Overview

In May of 1857, the body of Duncan Skinner was found in a strip of woods along the edge of the plantation near Natchez, Mississippi, where he worked as an overseer. Although a coroner's jury initially ruled his death to be accidental, an investigation organized by planters from the community concluded that he had been murdered by three slaves acting under instructions from John McCallin, an Irish carpenter. Now, almost a century and a half later, Michael Wayne has reopened the case to ask whether the men involved in the investigation arrived at the right verdict. Part essay on the art of historical detection, part seminar on the history of slavery and the Old South, Death of an Overseer is, above all, a murder mystery--a murder mystery that allows readers to sift through the surviving evidence themselves and come to their own conclusions about who killed Duncan Skinner and why.

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9780195140040

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Reviews

Death of an Overseer is far more than an engrossing tale about the Old South. It is at least as much a book about the writing of history.....For specialists in the field who are already familiar with the secondary literature Wayne marshals, this book is an exciting high-wire act. Time and again I found myself asking whether he could explain things to the uninitiated...while also engaging those who have already invested in the field. In my judgment, he succeeds brilliantly....Will quickly become required reading in courses on the Old South--and in courses that explore the way historians practice their craft. --Journal of American History A very distinctive, creative, and intriguing book that is a hybrid of several genres: part monograph, part mystery novel, and part manual for historical research and interpretive analysis.....Wayne's observations about the historian's craft seem eminently sensible and significant, and his explanatory style is apt and engaging....This book effectively conveys important ideas about the practice of history, while simultaneously telling a fascinating, though frustratingly incomplete, story about a murder in the Old South. --American Historical Review Michael Wayne has written a genuine old-South detective thriller-but this one happens to be true. Death of an Overseer not only unravels the mystery of who murdered Duncan Skinner and why; it also reveals new insights into the nature of slavery and race relations in the nineteenth-century South. --James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom

Death of an Overseer will appeal to the historian and the general reader alike. --American Studies Online Today<br> Michael Wayne has written a genuine old-South detective thriller-but this one happens to be true. Death of an Overseer not only unravels the mystery of who murdered Duncan Skinner and why; it also reveals new insights into the nature of slavery and race relations in the nineteenth-century South. --James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom<br> Death of an Overseer is far more than an engrossing tale about the Old South. It is at least as much a book about the writing of history.....For specialists in the field who are already familiar with the secondary literature Wayne marshals, this book is an exciting high-wire act. Time and again I found myself asking whether he could explain things to the uninitiated...while also engaging those who have already invested in the field. In my judgment, he succeeds brilliantly....Will quickly become required reading in courses on the Old South--and in courses that explore the way historians practice their craft. --Journal of American History<br> A very distinctive, creative, and intriguing book that is a hybrid of several genres: part monograph, part mystery novel, and part manual for historical research and interpretive analysis.....Wayne's observations about the historian's craft seem eminently sensible and significant, and his explanatory style is apt and engaging....This book effectively conveys important ideas about the practice of history, while simultaneously telling a fascinating, though frustratingly incomplete, story about a murder in the Old South. --American Historical Review<br> Sex, race, slavery, andmurder provide a rich mix in Wayne's deft deconstruction of the violent death of a Mississippi overseer. This finely textured volume echoes elements of Faulkner, with its characters entangled by passion, greed, and betrayal. Wayne not only skillfully excavates evidence from the nineteenth century, he also takes us behind the scenes of a twentieth-century historical investigation, offering up doubts, deductions, and imaginative speculation. --Catherine Clinton, author of Fanny Kemble's Civil Wars<br>

