Death of an Overseer - Reopening a Murder Investigation from the Plantation South (Hardcover)

A comprehensive exploration of a bizarre, contested murder in the plantation South on the eve of the Civil War..Wayne ("The Reshaping of Plantation Society", not reviewed) describes an incident that obliquely dramatizes the cruelties and absurdities of the "peculiar institution." Shortly after overseer Duncan Skinner was reported missing by the slaves of Clarissa Sharpe's plantation, a search party was organized and Skinner was found dead, apparently killed in a riding accident (or so a coroner's jury concluded). But local planters soon discovered that all the slaves believed a different story: namely, that three male slaves had killed the overseer for his money and arranged the scene. The three killers were accorded representation in what was essentially a show trial, and were then hanged. The local planters, however, attributed the conspiracy to a non-slave - owning white carpenter, John McAllin, who was believed to have had designs on Miss Sharpe. They subsequently threatened him with retaliatory violence via a newspaper ad that urged him to leave town. McAllin in turn asserted his innocence in an equally fiery ad that put the planters in an untenable position, as it struck at the severe class differences between slaveholders and white laborers in the antebellum South. At the time, McAllin's culpability was generally accepted. Using many obscure primary-source documents, Wayne debates this thesis, pursuing alternative explanations that centered upon the need of pro-slavery whites to manipulate perceptions of their African chattel as alternately childlike and brutal, and maintain their authority over the restive group of impoverished whites represented by McAllin. He astutely concludes that Southern whites "held to contradictory interpretations of black character and drew on them as circumstances and their own psychological needs dictated." .A fascinating history that faces still-difficult questions of injustice and responsibility.. (Kirkus Reviews)

Reopening an investigation into the death of a plantation overseer (Duncan Skinner) almost a century and a half ago, Death of an Overseer is part murder mystery, part essay on the art of historical detection, and part seminar on the history of the slavery and the Old South. In this skillfully written book, Michael Wayne uses a complex murder case to teach readers the art of historical evidence and allows them to weigh competing interpretations and come to their own conclusions.

General

Imprint:	Oxford UniversityPress
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	April 2001
First published:	March 2001
Authors:	Michael Wayne (Associate Professor)
Dimensions:	241 x 160 x 25mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	266
ISBN-13:	978-0-19-514003-3
Categories:	Books > Fiction > True stories > Crime Books > Humanities > History > World history > 1750 to 1900 Books > Humanities > History > American history > General Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political control & freedoms > Slavery & emancipation Books > History > American history > General Books > History > World history > 1750 to 1900 Promotions
LSN:	0-19-514003-6
Barcode:	9780195140033

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