Table of Contents

Introduction - Capital Punishment and Colonial Rule: Race, Violence and ‘Civilization’ in British Africa
1. ‘The Extreme Penalty of the Law’: Law, Courts and Colonial Criminal Justice
2. The ‘Ultimate Deterrent’ in a Colonial Context? Contestations in Colonial Penal Regimes
3. To Hang or Not to Hang? Capital Sentencing, Constructions of Deviance, and the Prerogative of Mercy
4. Cultural Defence Narratives, African Agency and the Landscape of Mercy
5. Murder and the Maintenance of ‘Law and Order’: Colonial Violence and Capital Punishment
6. Shocking Crimes and Scandalous Punishments: Imperial Politics, Humanitarian Sentiment and the Death Penalty
7. ‘In a Humane and Decorous Manner’: Rituals of Execution from Public Executions to Death Row
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Promotional Information

A comparative study of capital cases in Colonial Kenya, the Gold Coast and Nyasaland to investigate the death penalty in colonized African communities and the peno-legal violence that underpinned colonial rule.

About the Author

Stacey Hynd is Senior Lecturer in African History at the University of Exeter, UK. Her publications include articles in Journal of African History, International Journal of Southern African Studies, Journal of Eastern African Studies, Journal of West African History, amongst others.