"""Death of an Overseer is far more than an engrossing tale about the Old South. It is at least as much a book about the writing of history...For specialists in the field who are already familiar with the secondary literature Wayne marshals, this book is an exciting high-wire act. Time and again I found myself asking whether he could explain things to the uninitiated...while also engaging those who have already invested in the field. In my judgment, he succeeds brilliantly...Will quickly become required reading in courses on the Old South--and in courses that explore the way historians practice their craft.""--Journal of American History ""A very distinctive, creative, and intriguing book that is a hybrid of several genres: part monograph, part mystery novel, and part manual for historical research and interpretive analysis...Wayne's observations about the historian's craft seem eminently sensible and significant, and his explanatory style is apt and engaging...This book effectively conveys important ideas about the practice of history, while simultaneously telling a fascinating, though frustratingly incomplete, story about a murder in the Old South.""--American Historical Review ""Michael Wayne has written a genuine old-South detective thriller-but this one happens to be true. Death of an Overseer not only unravels the mystery of who murdered Duncan Skinner and why; it also reveals new insights into the nature of slavery and race relations in the nineteenth-century South.""--James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom ""Overseer is not only a great mystery story, but Wayne has written a lively, evocative history of slavery and plantation life that keenly illustrates his arguments. Above all, [the book] is a vivid reminder that the study of history is more than a staid recollection of the past, but a dynamic and timeless exploration of human nature.""--Booklist ""A good historian must have not only a thorough knowledge of the past, but also the instincts of a detective, the insight of a psychologist and the literary skill of a gifted novelist. When these abilities are brought to bear on a particular historical problem, the results are invariably fascinating. Such is the case with Death of an Overseer.""--Mobile Register"

A comprehensive exploration of a bizarre, contested murder in the plantation South on the eve of the Civil War..Wayne ( The Reshaping of Plantation Society , not reviewed) describes an incident that obliquely dramatizes the cruelties and absurdities of the peculiar institution. Shortly after overseer Duncan Skinner was reported missing by the slaves of Clarissa Sharpe's plantation, a search party was organized and Skinner was found dead, apparently killed in a riding accident (or so a coroner's jury concluded). But local planters soon discovered that all the slaves believed a different story: namely, that three male slaves had killed the overseer for his money and arranged the scene. The three killers were accorded representation in what was essentially a show trial, and were then hanged. The local planters, however, attributed the conspiracy to a non-slave - owning white carpenter, John McAllin, who was believed to have had designs on Miss Sharpe. They subsequently threatened him with retaliatory violence via a newspaper ad that urged him to leave town. McAllin in turn asserted his innocence in an equally fiery ad that put the planters in an untenable position, as it struck at the severe class differences between slaveholders and white laborers in the antebellum South. At the time, McAllin's culpability was generally accepted. Using many obscure primary-source documents, Wayne debates this thesis, pursuing alternative explanations that centered upon the need of pro-slavery whites to manipulate perceptions of their African chattel as alternately childlike and brutal, and maintain their authority over the restive group of impoverished whites represented by McAllin. He astutely concludes that Southern whites held to contradictory interpretations of black character and drew on them as circumstances and their own psychological needs dictated. .A fascinating history that faces still-difficult questions of injustice and responsibility.. (Kirkus Reviews)

Death of an Overseer is far more than an engrossing tale about the Old South. It is at least as much a book about the writing of history.....For specialists in the field who are already familiar with the secondary literature Wayne marshals, this book is an exciting high-wire act. Time and again I found myself asking whether he could explain things to the uninitiated...while also engaging those who have already invested in the field. In my judgment, he succeeds brilliantly....Will quickly become required reading in courses on the Old South--and in courses that explore the way historians practice their craft. --Journal of American History A very distinctive, creative, and intriguing book that is a hybrid of several genres: part monograph, part mystery novel, and part manual for historical research and interpretive analysis.....Wayne's observations about the historian's craft seem eminently sensible and significant, and his explanatory style is apt and engaging....This book effec

Author Information

Michael Wayne teaches history at University College, the University of Toronto. His first book, The Reshaping of Plantation Society, won multiple prizes, including the Francis Butler Simkins Award of the Southern Historical Association.

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