How fortunate are we to live in a time where we don’t have to fear gruesome punishments like mutilation, public burnings, suffocation, or countless other torturous methods for even the simplest actions. Human dignity is a right, but a right that slaves throughout history unfortunately did not possess. They were treated as property, subjected to unimaginable cruelty, and denied the most fundamental freedoms that we often take for granted today. We seek to expose those truths as we reveal the most disgusting, the most dehumanizing punishments inflicted upon black bodies during the era of slavery. Prepare to be horrified, prepare to be outraged, but most importantly, prepare to never forget. I must warn you, though, the knowledge you’re about to learn is quite disturbing, so please take caution. That said, here are 10 of the most disgusting punishments for blacks during slavery.
Number one: whipping and salting. In March of 1863, a man named Peter escaped from slavery on a Louisiana plantation. The journey was dangerous, but he eventually found safety among Union soldiers in Baton Rouge before joining a black regiment. Military doctors examined him only to discover something extremely horrifying: his back was covered with severe and protruding scars, a result of continuous brutal whippings from his former overseer.
Peter had been the legal property of Captain John Lions of St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. It’s even more disturbing when you consider that the slaveholder not only ran his plantation in what might seem like a place associated with purity and holiness, but also owned 38 slaves at that time. Who knows what else he did or permitted his slave overseers to do to all of them. In America, slaves, including pregnant women and children, were often whipped as punishment.
The St. Louis Republican even reported an incident in which a slave owner had his 8-year-old female slave whipped to death in 1844. The actions of the owner went unpunished. However, some owners weren’t even content with whipping. When their slaves’ wounds began to heal, these owners ordered that the wounds be split open and that products such as red pepper and turpentine be applied to the gashes. According to some accounts, “one owner even ground a brick into rubble and dust, mixed it with lard and had it rubbed into the wounds of a slave.” The pain was excruciating.
The November 12th, 1863, letter from the Bostonian discusses Peter’s case, whose lacerated back in a photograph stirred widespread sympathy and outrage among humanitarian circles. Peter, speaking broken English and primarily French, recounted his escape and revealed horrific details of the abuse inflicted by overseer Artheon Carrier. Not only had Peter been violently whipped, but “all of his wounds were also wiped with salt brine.” This practice of whipping and salting of wounds, along with other torturous methods like turpentine and hot pepper juice, was sadly common among enslaved individuals punished for various reasons deemed appropriate by their overseers or owners. Unfortunately, some slaves even got whipped even when they did nothing wrong to their masters. In order to prevent any potential defiance, slave owners may sometimes whip their slaves before any offense was even committed. This was seen as a way “to break their spirit and prevent future transgressions.”
Number two: mutilation. The mutilation of slaves was another cruel act often implemented under the guise of punishment or even allegedly done for the slave’s personal well-being. However, historical records reveal that such acts were far more about brutality than rehabilitation. For instance, Captain Philip Eloy was known to “break the teeth of female slaves deemed disobedient,” only demonstrating the horrific lengths to which slave owners would go to exert control.
Mutilation was often an equally horrifying fate as death itself. During the Middle Passage, ship captains would resort to beheading recaptured slaves who attempted to escape, using their gruesome deaths as a warning to others. And in the harsh conditions of sugar plantations, slaves who succumbed to exhaustion and fell asleep in the mill might have a limb cut off as an example to other slaves of “the dangers of falling asleep on the job.”
But even those practices were not nearly as horrendous as other instances. Moses Roper, who had lived as a slave in Carolinas and Georgia, recalls in his narrative that his master “poured tar on his head and face and set him on fire before clamping the fingers of his hand in a vice, removing his fingernails and having another man smash his toes with a sledgehammer.” Roper survived to tell the tale, but not everyone is as lucky.
Number three: tying and burning in hot grease. Born in 1813, Harriet Jacobs was frequently the victim of brutal violence from her master. Fortunately, she was able to escape slavery and wrote about her experiences in her book called “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.” She tells of a slaveholder called Mr. Litch. He was a very wealthy man who had 600 slaves. Various forms of punishment were inflicted on those slaves. However, according to Harriet, a common punishment employed was “to tie a rope around the slave’s body and suspend him from the ground. A fire was kindled beneath them with a piece of fat pork suspended above. As the pork cooked, scalding drops of fat continually fell on the bare flesh, causing continuous and extreme pain.” Knowing that Mr. Litch had hundreds of slaves, who knows how many of them had to endure this awful torture.
