Colonial America
Crime, Punishment & Rebellion
Dr. Kane
mkane2@albany.edu Social Science 116 | MWF 12:35-1:30 PM
Office Hrs: M 10:20 - 11:20 & F 1:30 - 3:30 Social Science 60S
Monday, October 16
coming up
- Argumentation paper Oct 27
- stay caught up with Lepore!
today's class
- how to read Lepore
- how to enforce social order?
- evidence & trials
- jail & punishment
- rebellions & paranoia
how to read Lepore
- historians are careful readers and careful writers
- what does an example tell us?
- what is Lepore's central question?
- who are the characters of the central plot?
responsibility & social order
- how to keep order?
- household as a little commonwealth
- jails short term only
- very low literacy: ~30-60% for white men, lower for others
- shift from public shame (17th c) to marking body (18th c)
debtor's prisons
- how to collect credit in a mobile society?
- imprisonment on request of creditor
- debtor paid for imprisonment
- families could pay for privileges
- how to pay debts when you can't work?
17th/18th century trials
- English exceptionalism: trial by jury (still very rare!)
- magistrate/justice of the peace appointed, no training
- no lawyers!
- prosecution by complaint only
- development of district attorney: preserve social order
punishments
- what is the purpose of the punishment?
- warning out & banishment
- 17th c shame works when cities are small
- 18th c physical markers travel with convict
New York Revolt 1712
- 1700: ~20% of population enslaved
- shift away from Dutch half-freedom
- no gambling, no marriage, no separate worship, no association with free blacks
- 200 pound tax to free enslaved person
- probably real
St. John's Revolt 1733
- 1000 enslaved people, 200 whites
- hurricane, drought, cost cutting
- led by Ghanaian nobility/professionals
- escaped plantation owners alerted help
- definitely real
Antigua Revolt 1736
- 1700: ~85% of population enslaved
- suspicion of slaves in positions of trust
- fear of Ghanaians
- fear of African Christian worship
- probably not real
Stono Rebellion 1739
- 1700: ~80% of population enslaved
- malaria epidemic, new law to carry arms on Sunday, Spanish destabilization
- most successful mainland revolt
- fear of Catholic Congolese
- definitely real
common factors
- fear of free blacks
- belief in "docility" of New World-born blacks
- pervasive fear of rebellion
- shift in religious attitudes towards slavery
- New York as "dumping ground" for rebellious slaves