Map of the Coffle Route. The enslaved persons who revolted near the banks of Tygarts Creek in August 1829, were force-marched in a coffle, chained together, for a journey of roughly 680 miles in 26 days. Map by Marlitta Perkins and Andrew Feight, Ph.D., for the Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tour Initiative.
On August 14, 1829, in a remarkable act of defiance, a coffle of fifty-five enslaved men, women, and children, forcibly marched from Somerset, Maryland to the slave markets in Natchez, Mississippi, broke free from their chains and rose up against their oppressors. During the ensuing life-and-death struggle near the banks of Tygart Creek, two traffickers were killed, while sixteen freedom seekers escaped. A third trafficker, reportedly “enabled by the assistance of one of the women to mount his horse and flee,” managed to reach a neighboring plantation and raised the alarm. All escapees were eventually recaptured, and five men and one woman faced murder charges in Greenup.
Bill of sale for four of the originally six members of the coffle indicted for murder, including Dinah, and her pardon as noted in Governor Thomas Metcalfe’s Executive Journal. Slave trafficker James G. Gordon and Gabriel Allen purchased Dinah, Lazarus Fisher, John Hooper, and Levin from Henry Adams in Somerset County, Maryland, before marching them and fifty-one others in a slave coffle to the banks of the Ohio River, bound for the slave market in Natchez Mississippi.
Shortly before the trial, Dinah, the only female defendant, “plead the belly,” a process in English common law that permitted a woman in the later stages of pregnancy to receive a reprieve from a death sentence. On October 3, 1829, presiding Circuit Court Judge William P. Roper ordered a Jury of Matrons, typically consisting of twelve women with practical knowledge of childbirth and pregnancy, to be summoned “to enquire into the pregnancy of a negro woman slave named Dinah.”
On October 5, Jesse, John Hooper, Lazarus Fisher aka Fisher, Levin, Daniel and Dinah were brought into court and charged with the murder of Gabriel T. Allen and William B. Pettit. The Grand Jury returned the indictment as a true bill.
Upon their arraignment the defendants plead “not guilty” to the charges. The Commonwealth Attorney presented the case against the accused, which may have included testimony from a woman in the coffle who, as later reported, was promised her freedom in exchange for revealing details about the conspiracy involving the four alleged murderers. After the defense laid out its arguments, the court adjourned proceedings until the following day.
On October 6, the jury returned the following verdict: “We, the Jury find the defendants Jesse, John Hooper, Lazarus Fisher otherwise called Fisher, Levin and Dinah guilty as Charged in this Indictment and We find the defendant Daniel not guilty,” the latter who was remanded back to jail to be discharged.
On October 8, Dinah was taken to a private residence in town where she was examined by the Matrons. It was crucial that Dinah was not only found to be pregnant but also “quick with child,” meaning the child must have moved in the womb. The Matrons returned the following verdict, “We the females summoned … do find that the woman Slave Dinah found guilty of the murder of Gabriel T. Allen and Will. B. Petitt … is pregnant and quick with child at the present time.” When presented with the findings, Judge Roper granted Dinah a temporary reprieve “until the next term of this Court …”
On October 9, Judge Roper sentenced the remaining defendants, “each of them to be hanged by the neck on the seventeenth day of November next until they be dead, dead, dead.” The prisoners were remanded to jail until their execution but public sentiment against them grew so intense that Roper became concerned and ordered guards to be summoned over the jail “in consequence of the fear that external force Would be used to silence the prisoners.”
Jesse, John Hooper, Lazarus Fisher aka Fisher, and Levin were publicly hanged near Greenup on November 20, 1829. According to an eyewitness, they addressed the crowd “in which they attempted to justify the deed they had committed, on the principle implanted in the breast of every man by nature, to fight for freedom, and slay the tyrant who dares to deprive them of it. This only they had done and having failed to accomplish the sole object for which they slew their merciless oppressors, traffickers in human flesh, it remained for them to pay the forfeit of that failure with their lives.” One of the men, “while standing upon the cart, just ready to be launched into eternity exclaimed several times, ‘Death! Death, any time, in preference to slavery!” The condemned men then “joined with great animation in the singing of a hymn; after which they shook cordially the hands of all who were near them and were launched off…”
On April 6, 1830, Judge Roper pronounced the following sentence of death upon Dinah, “That the said Dinah be hanged by the neck on the 28th day of May next until she be dead, dead, dead.” Dinah immediately sought clemency by petitioning Kentucky Governor Thomas Metcalfe who held the exclusive power to grant pardons. An entry on April 28, 1830, in Metcalfe’s Executive Journal, notes that “He pardoned Dinah (a woman of color) condemned to be hung for assisting in the murder of [William B.] Pettit by the Greenup Circuit Court at their October Term in 1829.” Nothing further is known about Dinah and her child who were likely sold in Natchez, as was common for slaves who were deemed “troublesome.”
The Greenup Slave Revolt drew significant public attention, highlighting both the brutality of slavery and the resulting desperation of those seeking their freedom. It was referenced by abolitionist David Walker in his influential “Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World,” and contributed to the passage of Kentucky’s Non-Importation Act of 1833, prohibiting the importation of enslaved individuals into Kentucky for commercial purposes.
