Charles Williams steals a pig, 1834
Charles Williams is one of many individuals we learn about because of a crime—in this case, the theft of a pig. (Or maybe more than one; it’s unclear.) Williams’ life as a sailor may have been going badly, or perhaps the theft of the pig was a hiccup in a successful career; there are a lot of reasons to steal a pig.
What seems to have been of interest to 19th-century editors—the story appears in several newspapers—is the change in sentence of this African-American sailor: sentenced to the hard labor of “getting out stone” which was expected of male prisoners, Charles would instead be placed in the women’s prison, there to do the labor expected of female prisoners. Unfortunately, more about Charles Williams is unknown.
“Female Sailor.” Commercial Advertiser [New York, New York] 30 January 1834; p. 2.
A black, named Charles Williams, aged 26, dressed in seamen’s clothes, was convicted at the Special Sessions, on Tuesday, of stealing swine, and was sentenced to four months imprisonment at the penitentiary on Blackwell’s Island, and made to get out stone. While undergoing a metamorphosis of clothing by the officers of the prison, it was discovered that the sailor was a female. She state[d] that she was born in Boston but brought up in Providence, from which place she went several voyages to sea, and was recently discharged from one of our national vessels. The keeper was induced to disregard so much of the sentence as related to the convict being made to get out stone; instead of which, he directed that she should be habited as the rest of her sex, and put at the labour usually required of them in that institution. It is said to be a moot case among the lawyers, whether the sentence can be legally executed.
previous: Margaret Wood, a sailor, 1832
next: James Walker drinks too much, 1836
To “Nineteenth-Century American Children & What They Read”
Some of the children | Some of their books | Some of their magazines
Some works for adults, 1800-1872