(CRIME) Trial of Amos Adams for a Rape Committed on the Body

Sale 2631 - Lot 177

Price Realized: $ 2,750

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000

(CRIME.) Trial of Amos Adams for a Rape, Committed on the Body of Lelea Thorp. 24 pages. 12mo, stitched; bottom half of title page in extremely skillful facsimile, minor foxing; uncut. New Haven, CT, 1817

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The trial proceedings of "Amos Adams (a black man)" for the rape of a white woman. The prosecutor's charge to the jury is explicitly racist: "It would seem to be necessary to do something to protect our peaceable and industrious citizens against the insolence and rapacity of a race, who, in almost every other country, where they live, are reduced to the most abject slavery" (page 8). Adams pleaded not guilty. The evidence against him was compelling and the victim's description of the rape horrific. Among the key prosecution witnesses was the victim's neighbor "Eliza, a black woman," who heard the assault and aided the victim shortly afterward. Adams does not appear to have testified in his own defense, but several character witnesses testified on his behalf. His employer described his character "as good as that of white men, in general," and another described his reputation as "for a black man, uncommonly good."

From 1700 until the present, only 5 men have been hanged in Connecticut for the crime of rape; all were African-American men convicted of raping white women. Adams was the last man hanged in Connecticut for a crime other than homicide. See Goodheart, "Race, Rape and Capital Punishment in Connecticut to 1830," in Patterns of Prejudice 46:1 (2012).

None traced at auction, and only 2 in OCLC (Temple and American Antiquarian). Not in Afro-Americana, Blockson, or Shaw & Shoemaker.