# 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:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/21 "2014-05-19T13:39:26Z")
Is the execution of a legal slave a lynching? Maybe this is exceedingly fine reasoning, but I’d draw a distinction between the torture-execution of a slave convicted of witchcraft in 1779 - when slaves were legal property without rights, people believed witches were real and horrendous execution methods were the norm - and mob murder of free citizens without trial 100 years later and on. Granted, it’s a distinction between two kinds of unthinkable ugliness, but if the first is a lynching, then why is slowly crushing a (white, landowning, wealthy) man to death as part of a “trial” not also a lynching? Skin color alone? ---
**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, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/22 "2014-05-19T13:58:16Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Is the execution of a legal slave a lynching? No. A lynching is extra-judicial. An execution is ordered by a legal authority. > [@](#): > > Maybe this is exceedingly fine reasoning, but I’d draw a distinction between the torture-execution of a slave convicted of witchcraft in 1779 - when slaves were legal property without rights, people believed witches were real and horrendous execution methods were the norm - and mob murder of free citizens without trial 100 years later and on. I think we agree (see post #4). The discussion of lynchings was just an aside. > [@](#): > > when slaves were legal property without rights, people believed witches were real and horrendous execution methods were the norm One of the things that caught my about this case was actually that 1779 seemed kind of late for both witch-craft trials and execution by burning. So I’m not sure either was the norm. The anti-witchcraft laws in England were overturned in 1735, for example. The last cases in most of Europe seems to all be prior to 1750 (wikipedia has one or two examples of later ones, but their pretty sparse). Cases of execution by being burnt alive by European gov’ts follow a similar pattern, if maybe a touch later. They seem to have been on their way out by 1700, very rare by 1750 and only a few isolated cases post 1775. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/23 "2014-05-19T15:19:47Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > No. A lynching is extra-judicial. An execution is ordered by a legal authority. _Extrajudicial_ is a poor choice of term. The first lynchings appear to have been tarring-and-featherings and possible murders committed against Virginia loyalists during the Revolutionary War. They were ordered by Charles Lynch, who was a justice of the peace. Several Jim Crow lynchings appear to have been tacitly or even explicitly sanctioned by judicial officers, too. _Lynching_ is now also a term of art in some jurisdictions: in South Carolina it is [a crime](http://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t15c051.php) (which without evidence irony [has largely been used to prosecute African-Americans](http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0112/South-Carolina-takes-aim-at-lynching-law-because-it-hurt-blacks).) ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/24 "2014-05-19T15:20:17Z")
I looked into the Kaskaskia case a few years ago. It’s a little more complicated than it seems at first. Several slaves, including one named Manuel or Emanuel, were accused of causing several deaths by poisoning and/or witchcraft. Before he was arrested, Manuel seems to have dug himself a hole by claiming magical powers in order to intimidate people. The records are scant, and it’s not clear what exactly he was convicted of, if anything. It could have been simple murder by poisoning, which (as far as I can tell from the scanty records) would not have been an absurd conclusion. The death warrant specifying execution by burning alive exists, but at least one record says Manuel was actually shot by a firing squad. I’m mostly going by my memory of several articles I read about the case two or three years ago. I can’t find most of them now, unfortunately. Here’s one from the 1885 edition of [Magazine of American History](http://www.forgottenbooks.org/readbook_text/The_Magazine_of_American_History_With_Notes_and_Queries_1915_v14_1000302338/477). ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722/25 "2014-05-19T15:47:15Z")
Ninja’d by **bibliophage** –I was about to post that this was _much_ more likely to be “execution for slave rebellion”–for which burning was common in the Eighteenth Century–than “burning for practicing a religion”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-us-burn-a-man-for-witchcraft-in-1779/688722.md?page=1)