ground that the court had no cognizance of such offense.  In 1822 Davis was convicted of assault upon a white person with intent to kill, but his sentence is not recorded.  In or about the same year John, a slave of William Robertson, convicted of burglary but recommended to mercy, was sentenced to be branded with T on the right cheek and to receive three times thirty-nine lashes; and on the same day the same slave was sentenced to death for assault upon a white man with intent to kill.  In 1825 John Ponder’s George when convicted of burglary was recommended by the jury to the mercy of the court but received sentence of death nevertheless; and Stephen was sentenced likewise for murderous assault upon a white man.  In 1826 Elleck, charged with assault with intent of murder and rape, was convicted on the first part of the charge only, but received sentence of death.  In 1828 Elizabeth Smith’s George was acquitted of larceny from the house; and next year Caroline was likewise acquitted on a charge of maiming a white person.  Finally, in 1832 Martin, upon pleading guilty to a charge of murderous assault, was given a whipping sentence of the customary thirty-nine lashes on three successive days.[2]

[Footnote 1:  W.E.B.  DuBois, in the Annals of the Academy of Political and Social Science, XVIII, 132.]

[Footnote 2:  “Record of the Proceedings of the Inferior Court of Baldwin County on the Trials of Slaves charged with capital Offences.”  MS. in the court house at Milledgeville.  The record is summarized in Ac American Historical Association Report for 1903, I, 462-464, and in Plantation and Frontier, II, 123-125.]

A few negro felonies, indeed, resulted directly from the pressure of slave circumstance.  A gruesome instance occurred in 1864 in the same county as the foregoing.  A young slave woman, Becky by name, had given pregnancy as the reason for a continued slackness in her work.  Her master became skeptical and gave notice that she was to be examined and might expect the whip in case her excuse were not substantiated.  Two days afterward a negro midwife announced that Becky’s baby had been born; but at the same time a neighboring planter began search for a child nine months old which was missing from his quarter.  This child was found in Becky’s cabin, with its two teeth pulled and the tip of its navel cut off.  It died; and Becky, charged with murder but convicted only of manslaughter, was sentenced to receive two hundred lashes in instalments of twenty-five at intervals of four days.[3] Some other deeds done by slaves were crimes only because the law declared them to be such when committed by persons of that class.  The striking of white persons and the administering of medicine to them are examples.  But in general the felonies for which they were convicted were of sorts which the law described as criminal regardless of the status of the perpetrators.

[Footnote 3:  Confederate Union (Milledgeville, Ga.), Mch. 1, 1864.]