Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/165

 in Jamaica: One of the house-girls having broken a plate, or spilt a cup of tea, the doctor (with whom Mr. Coor boarded) nailed her ear to a post. Mr. Coor remonstrated with him in vain. They went to bed, and left her there. In the morning she was gone, having torn the head of the nail through her ear. She was soon brought back, and when Mr. Coor came to breakfast, he found she had been severely whipped by the doctor, who, in his fury, clipped both her ears off close to her head, with a pair of large scissors, and she was sent to pick seeds out of cotton, among three or four more, emaciated by his cruelties, until they were fit for nothing else.

Mr. M. Cook, while in Jamaica, knew a runaway slave brought in, with part of a turkey with him, which he had stolen, and which, Mr. Cook thinks, he had stolen from hunger, as he was nothing but skin and bone. His master immediately made two negroes hold him down, and, with a hammer and a punch, knocked out two of his upper and two of his under teeth.

Mr. Dalrymple was informed by a young woman slave, in Grenada, who had no teeth, that her mistress had, with her own hands, pulled them out, and given her a severe flogging besides, the marks of which she then bore. This relation was confirmed by several town's people of whom he inquired concerning it.

Mr. Jeffreys has seen slaves with one of their hands off, which he understood to have been cut off for lifting it up against a white man. Captain Lloyd also saw at Mrs. Winne's, at Maumee Bay, in Jamaica, a female slave with but one hand only, the other having been cut off for the same offense. Mrs. Winne had endeavored to prevent the amputation, but in vain, for her indented white woman could not be dissuaded from swearing that the slave had struck her, and the hand was accordingly cut off.

Captain Giles, Dr. Jackson, Mr. Fitzmaurice, and Mr. M. Terry, have seen negroes whose legs had been cut off, by their master's orders, for running away, and Mr. Dalrymple gives the following account: A French planter, says he, in the English island of Grenada, sent for a surgeon to cut off the leg of a negro who had run away. On the surgeon's refusing to do it, the planter took an iron bar, and broke the leg in pieces, and then the surgeon cut it off. This planter did many such acts of cruelty, and all with impunity.

Mr. Fitzmaurice mentions, among other instances of cruelty, that of dropping hot lead upon negroes, which he often saw practiced by a planter of the name of Rushie, during his residence in Jamaica.

Mr. Hercules Ross, hearing one day, in Jamaica, from an inclosure, the cries of some poor wretch under torture, he looked through, and saw a young female suspended by the wrists to a tree, swinging to and fro. Her toes could hardly touch the ground, and her body was exceedingly agitated. The sight rather confounded him, as there was no whipping, and the master was just by, seemingly motionless; but, on looking more attentively, he saw in his hand a stick of fire, which he held, so as occasionally to touch her as she swung. He continued this torture with unmoved countenance, until Mr. H. Ross, calling on him to desist, and throwing stones at him over the fence, stopped it.