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Slave collar
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Slave collars made of iron were used to discipline
and identify slaves who were considered risks of
becoming runaways. This broken collar once had three
prongs. Abolitionist Theodore Weld in his provocative
treatise American Slavery As It Is described
the use of a similar collar on a spirited slave
near Charleston, South Carolina, who served her
mistress as a seamstress: “A handsome mulatto
woman, about eighteen or twenty years of age, whose
independent spirit could not brook the degradation
of slavery, was in the habit of running away.”
For this offence, she was repeatedly and severely
whipped, and a “heavy iron collar, with three
long prongs projecting from it, was placed round
her neck, and a strong and sound front tooth was
extracted, to serve as a mark to describe her, in
case of escape.” |
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Division of Social History, Political History
National Museum of American History, Smithsonian
Institution
Behring Center
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