Christa Pike's scheduled Sept. 30 execution marked the first time in more than 200 years that the state of Tennessee planned to put a female prisoner to death.
The state executed three women between 1807 and 1819. All were Black. Two were enslaved. Scant details are available for any of the three cases.
Mary Holcomb was hanged on March 20, 1807 after being convicted of murder. She was the first woman the state of Tennessee executed, according to records. Public archives contain few details about Holcomb or the case.
An enslaved Black woman whose name was never recorded in official execution records was hanged in 1808. Historians note that because enslaved people were treated as property rather than individuals under the law, her identity was omitted
from the historical record.
Another enslaved Black woman was convicted of murder and hanged in 1819, records show. As with the woman put to death in 1808, her name wasn't recorded in official records.
The 2023 report "Doomed to Repeat: The Legacy of Race in Tennessee’s Contemporary Death Penalty," notes a number of legal disparities.
"Historically, there were 13 offenses for which Black people in Tennessee could receive the death penalty, compared to just two offenses for white citizens," reads the report, published by the Death Penalty Information Center.
"The Tennessee Slave Code of 1858 — which compiled all state laws relevant to slavery that were passed or revised following the state’s creation in 1796 — outlined 13 offenses for which Black people, both enslaved and free, could receive a death sentence. Eleven of these offenses carried a mandatory death sentence, and two provided a discretionary death sentence. From the beginning, the administration of the death penalty was largely dependent on the race of the defendant."
Pike, 50, was sentenced for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, 18. Pike was 18 at the time of the crime.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee has executed 3 other women, all in the 1800s. All 3 were Black, 2 enslaved
