Scholarship
Thomas P. Slaughter, Bloody Dawn (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 69.
The Catalyst for violence, the lightning bolt that started the riotous blaze, was a confrontation between Gorsuch and the man known in freedom as Samuel Thompson, one of the fugitives from his farm. Both men were angry by the time that Parker overheard part of their verbal exchange: "Old man, you had better go home to Maryland," said Samuel.
"You had better give up, and come home with me," said Gorsuch. Thompson then knocked his former master on the side of the head with a pistol, which felled him to his knees. When the slave owner tried to rise from the ground, he was clubbed again, perhaps a couple of times. Thompson shot him once, then several others poured more bullets into the body, and in what by this time was probably a purely symbolic gesture, an unspecified number of participants whacked him across the top of the head with corn cutters, emulating the scalping of a fallen enemy from another cultural tradition of American violence.
"You had better give up, and come home with me," said Gorsuch. Thompson then knocked his former master on the side of the head with a pistol, which felled him to his knees. When the slave owner tried to rise from the ground, he was clubbed again, perhaps a couple of times. Thompson shot him once, then several others poured more bullets into the body, and in what by this time was probably a purely symbolic gesture, an unspecified number of participants whacked him across the top of the head with corn cutters, emulating the scalping of a fallen enemy from another cultural tradition of American violence.
Links
Depicted ContentGorsuch, Edward