Of Pillories, Stockades and Whipping Posts

A creative array of Stocks or Stockades
Generally speaking, a stock is somewhat like those clapboards utilized in between move takes where a crew member yells “Aaaaand…ACTION!” but of a much larger size. On each half of the hinged human clapboard is a semi-circle so that the “to be shamed” could rest their wrists or ankles and when the other half was joined it would trap the hands or feet leaving no means or escape.

Some were high, trapping the hands and forcing a person to stand for hours on end and some – called foot stocks – were low and more “humane” allowing a person to sit on the ground. Others combined hands and feet for an incredibly uncomfortable feeling, and some even were made to shame multiple people – perhaps couples or families. There were also Finger Stocks whereby just the finger was inserted, bent into the stocks, then the upper half was lowered making it impossible to remove your hand without snapping your finger into bits. They were a particular favorite form of punishment dished out by school teachers in Victorian England.

There were Hanging Stocks where only your hands were placed in the stocks but as high as they could over your head. Stocks were even mobile! The standard stocks would be placed on a cart so you could place multiple people on them and have the horse pull them around. A yoke was a board that had either just the hands, just the head or both. The varieties – I’ve only covered a few – are astounding.

If the head was trapped and the stocks were atop a post or side runners, that was a pillory. Therein lie the difference and common confusion that leads to the two becoming interchangeable terms.

Common crimes that would get you sent into stocks or pillory ranged from adultery, stealing, violating rules of the Sabbath, having a “forked tongue,” public drunkenness, accruing debt you couldn’t pay, begging, being a witch or pretty much just about anything. Non-criminal acts include placing a slave into them for escaping the plantation, not working hard enough, or as an alternative to whipping and damaging them so they couldn’t work. Foot stocks were the preferred device to keep slaves from escaping while being transported across the Atlantic during the slave trade, or from their quarters once they were interned.

There are absolutely abhorrent, vile and disgusting historical cases of slaves being sent to the stocks or pillories because a slave owner was too exhausted from whipping a slave. In the cruelest and most inhumane of cases, slaves were not only placed in them but were flogged and even had red pepper rubbed in their eyes. It was also not unheard of for slaves to spend days or weeks, or even until they died.