The Women's Executions Project - WEB: The women's executions database

The dataset

now available upon request

The chart makes the most sense with a full understanding of the coding. The short of it is, the focus is on cases that were simply noted as murder.

0 = not in the Espy File 1 = murder

32 = spousal murder

33 = murder involving poisoning (but not of spouse, children, or slave owners)

34 = infanticide

38 = child murder

45 = murder or poisoning of master or family

The (older) public dataset is currently accessible via Zenodo. The working dataset, as described the below video or in "notes of the dataset ", are available upon request (Dr. Corina Schulze, cschulze@southalabama.edu). The dataset notes page has been updated to document significant changes to the data that are not readily apparent from the Excel spreadsheet alone.

To reiterate, the dataset available publicly via Zenodo is outdated and, though I will share findings periodically, the dataset will remain private until it is complete. In the drop down menu is a flowchart that reflects my rechecking all of my work using the original Espy index cards as a starting point

Click on figure for a larger version of the Research Flowchart. I will be providing an updated flowchart that reflects my rechecking all of my work using the original Espy index cards as a starting point

Preferred citation if you want to cite all versions (or you aren't sure): Corina Schulze. (2025). The women's executions database [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17487467

For specific versions as identified by date, see https://zenodo.org/records/15867265.

This page remains as a record of the initial publication that made this project possible and as a record of my progress. The original dataset is found here: Introducing the Women’s Execution Database

Variables 0-2, 5-6, 14, 19-22 (also contained in WEB) were completed for publication in the journal "Sexes." The data are found in the link "Introducing the Women's Executions Project [...]."

The primary purpose of this website has shifted to providing the major findings as I continue to work on WEB that will only be available upon request. The “Enslaved Black Women” preliminary findings page presents early results from the Women’s Executions Project documenting enslaved Black women who were executed in the United States and whose cases have been historically undercounted, misclassified, or omitted from standard datasets. Drawing heavily on Espy index card materials and corroborating archival sources, the page identifies individual women—such as Elizabeth (1856), Amy (1832), Grace (1693), Chloe (1737), and Jane (1858), among others—while noting that many cases remain partially documented, with years, locations, or circumstances still under verification. The findings emphasize that enslaved Black women were disproportionately subjected to capital punishment, often for alleged crimes involving resistance, murder or suspected murder of slaveholders or household members, and arson, within a legal system designed to protect slavery and racial hierarchy. To date, the project has verified nearly 150 executions of Black women related to murder or suspected murder and approximately 60 executions for arson, figures that significantly alter prior understandings of women’s executions. Of the women previously missing or unaccounted for in legacy Espy-based datasets, a substantial majority are now identified as Black women, underscoring the extent of historical erasure. The page also highlights the frequent presence of compensation claims paid to slaveowners following executions, reinforcing the legal treatment of enslaved women as property. Overall, the page situates these preliminary findings as part of an ongoing effort to correct the historical record, refine racial and gendered execution statistics, and make transparent the scope and limitations of the current data while further archival research continues.

A selection of resources used for WEB (other than the Espy papers or found as a result of the papers)

Baker, D. V. (2007). American Indian executions in historical context. Criminal Justice Studies, 20(4), 315–373. https://doi.org/10.1080/14786010701758138

Bailey, E. (1896). History of Danbury.
(Referenced via Espy Papers; archival reproduction, University at Albany).

Block, W. T. (1978, September 13). Myth of Texas executions debunked. Beaumont Enterprise.

Breslaw, E.G. (1995). Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies. New York: NYU Press. https://muse-jhu-edu.libproxy.usouthal.edu/book/7833.

Browning, C. H. (1912). Welsh settlement of Pennsylvania. W. J. Campbell.

Burbey, L. H. (1938). History of execution in Michigan. Michigan History Magazine, 22.

Burt, O. W. (1958). American ballads of murder. Oxford University Press.

Clark, R. H. (1898). Memoirs of Judge Richard H. Clark (L. B. Wylie, Ed.).
https://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/georgiabooks/do-pdf:gb0442

Deakin, J. (1990). A grave for Bobby: The Greenlease slaying. William Morrow.

