Lynching and Land Ownership: What Became of the Land of Lynching Victims?

Mark Canavera, University of South Carolina

Historical sociologists who have constructed large datasets to analyze lynching in late 19th and early 20th century America have demonstrated a statistical correlation between farm ownership and the likelihood of lynching victimhood. Put simply, African American farm owners were more likely to be victims of lynching than their analogous community members who did not own land. Starting from that statistical premise and following Kidada Williams’s exhortation to focus on the impact of violence on lynching’s victims and their families, this study asks what happened to the land of those who were lynched. Using the statistical databases compiled by historical sociologists to identify farm-owning victims in South Carolina, the study turned to local registers of deeds to attempt to determine what happened to land owned by the victims of lynching over time. While asking whether lynching served to sever victims and their families from their landholdings, the study is also a methodological exploration probing whether land records are untapped source material for understanding the impact of lynching on African American families and communities in Jim Crow South Carolina.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 213. Mapping Racial Violence