louisa picquet, the octoroon: or inside views of - Negro Artist

Louisa Picquet, the Octoroon 53
24.03.2006
steady voice from out of the flames.------
A correspondent of the Cincinnaii Herald, in July, 1845, writes to that paper
that, not long before, some slaves near Oakland Cottage, Mississippi, were
emancipated by the will of their master. For some reason the will was not
carried out, and the slaves, exasperated by the delay, and fearful of being
cheated out of the property in themselves, left them by their master, set on fire
the house of the overseer, and a white child was lost in the flames. The
incendiaries, eight or nine in number, were seized by the neighbors, and two of
them immediately hanged. The rest were confined in a log-house, and chained
to the floor. A torch was then put to the building, and the miserable creatures
roasted by a slow fire, while the air was rent with their cries.------
"I have just received," writes a correspondent of the N. O. Picayune, at Jackson,
Mississippi, on the 25th of December, 1855, "the particulars of a most horrid
affair just transpired at Lexington, in this State. A young lady of the
neighborhood was assaulted, on a lonely road, by a slave, who attempted to
violate her person. She was rescued, however, before he had accomplished his
purpose, and after being deposited in a place of safety, the alarm was raised, and
a hunt for the negro who had fled, was instituted. He was soon found, and
execution was speedy. He was taken into Lexington, chained to a stake, and
burned alive.
Page 57
The Montgomery (Ala.) Mail of April 3, 1856, says, "We learn that the negro
who murdered Mr. Capeheart, was burned to death yesterday at Mount Meigs.
He acknowledged himself guilty."------
The Union Springs (Ala.) Gazette of the 23d of December, 1858, gives the
particulars of the murder of a Mr. J. by his slave-boy Mitford. He had been
whipped, and chained up from Saturday to Monday, and, when released by his
master, seized an axe and killed him. The negro made no attempt to escape, and
no resistance when taken. A public meeting was called on Wednesday to
consider the case, and, by a unanimous vote of the assembly, it was resolved to
burn him alive. "That evening," continues the Gazette, "at three o'clock, in the
presence of five hundred persons, he was chained to a tree and burned."------
They closed their pleasant Christmas holidays of 1858 in the same way in Troy,
Ky. On the first day of last year, 1859, at the annual negro sales at Troy, Mr.
James Calaway, the brother-in-law of one Simon B. Thornhill, who, it seems,