# Did the US burn a man for witchcraft in 1779? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 19, 2014, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722 "2014-05-19T10:39:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/1 "2014-05-19T10:39:04Z")
Since we seem to be on a death-penalty kick here at the SDMB this month : Occasionally on the SDMB or elsewhere someone will ask how many witches were burned at the stake during the Salem witch-trials. The answer is “none” (they were all hanged, and one man was pressed to death for failing to enter a plea). Usually the person answering adds the statement that the US or its earlier colonies never burned anyone for witch-craft. Which I always thought was true, but then I found [this blurb](http://genealogytrails.com/ill/randolph/coljohntodd.htm) through a wikipedia page. From the journal of the Governor of Illinois County during the Revolutionary War\*: > [@](#): > > (Happening at Kaskaskia) A Negro slave named Manuel, who made a honorable fine at the door of the church was (arrested) He was sentenced by Col Todd for the crime of Voodoo. He was sentenced 13 Jun 1779 by Col Todd to be chained to a post and burned alive with his ashes scattered. The sentence was carried out by sheriff Richard Winston. I can’t find anything else on this incident, while I can find a lot of places saying witch-burning was a purely European phenomenon (though the Colonies did burn revolting slaves to death). So I’m curious if anyone has any other confirmation/info on the fate of poor Manuel the slave. \*(not really looking for a semantic argument about whether the Government of Illinois County during the Revolution counts as the US. For the purposes of this question, assume it does). ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/2 "2014-05-19T10:46:21Z")
It is in History of Crawford and Clark Counties, Illinois as well: [http://www.mocavo.com/History-of-Crawford-and-Clark-Counties-Illinois/440152/42](http://www.mocavo.com/History-of-Crawford-and-Clark-Counties-Illinois/440152/42) > [@](#): > > Negro Manuel, a slave in your custody, > is condemned by the Court of Kaskaskia, > after having made honorable Fine at the > Door of the Church, to be chained to a post > at the Water Side and there to be burnt alive > and his ashes scattered, as appears to me by > Record. This Sentence you are hereby re- > quired to put in execution on tuesday next at > 9 o’clock in the morning, aud this shall be > your warrant. Given under my hand and > seal at Kaskaskia the 13th day of June in the > third year of the Commonwealth.” Also this: Lynching of Jesse Washington > [@](#): > > Members of the mob castrated Washington, cut off his fingers, and hung him over a bonfire. He was repeatedly lowered and raised over the fire for about two hours. After the fire was extinguished, his charred torso was dragged through the town and parts of his body were sold as souvenirs. A professional photographer took pictures as the event unfolded, providing rare imagery of a lynching in progress. The pictures were printed and sold as postcards in Waco. > **[Lynching of Jesse Washington](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_of_Jesse_Washington)** > > Jesse Washington was a seventeen-year-old African American farmhand who was lynched in the county seat of Waco, Texas, on May 15, 1916, in what became a well-known example of lynching. Washington was convicted of raping and murdering Lucy Fryer, the wife of his white employer in rural Robinson, Texas. He was chained by his neck and dragged out of the county court by observers. He was then paraded through the street, all while being stabbed and beaten, before being held down and castrated. He ... ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/3 "2014-05-19T11:10:43Z")
Can someone tell me what an honorable fine is (just in case I’m doing it too)? ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/4 "2014-05-19T11:13:50Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > It is in History of Crawford and Clark Counties, Illinois as well Thanks. That seems to confirm it really happened. Interesting the incident isn’t better known, as 1779 seems pretty late for execution for witchcraft. And its the latest case of execution by burning alive in N. America that I can find. > [@](#): > > Lynching of Jesse Washington Not a judicial penalty and not due to witch-craft, so not really what I’m looking for. (That said, there seemed to have been a decent number of lynching-via-burnings in the post civil-war US. I’m surprised the topic doesn’t get more attention, given how sensational and gruesome the incidents were, and how many of them seem to be well documented (and in the case of Washington, photographed).) ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/5 "2014-05-19T11:25:16Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > Can someone tell me what an honorable fine is (just in case I’m doing it too)? I found a discussion of both the incident and [the phrase in this book](http://books.google.com/books?id=e08VAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=%22honorable+Fine%22&source=bl&ots=4mIGi8fKQ8&sig=W0oYq_Y31lY5BXHF65JHzS-AdNs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_Od5U7Mo6K6wBOengPAF&ved=0CCkQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=%22honorable%20Fine%22&f=false). The author opines that the phrase was an awkward translation of a French phrase for doing religious penance (one wonders what they would’ve sentenced the poor guy to if he hadn’t done penance!). Other fun-fact: John Todd, he who ordered the burning, was grand-uncle to Mary Todd, of later marrying Lincoln fame. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/6 "2014-05-19T11:47:15Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > That said, there seemed to have been a decent number of lynching-via-burnings in the post civil-war US. Interesting choice of words there. Decent, I mean. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/7 "2014-05-19T11:52:29Z")
