Thursday, August 16, 2018

A Mass Murder That Surprised Me

Monticello, Ga. (1921)
Farmer under investigation on charges of peonage murders eleven farmhands with assistance of another farmhand.  Murders were with axes and drowning.
Category: workplace
Suicide: no
Cause: eliminating witnesses
Weapon: ax, drowning[1]

[1] “Eleven Bodies Are Recovered,” Alexandria Gazette, Mar. 28, 1921, 1.
What surprised me was that in Georgia, a criminal investigation was under way of a farmer holding blacks in debt slavery, enough so that he murdered 11 witnesses.  I would have guessed based on how the period is often presented, that a state agency in Georgia investigating peonage, would have done so for a "how-to" manual.

By the way, 1921 was a bad year for mass murder.


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