Twice Condemned: Slaves and the Criminal Laws of Virginia, 1705-1865

by Philip J. Schwarz

Overview

Dominion during a 160 year period. Before Twice Condemned was first published in 1988, historians often focused primarily on isolated or dramatic examples of the sometimes deadly conflict present in societies based on slave labor. But Twice Condemned analyzes the prevalence, longevity, and variety of behavior attributed to slave convicts. In doing so, this book also provides a detailed picture of how one slave society evolved, of some previously unexamined aspects of slave culture, and of slave owners’ attitudes toward the “domestic enemy” in their midst. Schwarz’ study is based on over four thousand trials from the colonial, early national, and antebellum periods. Twice Condemned traces the manner in which slaves’ and whites’ conflicting perceptions of legitimate behavior informed their actions. The judicial system for slaves served two purposes: it helped slave owners control slaves and enabled authorities to sanction criminal behavior. This dual function of slave trials mirrored the two kinds of slaves’ behavior judges tried to suppress. Slaves’ overt resistance to bondage was regularly curtailed and antisocial and dangerous actions were sometimes punished.

Twice Condemned demonstrates that the relationship between slaves and the white-controlled justice system constantly changed. There were major variations in slaves’ attacks on whites, and even on other slaves, depending on where enslaved Americans lived, how long they had lived there, and the previous behavior of slaves there. Similarly, accusations against and punishments of bonds people varied from one community to another.
While Schwarz concedes that trial records cannot offer a comprehensive view of slave resistance, he demonstrates that they do give the best indication yet of slaves’ challenges to white authority and control, and of white responses to those challenges. When focused on slave resistance, this study illuminates some of the many ways black Virginians were able to confront the seemingly overwhelming power of the whit society that enslaved them.

Twice Condemned provides a fascinating portrayal of slave culture and slave resistance to white society not only as a means of resistance against oppression but as a means of individual empowerment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781886363540
Publisher:	Lawbook Exchange, Limited, The
Publication date:	11/11/2019
Edition description:	FACSIMILE
Pages:	372
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Philip J. Schwarz, Professor of History Emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth University, is also the author of Migrants against Slavery: Virginians and the Nation (2001).

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Part I The Slave Code and the Slave Courts

Introduction

1. The Shape of the Shackles

2. Slaves and Crime: A Problem of Evidence

Part II 1619 to 1784

Introduction

3. Years of Adjustment, 1619-1739

4. Poisoning in an Early American Slave Society

5. Property Against Property

6. Shattering Confrontations, 1740-1785

7. Two Revolutions

Part III 1785 to 1865

Introduction

8. The Internal Enemy, 1785-1831

9. Deadly Relationships, 1785-1831

10. Authorities and Banditti

11. The End of Slave Crime

Conclusion

Appendix: Slaves Hanged or Transported for Conspiracy and Insurrection, 1785-1831

Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

“Schwarz was one of the pioneers in the legal history of slavery in going beyond statutory law and appellate cases to look at the work of trial courts in his important 1988 work, Twice Condemned: Slaves and the Criminal Laws of Virginia, 1705-1865…”

American Journal of Legal History, Vol. 42, Issue 1 (January 1998)

“Twice Condemned, which represents the best of the new scholarship on slave law, focuses keenly on the crux of the matter: the diversity of conflict between slave and master over time and in different places…. Schwarz shows how laws in Virginia’s slave society were shaped primarily for political, and only secondarily, for social reasons. His painstakingly researched and thoughtful book reminds us that the slaves’ response—their “crimes”—were fundamentally political statements even when they were not politically motivated.”

John David Smith, 35 American Journal of Legal History, 99 (1991)

“… Phil Schwarz's painstaking study of the criminal law of slavery in Virginia…. Using a wealth of trial court records, representing 4,342 trials from 1706 to 1865, he seeks to answer several important questions concerning “the influence of slaves’ criminalized behavior on slavery, and the judicial system, the impact of slavery on the criminal code and judicial system for slaves, and the impact of that code and system on slaves” (7). His conclusions refute the notion that legal tradition explains more than social behavior. Slave crime was such a direct and explicit challenge to slavery itself, Schwarz argues, that whites shaped and reshaped the slave code and its enforcement in an effort to control defiant slaves. Significantly, racism, not legal tradition, explains the increasingly harsh character of Virginia law; whites, after all, benefited from the same legal tradition, yet for them the criminal code became more, not less, ameliorative. Perhaps, then, legal tradition is not sufficient explanation of the development of legal institutions, although no one can doubt its influence.”

David J. Bodenhamer, 10 Law & Hist. Rev. 169 (1992)

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