Beating of Elizabeth Keckley, circa 1822-1823

Title: Beating of Elizabeth Keckley, circa 1822-1823
Description: Around 1823 at four years old, while living on the campus of Hampden-Sydney College in the household of Col. Armistead Burwell, Elizabeth Keckley was tasked with taking care of the infant Elizabeth Burwell. Keckley rocked the cradle “most industriously” and the baby fell out. Keckley seized a fire-shovel to scoop up the baby, her mistress Mrs. Burwell told her to leave the child alone and “then ordered that I be taken out and lashed for my carelessness. The blows were not administered with a light hand, I assure you, and doubtless the severity of the lashing has made me remember it so well.”
Event Type: Violence: Physical assault
Action Status: Completed
Date: 1822 – 1823
Date Certainty: Approximate
Location: Hampden-Sydney College
Source: Elizabeth Keckley. Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty Years a Slave and four years in the White House. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. p. 19-21
Primary Participant: Elizabeth Keckley
Freedom Status: Enslaved
Enslaver: Armistead Burwell
Age: 4
Author: Elizabeth Keckley
Additional Participant: Mary Cole Burwell
Organization: Hampden-Sydney College
Source Resource: http://otg.hsc.edu/api/items/399
Source Site: http://otg.hsc.edu/s/on-these-grounds/page/welcome

Hampden-Sydney College