Sketches of the life of Joseph Mountain
Subtitle: a Negro, who was executed at New-Haven on the 20th day of October, 1790, for a rape, committed on the 26th day of May last
Contributors: Daggett, David, 1764-1851; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project); University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library
Edition: Electronic ed.
Publisher: Academic Affairs Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Published: 2003
Place of publication: Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: African Americans; Biography; African American criminals; Crime; Early works to 1800; Rape; Last words
Other titles: North American slave narratives.
Description: Joseph Mountain born 1758 in Philadelphia, son of a negro slave until she was 21 and a mulatto father, was the house servant of Samuel Mifflin. When he was seventeen, his master granted him permission to sail to London where he met two thieves, Francis Hyde and Thomas Wilson, and soon Mountain was acting as an accomplice to their crimes in and around London, York, and Newmarket. For a short time, Mountain worked as a ship cook, but soon returned to London and met up with a gang of highway robbers. Several years later, he married a young white woman, Nancy Allingame. He left her and, with Hyde and Wilson, resumed his former criminal activities. In 1789, he returned to America where a few days later, he was caught and whipped for stealing five dollars. Shortly after, he was arrested for rape, although Mountain claimed that the crime was assault. While waiting for his execution on October 20, 1790, he dictated this document.
Notes: Title from electronic title page (viewed November 14, 2003)

This electronic edition has been transcribed from a microfilm supplied by Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

This electronic edition is part of the UNC-CH digitization project's database, Documenting the American South.  It is a part of the collection North American slave narratives.

Text transcribed by Apex Data Services, Inc.  Text encoded by Apex Data Services, Inc., Matthew Kern and Elizabeth S. Wright.

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Transcribed from the microfiche of: Sketches of the life of Joseph Mountain : a Negro, who was executed at New-Haven on the 20th day of October, 1790, for a rape, committed on the 26th day of May last. New Haven : Printed and sold by T. & S. Green, [1790?] 20 p. "Compiled by David Daggett, New Haven, 1790"--Handwritten on page preceeding t.p.

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