Voodoo is not witchcraft. Different origins, different religious roots, different emphasis on supernatural energy/contacts. Too much to go into the differences, but the wiki of both do a good job at stating what each is: > **[Witchcraft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witchcraft)** > > Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have used malevolent magic against their own community, and often to have communed with evil beings. It was thought witchcraft could be thwarted by protective magic or counter-magic, which could be provided by cunning folk or folk healers. Suspected witches wer Con... > **[West African Vodun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_African_Vodun)** > > Vodun (meaning spirit in the Fon, Gun and Ewe languages, pronounced \[vodṹ\] with a nasal high-tone u; also spelled Vodon, Vodoun, Vodou, Vudu, Voudou, Voodoo, etc.) is a religion practiced by the Aja, Ewe, and Fon peoples of Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Nigeria. > Elements of the West African religion have survived and evolved into the current forms of religions with similar names that are found in the New World among the African diaspora in the Americas, such as Haitian Vodou; Louisiana Voodoo; Cuban V... ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/8 "2014-05-19T11:54:44Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Interesting choice of words there. Decent, I mean. Hmm…I use decent in that way frequently, that is, meaning “a non-trivial percentage of the total”. Not meant in the sense of “appropriate, acceptable” obviously. But looking at the dictionary, my definition isn’t listed. Is that use unique to me, or is it more widespread? ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/9 "2014-05-19T11:58:06Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Hmm…I use decent in that way frequently, that is, meaning “a non-trivial percentage of the total”. Not meant in the sense of “appropriate, acceptable” obviously. > > But looking at the dictionary, my definition isn’t listed. Is that use unique to me, or is it more widespread? I use it that way too, but it’s slang, not a real definition, I think. As in “a decent number of students passed the midterm.” But it did seem incongruous to see decent and lynchings in the same sentence! ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/10 "2014-05-19T12:02:29Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > I use it that way too, but it’s slang, not a real definition, I think. As in “a decent number of students passed the midterm.” But it did seem incongruous to see decent and lynchings in the same sentence! Yeah, I wasn’t criticizing **Simplicio** – I am familiar with that use of the phrase, which I would define as “a reasonable [number]” – it just seemed odd, in an ironic sort of way. Please add your choice of smiley to my post. ---
**Author:** ![yellowjacketcoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4bbf92/32.png) [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/11 "2014-05-19T12:02:30Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Voodoo is not witchcraft. Different origins, different religious roots, different emphasis on supernatural energy/contacts. > > Too much to go into the differences, but the wiki of both do a good job at stating what each is: > [Witchcraft - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witchcraft) > [West African Vodún - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_African_Vodun) While the practicitioners of both rituals would think them wildly different, I don’t think the colonists really cared about the finer details, and would have burned both anyway. And it was their opinion that mattered in 1779, for better or worse (definitely worse). > [@Simplicio](#): > > Hmm…I use decent in that way frequently, that is, meaning “a non-trivial percentage of the total”. Not meant in the sense of “appropriate, acceptable” obviously. > > But looking at the dictionary, my definition isn’t listed. Is that use unique to me, or is it more widespread? I use it that way as well, but I can’t find that definition in the dictionary either. Perhaps the language change hasn’t caught up to the dictionary makers. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/12 "2014-05-19T12:04:51Z")
😕 Surely there was no Illinois in 1779. Wasn’t that area all Indian territory back then. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/13 "2014-05-19T12:04:58Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > I use it that way too, but it’s slang, not a real definition, I think. As in “a decent number of students passed the midterm.” But it did seem incongruous to see decent and lynchings in the same sentence! You can have a decent number of indecent things, just like a good number of bad things. I would tend to use something like an indecent number of lynchings instead. But how is it grammatically? Decent is decribing the number, not the numbered things. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/14 "2014-05-19T12:10:13Z")
