Alice Clifton

Alice Clifton (born ca. 1772) was an African-American woman enslaved by John Bartholomew in Philadelphia.[1] She was brought to trial on April 18, 1787, for the murder of her infant daughter, found guilty, and sentenced to death.[2] Following the sentence, a mob formed to prevent her execution out of protest for unjust circumstances because she was coerced into killing her baby by the father of the child, Jack Shaffer.[3] Clifton was between fifteen and sixteen years old at the time of the trial.[4] Clifton was mentioned in only one primary source known to date, the court record for her case.

  1. ^ Trial of Alice Clifton (Philadelphia: 1787): 1. Accessed 9 March 2016. Early American Imprints, Series 1, no. 20276. The American Antiquarian Society and Newsbank.
  2. ^ Trial of Alice Clifton, 1.
  3. ^ Jack Marietta and G.S. Rowe, Troubled Experiment: Crime and Justice in Pennsylvania, 1682-1800 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 259.
  4. ^ Marietta and Rowe, Troubled Experiment, 143.