The colonial leaders applied the same brutal logic to their own colonists, in the conviction that only pain and terror could motivate the poor. Convicting a laborer of stealing two pints of oatmeal to allay his hunger, the leaders had a long needle thrust through his tongue, to keep him from ever eating again. Chained to a tree, the convict slowly starved to death, a vivid and lingering example to terrify his fellow colonists.
