George Lewis (also known as Slave George or Lilburn Lewis' slave George) (b. 1794 - d. 15 December 1811) was an African American held as a slave; he was murdered in western Kentucky on the night of December 15-16, 1811 by Lilburn and Isham Lewis, grown sons of Dr. Charles Lilburn Lewis and Lucy Jefferson Lewis, and nephews of Thomas Jefferson.
Because of the violence of the case and the associated decline of the prominent Lewis family, accounts of it became part of local lore. Soon after being released on bail, Lilburn Lewis committed suicide. Jailed after his brother's death, Isham escaped and disappeared from the local area.
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George was born into slavery in 1794 in Virginia and held by the Lewis family. He grew up as a house slave and learned what was needed in the kitchen and other areas. When Randolph and Lilburne decided to move to Kentucky in 1806 with their families, they took their slaves with them, including George.
In early 1812, Lilburne and Isham Lewis were still in mourning for their mother and older brother Randolph, who had died the year before.[1][2] Lilburne had also lost his first wife in 1811. He had remarried a local woman named Letitia. She was pregnant with their first child by early 1812, and Lilburne was struggling during financial reversals to support his first five children.[3]
George was a 17-year-old slave held by Lilburne Lewis. Some accounts said that George had recently returned from a two-week "skulking session" (an absence from the farm).[3] Isham had come to Lilburne on an extended visit, and the brothers often used to drink together. That night they had been drinking and argued with George over his accidentally breaking a pitcher that belonged to their mother; angered, they killed him in front of seven other slaves[3], claiming they were "to set an example for any other uppity slaves."
Still mourning and angry,
The dismemberment of George's decapitated corpse was interrupted by the most powerful U.S. earthquake ever recorded, the Great New Madrid Earthquake, which struck at 3:15 a.m. Eastern time (2:15 a.m. in the Central Standard Time observed in the western Kentucky locale of the murder). Lilburne intended to destroy the evidence by having the slaves burn George's dismembered body, but the New Madrid earthquake caused the chimney to collapse around the fire. (They were likely in the kitchen cabin.) In the days afterward, the brothers made other slaves rebuild the chimney and hide the remains within it.[3] Two additional megaquakes jolted the region on January 23, 1812 and February 7, 1812. The second caused a partial collapse of the chimney that had concealed George's remains.[3]
In early March 1812, a neighborhood dog retrieved the young man's skull and deposited it in open view in a roadway. Neighbors saw the skull and began to inquire about it. They determined it was that of slave George, who was missing, and learned that he had been murdered. In slaveholding areas of the United States, the torturous murder of a slave was illegal.
Lilburne and Isham Lewis were quickly investigated, arrested and charged. After they were released on bail, on April 9, 1812, Lilburne encouraged his brother to carry out a joint suicide pact with him, but in the event, only Lilburne died. Held on investigation as accessory to the suicide, Isham escaped from jail and disappeared.[5][3][Note 1] Their father Charles was bereft, having lost his son Randolph and wife Lucy within the past two years, and suddenly confronted with caring for Lilburne's orphaned children as well as Randolph's. Letitia returned to her own family after the murder.
Many books and articles since 1812 have examined the case of slave George and Jefferson's nephews.[3] The historian Boynton Merrill, Jr. considered the case as arising out of the power abuses inherent in the institution of slavery, frontier stresses, mounting personal and financial losses in the Lewis family, mental instability of Lilburne, and abuse of alcohol by both brothers.[3] The poet and novelist Robert Penn Warren explored the scandal in his book-length poem Brother to Dragons, A Tale in Verse and Voices (1953, revised 1979).
The brothers were related to Meriwether Lewis of Lewis and Clark fame.[6]