ABSTRACT
In 1853, Eliza Gallie, a middle-aged, free black woman of Petersburg, Virgina, was arrested and charged with stealing cabbages from the patch of Alexander Stevens, a white man. She was tried in Mayor’s Court and sentenced to thirty-nine lashes. There was nothing unusual in this; free black women were frequently accused of petty crimes, and for free blacks, as for slaves, whipping was the punishment prescribed by law. What made the case a minor spectacle was that Eliza Gallie had resources, and she fought back. She filed an appeal immediately, and two weeks later she hired three of Petersburg’s most eminent attorneys and one from Richmond as well. “If the Commonwealth, God bless her, has not met her match in Miss Liza,” a local newspaper commented, “it won’t be for lack of lawyers.” The case came up in Hustings Court in March 1854. Gallie’s lawyers argued first of all that her ancestors were of white and Indian blood and that she should therefore be tried as a white person. The court was unconvinced. On the trial’s second day, her counsel argued that she was innocent of the theft. The court was again unconvinced. Gallie was pronounced guilty and sentenced to “twenty lashes on her bare back at the public whipping post. . . .” At first she set another appeal in motion, but deciding that the case was hopeless, Eliza Gallie dismissed her lawyers and took her punishment. 1
