Slave Punishment 1619-1865
Although the Constitution of the United Stales protected citizens from "cruel and unusual punishment' it did not protect the slaves who toiled in the plantation fields of the South. Slaves were not thought of as "citizens" but as property. Therefore many slaveholders felt free to punish their staves as they saw fit.
The various forms of punishment meted out to slaves had their origins in the colonial period, when English law was still in force. England's harsh punishments during the 1600s were transported to the colonies along with the prisoners who became some of America's earliest inhabitants.
These punishments included whipping, branding, ducking under water, and the use of imprisoning stocks. Mutilation - the cutting off of an ear or other appendage of a captured runaway slave - was also common.
These measures continued to be applied to slaves even after such punishments were no longer part of the American legal system. For even as slavery became an entrenched institution in the South, the rules governing the treatment of slaves were never codified. On plantations owned by harsh masters, slaves were continually punished for the slightest infractions. These punishments ran the gamut - from simply boxing the ears of a domestic servant for being too slow in fulfilling a request, to slapping, kicking, flogging (often 50 to 100 lashes), tarring and feathering, stringing up, branding, and other forms of mutilation.
Slaves who ran away were chased by savage dogs and, when caught, were often shackled with iron weights or tied to stakes. Sometime they were put over a barrel and beaten on the bare buttocks with special paddles that caused painful blisters. Floggings were often so severe that they left permanent scars.
Although slaves feared these forms of corporal punishment, one form of punishment was feared over all the others: the threat of being sold away from their families to a strange master in a strange place. This threat became a major weapon in the arsenal of slaveholders who sought absolute control over their slaves.
There were, of course, slave masters who recognised that less violent punishments were more effective in the long run, and who did not wish to physically harm their valuable property (the slaves). But the institution of slavery itself made punishment a necessity, and it was not until the system was destroyed that this cruel and unusual corporal punishment ended.