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Wrist Shackles Used on Enslaved People
Original Author: Unknown
Created: Seventeenth-eighteenth century
Medium: Iron shackles
Publisher: Virginia Historical Society

Wrist Shackles Used on Enslaved People

Iron wrist shackles with a locking end clamp date back to the seventeenth or eighteenth century and bear witness to the cruelty of slavery. These shackles were used in the trade of enslaved Africans; similar kinds of restraints were employed to punish uncooperative enslaved people.