Sent to Harper's Weekly by a sergeant in the union army, this sketch of an instrument of torture was to punish enslaved people. According to the article, this iron collar "was securely riveted [around the neck] and required an hour's filing before it could be removed. This proved to be a very painful operation to the poor 'contraband'; for his neck was so snugly incased by the iron band. . . The negro stated that he had worn it two months. . . The form of the instrument prevented him from lying down and taking his rest at night; and its weight and close fit rendered it very burdensome during the day. It consisted of a heavy iron ring, fitting closely round the neck, from which extended three prongs, each two feet in length, with a ring on the end" (p. 108). Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization was an American political magazine based in New York City and published by Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916. It featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects and humor, alongside illustrations. It covered the American Civil War extensively, including many illustrations of events from the war.

Harper's Weekly, (Feb. 15, 1862), p. 108.

English

Image is in the public domain. Metadata is available under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International.

HW0052

North America

"Instrument of Torture Used by Slaveholders", Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora, accessed October 3, 2022, http://slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/item/1235