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Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
SAID TO HAVE MURDERED HUNDREDS OF SLAVES (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) BELISARIO, A. M. A Report of the Trial of Arthur Hodge, Esquire (late of the Members of His Majesty's Council for the Virgin Islands) . . . for the Murder of His Negro Man Slave Named Prosper. 186 pages. 8vo, original paper-backed drab boards; front cover detached; spine paper perished; untrimmed. Middletown, CT: Tertius Dunning, 1812
first american edition, following an 1811 london edition. 'Hodge, undoubtedly a sadist, had murdered about a hundred of his blacks in particularly brutal ways, as by flaying them alive, pouring boiling water down their throats, and working them to death during the course of a few years. At length charges were brought against him for the murder of a black, Prosper.' (From Ragatz, page 468). Hodge was arrested and tried in the presence of the Governor, 'who had come on a warship to see that justice was done.' He was found guilty the same day, and despite an outcry from local planters who thought it would set a dangerous precedent to try a white man for the killing of a black man; Hodge was hung the same day. The sadistic details of the case caused a tremendous stir in both England, and America. scarce, not in shaw and shoemaker; oclc locating 6 copies.
