Punishments In History Essay, Research Paper

The common practice of early Americans that seems most alien to me is that of

human punishment. During the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, the way people

were punished was savage and crucial. Those who punished others for a crime,

seemed to take matters in there own hands and give punishments that were truly

too harsh compared to the crime committed. One of the areas in which such

punishment was greatly visible was in the slave institutes. Masters would treat

their slaves as if they were ?animals?. It was crucial to see that the only

thing that differed Southern and Northern stores was that those in the south

stocked ?negro-whips? and ?mantraps? in their shelves. Whipping was the

popular way of punishing slaves at the time, therefore stores made sure they had

that six to seven foot long peace of cowhide, to sale to masters who wished to

beat there slaves. This type of whip was not enough, for they began making whips

that had a platted wire on the end so that it would hurt more and create more

damage to the skin. I was shocked to read that a slave would get brutal whips

just for simply taking a drink of water when it was not break time yet. If

looked at carefully the slave had committed no crime yet was still whipped by

his master. This is no way in which a human should treat another human, since we

are suppose to be the intelligent, moralistic species of the world. Whipping is

still nice, compared to other ways in which many criminals were punished. At

times of great crimes, delinquents were faced with the mutilating punishments of

the old penal laws, which included branding, ear cropping, hanging and even

occasionally castration and burning alive. Thinking of such punishment is harsh,

for I thought that the only things that got castrated were the animals in my

grandpas? farm. That is not all, since I can not imaging a live human being

burned to death. Making such scenes even more disturbing was that they were held

in public areas where many people could gather and watch. In New Haven,

Connecticut, around 1810, Charles Fowler, a local historian, recalled seeing the

?admiring students a [Yale] college? gathered around to watch petty

criminals receive ?five or ten lashes?with a rawhide whip.? On a day of a

hanging near Mount Holly, New Jersey, in the 1820?s, the scene was that of a

holiday: ? around the place in every direction were the assembled multitudes

? some in tents, and by-wagons. This is obscene, for humans got a kick out of

seeing other humans get killed. Where has the idea of morality and self-respect

gone for these people? Right now you probably just imaging men getting such

punishments but that was not the case, for women were often treated in the same

type of manor. In a country tavern in Georgia, Margaret Hall summoned the slave

chambermaid, but she could not come because the mistress had been whipping her

and she was not fit to be seen. The next morning she made her appearance with

her face marked in several places by the cuts of the cowskin and her neck

handkerchief covered with spots of blood. In my point of view, a woman is not to

be treated in such manor, for they are to be respected more than men. It is not

that I don?t believe that people should be punished for doing things they

shouldn?t do, but it should be reasonable. I believe in the idea of ?Eye for

an Eye?, for if a person murders another, his/her punishment should be death.

But for a person, who simply got into a fight with someone else, death doesn?t

seem to be a reasonable way of punishing him. Instead he should be given a

beaten himself so that he can see what it feels like. People in the past seemed

to take things to far and not think about the situation carefully. Thanks to

God, the old ways, so startling unfamiliar to the modern reader, gradually fell

away. Americans changed their assumptions about what was proper, decent, and

normal in everyday life and began to look at life in a different view. Who

knows, perhaps our morals, to some future observer, will seem as idiosyncratic

and astonishing, as I believe this type of behavior is.