Page:Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade 1791.djvu/106

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

( 72 )

The paged version of this document contained the following header content in the margin: Extraordinary punishments of many kinds.

therefore the reader will find their places supplied by asterisks, in the evidence at large.


13.On Shrewsbury estate, in Jamaica, says Mr. Coor, the overseer sent for a slave, and in talking with him, he hastily struck him on the head, with a small hanger, and gave him two stabs about the waist. The slave said, "Overseer, you have killed me." He pushed him out of the piazza. The slave went home, and died that night. He was buried, and no more said about it.— A manager of an estate says, Mr.Woolrich, in Tortola, whose owner did not reside on the island, sitting at dinner, in a sudden resentment at his cook, went directly to his sword, and ran the negro woman through the body, and she died upon the floor immediately, and the negroes were called in to take her away and bury her.


14.Mr. Giles recollects several shocking instances of punishment. In particular, on the estate where he lived, in Montserrat, the driver at day-break once informed the overseer, that one of four or five negroes, chained in the dungeon, would not rise. He accompanied the overseer to the dungeon, who set the others that were in the chain to drag him out, and not rising when out, he ordered a bundle of cane-trash to be put round him, and set fire to. As he still did not rise, he had a small soldering iron heated, and thrust between his teeth. As the man did not yet rise, he had the chain taken off, and sent him to the hospital, where he languished some days and died.


15.An overseer, on the estate where Mr. J. Terry was in Grenada, (Mr. Coghlan) threw a slave into the boiling cane-juice, who died in four days. Mr. J. Terry was told of this by the owner's son, by the carpenter, and by many slaves on the estate. He has heard it often.


16.Mr. Woolrich says a negro ran away from a planter in Tortola, with whom he was well acquainted. The overseer having orders to take him dead or alive, awhile