"A planter, a professor of religion, in conversation upon the universality of whipping,
remarked that a planter in G--, who had whipped a great deal, at length got tired of it,
and invented the following excellent method of punishment, which I saw practised while
I was paying him a visit. The negro was placed in a sitting position, with his hands
made fast above his head, and feet in the stocks, so that he could not move any part
of the body. The master retired, intending to leave him till morning, but we were awakened
in the night by the groans of the negro, which were so doleful that we feared he was dying.
We went to him, and found him covered with a cold sweat, and almost gone. He could not has
lived an hour longer. Mr.--found the 'stocks' such an effective punishment, that it almost
superseded the whip.�
Another personal testimony made to the American
Anti-Slavery Society in 1839 concerning the fate of a slave who attempted to escape:
"On the return of his master, some of the slaves were sent for Harry. When he came home he was
seized and confined in the stocks. The stocks were built in the barn, and consisted of two
heavy pieces of timber, ten or more feet in length, and about seven inches wide; the lower one,
on the floor, has a number of holes or places cut in it, for the ankles; the upper piece, being
of the same dimensions, is fastened at one end by a hinge, and is brought down after the ankles
are placed in the holes, and secured by a clasp and padlock at the other end. In this manner
the person is left to sit on the floor. Harry was kept in the stocks day and night for a week,
and flogged every morning. After this, he was taken out one morning, a log chain fastened around
his neck, the two ends dragging on the ground, and he sent to the field, to do his task with the
other slaves. At night he was again put in the stocks, in the morning he was sent to the field in
the same manner, and thus dragged out another week."
Stocks and pillories were on occasions used with particular savagery, as the following
illustrates:
�In the House of Commons on 1 July 1830, during the course of
a speech on slavery in the colonies, an instance was
mentioned of cruel treatment meted out by an English
gentlewoman to a slave girl. On suspicion of being concerned
in a theft, the young negress was imprisoned in the stocks for
seventeen days, during which period she was deprived of sleep
by rubbing red pepper into her eyes, and she was flogged
repeatedly.� (�A History of Torture� by George Riley Scott)
Field stocks were much used as a means of punishing female offenders, when regulations substituting this form of punishment
in place of female flogging came into force. These consisted of stocks for the victim�s hands which could be adjusted to
any height above her head, while her feet were placed in horizontal stocks. The hand stocks could be raised and secured until
only the victim�s toes could touch the ground. The whole weight of her body rested upon her wrists and toes. In Trinidad,
to increase the punishment, leaden or iron weights were tied to the wrists.
The contemporary illustration on the left shows field stocks, and stocks attached to a bed. The text underneath is:
"Stocks for hands and feet with bed, and hand stocks (from the approved models)"