Punishments for Self Emancipation

This woodcut illustration appeared in French traveler and diarist François Froger’s Relation d’un Voyage fait en 1695, 1696, & 1697, aux Côtes d’Afrique…, (1698). It shows the harsh punishments for enslaved people Froger encountered while traveling in Brazil. On the right Froger shows an enslaved man who has had his leg cut off as a punishment for attempting to self emancipate. On the left Froger shows an alternative punishment to amputation inflicted by an enslaver he met in Martinico. Froger described the invention in the English translation of his book Account of a Voyage Made in 1695, 1696, & 1697 to the Coasts of Africa: “he bethought himself of fastening a Chain to his Neck, which trailing down backwards, catches up his Leg behind, as may be seen by the Cut: And this, in the space of two or three Years, does so contract the Nerves, that it will be impossible for this Slave to make use of his Leg. And thus, without running the Hazard of this unhappy Wretch’s Death, and without doing him any Mischief, he thereby deprived him of the means to make his Escape.”