Death of an Overseer: Reopening a Murder Investigation from the Plantation South

by Michael Wayne

Book Overview

In May of 1857, the body of Duncan Skinner was found in a strip of woods along the edge of the plantation near Natchez, Mississippi, where he worked as an overseer. Although a coroner's jury initially ruled his death to be accidental, an investigation organized by planters from the community concluded that he had been murdered by three slaves acting under instructions from John McCallin, an Irish carpenter.
Now, almost a century and a half later,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195140044
• ISBN13: 9780195140040
• Release Date: March 2001
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A riveting look at how historians do history

A riveting murder mystery involving race and sex in the Old South, "Death of an Overseer" is equally fascinating for what it reveals about the historian's craft. Besides this, it is beautifully written. Historians and the general reader alike will find this book hard to put down.