The Demands of Justice: Enslaved Women, Capital Crime, and Clemency in Early Virginia Nunley Tamika Y.
Award-winning historian Tamika Y. Nunley has unearthed the stories of enslaved Black women charged by their owners with poisoning, theft, murder, infanticide, and arson. While free Black and white…
Specifikacia The Demands of Justice: Enslaved Women, Capital Crime, and Clemency in Early Virginia Nunley Tamika Y.
Award-winning historian Tamika Y. Nunley has unearthed the stories of enslaved Black women charged by their owners with poisoning, theft, murder, infanticide, and arson. While free Black and white people accused of capital crimes received a hearing, trial, and, if convicted, an opportunity to appeal, none of these options were available to enslaved people. Conviction was final, and only the state or owners could spare their accused chattel of punishment by death. For enslaved women in Virginia, clemency was not uncommon, butNunley shows why this act ultimately benefitted owners and punished the accused with sale outside of the state as the best possible outcome.Demonstrating how crimes, convictions, and clemency functioned within a slave society that upheld the property interests of white Virginians, Nunley reveals the frequency with which owners preferred to keep