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Torture of slaves in the United States

"Said the wife of an ex-negro trader in Virginia to a freedmen who was skinning a live catfish, 'How can you be so cruel!'—'Why,' said the intelligent contraband, 'Dis is de way dey used to do me, and I'se gwine to get even wid somebody.'" (Waynesboro Record, Waynesboro, Penn., March 9, 1866)

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]

  1. ^ Flanders (1933), p. 149.

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