Bras Coupé is one of the most influential, yet most understudied, American folk characters. In around 1834, a one-armed enslaved man named Squire escaped into New Orleans's outlying swamps, captivating the city's attention by repeatedly eluding recapture. Rumor had it that he led a large band of fugitive slaves and had murdered countless whites. Locals nicknamed him Bras Coupé, French for severed arm.Following Squire's 1837 murder, slaves and enslavers circulated dynamic accounts of this disfigured man, murderous and magical, haunting a marshy lair. By the late nineteenth century, Squire's legendary counterpart had leapt from contested memory into literature, and renowned novelists, including
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