Number four: Hog’s head. We go back to the account of Moses Roper, who suffered and witnessed many forms of cruel punishments while enslaved. Having been in the habit of going over many slave states with his master, Roper had many opportunities of witnessing the harsh treatment adopted by masters towards their slaves. After escaping slavery, Roper wrote a book detailing the torture and indignities endured by American slaves, including the sadistic pleasure some owners took in corporal punishment.
According to Roper, there was a slaveholder who went by the name of Colonel McQuiller. “This man would hammer nails into a large barrel, typically known as a Hogshead, and leave the nail points protruding inside. The slaves were then stuffed into these barrels and rolled down long, steep hills while the owner and other slaves watched.” With this torturous punishment, the man was able to kill seven of his slaves. Roper states that “this form of punishment was first adopted by a man named Mr. Perry and had been adopted by several other slaveholders thereafter.”
Number five: the Virginia play. Escaped slave William Wells Brown discussed a certain form of punishment he encountered in Virginia during slavery. Brown was hired out to Major Freeland, a violent and abusive man. Working in Major Freeland’s household, which doubled as a public house, meant enduring constant threats and physical abuse. The Major’s fits of anger often escalated to throwing chairs at his servants. However, the Major’s preferred method of discipline involved “tying them up and subjecting them to brutal whippings in a smokehouse. He would then create a fire from tobacco stems to suffocate and smoke the slaves as further punishment.” He called this “the Virginia play.”
Despite Brown’s complaints to his own master about Major Freeland’s cruelty, no intervention was made as long as his master continued to receive money from his labor. Desperate to escape the relentless torment, Brown fled into the woods but was swiftly tracked down by bloodhounds, captured, and returned to Major Freeland. He endured the very punishment he witnessed time and time again during his stay at the Major’s: severe whipping followed by the painful smoking ritual in the smokehouse. After giving him what the Major conceived to be sufficient smoking, “Brown was untied and immediately set again to work.”
Number six: public burning. Throughout history, punishments inflicted on slaves were often public spectacles intended to instill fear and obedience in other enslaved individuals. These gruesome displays were even attended by neighboring towns people as a form of entertainment. Among the most horrifying methods of punishment was public burning, where victims were either tied to a stake or hung above a fire. Some died from smoke inhalation before the flames reached them, while others “suffered unimaginable burning agony until death finally provided release.”
One such instance is the tale of a slave named Jerry in 1830. Jerry was burned in an open field with thousands of spectators. The scene included a large pile of pitch pine logs and kindling where he was chained to a stake. Despite the inhumane circumstances, Jerry reportedly “prayed audibly as the flames consumed him,” and his execution became notorious as the last recorded instance of burning a slave in South Carolina. Why did he receive such a punishment, you may wonder? Well, Jerry was charged with the abuse of the wife of his subcontracted master, a heavy sin indeed. While such an act is inexcusable, we also cannot excuse the fact that if a white man had done the same, he would have received a lighter punishment, and in cases where they abused enslaved women, there might not even be a trial at all. Jerry’s case, while legally sanctioned, is proof of the unequal application of justice at the time, where a black man faced the ultimate punishment for a crime that a white man would have received a lesser sentence for.
Number seven: branding. Branding refers to searing the flesh with a heated metal instrument. This type of torture was typically done to denote ownership during the era of black slavery. Large companies often branded their slaves to make them easily identifiable and to prevent the theft and resale of slaves. Ironically, these brands later served as bodily evidence of the practice when companies denied its existence.
