60199616-flight-to-freedom-african-runaways-and-maroons-in-the-americas

Military Expeditions and Judicial Terror
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of bells, receive one hundred lashes, and be left in that position all day long
for other enslaved persons to view (Escalante 1979, 74). A male who had
absconded for more than one month was to be castrated publicly and have
his genitals displayed at the city’s pillory. Those who had run away for more
than a year were to be put to death. Females were to receive two hundred
lashes for staying away for more than fifteen days, but apparently were not to
be put to death (Escalante 1979, 75).
Between 1571 and 1574 the Mexican government, faced with sharply
increasing incidence of desertion and the formation of Maroon settlements,
produced several tough pieces of legislation. These included for absence of
more than four days fifty lashes; for absence of more than eight days, one
hundred lashes and irons to be fixed to the deserter’s feet for two months;
and for absence of more than six months, death, though castration was sometimes
substituted (Davidson 1979, 92). 20 In 1590 the law on desertion was
tightened. It prescribed thirty lashes for the first offence by anyone staying
away for more than one night, two hundred lashes and amputation of both
ears for a second offence, the same number of lashes plus amputation of a leg
for a third offence, and hanging for a fourth offence (Palmer 1976, 125).
The French Code Noir (1685) stipulated that any enslaved person absent
for a month was to have his ears cut off and a fleur-de-lys branded on his left
shoulder. If he ran away a second time, he was to suffer laceration of his knees
and branding on his shoulder. On the third occasion, he was to be sentenced
to death (Franco 1979, 38). Debien (1979, 114) states that in practice the death
penalty was used more sparingly, for marronage that did not involve armed
assault. No doubt, this was not from any humane consideration by the state
but due to the financial loss to the slaveholders. However, Moitt (2001,
137–38) informs us that in 1724 the conseil supérieur of Martinique condemned
a woman to death by hanging for a third act of marronage, and that while the
sentence was being carried out the cord broke and the executioner decided to
strangle her, in spite of pleas for mercy from the onlookers.
Legislation in Brazil in the eighteenth century followed basically the same
lines as that in the French Caribbean, with branding, loss of a body part and
death being prescribed for the first, second and third offences of desertion
respectively. The Crown rejected the petition of some members of the slaveholding
fraternity to institute severance of the Achilles tendon for repeated
desertion, on the advice of the Count of Arcos, one of the more enlightened
viceroys of the colony, who viewed the proposal as an attempt to introduce