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Election address no. 6 No British Slavery… Protheroe for Ever…Further Instances of W I Barbarity , 1830.

The pamphlet quoted a piece in the Anti-Slavery Reporter No 64:

A mulatto female slave, Eleanor Mead of Colchis estate in Jamaica. Her owner Mrs Earnshaw, for some offence, ordered her to be stripped naked, held prostrate on the ground and given 58 lashes of the whip. One of the people ordered to hold her down was one of her own children. She was then , still semi naked, put in the stocks with her feet fastened.

All this was at the order of and in the presence of Mrs Earnshaw ‘a lady of humanity and delicacy’.

Island law limited punishment to 39 lashes.

Eleanor Mead escaped that night and complained to the magistrate. He could find no witnesses other than slaves that she had been fogged 58 times, and sent her back with a request that she be returned to her usual work, in the house. Mrs Earnshaw ordered her to the fields, and when Eleanor refused she was again put in the stocks. She was then sent to the workhouse, with an order to give her 39 lashes on entering.

A magistrate saw her and forbade this second punishment, as she was not fit to be flogged again. A doctor said at the enquiry into the case that the flogging was severe for a woman of her age and colour, another said that she was not fit for field work.

As the word of a slave was not sufficient evidence, and the doctors could not say how many lashes had been given, it could not be proved that Mrs Earnshaw had broken the law in imposing 58 lashes. She was not therefore punished, and Eleanor Mead was sent back to her. Her later fate is not known.

Date: 1830

Copyright: Copyright BCC Library Service