John Bass (Execution of)

John Bass was an Alabama slaveowner who was hanged in Arkansas in 1858 for robbing and murdering a tax collector.

John Bass went to Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, from his home in Pickens County in early February 1855 to purchase a Black man. When heading home, “by violent and cruel treatment, [he] caused the death” of the enslaved man.

A coroner’s inquest held later that month in Tuscaloosa County implicated him in the death, and Bass surrendered to the county sheriff. A hearing before county magistrates “was very protracted, and resulted in Bass being held to bail in the sum of $10,000. He obtained the necessary security.” Bass received a change of venue to Pickens County, where he was acquitted “by an enlightened jury.”

In May 1856, a Tuscaloosa newspaper reported that Bass “has murdered another negro…under circumstances of extreme aggravation. We do not know the particulars, and merely state a rumor.” Later reports indicated that Bass whipped the man to death.

After that killing, Bass fled to Arkansas and at some point, likely in the spring or summer of 1858, was arrested in the robbery and murder of a tax collector in the state. While no accounts of the trial appear to exist, he was convicted and sentenced to hang. “While on the gallows,” an Alabama newspaper reported, citing someone who had been at the hanging, “he confessed that after he left Alabama he murdered three men for their money, besides the one for committing which he was executed,” and “he met the fate he had so long justly merited.”

While Bass’s execution was reported by newspapers in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Kentucky, no accounts appear to have been written in the Arkansas press.

For additional information:
“Alabama Matters.” Weekly Advertiser [Montgomery, Alabama], February 21, 1855, p. 2.

“Bass, The Negro Murderer.” Weekly Advertiser, May 7, 1856, p. 2.

Guardian [Louisville, Kentucky], August 14, 1858, p. 7, col. 2.

“Merited Punishment.” New Orleans Crescent, August 13, 1858, p. 2.

Prairie News [Okolona, Mississippi], August 5, 1858, p. 2, col. 5.

Mark K. Christ
Little Rock, Arkansas