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scripttorture · 7 years

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1) can you tell me about/direct me to resources about 18th century torture methods? 2) a few pirates of that time period (like Roche Braziliano and Francois L'Ollonais) were fond of cutting peoples' tongues off. I know nowadays people get tongue cancer, have it removed, and they can still function. But in the 18th century do you know how risky this might have been and what complications it had? 3) you're cool and helpful, thanks for this blog

Well- yes I can but the world is a big placeand those methods vary depending on where in the world you mean.

You’ve talked aboutpirates but all that does is narrow it down to 3-4 continents instead of thefull 6. So this is probably going to be a pretty shallow overview of a lot of countries and cultures. If youwant more information about particular methods or places then feel free to sendme another ask. :)

Generally speaking Ithink you’ve hit on a reallyinteresting time period.

While anti-black racismhad really started to rise in Europe this was still a time when the Empires ofsub-Saharan Africa were militarily strong, wealthy and (while this variedacross countries obviously) powerful centres of learning. There was a lot ofEuropean exploitation of the New World but at the beginning of the century thenations there had not yet been decimated by Europeans. Further afield from thearea you’re focusing on the Ottoman Empire was hugely powerful and countriesthat would make up modern day India and Pakistan were phenomenally wealthy.

There were a lot of trade routes crossing the globeand the ease of trade and the opening up of new trade routes was bringing moreand more people into closer contact with each other.

As a multicultural personI tend to think mostly in terms of the positives this kind of increased globalconnectivity brings. But this time period really highlights how exchange ofideas can lead to some pretty ghastly things too.

This really was theheight of the trans-atlantic slave trade and since piracy was closely linked tothat trade I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about it and the torturesused on both sides of the ocean.

The trans-atlanticslave trade really marks a turning point in global torture because it providedan economic incentive for people to develop ‘clean’ non-scarring tortures. Notcoincidentally this is also the time the European public started to findwhipping of Europeans distasteful. Sothroughout the century the traditional punishments in navies and army unitswere gradually replaced with anotherbranch of clean tortures.

Lets start with theslave trade: that will give a general overview of torture at the time inWestern Africa, the Caribbean and parts of North and South America.

The initial period ofcapture seems (so far as I can tell) to have been relatively free of torture.Victims who resisted or were seriously injured were generally murdered by theirattackers. On the West African side most torture happened while slaves werebeing transported.

Forced marches,starvation, dehydration, exposure and neglect were common. Restraints as a formof torture were also in regular use; heavy metal manacles with sharp edges werethe most common form. These cut into limbs (generally the wrists, ankles andneck) and when around the neck may have been heavy enough to restrictbreathing. Wounds from the restraints could easily become infected, especiallysince slaves were kept in frankly squalid conditions. Infections and otherdiseases were not treated.

Women and girls wereroutinely raped. To the point where there were structures specifically builtfor carrying out rapes. I don’t have any data on rape or sexual assault of menbut I presume that it also occurred.

Holding areas, largepens or barns essentially, along the coast of Western Africa were overcrowdedand filthy. People were packed in to the extent that they could not moveeasily. There was no ventilation. They stood and sat in their own filth and thefilth of the people who’d passed through before.

Then there were theships.

The best comparison tothe space allocated to a person on a slave ship is probably a coffin. Theycould not stand or sit up; often there wasn’t space to lie down comfortablyeither. The victims could move enough that I can’t describe this as a stressposition but it isn’t far off. Theywould have been kept in permanent physical discomfort by these conditions andthere would have been muscular damage (similar too but to a lesser extent thanin stress positions) as a result.

Sores were common,which led to more infections because once again they were kept in unhygienicconditions, surrounded by vomit and human waste. Additionally they were kept onstarvation diets with little water.

Once the ships reachedthe New World these people were once again confined in squalid conditionsbefore being sold. Generally at this point the survivors (somewhere between30-50% died in the crossing on ship, I do not have any figures for transportwithin the African continent currently) were given better rations in an attemptto make them look healthier.

Tortures at this pointtended to be clean. Stress positions in particular ‘bucking’ or ‘the parrot’sperch’ (USA and Brazil) started to become more common. The victim’s ankles aretied together, knees bent and their arms are wrapped around their knees. Theirhands are tied together and a stick is inserted into the gap below the knee andabove the elbow. The victim is then hoisted into the air and left danglingupside down with the stick digging painfully into their knees. Victims duringthe slave trade in the New World were sometimes transported like this as well.

Stress positions usingrestraints seem to have been a trend in this area at that time.

After the victims weresold scarring tortures became more common. Whipping and beating were ubiquitousacross the New World. Thumbscrews were favoured in Brazil. Branding and burningwas wide spread. The Code Noir of Haiti specifies mutilations and amputationsfor specific ‘crimes’, examples include branding the shoulders or face andcutting off the ears.

