A Community Study of Mecklenburg County
SLAVE MORAL PUNISHMENT
“As to Slaves--I remember One, was try'd and punish'd by a Jury, for some flagrant Crime”
Charles Woodmason, 1771
Slaves in the Courtroom
Mecklenburg County's slave population rarley appeared in court. When slaves did attend court, it was to bind them to a new master, for land and property distribution suits, or for felony cases. As nineteenth century southern society democratized and lower class citizens increasingly became justices of the peace, slave masters avoided legal prosecution of their slaves. Prior to the Revolution, the courtroom served as an institution for masters to reinforce their authority, but by the nineteenth century, slaveholders began to only prosecute slaves for capital offenses. It is clear from Mecklenburg court records that blacks not only received different punishment, but also faced separate prosecution methods within the courtroom.
All of the crimes committed by slaves and prosecuted by the Mecklenburg court were felonies. Capital crimes tried included manslaughter, horse stealing, burglary, rape, and assault with the intent to rape. In the county, only fourteen felony cases saw trial from the 1770s through the 1830s. This small number of appearances demonstrates that either few crimes were committed or small-farm masters chose to discipline their slaves on the farm in order to avoid paying the court for slave misbehavior.
The friction between slaves and poor whites often led to brawls, which could result in assault and battery. Historians argue that despite the abundance of fights between poor whites and slaves, few members of either party saw trial. More commonly, the master ignored poor white assaults of slaves unless the damage endangered the slave’s life or value, while a poor white victim of a slave assault employed extralegal punishment at the hands of the victim himself, his friends, or the master.
In the case of slave crimes, the economic reasons likely contributed to the low number of prosecutions. Due to the nature of the Mecklenburg economy, few slaveholders owned more than ten slaves. When one of their slaves committed a felony, Mecklenburg slaveholders had to decide whether the costs outweighed the benefits of prosecution. On one hand, a criminal trial collected money from the masters to pay for the trial and verdict. An execution had the potential to provide the master with money, but never the equivalent value of the slave. On the other hand, taking slaves to court for their criminal actions reinforced the master’s authority, but at the same time, trials could indicate that the master did not have control over his slaves. The low number of felony cases in Mecklenburg County demonstrates that small farm slaveholders decided the costs far outweighed the benefits, and instead chose to demonstrate their supremacy within the confines of the farm.
Plantation Punishment
Failing to prosecute slaves for the crimes against order and morals in court was common practice in the southern colonies and states. Often, laws against order that concerned slaves—including fights—were lumped into other felony crimes, such as assault and battery.
On the plantation, slaveholders used corporal punishment to control their slaves, primarily to ensure obedience. More often than not, discipline related to production efficiency, but masters did punish their slaves for drinking, gambling, swearing, and sexual offenses. In contrast to the orderly legal system exercised for white perpetrators of the same crimes, slaves simply received a whipping or another ghastly form of punishment without the benefit of a jury.
Masters held two philosophies regarding violent plantation regulation. Slave owners feared slave revolts as well as challenges to the system, and used corporal punishment to suppress this possibility. The threat of retribution also implied that slaves understood plantation rules and that they held some moral responsibility for their own actions. These two ideas sustained the system of plantation punishment.
Masters and overseers became the instruments of plantation discipline. The poor white class often served as overseers, and performed the “master’s ‘dirty work.’” Slaves, however, recognized that the overseer lacked complete control. When the overseers failed to suppress a situation slave owners used their ultimate authority to maintain order. Poor whites and slaveholders alike actively patrolled and spied on slaves to regulate their behavior. Patrollers travelled at night to arraign pass-less slaves and disband illegal slave gatherings. Spies watched slaves for the master and reported all violations of plantation rules and local laws. Together, these southern men policed slave behavior extra-legally.
There are no specific examples of plantation discipline in Mecklenburg County, but this style of punishment likely existed on the small farms and highlights a disciplinary system for slaves that was very different from the structured court system for whites.
Church Discipline of Slaves
Evangelical churches also served as an extralegal institution of order for the slave population. Throughout the South, many churches counted slaves and free blacks among their members. While less than one tenth of all African Americas were active church members in the 1810s, the next thirty years witnessed an influx of black involvement in churches, particularly in the Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian denominations. The Second Great Awakening fostered a missionary impulse, and revivalists became aware of slave spiritual needs. Although they believed that slaves would be easy to convert, evangelists also thought that religious instruction would instill morality and subsequently social order among the slave population. The Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian faiths appealed to the black population, for slaves found a “message of deliverance” in these religious groups as well as in the Afro-Christianity congregations they established.
Mecklenburg County churches reflected the larger evangelical movement to include slaves and free blacks as congregation members. In 1838, Philadelphia Presbyterian reported total membership at 232 with sixteen percent of the congregation being black. Eighteen percent of Sugaw Creek Presbyterian’s 237 member congregation were slaves in 1841. The black population constituted a minority of the local church congregation, but the disciplinary proceedings of the session did not ignore their presence.
Philadelphia Prebyterian Church
Sugaw Creek Prebyterian Church
The surviving records reveal that church officials prosecuted slaves for drunkenness in the same capacity as the white population. The two slave intemperance cases demonstrate that these congregations held the black members to the same moral standards as white members and issued the same types of sentences depending on the offender’s testimony. In the Philadelphia Presbyterian case of the slave, Jerry, the church suspended him until he willingly gave evidence of repentance. The session excommunicated Easter Wallace—a free black—for drunkenness due to her “general character.” These two cases illustrate that the church expected black members to remain temperate like the white members, but in terms of sexual offenses, there was clear disciplinary inequality.
Although Philadelphia Presbyterian and Sugaw Creek Presbyterian both focused on prosecuting worldly amusements more than familial issues, the majority of slave cases in the church were for sexual offenses. Of the eight sexual crime cases prosecuted in these churches from 1826 to 1839, slaves were six of the accused. Crimes included fornication and adultery, the latter of which implies that the church honored slave marriage unions despite the lack of legal recognition. In every sexual offense case involving slaves, the defendants repented and the church restored them to full membership following public acknowledgment.
This obvious focus on sexual offenses shows that while the church had more faith in the white family to police domestic issues, they did not trust slaves to avoid such transgressions. The move toward the privatization of the home that influenced the shift in church prosecution methods did not apply to the slave population. Such action both sustained and challenged the authority of masters, because slaves faced public trials and were held accountable for their actions. The church reserved responsibility for monitoring the private lives of blacks more frequently than whites even though both races saw generally equal punishment for public misbehavior.
The prosecution methods of the crimes against order and morals and the disparity observed between the white and black members of society adds a fascinating layer to the Mecklenburg story. These patterns demonstrate that in terms of slave discipline, the county was generally in line with the southern region, specifically in terms of the larger evangelical movement and North Carolina law.