> [@yellowjacketcoder](#): > > While the practicitioners of both rituals would think them wildly different, I don’t think the colonists really cared about the finer details, and would have burned both anyway. And it was their opinion that mattered in 1779, for better or worse (definitely worse). I don’t think you could make that assumption as it was 2 laws primarily used to control 2 different groups. Christianity was used to suppress women and justify slavery. Anti Witchcraft laws (a more female centric religion then the Abrahamic religions) was used often to put women ‘in their place’ to keep them quite, anti voodoo would be used to oppress slaves and disconnect them from their origins. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/15 "2014-05-19T12:25:10Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > Can someone tell me what an honorable fine is (just in case I’m doing it too)? A translation of [_amende honorable_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amende_honorable). ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/16 "2014-05-19T12:27:41Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > 😕 Surely there was no Illinois in 1779. Wasn’t that area all Indian territory back then. Virginia considered it “Illinois County,” which included all of modern-day Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana, as well as part of Minnesota. The county seat was Kaskaskia. Virginia’s claim overlapped with what other states said was theirs, and ultimately it ceded the land to the federal government in 1784. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/17 "2014-05-19T12:33:22Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > You can have a decent number of indecent things, just like a good number of bad things. I would tend to use something like an indecent number of lynchings instead. But how is it grammatically? Decent is decribing the number, not the numbered things. Going by the dictionary definition, a “decent number of things” implies a moral approval of the number of things, not just saying that they make up a sizable proportion. So a literal reading of my original statement would imply that I approved of the number of people burned alive by lynch mobs. Going by this thread, it seems common use has moved to what I intended my meaning to be. Its pretty easy to see how the meaning would shift that way. Almost the same thing has happened with the word “reasonable”. A “reasonable number of Nazi’s” has come to mean a non-trivial amount of Nazi’s, and doesn’t imply that the speaker thinks Nazi’s are reasonable or that any number of Nazi’s is desirable. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/18 "2014-05-19T12:47:53Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > Virginia considered it “Illinois County,” which included all of modern-day Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana, as well as part of Minnesota. The county seat was Kaskaskia. Virginia’s claim overlapped with what other states said was theirs, and ultimately it ceded the land to the federal government in 1784. To expand: at the time in question the Colonists had captured the territory from the British (with 200 guys, I’m always amused by how small the numbers involved were in some of the more out of the way Revolutionary War battles). The aforementioned Col Todd was made Governor. As the British had recently taken it from the French, most of the settlements were French, and there still seems to have been a French legal system in place, which is probably where the anti-voodoo ruling came from. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/19 "2014-05-19T13:09:16Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Thanks. That seems to confirm it really happened. Interesting the incident isn’t better known, as 1779 seems pretty late for execution for witchcraft. And its the latest case of execution by burning alive in N. America that I can find. > > Not a judicial penalty and not due to witch-craft, so not really what I’m looking for. (That said, there seemed to have been a decent number of lynching-via-burnings in the post civil-war US. I’m surprised the topic doesn’t get more attention, given how sensational and gruesome the incidents were, and how many of them seem to be well documented (and in the case of Washington, photographed).) _Were_ there any other burnings for witchcraft in America? Witches had been burned in numerous cases in Europe, but the witches executed in Salem in 1692 were executed by hanging, except for Giles Corey, who was pressed to death because he would plead neither guilty nor innocent. Other witchcraft cases in New England that I’ve come across were similarly handled. I confess that I haven’t looked into witchcraft trials outside New England, though. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/20 "2014-05-19T13:28:05Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > _Were_ there any other burnings for witchcraft in America? Witches had been burned in numerous cases in Europe, but the witches executed in Salem in 1692 were executed by hanging, except for Giles Corey, who was pressed to death because he would plead neither guilty nor innocent. Other witchcraft cases in New England that I’ve come across were similarly handled. I confess that I haven’t looked into witchcraft trials outside New England, though. I don’t think so (see my OP). There were other judicial executions by burning, and there were other executions for witch-craft, but I think this case is the only case of the two together, which is why I asked about it. At least by the Colonies/US or the British. Not sure if there were cases amongst the other European powers in N. American. The Spanish don’t seem likely candidates (the Spanish liked burning people to death, but they never got into the witchtrials thing, presumably burning crypto-Jews/Muslims scratched the same itch). Maybe the French though? The book I linked to above posits that the Illinois witch-burning was due to the influence of French law in the area. So maybe they were burning slaves for Voodoo in Quebec or New Orleans as well? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722.md?page=2)