What do you think?
Rate this book
Lay This Body Down: The 1921 Murders of Eleven Plantation Slaves
The John S. Williams plantation in Georgia was operated largely with the labor of slaves—and this was in 1921, 56 years after the Civil War. Williams was not alone in using “peons,” but his reaction to a federal investigation was almost unbelievable: he decided to destroy the evidence. Enlisting the aid of his trusted black farm boss, Clyde Manning, he began methodically killing his slaves. As this true story unfolds, each detail seems more shocking, and surprises continue in the aftermath, with a sensational trial galvanizing the nation and marking a turning point in the treatment of black Americans.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
24 people are currently reading
241 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
February 22, 2018
Those who came before us
As a white Georgia native, I must say this book was. painful to read. History is history, but for the life of me I .cannot understand how any human being can treat another so cruelly. I thank God that I grew in a family where I was taught that we are all children of God ; red, yellow ,black, or white.
As a white Georgia native, I must say this book was. painful to read. History is history, but for the life of me I .cannot understand how any human being can treat another so cruelly. I thank God that I grew in a family where I was taught that we are all children of God ; red, yellow ,black, or white.
March 23, 2018
Our history need never be a mystery every black person should know this heinous story.
November 22, 2019
Gregory Freeman's exhumation of the notorious "slave farm murders" of 1921 Georgia is an engrossing look at a largely forgotten atrocity whose implications reach beyond its time and place. For those complacent souls who smugly lecture other societies for crimes against humanity, while insisting "it can't happen here," this all-too-true story is a reminder that it *has* happened here; and you can make such ignorant statements only because of the Orwellian memory hole that consumes so much of the American past.
Other authors have addressed this theme, most notably Douglas Blackmon in "Slavery By Another Name." Here Mr. Freeman not only reconstructs the context of peonage in a personal example but seeks to understand the mentality behind it, of perpetrators, victims, and those caught between, like Clyde Manning. Revealing also is that a society that could tolerate much cruelty and oppression as long as it was conveniently tucked out of sight, was finally forced to do the right thing when this case revealingly mirrored the evils such negligence perpetrated.
But this story is more than the gruesome recollection of bygone days in the Old South. It also examines the entrapment of those who implement inhumanity. The ruling at Nuremberg notoriously mandated no one was obligated to follow cruel or unjust orders, but did not specify how accomplices and collaborators could avoid the same fate for disobedience. One thinks of ghetto collaborators in occupied Europe, the sense of terror and hopelessness those executing policies and persons may have felt in doing so. That Georgia court of 90 years ago resolved the dilemma in the only way I think any of us could: to find Clyde Manning guilty, but spare his life as a recognition of his moral dilemma. Tellingly, "Mr. Johnny" Williams, the "fuehrer" of the "murder farm," was spared because of his race and social standing: even if his case seems remote now, its tradition endures in the American justice system.
Other authors have addressed this theme, most notably Douglas Blackmon in "Slavery By Another Name." Here Mr. Freeman not only reconstructs the context of peonage in a personal example but seeks to understand the mentality behind it, of perpetrators, victims, and those caught between, like Clyde Manning. Revealing also is that a society that could tolerate much cruelty and oppression as long as it was conveniently tucked out of sight, was finally forced to do the right thing when this case revealingly mirrored the evils such negligence perpetrated.
But this story is more than the gruesome recollection of bygone days in the Old South. It also examines the entrapment of those who implement inhumanity. The ruling at Nuremberg notoriously mandated no one was obligated to follow cruel or unjust orders, but did not specify how accomplices and collaborators could avoid the same fate for disobedience. One thinks of ghetto collaborators in occupied Europe, the sense of terror and hopelessness those executing policies and persons may have felt in doing so. That Georgia court of 90 years ago resolved the dilemma in the only way I think any of us could: to find Clyde Manning guilty, but spare his life as a recognition of his moral dilemma. Tellingly, "Mr. Johnny" Williams, the "fuehrer" of the "murder farm," was spared because of his race and social standing: even if his case seems remote now, its tradition endures in the American justice system.
