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Middletown, [CT]: Printed by Tertius Dunning, 1812. 8vo (7.5” x 4.75”), original blue paper over boards, white paper spine. [2], 186 pp. Contemporary ink note on ffep: “50”. CONDITION: Good, backstrip mostly perished but binding firm, corners worn; minor foxing and dampstaining to contents, 2” tear to p. 25, no loss to text; edges uncut.

First American edition of the trial of Arthur Hodge, the notoriously sadistic slave owner whose horrific abuses on the island of Tortola spurred the British fight for the complete abolition of slavery in its colonies.

The trial of Arthur William Hodge took place between the 25th and 29th of April, 1811, and although the majority of the common law jury recommended mercy—“it was held to be a dangerous precedent to put a white man to death for his conduct toward his slaves” (Ragatz)—Hodge was hung the same day. The “awful spectacle” was witnessed by “thousands of persons, some of whom rather indecently expressed exultation” (York Recorder) and was reported widely in both Britain and the United States. The trial established Hodge’s murder of Prosper to be just one among many instances of his cruelty and fatal abuse. In addition to overwork, Ragatz notes that Hodge “had murdered about a hundred of his blacks in particularly brutal ways, as by flaying them alive, [or] pouring boiling water down their throats.” By the time Hodge’s third wife died, “negroes enough were not to be found on the estate sufficient to dig her grave.” The reason for Hodge’s murder of prosper was that “a mango had fallen from a tree, which (he) Prosper was set to watch” (Vermont Journal), and he was unable to procure the six shillings Hodge required of him in payment.

The chief witness in the trial was a free woman of color named Perreen Georges, who sometimes did laundry for the Hodge estate, lent Prosper the three insufficient shillings for the fallen mango, and witnessed his flogging. The final page of the volume describes how, “After spending some time in devotion, [Hodge] ascended the platform,” addressed some members of the crowd, and “then gave the awful signal, and was instantly launched into eternity.”

Though Hodge was not alone in being called before the law for cruelty to or murder of slaves, his execution was “an event without parallel in the history of the British colonies in the Caribbean” (Andrew). The Vermont Gazette commented: “The British laws have long been complained of as sanguinary,” but with Hodge’s trial they have “been desirably enforced.” News of Hodge’s cruelty “did much to arouse public feeling, which had become somewhat dulled by the abolition of the slave trade [in 1807], and to this time turn it against the institution under which such events could occur.”—Ragatz.

REFERENCES: American Imprints 24790; Library Company of Philadelphia, Afro-Americana, Supplement 1080; Not in Blockson; Andrew, John. The Hanging of Arthur Hodge: A Caribbean Anti-Slavery Milestone (Xlibris, 2000), p. 18; “The Trial and Execution of the Honorable Arthur William Hodge, Esq. for the Murder of his Negro Slave Prosper,” The Vermont Journal, 30 Sept. 1811, p. 2; Ragatz, Joseph Lowell. A Guide for the Study of British Caribbean History, 1763-1834 (1932), p. 468; “Trial & Execution Of the Honorable Arthur William Hodge, Esq. for the murder of his negro slave Prosper,” York Recorder (Pennsylvania), 21 Sept. 1811, p. 1.

Item #7419

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