For an outstanding discussion of enslaved women's resistance but also for a thorough listing of resources, see: Shearer, E. F. (2024) Women of violence: challenging perceptions of enslaved women’s resistance in the antebellum United States, 1808-1861. PhD thesis, University of Reading. doi: 10.48683/1926.00115296 

As Shearer (2024, p. 262) writes, "One thing is readily apparent: enslaved women did not solely retreat into a world of covert, illicit resistance. " Shearer's listing of references has been invaluable. See, for example, Race & Slavery Petitions Project: Digital Library on American Slavery, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.’ [https://library.uncg.edu/slavery/petitions/index.aspx?s=1]

Prison cemeteries: There is no single national registry identifying cemeteries specifically for female inmates, largely because many incarcerated women were reclaimed by family members after death, buried anonymously, cremated, or interred in general prison cemeteries alongside male prisoners. Nevertheless, several prison cemeteries and burial sites across the United States are known to contain women prisoners and, in some cases, executed women. Among the most significant is Captain Joe Byrd Cemetery in Texas, the primary cemetery for unclaimed prisoners from the Texas prison system, including some women and executed inmates. Florida maintains a prison cemetery associated with Florida State Prison, where indigent and unclaimed prisoners were buried, although notable executed women such as Aileen Wuornos were cremated rather than buried there. California contains several especially important burial sites connected to women executed by the state, including the historic San Quentin Cemetery and civilian cemeteries such as Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery, where executed women Juanita Spinelli and Barbara Graham were buried, and Angelus Rosedale Cemetery, the burial site of Louise Peete. Alabama, my home state, buries unclaimed female inmates at the the Draper Correctional Center Cemetery, situated on Marion Spillway Road in Elmore.

Additional prison cemeteries associated with inmate burials include the cemeteries at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, Louisiana State Penitentiary’s Point Lookout Cemetery at Louisiana State Penitentiary, and the historic South Carolina penitentiary cemetery sometimes known as “Tickleberry.” Although many of these cemeteries primarily contain male prisoners due to the historical demographics of incarceration, archival evidence suggests that women were also interred in several of them. Other historically significant burial locations include the approximate grave site of Ruth Blay in New Hampshire and various local churchyards, potter’s fields, and execution-site burials used before the twentieth century.

For research concerning women’s executions specifically, these cemeteries are important not only as burial grounds but also as institutional records of poverty, race, marginalization, and state punishment. Female executions were relatively rare in American history, meaning women were often buried outside prison grounds by relatives or local communities rather than retained within institutional cemeteries. As a result, locating burial places for executed women frequently requires combining prison records, death certificates, newspaper accounts, cemetery registries, and local archival research. The most promising sites for systematic investigation of women prisoners and executed women appear to be Captain Joe Byrd Cemetery in Texas, the Florida State Prison Cemetery, San Quentin Cemetery in California, and the cemeteries associated with Mississippi State Penitentiary, all of which maintain strong historical connections between incarceration, execution, and institutional burial practices.