The History of Torture by Brian Innes

Author:Brian Innes [Innes, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Publisher: Amber Books Ltd
Published: 2010-06-27T23:00:00+00:00

Here are five persons who have lately confessed themselves to be witches and do accuse some of us of being along with them … Two of the five are [Martha] Carrier’s sons, young men who would not confess anything till they tied them neck and heels till the blood was ready to come out of their noses. And ’tis credibly believed and reported this was the occasion of making them confess that they never did …

Quoted in Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World (1700)

Apart from Giles Cory, 19 of the accused, including the Rev George Burroughs, were hanged, and two more died in jail.

The judicial use of torture was at this time rare in the colonies. On the other hand, violent and sadistic practices in the name of discipline by private individuals were scarcely frowned on. African slaves – as well as convicted criminals from England who were transported and committed to slavery – were regularly flogged, even for minor misdemeanours, until well into the nineteenth century. Women were the victims as often as men. In Jamaica, in 1829, the Rev G.W. Bridges was accused of the ill-treatment of a young girl: he had stripped her, hung her by her hands from a hook in the ceiling, and flogged her until she was ‘a mass of lacerated flesh and gore’. He was acquitted at his hearing. In 1830, also in Jamaica, a servant, Eleanor Mead, was beaten. According to the Anti-Slavery Monthly Reporter (1829):

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.