Skip to main content

Methods and instruments of restraint, plate III

View
@ The Library Company of Philadelphia

Description

Illustration shows some types of restraints used by Mundingo (African) slave merchants when marching groups of slaves from Bambarra to Galam. In the accompanying text, Clarkson explained, "In Fig. 1, B represents a large log of wood, X a crutch at one end of it, and A a twisted cord to which it is fastened at the other. This log is made fast to a Negro's neck in Fig. 2. It is reported to be so heavy and unmanageable, that it is extremely difficult for the person who wears it to walk, much less to escape or run away. In travelling it is said to be necessary to lift up the log, that is thus fastened to the neck of each, and to place the crutch of it on the shoulder of every preceding slave. Budensome as this instrument may appear to be, it is rendered more light and portable by these means. In this way, then many of the Negro slaves from Bambarra to Galam have been made to travel as described in Fig. 3 of the same plate. When it has been necessary to halt, the crutch has been taken from the shoulders of each, and the person, who has worn it, has remained then as in Fig. 2, as unable to walk or manage himself as before, and has become almost as secure, as if he had been chained to the spot in which he had been made to halt. When it has been thought necessary to...

Record Contributed By

The Library Company of Philadelphia

Record Harvested From

PA Digital