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Pregnancy was not a barrier to punishment; methods were devised to administer lashings without harming the baby. Enslavers would dig a hole big enough for the woman's stomach to lie in and proceed with the lashings. [15] Slave overseers were authorized to whip and punish enslaved people.
Torture of slaves in the United States was fairly common, as part of what many slavers claimed was necessary discipline. As one history put it, "Stinted allowance, imprisonment, and whipping were the usual methods of punishment; incorrigibles were sometimes 'ironed' or sold." [1]
Punishment and killing of slaves: Slave codes regulated how slaves could be punished, usually going so far as to apply no penalty for accidentally killing a slave while punishing them. [9] Later laws began to apply restrictions on this, but slave-owners were still rarely punished for killing their slaves. [ 10 ]
The harsh conditions on the frontier increased slave resistance and led owners and overseers to rely on violence for control. Many of the slaves were new to cotton fields and unaccustomed to the "sunrise-to-sunset gang labor" required by their new life. Slaves were driven much harder than when they had been in growing tobacco or wheat back
Fugitive slave Gordon during his 1863 medical examination in a U.S. Army camp. Enslavers often harshly punished those they successfully recaptured, such as by amputating limbs, whipping, branding, and hobbling. [13] Individuals who aided fugitive slaves were charged and punished under this law. In the case of Ableman v.
Slaves were occasionally rewarded for good behavior, but there was a belief that punishment was a more effective means of maintaining control. Punishments sometimes extended to include maiming, murder, rape, and the selling of loved ones, the last of these being often considered the most severe punishment.
Depiction of slave branding, from Illustrations of the American Anti-Slavery Almanac for 1840. In Louisiana, there was a "black code", or Code Noir, which allowed the cropping of ears, shoulder branding, and hamstringing, the cutting of tendons near the knee, as punishments for recaptured slaves. Slave owners used extreme punishments to stop ...
The iron bit, also referred to as a gag, was used by enslavers and overseers as a form of punishment on slaves in the Southern United States. The bit, sometimes depicted as the scold's bridle, uses similar mechanics to that of the common horse bit.