1786: Hannah Ocuish, age 12
On December 20, 1786, the Sheriff of New London,
Conn., led a distraught 12-year-old girl to the gallows, placed a rope
around her neck, and hanged her in front of a crowd of spectators. The
girl was Hannah Ocuish, a young member of the Pequot nation. She was
charged with the murder of six-year-old Eunice Bolles, a white girl
with whom Hannah had quarreled the previous summer.
While it is difficult to get a clear picture of
Hannah’s life from the available sources, it is clear that hers was
not a comfortable existence. An appendix to Rev. Henry Channing’s
execution sermon notes that Hannah’s mother was “an abandoned
creature, much addicted to the vice of drunkenness,” who sent Hannah
to work as a servant in a white family’s home. At the age of six,
Hannah was accused of beating a white child while trying to steal her
necklace. The anonymous author describes Hannah’s character thus:
Her conduct, as appeared in evidence before the
honorable Superior Court was marked with almost every thing bad. Theft
and lying were her common vices. To these were added a maliciousness
of disposition which made the children in the neighborhood much afraid
of her. She had a degree of artful cunning and sagacity beyond many of
her years.
This description, expressed in terms designed to
emphasize the importance of training children in obedience, may or may
not be accurate. Regardless, all evidence suggests that Hannah was
alone in a hostile world (Some historians have suggested that she may
also have been mentally retarded).
On July 21, 1786, someone found Eunice Bolles’ body
at the side of the road outside Norwich, Conn. The corpse displayed
signs of extreme trauma: “the head and body were mangled in a shocking
manner, the back and one arm broken, and a number of heavy stones
placed on the body, arms and legs.” Investigators questioned Hannah,
who initially denied any involvement, but mentioned that she had seen
a group of boys on the road earlier. The town officials did not
believe her. On July 22, “she was closely questioned, but repeatedly
denied that she was guilty.” Still unconvinced, the investigators
“carried [Hannah] to the house where the body lay, and being charged
with the crime, burst into tears and confessed that she killed her,
saying if she could be forgiven she would never do so again.”
Hannah’s confession, which was accepted as truth by
the court, indicated that she had sought revenge on Eunice because the
younger girl had “complained of her in strawberry time … for taking
away her strawberries.” When Hannah saw Eunice walking to school
alone, she beat and choked her, covering the body with rocks “to make
people think that the wall fell upon her and killed her.”
Rev. Henry Channing, a talented local minister,
visited Hannah in prison many times, urging her to repent so that her
soul might be spared. On the day of her execution, he delivered a
thundering sermon entitled, God Admonishing His People of Their Duty
as Parents and Masters, which held Hannah up as an example of what
could happen if parents did not raise their children to be “dutiful
and obedient.”
Her crimes, he argued, were the “natural
consequences of too great parental indulgence,” and warned that
“appetites and passions unrestrained in childhood become furious in
youth; and ensure dishonour, disease and an untimely death.” In the
portion of the sermon directed at Hannah herself, Channing did his
best to scare her into repentance:
HANNAH! — prisoner at the bar– agreeably to the
laws of the land you have arraigned, tried and convicted of the crime
of murder … The good and safety of society requires, that no one, of
such a malignant character, shall be suffered to live, and the
punishment of death is but the just demerit of your crime: and the
sparing you on account of your age, would, as the law says, be of
dangerous consequence to the publick, by holding up an idea, that
children might commit such atrocious crimes with impunity … And you
must consider that after death you must undergo another trial,
infinitely more solemn and awful than what you have here passed
through, before that God against whom you offended; at whose bar the
deceased child will appear as a swift witness against you — And you
will be condemned and consigned to an everlasting punishment, unless
you now obtain a pardon, by confessing and sincerely repenting of your
sins, and applying to his sovereign grace, through the merits of his
Son, Jesus Christ, for mercy, who is able and willing to save the
greatest offenders, who repent and believe in him.
At her trial in October, Hannah “appeared entirely
unconcerned,” but as the date of her execution approached, she began
to show fear. In early December, visitors began to ask her how long
she had to live, and Hannah “would tell the Number of her Days with
manifest Agitation.” On December 19th, she “appeared in great Distress
. . . and continued in Tears most of the Day, and until her
Execution.” Witnesses to her execution reported that Hannah “seemed
greatly afraid when at the Gallows.” With her last words, she “thanked
the Sheriff for his kindness, and launched into the eternal World.”
In the United States, the youngest children put to
death by the government have all be children of color. James Arcene, a
Cherokee boy, was only 10 or 11 years old when he was hanged for
committed a robbery and murder that resulted in his 1885 hanging in
Arkansas.* At 12, Hannah Ocuish was the youngest female offender
executed by any state. In the 20th century, the youngest children
executed were both African-American: 13-year-old Fortune Ferguson of
Florida (1927) and 14-year-old George Stinney of South Carolina
(1944).
In 2005, the United States Supreme Court abolished
the death penalty for criminals who committed their crimes as
juveniles (Roper v. Simmons). The court split 5-4, with Jutices
Scalia, O’Connor, Thomas, and Chief Justice Rehnquist dissenting. In
his dissent, Justice Scalia excoriated the majority for considering
international consensus (along with the laws of 30 of the 50 U.S.
states) on the cruelty of executing children under the age of 18 when
determining the standard for “cruel and unusual.” Justice Scalia, an
avowed proponent of Constitutional originalism, proclaimed, “I do not
believe that the meaning of our Eighth Amendment, any more than the
meaning of other provisions of our Constitution, should be determined
by the subjective views of five Members of this Court and like-minded
foreigners.”
ExecutedToday.com