Dexter, F. B. (Ed.). (1919). Ancient town records: New Haven town records, 1649–1684 (Vol. 2). New Haven Colony Historical Society. (Original work published 1917)

Ellefson, C. A. (2010). The private punishment of servants and slaves in eighteenth-century Maryland. SUNY Cortland.

Goodheart, L. B. (2020). Female capital punishment: From the gallows to unofficial abolition in Connecticut (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367463793

Hall, D. D. (2005). Witch-hunting in seventeenth-century New England: A documentary history, 1638–1693 (2nd ed.). Duke University Press.

Hale, J. (1702). A modest enquiry into the nature of witchcraft. B. Green & J. Allen.

Harris, C. (1970). Public gaol historical report, Block 27 Building 2 (Originally titled A manual for the public gaol). Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Library Research Report Series No. 1628.
https://research.colonialwilliamsburg.org/DigitalLibrary/view/index.cfm?doc=ResearchReports%5CRR1628.xml

Hearn, D. A. (1999). Legal executions in New England: A comprehensive reference, 1623–1960. McFarland & Company.

Hearn, D. A. (2000). Legal executions in New York State: A comprehensive reference, 1639–1963. McFarland & Company.

Hearn, D. A. (2001). Legal executions in New Jersey: A comprehensive registry, 1691–1963. McFarland & Company.

Hearn, D. A. (2003). Legal executions in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia: A comprehensive registry, 1866–1962. McFarland & Company.

Hearn, D. A. (2005). Legal executions in Georgia: A comprehensive registry, 1866–1964. McFarland & Company.

Hearn, D. A. (2007). Legal executions in North Carolina and South Carolina: A comprehensive registry, 1866–1962. McFarland & Company.

Hearn, D. A. (2010). Legal executions in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky and Missouri: A comprehensive registry, 1866–1965. McFarland & Company.

Jones, A. (2009). Women who kill. The Feminist Press. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/10609

Koehler, L. (1974). The case of the American Jezebels: Anne Hutchinson and female agitation during the years of antinomian turmoil, 1636–1640. William and Mary Quarterly, 31(1), 55–78. https://doi.org/10.2307/1918982

Love, W. D. (1914). The colonial history of Hartford, gathered from the original records. William DeLoss Love.

McLaurin, M. (1998). Celia, a slave. Avon Books.

Meacham, C. M. (1930). A history of Christian County, Kentucky, from oxcart to airplane. Marshall & Bruce.

Miller, S. (2022). Hanged! Mary Surratt and the plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. Random House Children’s Books.

Navas, D. (1999). Murdered by his wife: Crime and punishment in eighteenth-century Massachusetts. University of Massachusetts Press.

Records of the Salem Witchcraft. (1864). Copied from the original documents. Privately printed for W. E. Woodward.

Robinson, E. (1991). The devil discovered: Salem witchcraft 1692. Hippocrene Books.

Romeo, E. K. (2020). The virtuous and violent women of seventeenth-century Massachusetts. University of Massachusetts Press.

Ross, P. (2017). Before Salem. McFarland.

Sewall, S. (1878). The diary of Samuel Sewall (Vol. 2). Massachusetts Historical Society.

Snead, M. D. (1962). Important developments in the grand jury system in Virginia during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Spanos, J. B. (2018). Pardon or punish? Legal and community interpretations of a nineteenth-century infanticide. Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 142(2), 163–185.

Teeters, N. K., & Nedblom, J. H. (1967). Hang by the neck: The legal use of scaffold and noose, gibbet, stake, and firing squad from colonial times to the present. Charles C. Thomas.

Trumbull, J. H. (Ed.). (1850). The public records of the colony of Connecticut (Vol. 1, 1636–1665). Brown & Parsons.

Winthrop, J. (1853). History of New England from 1630 to 1649. Little, Brown.

Winthrop, J. (1996). The journal of John Winthrop, 1630–1649 (R. Dunn, J. Savage, & L. Yeandle, Eds.). Harvard University Press.

Witkowski, M. C. (2010). “Justice without partiality”: Women and the law in colonial Maryland, 1648–1715 (Doctoral dissertation).

Young, W. (1910). Young’s history of Lafayette County, Missouri (Vol. 1). B. F. Bowen.

Page updated

Report abuse