When I ran Steal Away Jordan, I found myself wanting more ways to punish slaves. After the third time of describing a horse-whipping, it loses its impact.
Can you think of some good ones? Not too weird, please: I want things I can use in a game.
My most obvious one was:
Beating the slave to a pulp with your bare hands, knowing they can't fight back.
And my most imaginative was:
Asking the slave to boil some milk, with the implicit threat that it will be thrown over them.
The last one made for a superbly dramatic moment, with the milk slowly coming to the boil. The punishment didn't actually happen, but the threat was there. It occurred after the slave had taught the family's child to boil milk and, later, the child had been found doing it alone.
You don't want to damage your slaves. They're your property, after all, you want them to be able to work.
You can overwork the slaves. Keep them only barely hydrated. Have a few jobs that are worse than others, and send the least obedient slaves to those jobs. Let them stay in the sun all day, doing hard physical work. Or in the mines, not seeing the sun for days. If they're salt mines, then wounds burn and never really heal.
You can go into psychological torture.
Tell them, if they work well enough, you'll free them. Or their child. Always put this off for later. If they misbehave, introduce them to an even worse master, who's even more abusive (physically and sexualy) and tell them later you are thinking of selling them/their child/their friend/their lover to that other master.
Let them know if they misbehave, their mother or best friend will be beaten. If their mother or friend are really old, you can threaten to kill them (it's not like they're doing any real work after all).
Mr. Gooch had a slave named Phil ... this man was between seventy and eighty years of age; he was so feeble that he could not accomplish his tasks, for which his master used to chain him round the neck, and run him down a steep hill; this treatment he never relinquished to the time of his death.
Another mode of punishment which this man adopted, was that of using iron horns, with bells, attached to the back of the slave's neck. The following is the instrument of torture (Picture of a woman with a tree-like thing attached to her head covered in bells) -- This instrument he used to prevent the negroes running away, being a very ponderous machine, several feet in height, and the cross pieces being two feet four, and six feet in length. This custom is generally adopted among the slave-holders in South Carolina, and other slave States.
A large farmer, Colonel McQuiller in Cashaw county, South Carolina, was in the habit of driving nails into a hogshead so as to leave the point of the nail just protruding in the inside of the cask; into this, he used to put his slaves for punishment, and roll them down a very long and steep hill. I have heard from several slaves, (though I had no means of ascertaining the truth of this statement,) that in this way he had killed six or seven of his slaves. This plan was first adopted by a Mr. Perry, who lived on the Catarba River, and has since been adopted by several planters.
Having been brought up as a domestic slave, he was not able to accomplish the task assigned to him. On the Saturday night, he left three or four rows to do on the Sunday; on the same night it rained very hard, by which the master could tell that he had done some of the rows on the Sunday; on Monday, his master took and tied him up to a tree in the field, and kept him there the whole of that day and flogged him at intervals. At night, when he was taken down, he was so weak that he could not get home, having a mile to go.
(After an escape attempt) IN this way we came to my old master, Mr. Gooch. The first person I saw was himself; he unchained me from the chaise, and at first seemed to treat me very gently, asking me where I had been, &c. The first thing the sons did was to show the rasp which I had got to cut my chain. My master gave me a hearty dinner, the best he ever did give me; but it was to keep me from dying before he had given me all the flogging he intended. After dinner he took me to a log-house, stripped me quite naked, fastened a rail up very high, tied my hands to the rail, fastened my feet together, put a rail between my feet, and stood on one end of it to hold me down; the two sons then gave me fifty lashes each, the son-in-law another fifty, and Mr. Gooch himself fifty more.
While doing this his wife came out, and begged him not to kill me, the first act of sympathy I ever noticed in her. When I called for water, they brought a pail-full and threw it over my back ploughed up by the lashes. After this, they took me to the blacksmith's shop, got two large bars of iron, which they bent round my feet, each bar weighing twenty pounds, and put a heavy log-chain on my neck.
...he chained me to the same female slave as before. As he had to go out that day, he did not give me the punishment which he intended to give me every day, but at night when he came home, he made us walk round his estate, and by all the houses of the slaves, for them to taunt us; when we came home he told us we must be up very early in the morning, and go to the field before the other slaves. We were up at day-break, but we could not get on fast, on account of the heavy irons on my feet. It may be necessary to state that these irons were first made red hot and bent in a circle, so as just to allow of my feet going through; it having been cooled, and my leg with the iron on lifted up to an anvil, it was made secure round my ancles. When I walked with these irons on, I used to hold them up with my hands by means of a cord. We walked about a mile in two hours
Among the instruments of torture employed, I here describe one:--This is a machine used for packing and pressing cotton. By it he hung me up by the hands at letter a, a horse, and at times, a man moving round the screw e, and carrying it up and down, and pressing the block c into a box d, into which the cotton is put. At this time he hung me up for a quarter of an hour. I was carried up ten feet from the ground, when Mr. Gooch asked me if I was tired? He then let me rest for five minutes, then carried me round again, after which, he let me down and put me into the box d, and shut me down in it for about ten minutes. After this torture, I stayed with him several months, and did my work very well.
He asked me how I got my irons off. They having been got off by a slave, I would not answer his question, for fear of getting the man punished. Upon this he put the fingers of my hands into a vice, and squeezed all my nails off. He then had my feet put on an anvil, and ordered a man to beat my toes, till he smashed some of my nails off. The marks of this treatment still remain upon me, some of my nails never having grown perfect since. He inflicted this punishment, in order to get out of me how I got my irons off, but never succeeded. After this, he hardly knew what to do with me; the whole stock of his cruelties seemed to be exhausted.
To one of his female slaves he had given a doze of castor oil and salts together, as much as she could take; he then got a box, about six feet by two and a half, and one and a half feet deep; he put this slave under the box, and made the men fetch as many logs as they could get; and put them on the top of it; under this she was made to stay all night.
It will be observed that most of the cases here cited, are those in respect to males. Many instances, however, in respect to females, might be mentioned, but are too disgusting to appear in this narrative.
I think the worst part of Jason's narrative is, having read what has been done to male slaves, you read this: "Many instances, however, in respect to females, might be mentioned, but are too disgusting to appear in this narrative."