_Other
executions of this kind took place in various parts of the state,
during my residence in it, from 1818 to 1824_. About three or four
years ago, a young negro was burnt in Abbeville District, for an
attempt at rape."

In the fall of 1837, there was a rumor of a projected insurrection on
the Red River, in Louisiana. The citizens forthwith seized and hanged
NINE SLAVES, AND THREE FREE COLORED MEN, WITHOUT TRIAL. A few months
previous to that transaction, a slave was seized in a similar manner
and publicly burned to death, in Arkansas. In July, 1835, the citizens
of Madison county, Mississippi, were alarmed by rumors of an
insurrection arrested five slaves and publicly executed them without
trial.

The Missouri Republican, April 30, 1838, gives the particulars of the
deliberate murder of a negro man named Tom, a cook on board the
steamboat Pawnee, on her passage up from New Orleans to St. Louis.
Some of the facts stated by the Republican are the following:

"On Friday night, about 10 o'clock, a deaf and dumb German girl was
found in the storeroom with Tom. The door was locked, and at first Tom
denied she was there. The girl's father came. Tom unlocked the door,
and the girl was found secreted in the room behind a barrel. The next
morning some four or five of the deck passengers spoke to the captain
about it. This was about breakfast time. Immediately after he left the
deck, a number of the deck passengers rushed upon the negro, bound his
arms behind his back and carried him forward to the bow of the boat. A
voice cried out 'throw him overboard,' and was responded to from every
quarter of the deck--and in an instant he was plunged into the river.
The whole scene of tying him and throwing him overboard scarcely
occupied _ten minutes_, and was so precipitate that the officers were
unable to interfere in time to save him.

"There were between two hundred and fifty and three hundred passengers
on board."

The whole process of seizing Tom, dragging him upon deck, binding his
arms behind his back, forcing him to the bow of the boat, and throwing
him overboard, occupied, the editor informs us, about TEN MINUTES, and
of the two hundred and fifty or three hundred deck passengers, with
perhaps as many cabin passengers, it does not appear that _a single
individual raised a finger to prevent this deliberate murder_; and the
cry "throw him overboard," was it seems, "responded to from every
quarter of the deck!"

Rev. JAM