State v. Caesar, a Slave (N.C. 1849)
One of the most notorious antebellum slave murder cases concerned a North Carolina slave named Caesar. The incident began in 1848, near the town of Jameston, when two drunken white men came across two slaves in a field near a storehouse. One of the white men, known only as Brickhouse, lied to the slaves, saying he and his friend where patrollers. Brickhouse and the other white man, Kenneth Mizell, hit the slaves with a board and asked if the blacks could “get some girls for them.”
Caesar and Dick, the two slaves, must have realizes that the two drunks asking for “some girls” were not on county business. As they refused to do the whites bidding, another slave, Charles, approached. Brickhouse seized Charles and told Dick to get a whip, so he could beat Charles. Dick’s refusal enraged Brickhouse and Mizell, and the two white men began pummeling Dick with their fists.
Caesar first looked on helplessly but then announced that he could not stand it any longer and seized a fence rail, striking Brickhouse and Mizell. Brickhouse survived the blow, but Mizell died. Authorities put Caesar on trial for murder.
Whiteness conferred upon even poor whites’ certain social privileges including the expectation of respect and deference from slaves. That many poor whites were often little better off than slaves economically, if at all, surely fueled a desire among some “to degrade blacks to a level beneath themselves.” Brickhouse’s play-fighting with slaves perhaps nourished a craving for power and authority that he lacked in real life. Mizell and Brickhouse had no significant ties to the community. Socially marginal, neither appeared in 1840 or 1850 census records. Caesar’s legal counsel referred to the pair as “worthless vagabonds”; a judge described them unflatteringly as “two drunken ruffians.” Yet both demanded the respect of slaves they had never encountered before and over whom they exercised no special authority. The slaves Dick and Caesar grudgingly endured poor whites abuse on a daily basis. But once the prospect of a whipping loomed, they did not submit meekly. Taking a lashing from a master or overseer was one thing, but under no circumstances, the slaves felt, should they subject themselves to that kind of mistreatment at the hands of such degraded white men. After the slaves denied Brickhouse a whip, and the poor white’s beating of Dick acquired more sinister and menacing overtones, the slaves resisted violently.
Everyone understood that if a white man had struck Mizell in such a fashion, he would be guilty of manslaughter rather than murder. But the judge instructed the jury of 12 white men, that no black man could ever be allowed to strike any white man, under any circumstance. Caesar must be guilty of murder the judge decided, and the jury agreed.
Caesar appealed his death sentence to the North Carolina State Supreme Court. The justices had to decide if the common law could be made to apply to slaves. In essence, they had to decide if a black man could ever strike a white man. Justice Richmond Pearson wrote the majority opinion of the court, finding that indeed blacks could sometimes kill a white man and be guilty of only manslaughter. Chief Justice Thomas Ruffin dissented, insisting that slavery required absolute obedience on the part of slaves with no exceptions allowed.
The court’s decision saved Caesar from death, as he was tried again, convicted of manslaughter, had his thumb branded with the letter M, and was returned to slavery.