Four Centuries of capitol punishment in the United States.

Execution and execution rates for the last 4 centuries. Capital crimes varied from century to century and witches, thieves and other non-murderous criminals got executed. Many of the death penalty crimes are no longer in existance like piracy and horse thief.

Also note that execution by hanging is not the same as lynching. In those times there were thousands of lynchings that were not a legal form of execution and most, I would imagine are not well documented with the words “not legal” being key. The difference between murder and lynching is that lynching is done by a group of people (3 or more) and is done “in the name of justice”… Well, the definition of justice for the 3 people doing it. A community murder, so to speak, vigilante justice.

Between 1607 and 1708 only 34% of the 191 documented executions were for murder. At the same time, 24% of those executed were women.

In the next 300 years many more executions were documented. There are close to 15k executions that have been documented in the US and its territories within the last 4 centuries.

Execution rates by race:

 

White 5,903 - Black 7,084 (1,749 slaves) - Hispanic 295
Native Americans 353 - Asians 142 - Unknown 700+

Even with those numbers, the executions in many other countries may be much higher than in the US and many countries use execution methods that were not normally used in the US.

Below is a list of executions by state with the total number of executed prisoners in the state. There is a list that is broken down by crimes for executions that are not for murder.

Even though in modern times, most people only get the death penalty for murder with some exceptions, it the 1600’s - to 1960’s that was not the case with crimes such as witchcraft, robbery, adultery, theft, piracy, espionage, revolts and riots also getting a death penalty sentance.

Mary Johnson hung for witchcraft 1649

Caesar Morin white male burned for a slave revolt in 1712

Aberaham Doan hanged in chains (gibbet) for gang activities and guerilla tactics in 1788, Pennsylvania

Charles Harris Hung in chains for piracy in Rhode Island in 1723.

You can see the full list of criminals and the method of execution.

I didn’t realize gang activities went this far back… hmm

They also had a few different methods of executions

If you read the very long executions list you will see execution manner called gibbet.Gibbet usually refers to a gallows-type structure from which the dead bodies of executed criminals were hanged on public display to deter other existing or potential criminals. It can also be used as a verb, denoting the action of placing criminals in gibbets. This practice is also called “hanging in chains”.In some stories a gibbet is a small cage where slaves were hung for a month (depending on their “crime”) without food, water or any other thing needed for survival. Early plantation owners in Jamaica would put them in a gibbet and let the local animals eat the slave while they were still alive .So that the public display might be prolonged, bodies were sometimes coated in tar and/or bound in chains. Sometimes, body-shaped iron cages were used to contain the decomposing corpses. For example, in March 1743 in the town of Rye, East Sussex, Allen Grebell was murdered by John Breads. Breads was imprisoned in the Ypres Tower and then hanged, after which his body was left to rot for more than 20 years in an iron cage on Gibbet Marsh. The cage and Breads’ skull are still kept in the Town Hall.Some in the list are executed by breaking wheel. Breaking on the wheel was a form of torturous execution formerly in use, especially in ancient Greece (where it originated), France, Germany, Sweden, and Russia.In France the condemned were placed on a cart-wheel with their limbs stretched out along the spokes over two sturdy wooden beams. The wheel was made to slowly revolve, and a large hammer or an iron bar was then applied to the limb over the gap between the beams, breaking the bones. This process was repeated several times per limb. Sometimes it was ‘mercifully’ ordered that the executioner should strike the criminal on chest and stomach, blows known as coups de grâce (French: “blow of mercy”), which caused lethal injuries, leading to the end of the torture by death; without those, the broken man could take hours, even days, before shock and dehydration caused death. In France, a special grace, called the retentum, could be granted, by which the condemned was strangled after the second or third blow, or in special cases, even before the breaking began.

Afterwards, the condemned’s shattered limbs were woven (’braiden’) through the spokes of the wheel which was then hoisted onto a tall pole, so that birds could eat the sometimes still-living individual.

Legend has it that Saint Catherine of Alexandria was to be executed on one of these devices, which thereafter became known as the Catherine wheel, also used as an iconographic attribute.

Seems the most popular execution method through the centuries was the hanging

Totals 1608 to 1991

HANGING 9321 63.69%
SHOT 142 0.97%
ELECTROCUTION 4365 29.83%
ASPHYXIATION-GAS 587 4.01%
BURNED 66 0.45%
INJECTION 56 0.38%
BREAK ON WHEEL 12 0.08%
BLUDGEONED 2 0.01%
PRESSING 1 0.01%
HUNG IN CHAINS 9 0.06%
GIBBETTED 6 0.04%
OTHER 24 0.16% 43 0.29%

TOTAL 14634

You can check out the breakdown of death penalty crimes.