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. 41The capture of Frank s letter destroyed what little remained of the Eas-ter conspiracy.Anxious patrollers apprehended the insurgents named onthe paper. Riders hurried word of the plot to the adjacent counties ofHertford and Martin.By June 10 large numbers of slaves had been pickedup and confined near Jamestown.A howling mob of whites wanted to shootthem on the spot, but several justices of the peace instead urged that a Committee of Enquiry be formed to examine and take down the deposi-tions of the prisoners. The committee separated the slaves and had theyoungest and most foolish lad brought before them.They told him that hisname was on Frank s letter.If he would confess, he should be forgiven. Like some of the terrified men of Halifax, Virginia, he agreed.42A second young slave was thrust forward.Again crafty magistrates, wellversed in the theory of divide and conquer, promised a full pardon ; thelash was not necessary.The young bondman agreed to discover the wholeplot, and he knew a great deal to tell.As an officer he had been involvedfor some time, although he had not been given the final date of the risinguntil June 1.Because of the cautious method of recruitment, he could notname every slave involved, only those belonging to the same company. Those names he revealed.Over the course of two days nearly thirtymore slaves were all examined separately.The authorities insistedthat the accused were not coached and that there was no way for144 Halifax 1802 them to know what had been previously declared by others. After givingtestimony some were whipped or had their ears cropped and then werereleased.Those who were implicated as the leaders were taken to the townof Windsor for trial.Sent with them as evidence were Frank s letter and amissive from Virginia also found at Colerain. 43If anything, the North Carolina authorities were even more legalisticallyminded than their Virginia brethren.Since 1790 a number of reforms in theslave code had been implemented.Unlike slaves in Virginia, North Carolinabondmen enjoyed the right of trial by jury and appeal to the state supremecourt.The suspicion that white artisans and unskilled laborers lacked thedesire to uphold their unique domestic institution, however, had led theframers of these laws to stipulate that the jury, if the case involved a crime the punishment whereof shall extend to life, limb, or member [penis], must be composed only of slaveholders.In the Bertie trials, six or seven slaves testified on behalf of the state against the officers. Nine men, in-cluding King Brown, were found guilty and executed on Wednesday, June16.Two more eventually followed them to the Windsor gallows.44At the same time, trials were being held in the neighboring counties.InHertford, to the north of Bertie, ten slaves were tried.But only Frank, whosecase was heard in the county where his master resided, was executed.Theother nine, who did not appear equally criminal with Frank and King[Brown], were punished by [the] cropping [of their ears], whipping, andbranding. Two slaves swung in Martin, a county that shared the Roanokewith Bertie, and Mrs.Foord s Sam was hanged in Halifax on June 27.In all,twenty-five men from Virginia and North Carolina paid for their demand forliberty and the just fruits of their labor with their lives.The Easter con-spiracy was over.45The conspiracy may have been over, but the terror it inspired among theruling race was not.As in Richmond and Hanover, the number and might ofthe insurgents were wildly overestimated.Published accounts insisted thatslaves were embodied in large companies, armed, and in the Great Swamp or that massive risings were taking place in the counties of Perquimansand Hertford.One paper even reported that the slaves had captured thetown of Windsor, and had committed great havock. A rider from Wintongalloped toward Windsor to ascertain the truth of the report, but he metonly a lone rider coming from that town to discover whether rumors thatWinton was under attack were true.It was not until early August that thestate settled down to the fact that the alarm was generally allowed to havebeen greater than the occasion warranted. 46The Footsteps Die Out 145 While the corpses were buried in North Carolina, the four reprieved Vir-ginia slaves, including Ned, awaited word on their transportation.They couldnot know it, but the debate on their ultimate fate then taking place in theVirginia General Assembly promised for one all too brief moment to dowhat Gabriel and Sancho had been unable to do: bring about an end tohuman bondage in the most important of all southern states
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