"I pardon you at the solicitation of these ladies."
The negro answered,—
"You will not be Caradeux, if you pardon me."
"What do you say?" cried the master, in a rage.
"If you do not kill me, I swear by my god-mother that I will kill you."
At this, Caradeux seized a huge stone, and hurled it at his head, and the other blacks hastened to put an end to his suffering.
Burning the negro alive was an occasional occurrence. Burying him alive was more frequent. A favorite pastime was to bury him up to his neck, and let the boys bowl at his head. Sometimes the head was covered with molasses, and left to the insects. Pitying comrades were found to stone the sufferer to death. One or two instances were known of planters who rolled the bodies of slaves, raw and bloody from a whipping, among the ant-hills. If a cattle-tender let a mule or ox come to harm, the animal was sometimes killed and the man sewed up in the carcass. This was done a few times in cases where the mule died of some epizoötic malady.
Hamstringing negroes had always been practised against marooning, theft, and other petty offences: an overseer seldom failed to bring down his negro with a well-aimed hatchet. Coupe-jarret was a phrase applied during the revolutionary intrigues to those who were hampering a movement which appeared to advance.
Cutting off the ears was a very common punishment. But M. Jouanneau, who lived at Grande-Riviére, nailed one of his slaves to the wall by the ears, then released him by cutting them off with a razor, and closed the entertainment with compelling him to grill and eat them. There was one overseer who never went out without a hammer and nails in his pocket, for nailing negroes by the ear to a tree or post when the humor struck him.
Half a dozen cases of flaying women alive, inspired by jealousy, are upon record; also some cases of throwing negroes into the furnaces with the bagasse or waste of the sugar-cane. Pistol-practice at negroes' heads was very common; singeing them upon cassava plates, grinding them slowly through the sugar-mill, pitching them into the boiler, was an occasional pastime.