In Louisiana, the Code Noir even legalized branding as a punishment for runaway slaves, with New Orleans becoming one of the largest slave markets in America in the 19th century. This decree subjected countless individuals to this brutal practice. Branding was especially prevalent in the South, where runaway slaves often had a letter or symbol seared into their face as punishment. This usually prevented that person from being assigned to any house or serving work. An advertisement for a runaway slave was published in the North Carolina Standard on 28th of July, 1838, stating, “$20 reward. The woman is tall and black and a few days before she went off, burnt her on the left side of her face with the letter M.” Another newspaper reported that a wealthy man from St. Louis had branded his slave Reuben with the words “a slave for life.”
Number eight: chaining. Throughout the history of slavery, chains were a ubiquitous tool of oppression. Captive Africans were shackled together on slave ships, while repeat runaways were often chained to their work or to other slaves. Madame Delphine LaLaurie, a famous socialite at the time, became infamous for her cruelty to slaves, using chains as instruments of torture.
In 1834, a fire broke out at Madame LaLaurie’s residence. During efforts to extinguish the fire and ensure the safety of the occupants, rescuers rushed forth, unaware of the horrors concealed within the mansion’s depths. From there, multiple enslaved individuals were found in a torturous state, “suspended by their necks with their limbs stretched and torn by chains.” This haunting incident sparked outrage in New Orleans and beyond. Soon after, a mob gathered, enraged by the discovery of the enslaved individual’s mistreatment; they destroyed the mansion’s furnishings and property in protest against the LaLaurie’s actions. While the exact details and number of enslaved victims vary in historical accounts, the gruesome discovery at Madame LaLaurie’s mansion truly paints a horrifying picture of the extreme cruelty and suffering inflicted through the use of chains on enslaved people.
Number nine: demotion and sale. While demotion and sale may seem less brutal than other punishments inflicted upon enslaved people, these actions could lead to devastating outcomes, even death. George Washington, a proponent of corporal punishment such as whipping, also advocated for demotion and sale as means of discipline.
In 1793, Washington instructed his farm manager to threaten, “a bricklayer whose work ethic was called into question with a transfer to farm labor.” For enslaved individuals working in domestic or skilled roles, demotion to fieldwork often meant harsher conditions, backbreaking labor, and increased exposure to violence. In extreme cases, slaves were sold to notoriously cruel owners who subjected them to relentless work, often leading to premature death. George Washington would often use this as a last resort. He would sell enslaved people to other plantations as punishment for repeated attempts to escape. He sold at least three men, “Tom, Wil, Shag, and Jack to the West Indies,” despite previously expressing opposition to the practice. For these men, being sold meant permanent separation from their loved ones at Mount Vernon, and the harsh conditions and high mortality rates on Caribbean sugar plantations likely made their sale a virtual death sentence.
Number 10: forced reproduction. Slaves often endured severe sex abuse without legal protections in place. Pregnant women resulting from such abuse rarely received medical care or special treatment; instead, they often faced harsher treatment from their master’s wives. Male slaves were frequently exploited by their owners, forced into relationships with various women. After the U.S. act prohibiting importation of slaves took effect in 1808, the South faced a shortage of slaves, leading to a booming internal slave market. This increased demand for slaves, with individuals often bought and sold based on their ability to bear children. Consequently, slaves were forced to reproduce with other slaves to increase offspring.
While there were slaves who typically had some say in choosing their partners, historical records indicate many instances where matches were made by the slaveholders based on physical traits. There were also instances where the slaveholders would forcibly turn female slaves into their mistresses and have children with them. A well-known example of this is the case of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Sally Hemings was a mixed-race enslaved woman who was owned by Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States. Despite having a white father, Sally was born into slavery because her mother was enslaved. This was a common occurrence as the law dictated that “a child’s status followed that of their mother, regardless of the father’s race or social standing.”
Thomas Jefferson had a long-term relationship with Sally, resulting in several children. Historical records suggest that this relationship began when Sally was a teenager and continued for many years. The power dynamic between Jefferson as a master and Hemings as his slave made it impossible for her to refuse his advances or decisions regarding her reproductive choices. We’ve just explored some of the most horrifying punishments inflicted on black slaves during the era of slavery. Although it’s a painful subject, we must remember and acknowledge the suffering endured during slavery to ensure such atrocities never happen again. By understanding our past, we can continue to value every human life with the dignity and respect it deserves.
