Engraving portrays an episode described in Hildreth's fictional narrative. A court of five Carolina freeholders, selected "at hap-hazard," falsely convicted a slave named Billy for plundering the rice-fields of a neighboring plantation, and sentenced him to death. As Hildreth wrote, "the sentence was no sooner pronounced than preparations were made for its execution. An empty barrel was brought out, and placed under a tree that stood before the door. The poor fellow was mounted upon it; the halter was put about his neck, and fastened to a limb over his head. The judges had already become so drunk as to have lost all sense of judicial decorum. One of them kicked away the barrel, and the unhappy victim of Carolina justice dropped struggling into eternity." (p. 197), Frontispiece for Richard Hildreth's Archy Moore, the White Slave; or Memoirs of a Fugitive (New York and Auburn: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1855)., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Punishment Scenes.
Creator
Fox, Frederick E., engraver
Date
[1855]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1855 Hildr 72210.O frontispiece, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2800
