"Awful but Just Punishment.—We learn, by the arrival of the steamboat Kentucky last evening from Richmond, that Robinson, the Englishman mentioned in the Beacon of Saturday, as being in the vicinity of Lynchburg, was taken about fifteen miles from that town, and hanged on the spot, for exciting the slaves to insurrection."—Norfolk (Va.) Beacon, 10th August, 1835.
"We can assure the Bostonians, one and all, who have embarked in the nefarious scheme of abolishing slavery at the South, that lashes will hereafter be spared the backs of their emissaries. Let them send out their men to Louisiana; they will never return to tell their sufferings, but they shall expiate the crime of interfering with our domestic institutions, by being burned at the stake."—New-Orleans True American.
"Abolition editors in slave States will not dare to avow their opinions. It would be instant death to them."—Missouri Argus.
Here, again, is a threat directed against any of you, who may happen to have the command of types and printer's ink.
Now, we ask what must be the state of society, where the public journals thus justify and stimulate the public thirst for blood? The very idea of trial is scouted, and the mob, or rather the slaveholders themselves, are acknowledged to be the arbiters of life and death. The question we put to you as to the state of society, has been already answered by the official declarations of the Governors of Kentucky and Alabama, and of Judge Lansuque, of New Orleans; as well as by the extracts we have given you from some of the southern journals, relative to the frequency of murders among them. We could farther answer it, by filling sheets with accounts of fearful atrocities. But we purposely refrain from referring to assassinations and private crimes; for such, as already remarked, occur in a greater or less degree in every community, and do not necessarily form a test of the standard of morals. But we ask your attention to a test which cannot be questioned. We will present for your consideration a series of atrocities, perpetrated, not by individuals in secret, but in open day by the slaveholding populace.
We have seen that two of the Southern papers we have quoted, threaten abolitionists with the stake. This awful and horrible punishment has been banished, by the progress of civilization, from the whole of Christendom, with the single exception of the American Slave States. It is scarcely necessary to say, that even in them, it is unknown to the laws, although familiar to the people. It is also deserving of remark, that the two journals which have made this atrocious threat were published, not among the rude borderers of our frontier settlements, but in the populous cities of Charleston and New-Orleans, the very centres of Southern refinement.
"Tuscaloosa (Alab.) June 20, 1827. The negro [one who had killed a Mr. McNeilly was taken before a Justice of the Peace, who waived his authority, perhaps through fear, as a crowd of persons had collected, to the number of seventy or eighty, near Mr. People's [the Justice] house. He acted as President of the mob, and put the vote, when it was decided that he should be immediately executed by being burned to death. The sable culprit was led to a tree and tied to it, and a large quantity of pine knots collected and placed around him, and the fatal torch applied to the pile, even against the remonstrances of several gentlemen who were present, and the miserable being was in a short time burned to ashes. This is the second negro who has been thus put to death, without judge or jury in this country."
On the 28th of April, 1836, a free negro was arrested in St. Louis (Missouri) and committed to jail on a charge of murder. A mob assembled and demanded him of the jailor, who surrendered him. The negro was then chained to a tree a short distance from the Court House, and burned to death.
"After the flames had surrounded their prey, and when his clothes were in a blaze all over him, his eyes burnt out of his head, and his mouth seemingly parched to a cinder, some one in the crowd, more compassionate than the rest, proposed to put an end to his misery by shooting him, when it was replied that it would be of no use, since he was already out of his pain. 'No,' said the wretch, 'I am not, I am suffering as much as ever; shoot me, shoot me.' 'No, no,' said one of the fiends who was standing about the sacrifice they were roasting, 'he shall not be shot, I would sooner slacken the fire, if that would increase his misery;' and the man who said this was, we understand, an officer of justice."—Alton Telegraph.
"We have been informed that the slave William, who murdered his master (Huskey) some weeks since, was taken by a party a few days since from the Sheriff of Hot Spring, and burned alive! yes, tied up to the limb of a tree and a fire built under him, and consumed in a slow lingering torture."—Arkansas Gazette, Oct. 29. 1836.
The Natchez Free Trader, 16th June, 1842, gives a horrible account of the execution of the negro, Joseph, on the 5th of that month for murder.
"The body," says that paper, "was taken and chained to a tree immediately on the bank of the Mississippi, on what is called Union Point. The torches were lighted and placed in the pile. He watched unmoved the curling flame as it grew, until it began to entwine itself around and feed upon his body; then he sent forth cries of agony painful to the ear, begging some one to blow his brains out; at the same time surging with almost superhuman strength, until the staple with which the chain was fastened to the tree, not being well secured, drew out, and he leaped from the burning pile. At that moment the sharp ring of several rifles was heard, and the body of the negro fell a corpse to the ground. He was picked up by two or three, and again thrown into the fire and consumed."
"Another Negro Burned.—We learn from the clerk of the Highlander that, while wooding a short distance below the mouth of Red river, they were invited to stop a short time and see another negro burned."—N. O. Bulletin.
Thus we see that burning negroes alive is treated as a spectacle, and strangers are invited to witness it. The victim of this exhibition was the negro Enoch, said to have been an accomplice of Joseph, and was burned a few days after the other.