Read
May 18, 2020Some people were held in slavery well into the 1960s in the United States.
Some plantation owners took their enslaved people to South America, which you can Google.
Some plantation owners took their enslaved people to South America, which you can Google.
May 28, 2018
Lay This Body Down: The 1921 Murders of Eleven Plantation Slaves by Gregory A. Freeman (Lawrence Hill Books 1999)(364.1523). This is a truly appalling but well-documented account of the peonage system in Georgia post-Civil War in Newton and Lawrence Counties (Monticello and the surrounding area south of Athens). The author meticulously assembles the account of one farmer’s murder of eleven black laborers who had been held as virtual slaves in servitude after the Civil War. The farmer cold-bloodedly slew all eleven to avoid being brought up on federal charges for continuing the peonage system. As unbelievable as this seems, the whole sordid tale was well-documented by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. My rating: 6.5/10, finished 2008. I paid $4.00 for my used copy from McKay's 10/8/17. HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
February 9, 2010
The silent conspiracy of peonage in the South, specifically in Jasper and Newton Counties, Georgia in the 1920's, come to life in ways that will move you to tears for the lost lives and damaged souls who lived in fear of abuse and death. Eleven black farm workers, possibly more, were murdered by plantation owner John S. Williams, who threatened his farm worker, Clyde Manning, with his own death if he did not assist him in the killings. This true history defines such a hollow monster and looks at the human mind, heart and soul of the abused and frightened, who believed his only way of survival was to comply.
February 26, 2015
It is easy to appreciate the craftsmanship shown through Freeman's ability to reassemble historical fragments and deliver this work. However, his concluding remarks make his motive for telling this story as questionable as Clyde's -- arguably this event's protagonist. Is Freeman attempting to fight against historically-reinforced stereotypes of the South, which plague and make it difficult to separate it from the Old South, or is he accepting the stereotypes as truth and suggesting that we excuse the persistent and ugly remnants because of a few examples of Southerns acting unexpectedly?
December 6, 2015
A compelling account of a terrible episode in Georgia history. During the 1920s the peonage system kept poor African-Americans in conditions in some ways worse than slavery. A visit from Federal agents investigating a report of peonage led John Williams in Jasper County, Georgia, to kill 11 men who had been forced to work on his farm. He was tried in Newton County and convicted, based on the testimony of the African-American overseer who he forced to commit most of the murders.
August 21, 2010
It is rare that I want to talk about a book, no matter how much I may have enjoyed it.
After finishing Lay This Body Down, my poor friends had to listen to me go on about the widespread acceptance of slavery in the south after the Civil War, the individuals involved in this particular horror story, and the court case that followed.
After finishing Lay This Body Down, my poor friends had to listen to me go on about the widespread acceptance of slavery in the south after the Civil War, the individuals involved in this particular horror story, and the court case that followed.
January 14, 2015
I couldn't put this book down. It haunted me what was done at that time to the slaves on these plantations. I didn't want to continue the book but felt it was of such importance to us for our history, I kept going. It made me face the grusomeness of the events.
January 15, 2016
This book was a painful recollection of real events of slavery after it allegedly ended. The first half was so painful and sad that I couldn't put the book down, the second half a little slower with inevitable ending.
January 15, 2010
Although my family is from Georgia, I had never heard of this trial or even the word 'peonage'. Very interesting and sad.
Read
March 22, 2010A gripping read, especially since it was just down the road . . . so disturbing that this happened in my home county.
Read
April 9, 2014Hard subject, but glad I read it. Did not know of this piece of history.
March 13, 2015
Did not like it!!!
It was boring. Could not keep my attention. Needed to have been written in a story from. Waste of my time.
It was boring. Could not keep my attention. Needed to have been written in a story from. Waste of my time.
March 25, 2016
It's a vivid and troubling account of what slavery did to a small Georgia community nearly 60 years after it ostensibly ended.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews