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Authors: Geoffrey Abbott
Tags: History
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that takes place being distinctly viewed by the spectators. A large grave was dug in front of it. The area was surrounded by a detachment of lancers, formed in hollow squares, and enfiladed around the execution site by an inner square of the infantry guard.
About half an hour before the appearance of the criminal, twelve persons, executioners, officers of the police, and two little boys as assistants, mounted the scaffold and fixed the strangling cords. At length the buzz of the surrounding multitude, the flourishing of naked sabres and the galloping of the officers, announced the slow approach of the riminal upon a hurdle drawn by six horses.
On his approach, the word of command flew through the ranks; arms were presented, drums were beaten, and the colours and lancers’ pennants raised, until he had mounted the scaffold.
Never shall I forget the one bitter look of imploring agony that he threw around him, as almost immediately his coat was rudely torn from his shoulders. He was then thrown down, the cords fixed round his neck, which were then drawn by the executioner until strangulation almost commenced, or at least until dislocation of the neck was nearly completed.
Another executioner then approached, bearing in his hands a heavy wheel bound with iron, with which he violently struck the legs, stomach, arms and chest, and lastly the head of the criminal. I was unfortunately near enough to witness his mangled and bleeding body, still convulsed.
It was then carried down from the scaffold for interment, and in less than a quarter of an hour from the beginning of his torture, the corpse was completely covered with earth. Several large stones which were thrown in on top of him hastened his last gasp – he was mangled into eternity.’
Breaking on the wheel was not restricted to this side of the Atlantic. One adventurer, Bryan Edwards, who travelled extensively in the Americas in the late eighteenth century, was lodging in St Domingo during a rebellion that took place there in 1791. His inn overlooked the street, so he had a good view of an execution enacted in the square, where two men were being broken on ‘two pieces of timber placed crosswise’, the traditional St Andrew’s cross. One of them, after having each leg and arm broken in two places, was finished off with a blow to the stomach.
The second prisoner was not so lucky. The executioner, after breaking the man’s arms and legs, was about to deliver the final blow when the mob forced him to desist – not for humane reasons, however, for they tied the suffering victim in a cartwheel, which they then hoisted into the air by fixing the other end of the axle in the ground. Gloating over the terrible agonies he was enduring, they left him there.
How long this suffering would have continued one can only guess for, ‘at the end of some 40 minutes, some English seamen, who were spectators of the tragedy, strangled him in mercy’.
In Surinam, situated on the South American coast, breaking on the wheel was carried out to its ultimate and horrific end, no coup de grâce being administered. J. G. Stedman recounts in the book of his travels there between 1772 and 1777 how, in one execution, he saw a slave tied to the wooden cross. The slave’s left hand was then chopped off by the executioner using a hatchet. Next, seizing a heavy iron bar, he rained repeated blows on the victim, breaking his bones to slivers until the blood, marrow and splinters flew around the scaffold.
The slave, still alive, was untied. In his writhings he fell off the wheel on to the ground, cursing his tormentors. Such was his agony that he begged that his head should be chopped off, but his plea was ignored. For six hours he endured the torment of his shattered limbs until his guard, motivated either by compassion or intolerance, knocked him on the head with the butt-end of his musket.
BURIED ALIVE
‘To increase their torment they were bound hand and foot, thereby making it impossible for
About half an hour before the appearance of the criminal, twelve persons, executioners, officers of the police, and two little boys as assistants, mounted the scaffold and fixed the strangling cords. At length the buzz of the surrounding multitude, the flourishing of naked sabres and the galloping of the officers, announced the slow approach of the riminal upon a hurdle drawn by six horses.
On his approach, the word of command flew through the ranks; arms were presented, drums were beaten, and the colours and lancers’ pennants raised, until he had mounted the scaffold.
Never shall I forget the one bitter look of imploring agony that he threw around him, as almost immediately his coat was rudely torn from his shoulders. He was then thrown down, the cords fixed round his neck, which were then drawn by the executioner until strangulation almost commenced, or at least until dislocation of the neck was nearly completed.
Another executioner then approached, bearing in his hands a heavy wheel bound with iron, with which he violently struck the legs, stomach, arms and chest, and lastly the head of the criminal. I was unfortunately near enough to witness his mangled and bleeding body, still convulsed.
It was then carried down from the scaffold for interment, and in less than a quarter of an hour from the beginning of his torture, the corpse was completely covered with earth. Several large stones which were thrown in on top of him hastened his last gasp – he was mangled into eternity.’
Breaking on the wheel was not restricted to this side of the Atlantic. One adventurer, Bryan Edwards, who travelled extensively in the Americas in the late eighteenth century, was lodging in St Domingo during a rebellion that took place there in 1791. His inn overlooked the street, so he had a good view of an execution enacted in the square, where two men were being broken on ‘two pieces of timber placed crosswise’, the traditional St Andrew’s cross. One of them, after having each leg and arm broken in two places, was finished off with a blow to the stomach.
The second prisoner was not so lucky. The executioner, after breaking the man’s arms and legs, was about to deliver the final blow when the mob forced him to desist – not for humane reasons, however, for they tied the suffering victim in a cartwheel, which they then hoisted into the air by fixing the other end of the axle in the ground. Gloating over the terrible agonies he was enduring, they left him there.
How long this suffering would have continued one can only guess for, ‘at the end of some 40 minutes, some English seamen, who were spectators of the tragedy, strangled him in mercy’.
In Surinam, situated on the South American coast, breaking on the wheel was carried out to its ultimate and horrific end, no coup de grâce being administered. J. G. Stedman recounts in the book of his travels there between 1772 and 1777 how, in one execution, he saw a slave tied to the wooden cross. The slave’s left hand was then chopped off by the executioner using a hatchet. Next, seizing a heavy iron bar, he rained repeated blows on the victim, breaking his bones to slivers until the blood, marrow and splinters flew around the scaffold.
The slave, still alive, was untied. In his writhings he fell off the wheel on to the ground, cursing his tormentors. Such was his agony that he begged that his head should be chopped off, but his plea was ignored. For six hours he endured the torment of his shattered limbs until his guard, motivated either by compassion or intolerance, knocked him on the head with the butt-end of his musket.
BURIED ALIVE
‘To increase their torment they were bound hand and foot, thereby making it impossible for
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