Punishment of Slaves (1000) - essay i wrote for Word Encyopedia of slavery

The study of slavery is incomplete without an examination of the consequences slaves suffered while yielding towards the human tendency to be free. Slavery can be described as the condition in which one human is the personal property of another. The European form of slavery differed from others in that their masters’ family and as a worker with rights. Slavery under Islam was quite different from European slavery. Muslims had to abide by a religious code of treatment for slaves as ordered by the Koran.

Given that the role of slaves in the western world was clearly demarcated by the master’s ability to successfully strip slaves of their active, collective, and individual personalities by treating and thinking of them as less than human, the punishment of slaves evolved into a significant part of the institution. The psychological benefits included the maintenance of the system as well as lucrative profits generated by fre labor. However, such psychological and physical oppression could neither be implemented or maintained without the use of brute force, mob violence, and punishment. The basic historical picture of the punishment of slaves has focused on the lash. The lash in the hands of white masters embodied the concept of slavery, for it was intended to represent a relationship that would deprive the slave owner of labor. Public floggings were used to degrade, discipline, and deter slaves from engaging in activities that masters perceived as disruptive to the public good of whites. The practice of punishing slaves seemed to have no relationship to the crime but more so he ability to maintain control and embed fear.

This was merely a reflection of the trail established at the start of the Transatlantic slave trade to the colonies. Extending the boundaries of an European world view through the slave trade lead to the conception of Africans as distinctly being an inferior creature. Because of this belief, Africans and other indigenous populations were treated like chattel. Workhouse irons and brands were common as were laws that reinforced the inferiority of slaves justified cruel and unusual punishment for minor offenses. For example, slaves were not allowed to leave their master’s property without slips of papers and could not meet in large groups, carry weapons, or hit a white person. At the same time, however, slave masters were free to impart punishment whenever and however it was deemed necessary without legal persecution. Where large numbers of slaves were concentrated, white men were required to form patrols. Slaves were also punished for playing with white children, running away, being disobedient, and committing crimes against the Sabbath, such as selling liquor on Sunday. 1 A common punishment for slaves who had attained reading or writing skills was amputation. Slave narratives indicate that the removal of a finger from the joint was considered a warning for stealing a book and that beheading was punishment for a repeat offense.2 Slaves could also be punished by death if they attempted to harm others. However, the basic punishment for most offenses was based on Hebraic law and required a whipping of approximately 39 lashes.

One case which occurred in 1640 in Virginia, saw 3 slaves (one white) punished for running away. The white man had the terms of his labor extended for 4 years while an African named John Punch, was endeared to work for his master for the remainder of his life. In Richmond, VA, a slave could receive nearly 40 lashes for stealing a pair of boots (1825). In the city, there are countless accounts of burning slaves on selected parts of the anatomy as well. Looking at the example of New York rebellions in 1741, we see that slaves were denied legal counsel and that the authorities expressed regret that nothing more extreme was available than hanging or burning Africans at the stake. Consequently, eighteen were hanged and thirteen burned alive the stake.3 After the Virginia slave conspiracy said to have been organized by Gabrielle Prosser, at least 25 slaves had been ordered to death by the courts of Virginia. Outside of particular punishment of slaves, history is ripe with accounts of random murder. Gilberto Freyre often reported rampant murders of African Slaves by colonialists in Brazil.4

The historical records are also replete with evidence regarding the psychological aspect of the punishment of slaves. As mentioned, fatherhood nor marriage was recognized by whites on the behalf of slaves since it would impinge upon the concept of property rights.5 Slave narratives are abundant with descriptive punishments for slaves. One woman recalled a slave boy who had killed his master had received a swift trail by 6 white men and, upon his confession, they took an ax and cut off his head. Another account regards a blacksmith who pu5t crooked nails in the shoes of white men’s horses so, if they belonged to the Ku Klux Klan, he could tell who the members were. After telling on the Klan members, the Klan killed him. Another tells of whites taking slaves to the Turk Creek bridge in South Carolina, lining the slaves up, and shooting them off of the bridge. Another reference to her mother being punished by fifty lashes when she refused to obey her white master.6

It is obvious that the punishment of slaves in the new world by their masters was brutal and inhuman in most respects. Punishment was a means by which slave owners and the institution of slavery was maintained in order to maximize the economic context singled out by Europeans as being the prevailing factor in determining the manner in which slaves were treated. Punishment was implemented for a range of so-called crimes that facilitated slave owners’ ability to hold other men and women in perpetual bondage.

1 Belinda Hurmence, Before Freedom: When I Just Can Remember. (John Blair: Winstom-Salem), 1989, 121.
2 Janet Cornelius, We slipped and learned to read: slave accounts of the literacy process, 1830-1865, Phylon 44(3), 171-186, 1983.
3 Daniel Horsmanden, The New York Conspiracy, ed. Thomas Davis, (Boston, 1971)

4 Gilberto Freyre, The masters and the slaves, (New York, 1956)

5 Fredric Bancroft, Slave trading in the old South (Baltimore: J.H. Furet, 1931), 197.

6 Belinda Hurmence, Before Freedom: When I Just Can Remember. (John Blair: Winstom-Salem), 1989, 6-31.