In 1740, South Carolina lawmakers restricted some of the most barbaric punishments that had emerged and imposed civil fines on enslavers who “cut out the tongue, put out the eye, castrate, or cruelly scald, burn, or deprive any slave of any limb or member,” but it still authorized “whipping or beating with horse whip, cow skin, switch or small stick, or putting irons on, or confining or imprisoning.”
