A lynching in Pine Bluff, Ark.
No matter who was killed and for whatever “crime” they were supposed to have committed, lynching was (and remains) a reprehensible act but it is interesting to see the differences when a white man was lynched or when a Black man suffered the same fate.
Dr. Guinn, a slave holder who was said to be a “highly respectable” citizen of Arkansas, was supposedly lynched by a single Black man — never identified by name — who had escaped from slavery in August 1857.
A story in the Baltimore Sun on Aug. 18, 1857 said that Guinn’s body was found near Pine Bluff, Ark. mutilated with his skull pierced in several places by some type of sharp instrument.
The Black man in question, who had previously been enslaved by Guinn, was quickly arrested and the story said he confessed to the crime.
“Confessions” of this sort were often the result of torture with the victim often willing
to admit to anything to stop the pain. In this case, not only did the slave admit to killing Guinn but also that he had committed several rapes and thefts.
There was an attempt to hang the Black man at the point of his capture but “it was agreed that the law should have its course…and escorted to the jail at Pine Bluff.”
The law was not to have its course, though.
“Such was the intensity of the feeling against him, excited by his many villainies, that
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to American Slave Stories to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.