Death of an Overseer
Reopening a Murder Investigation from the Plantation South
1st Edition
Published on 8. March 2001
266 pages
978-0-19-803209-0 (ISBN)
Description
In May of 1857, the body of Duncan Skinner was found in a strip of woods along the edge of the plantation near Natchez, Mississippi, where he worked as an overseer. Although a coroner's jury initially ruled his death to be accidental, an investigation organized by planters from the community concluded that he had been murdered by three slaves acting under instructions from John McCallin, an Irish carpenter.
Now, almost a century and a half later, Michael Wayne has reopened the case to ask whether the men involved in the investigation arrived at the right verdict. Part essay on the art of historical detection, part seminar on the history of slavery and the Old South, Death of an Overseer is, above all, a murder mystery--a murder mystery that allows readers to sift through the surviving evidence themselves and come to their own conclusions about who killed Duncan Skinner and why.
More details
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
04/2001
Oxford University Press Inc
€79.30
Shipment within 15-20 days
Book
04/2001
Oxford University Press Inc
€139.90
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Michael Wayne teaches history at University College, the University of Toronto. His first book, The Reshaping of Plantation Society, won multiple prizes, including the Francis Butler Simkins Award of the Southern Historical Association.
Content
- Intro
- Contents
- On History as Common Sense
- 1 Investigation and Verdict
- 2 The Evidence
- 3 The Evidence Reconsidered
- 4 Slavery
- 5 The Question of a Frame-Up
- 6 Black Images, White Minds
- 7 Democracy and Justice
- 8 In Search of John McCallin
- An Epitaph for Duncan Skinner
- APPENDIX I: First Draft and Fragment of a Second Draft of the Letter from Alexander Farrar to Henry Drake
- APPENDIX II: Court Records from the Trial of Henderson, Reuben, and Anderson
- APPENDIX III: Additional Materials in the Newspapers Relating to the Trial and Execution of Henderson, Reuben, and Anderson
- APPENDIX IV: Additional Archival Material
- Essay on Sources and Suggestions for Further Reading
- Acknowledgments
- Note to Readers
- Index
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- Q
- R
- S
- T
- U
- V
- W
- Y
