"Fatty" Arbuckle Trials (1921-22)

The "Fatty" Arbuckle Scandal  The Trials
http://history1900s.about.com/library/weekly/aa021800d.htm
The first Arbuckle trial began in November 1921 and charged Arbuckle with manslaughter. The trial was thorough and Arbuckle took the stand to share his side of the story. The jury was hung with a 10 to 2 vote for acquittal.

Infoplease.com Almanac's Bio on "Fatty" Arbuckle
http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0759352.html
(Roscoe Arbuckle) 
actor, director
Born: 3/24/1877
Birthplace: Smith Center, Kansas

Profile of An American Scandal
http://www.phenry.org/text/arbuckle.txt

Biography, Bibliography, Essays & Links
http://www.silent-movies.com/Arbucklemania/
One of the geniuses of the silent cinema,
Roscoe Arbuckle is also the least understood.
Get to know him here...

Filmography
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Arbuckle,+Roscoe+%27Fatty%27

The Trial of Fatty Arbuckle
http://www.ralphmag.org/fatty.html
On September 17 Roscoe Arbuckle was arraigned in San Francisco charged with the rape and murder of Virginia Rappe. The legendary producer, Adolph Zukor (who footed the legal bill) tried to bring in the great trial lawyer, Earl Rogers, father of Adela, but Rogers was in ill health and couldn't take the case.

Harry Thaw Trials (1907-08)

The Trial of the Century
www.crimelibrary.com/classics/white/9.htm
Even though the twentieth century had only begun, newspapers dubbed Henry K. Thaw’s murder trial “The Trial of the Century.”  Muckrakers dug up all sorts of stories about White’s lascivious behavior with young women. Competing papers found young girls that insisted White was a perfect gentleman. The famous moralist Anthony Comstock firmly sided with Thaw, saying that America would be better off with more men like Thaw.  President Roosevelt followed the case carefully. 
 
 

Famous trials force society to face its ills
http://www.dailyherald.com/special/crossingcenturies/2a/6rest.asp
A jostling mob of journalists swarmed the courthouse. Photographers snapped away. This murder trial would be "reported to the ends of the civilized globe," one paper said.  The defendant was a millionaire. The motive was jealous rage. The crime was bloody.  This was the Trial of the Century - and it was only 1907.

Evelyn Nesbit with tiger skin postcard
http://www.sfnorthbeach.com/ann/ann11.jpg

Evelyn Nesbit with polar bear skin postcard
http://www.monmouth.com/~mconner/evelyn.jpg

Chapter One of E.L. Doctorow's "Ragtime"
http://members.aol.com/wamozart92/chapter1.html
"Mother's Younger Brother was in love with Evelyn Nesbit. He had closely followed the scandal surrounding her name and had begun to reason that the death of her lover Stanford White and the imprisonment of her husband Harry K."

Stanford White and Friends Have a Big Night Out
http://cgi1.geocities.com/Hollywood/Lot/5759/piegirl/piedex.html

Evelyn Nesbit
http://evelynnesbit.com/
As a sixteen year old girl, model, actress and Gibson Girl Evelyn Nesbit was debauched by prominent New York architect, Stanford White. On June 25, 1906, White paid for taking Evelyn's virginity when her new husband, the wild millionaire Harry K. Thaw, took White's life on the rooftop garden of Madison Square Garden.

More on Stanford White
http://www.lihistory.com/6/hs618a.
Thaw's two trials gave ample opportunity to savor the exposure of the ``satin-lined sins of the rich.'' The first trial ended in a hung jury. At the second one, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was committed to a mental institution -- from which he later escaped. (He was recaptured in Canada, pronounced sane in 1915 but was recommitted after he horsewhipped a teenaged boy.)

From PBS: The Uprising of 1741
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/newyork/laic/episode1/topic3/e1_t3_s3-up.html
"During the trial, the judge spoke with Mary Burton, a white indentured servant. Even though Mary's stories were full of contradictions, she told the government what they wanted to hear: that the fires were part of a "Negro plot." (To encourage her to testify, the government promised to free her from her indenture.)" Includes a Video Clip (QuickTime)
 
 

Photo: http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Classroom/9912/veseyprosser.html
 
 

The New-York Conspiracy, or a history of theNegro plot (Excerpt)
http://www.yale.edu/glc/archive/895.htm

"The parties accused of the conspiracy were numerous, and business by degrees multiplied so fast upon the grand jury, which bore the burthen of this inquiry, that there would have been an immediate necessity for others to have lent a helping hand in taking examinations from the beginning, if the judges had not found it expedient to examine the persons accused, upon their first taking into custody, whereby it seemed most likely the truth would bolt out, before they had time to cool, or opportunity of discoursing in the jail with their confederates, who were before committed."

 
 

The Rise of Slavery
http://www.lihistory.com/3/hs313a.htm

"Thirteen black men burned to death at the stake. Seventeen black men hanged. Two white men and two white women also hanged. All thirty-four were executed in New York City between May 11 and August 29, 1741, as part of the episode early New Yorkers called the ``Great Negro Plot,'' or the ``New York Conspiracy.'' "

Photo: The Granger Collection
19th Century engraving depicts the execution of a slave in 1747 following rumors of a conspiracy in New York City. Below, an illustration shows Africans packed into a cargo hold of a ship. The space shown is only 3 feet, 3 inches high
 
 
 
 

[PDF] These Enemies of their Slaves in 18th Cent
www.nnp.org/project/ABAFP/6.3.pdf
Complete with Tables and Notes
 
 

THE NEW YORK STATE FREEDOM TRAIL
COMMISSION REPORT: HISTORIC BACKGROUND
"In the alleged "Negro Plot" of 1741, thirty-two black men were executed in lower Manhattan for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government. Thirteen were burned at the stake and eighteen hanged in the vicinity of New York’s City Hall Park. So intent are local authorities to make examples of the convicted men that their bodies are left hanging on public display for several days and weeks. Slave unrest occurred upstate as well as in New York City. Several blacks in Kingston, New York, were charged with conspiring to burn down the city in the Slave Conspiracy of 1775."

The (New York) Negro Law (excerpts)
http://users.erols.com/bcccsbs/nylaw.htm

"The Negro Law of 1740 was enacted in the colony of New York as a consequence of an uprising in 1712 in which African-Americans appeared in arms."

The Trial of Caesar (Vaarck's) and Prince (Auboyneau's) (excerpts)
http://users.erols.com/bcccsbs/caesar.htm

"Caesar and Prince were arraigned on two indictments on April 24, 1741: the one for their entering the dwelling house of Robert Hogg, of this city, merchant, on the first day of March then last past, with intent then and there to commit some felony;.... The other for their entering the dwelling house of Abraham Meyers Cohen in this city, merchant, on the first day of March with intent then and there to commit some felony:.... To each of these indictments they pleaded not guilty."

The Trial of John Hughson, Sarah his wife, and Sarah his daughter. (excerpts)
http://users.erols.com/bcccsbs/hughson.htm

"John Hughson, Sarah, and his daughter Sarah on the indictment on June 4,1741; for the coaxing and counseling the negro Cufee, to burn Mr. Philipe's storehouse. To the indictments they all pleaded not guilty."