Slave Punishments
The law provided slaves with no protection from their masters. On large plantations this power was delegated to overseers. I observed these men under considerable pressure from plantation owners to maximise profits. They did this by bullying slaves into increasing productivity. The most frequent punishment I witnessed against slaves judged to be under performing was whipping. Sometimes slave-owners resorted to mutilating and branding their slaves, and the death penalty was introduced for a whole range of offences. Plantation owners believed that this severe discipline would make the slaves too scared to rebel.
James Ramsay, a doctor working for several sugar plantations in Virginia, was shocked by the way the slaves were treated by the overseers. I managed to find his book, Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies (1784), in which he recalled, :”The ordinary punishment of slaves, for the common crimes of neglect, absence from work, eating the sugar cane, and theft are cart whipping, beating with a stick, the chain, an iron crook about the neck, a ring about the ankle, and confinement in the dungeon. Their have been instances of slitting of ears, breaking of limbs, so as to make amputation necessary, beating out of eyes, and castration. In place of decency, morality and religion, slavery produces cruelty and oppression.”
James Ramsay, a doctor working for several sugar plantations in Virginia, was shocked by the way the slaves were treated by the overseers. I managed to find his book, Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies (1784), in which he recalled, :”The ordinary punishment of slaves, for the common crimes of neglect, absence from work, eating the sugar cane, and theft are cart whipping, beating with a stick, the chain, an iron crook about the neck, a ring about the ankle, and confinement in the dungeon. Their have been instances of slitting of ears, breaking of limbs, so as to make amputation necessary, beating out of eyes, and castration. In place of decency, morality and religion, slavery produces cruelty and oppression.”
Harriet Jacobs explained in her book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861): “There was a jail and whipping post on my planter’s grounds, and the cruelties perpetrated there passed without comment. He was so effectively screened by his great wealth that he was called to no account for his crimes, not even for murder. A favourite punishment was to tie a rope around a man’s body, and suspend him from the ground. A fire was kindled over him, from which was suspended a piece of pork fat. As this cooked, the scalding drops of fat continually fell on the bare flesh.”