Death by coveringpeople in boiling sugar or by leaving them buried with the head exposed alsooccurred throughout the Caribbean. As did hangings and at least one case ofusing the Wheel. Dogs were bred specifically to hunt humans.

Obviously practicesvaried across countries as varied as Jamaica and Brazil. I’m trying tohighlight practices that were widespread, ‘typical’ or show how influences fromparticular places. The New World was the site of protracted and incrediblyinventive cruelties because these societies were built on slavery.

For further informationyou may want to consult the Code Noir, BlackJacobins by C L R James which is available free online, or well practicallyany book on Caribbean or Brazilian history worth the name.

I’m going to step backa moment now to talk about torture in some of the West African countries thevictims came from.

So far as I can tell atthis time (and my reading is far from complete) torture in the Dahomean, Beninand (broadly speaking) Yoruba Kingdoms (which made up a good chunk of the coastfrom modern central Nigeria into Togo) was mostly punishments that weredesigned to kill. It was mostly analogous to the English practice of hangingdrawing and quartering or the more broadly European practice of breaking on thewheel. The practice I’ve heard of most commonly in coastal Western Africa wasthrowing people from tall buildings.

There are Europeansources at the time which describe mass killings and often sensationallydescribe them as ‘sacrifices’. (I’m thinking of Dahomey in particular here-).So far as I can tell there’s little evidence that these practices were strictlyreligious. More sober analysis has suggested the victims were criminals and/orprisoners of war and that sentences built up over an entire year were allcarried out during a particular week.

The bias in theavailable sources makes it difficult to speak about torture in the region withany clarity.

One thing we do know is that at the time a lot ofthese coastal Kingdoms had been somewhat destabilised by their northernneighbours. Expansionism further inland had led to waves of refugees fleeingsouth, sometimes with armies pursuing them. This created a lot of conflict inthe region as a whole. Which means that ideas about torture were probably also changing within the region, spreadby raiding soldiers and fleeing victims.

Which brings us to the other armies that were changing theirtorture-practices at the time: the armies of Europe.

During the 1700swhipping soldiers and sailors fell out of favour. It was seen as unsavoury anduncivilised. In response to public disapproval European military groups changedtheir tactics, moving away from scarring and towards clean tortures.

Generally speaking theysettled on forced exercise, stress positions and exposure as ‘acceptable’punishments (an attitude Europe and indeed America has found hard to shake).

I’m unsure whichcountries started the trend, but Britain based their stress positions on practices seen in the Prussian army andthe Anglo-Saxon tradition of stress positions seems to me distinct from theFrench.

The core of the Britishtechniques were ‘crucifixion’, ‘the picket’ and the saw-horse. Briefly thesewere: a standing stress position tied to a fixed object with arms outstretchedas a T shape or X shape, a suspension torture where the victim was suspended bythe wrist with their weight resting on a spike below their foot, and a seatedstress position with the victim tied straddling a sharp wooden device, legstied straight and weighted.

The French seem to havefavoured ‘the silo’ which is a squatting stress position. The victim is tiedhand and foot in a sort of half-crouch. This was done in a specially dug pit sothe victim was also exposed to the elements in a pool of their own waste.

And of course there were also Inquisitions running in Europe and in European colonies, torturing and murdering Jews, Muslims and practitioners of traditional religions in Europe and the New World.

That’s three pages andI haven’t touched Asia or indeed any part of Africa that’s south or east ofNigeria.

In terms of piracy in the New World in the 1700sthese are the torture traditions they’d be exposed to and these are the onesthey’d likely draw on: slavery and the military techniques of the time. This doesn’t mean that your torturers couldn’t invent their own, just thatthese are the methods they’re likely to be aware of.

(Also please give memore specific areas in the future readers- the only reason I could reel offthis much is because West African and Caribbean history are long standinginterests of mine.)

Which I think brings usto tongues.

I’ve double checkedthis with ScriptMedic and a lot ofcomplications are springing to mind.

Firstly blood loss: thetongue is a lump of muscle with a fair few veins and arteries going through it.

Secondly infection,which is a risk in and of itself but could also cause-

Swelling of the throat,restricting breathing or the ability to eat.

The tongue is also usedto swallow, by definition removing it is going to cause some problems eatingand drinking.

My instinct is that if this healed the victim would probablyhave long standing issues getting enough to eat and drink. It might also beeasier for them to choke on their food and drink.

Any of these thingswould be pretty serious complications when there’s not really any medical careavailable.

And I’m going to stop answering this question now beforemy answer sprouts another 2,000 words.

I hope this helps. :)

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