On this day in 1829, 4 fugitive slaves were hung for attempting
murder and escape from traffickers in Greenup, Ky. In August of 1829, a
slave driver was driving 60 slaves to market in Mississippi. This was a
terrible but common activity in the slave-holding south at the time, in fact, was well known as a ‘Slave Coffle’. The male slaves were chained together but
on the morning of August 26th had found a way to free themselves and assaulted
the traders, killing three of the four men, but their leader escaped and rode
to a nearby plantation to warn of the slaves now free and armed with clubs.
In the week that followed 40 of the 60 slaves were recaptured
and 8 of them were charged with the murders of the three traders, and assault on
the head trader, a free negro named Gordon. They were quickly convicted and
four were given the death sentence. American freeman, abolitionist, writer, and
anti-slavery activist David Walker wrote heavily about the incident in his
magazine, “The Appeal”. Walker’s articles and an article in the Portsmouth
Western Times are generally the only records of the incident so we don’t know
what happened to the other slaves, we can assume given the time the 36
uncharged were sold back into slavery and no record exists of others who might
have escaped. Given the incomplete records, there might have been only 40 slaves,
and no one ran. While there is no record for those slaves the Portsmouth
Western Times does provide a good record of what happened to the 4 slaves sentenced
to die, one of the four exclaimed to the crowd: “’ Death! Death, any time,
in preference to slavery!’”
Sources:
https://sciotohistorical.org/items/show/67
https://afropunk.com/2015/11/know-your-black-history-slave-revolts-part-3-death-any-time-in-preference-to-slavery-slave-revolts-by-land/
https://www.executedtoday.com/2015/11/20/1829-the-slaves-of-the-greenup-revolt/
