M. M. Shafter – Riddicksville, NC, and Edenton, GA, 1839

Mr. M. M. SHAFTER, of Townsend, Vermont, recently a graduate of the Wesleyan University at Middletown, Connecticut, makes the following statement:

     "Some of the events of the Southampton, Va. insurrection were narrated to me by Mr. Benjamin W. Britt, from Riddicksville, N. C. Mr. Britt claimed the honor of having shot a black on that occasion, for the crime of disobeying Mr. Britt's imperative 'Stop!' And Mr. Ashurst, of Edenton, Georgia, told me that a neighbor of his 'fired at a likely negro boy of his mother,' because the said boy encroached upon his premises."

From Theodore Dwight Weld, American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses (New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1839), p. 91.