1865. Written by attorney and law professor at Central Missouri State University. Research included records of death penalty cases, Missouri inmate registers, pre-Civil War newspapers, and Spanish court records from the time Missouri was its possession. Stories are of persons of color, African American, Native American, mulattos, most enslaved.
Chapter 1: Spanish Colonial Administration
Traces Spanish rule of Missouri from its start in 1760's, through criminal records in 1773, involving American Indian slaves.
Chapter 2: Early American Rule.
describes mix of laws applicable to Missouri's slaves after 1804. Bond persons were governed by Virginia slave code, including its death penalty statue, the laws of Northwest Territory, federal statutes, and Bill of Rights.
Chapter 3 Noncapital Territorial Wrongdoing
Examines court records, principally from St. Louis, most concerning slaves stealing and burglary.
Chapter 4: Slave Elijah's 1818 Trial on a Charge of Conspiracy
Missouri's only extant territorial death penalty case with black defendant, accused of putting arsenic in his mistress's sausage.
Chapter 5: The 1820 Missouri Constitution
Compares Missouri's laws to that of other slave states.
Chapter 6: Costs in Criminal Cases
Catalogues the expenses slave owners assumed when their slaves were prosecuted.
Chapter 7: Against Themselves: Black on Black Crime
Examines multiple instances of slave suicide and black on black violence.
Chapter 8: White Perpetrators, Black and Mulatto Victims
Examines brutality against persons of color.
Chapter 9 Noncapital Statehood Crime: White and Black
Surveys liquor violations, business dealings with slaves without their owner's permission, slave use of insulting language to white persons, stealing, burglary, mutilation and death of farm animals, arson, and attempted murder.
Chapter 10: Capital Cases: Girls and Women
Crimes involving black females before the Civil War.
Chapter 11: Capital Crimes by Coerced Boys and Men
Cases in which owners were compensated when their slaves were executed.
Chapter 12: Capital Crimes by Wandering Boys and Men
Discusses male slaves tried for murder
Chapter 13: Rape, the Crime, Its Punishment, and Its Pardons:
Distinguishes Missouri from every other places where slavery existed before the Civil War, which punished by castration instead of death.
Chapter 14. Antebellum Lynching of Blacks, Slave and Free
Discusses Missouri mobs.
324/Hardbound/Green cover/Maps/PhotographsCollection
Black ArchivesLexicon
Nomenclature 4.0
Nomenclature Primary Object Term
BookNomenclature Sub-Class
Other DocumentsNomenclature Class
Documentary ObjectsNomenclature Category
Category 08: Communication ObjectsLOC Thesaurus for Graphic Materials
Slavery, Civil wars, Lynchings, Death penaltySearch Terms
Black History, Slavery in Missouri, Black Crimes, Missouri Before the Civil War, Crimes Against Blacks, Spanish Colonial Rule in MissouriBook Details
Author
Frazier, Harriet C.Place Published
City
JeffersonState/Province
North CarolinaDate Published
2001Call No.
BlackHist FRNotes
Copy No.: 1Condition
Overall Condition
Excellent