Violence and murder between
masters and slaves in colonial America was not a one way street. Blacks
sometimes found ways of quietly settling the score with cruel masters. The most
common forms of black resistance were arson, poisoning and running away. Poisoning
was especially terrifying to slave owners. The closeness of house servants to
their masters, for whom they cooked and washed in the very house where the
master slept, made the threat of poisoning terrifying. Nor was this fear
groundless.
In 1737, a case of poisoning in Orange County, Virginia, involved the murder of a master by a slave named Peter. The slave Peter was not only executed for the crime but subsequently, had his head cut off and displayed on a pole at the courthouse building, “to deter others from doing the Like.” Nine years after this, in January 1746, also in Orange County, a female slave named Eve was convicted of attempting to kill her master Peter Mountague by poisoning. Mountague suffered severe illness from August through December 1745 before recovering (and living until at least 1771). Although Montague recovered, Eve was convicted of poisoning him and was sentenced to death. The sentence was medieval. She was condemned to be burnt alive, a sentence carried out shortly after her trial. The case of Eve was considered particularly diabolical because she put the poison in Mountague’s milk. Virtually one hundred percent of the slaves living in central Virginia at the time were from eastern Nigeria, and were genetically predisposed to be lactose intolerant. No slaves would be drinking milk, there could be no unintended victims when milk was poisoned, only slave masters and their kin were in mortal danger. This was a calculated and premeditated attempt at murder stemming from deep hatred. The records of colonial Virginia document the trial of 180 slaves tried for poisoning.
A quick historical look at murder
most foul in the Virginia of colonial times and the early Republic. Behind the
facade of graceful mansions and quaint cobblestone streets evil lurks.
The history of Virginia told through treasure tales about
pirates, Indians, Revolutionary War heroes and Civil War raiders. The full text
of the famous Beale Treasure cipher is included along with some sixty other
legends.