The Home Box Office (HBO) special Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narrative described just how far a whipping could escalate to. "After he lie in the sun awhile, they whip him again. Oh, when they finished with him, he was dead " (Unchained). There was no punishment for a master beating his slave to death.
For just about any reason, punishment or not, a master or overseer could beat and whip a slave. Most of the time when a slave was whipped, it was done so publically. The HBO special stated that "On many plantations, whippings were public spectacles. Owners used the lash to terrorize as well as to punish slaves" (Unchained). Whipping was a brutal and physical form of punishment to the poor soul receiving the lashes. On the other hand, slaves who witness such an event where mentally tormented. Douglass expressed his feeling after one of the first times he saw his Aunt Hester whipped by their master. He was "so terrified and horror-stricken at the sight, that [he] hid [himself] in a closet and dared not venture out. expecting it would be [his] turn next" (Douglass 46). The theory was that when other slaves saw their possible punishment, that they would behave themselves. .
While the physical lashing were usually the end result and the horror of witnessing such an event could be just as painful, slave-owners and overseer did resort to other forms to maintain almost a paranoid mine set amongst the slave population. Some slave-owners and overseer would deceptively creep around hoping to spot lazy slaves such as one of Douglass' overseers, Mr. Covey, would do (Douglass 81). Being unaware of when and where an overseer would appear and knowing that being caught working any less then their full capacity would result in lashes caused fear amongst slaves. Another fear tactic used to get work done and keep slaves in line was expecting a certain workload a day and punishing those who failed to comply.
