An average of five felons a year were executed in Pennsylvania during the Revolutionary War period.
Colonists at the time of the Revolutionary War approached criminal discipline and punishment differently than we do today. Great cities like Boston, Philadelphia and New York were at that time small, isolated, close-nit communities of 15-20,000. They lacked anything comparable to today's massive, organized penal system, and the police force was often a single night watchman who would rouse the townsfolk to apprehend a thief. A person's reputation and standing in the community mattered greatly, and punishment by public humiliation worked as an effective deterrent. While serious crimes, like murder or robbery, were punished by hanging or banishment, lesser crimes were usually settled through fines or methods of public embarrassment such as stocks, pillory or tar and feathering.
Hanging
The law of most colonies during the Revolutionary era prescribed a mandatory sentence of death by hanging for a number of serious offenses: murder, arson, rape, robbery, burglary, sodomy, piracy and treason. A judge could sentence a convict to hanging for lesser crimes at the judge's own discretion. Hangings usually took place in a public square near the center of town. In an ideal hanging, the jolt of the condemned man or woman's fall snapped the neck, resulting in instant death, but hangings often resulted in prolonged death by strangulation.
Stocks
Stocks were a comparatively mild form of corporal punishment, the purpose being public humiliation rather than inflicting physical pain or suffering. This simple device consisted of two boards connected by a hinge with two holes cut at shoulder width. The offender sat on the ground in a public place with his ankles locked in the stocks for a prescribed period of time. Custom encouraged passers-by to shower the offender with insults, rotten eggs and vegetables, mud, dirt, fecal matter and urine.
Pillory
Similar in design and concept to the stocks, the pillory stood on a raised platform. The convicted person sat with head and wrists held uncomfortably in place between two hinged boards. More severe forms of corporal punishment often accompanied a pillory sentence. A repeat offender might be lashed, branded or have ears nailed to the boards. Stones hurled by overzealous townsfolk occasionally were fatal.
Tar and Feathers
Though it was never a court-ordered legal sentence, rebellious colonists employed tar and feathers to torture, intimidate and humiliate British magistrates, tax collectors and Tory loyalists. An angry mob of patriots would seize the victim of their ire and pour boiling hot pitch over his body, then cover him in a pillow's worth of feathers. The tarred and feathered government official or loyalist was then paraded through the town. Tarring and feathering worked so well as an intimidation tactic that when the infamous Stamp Act went into effect on November 1, 1765, no British tax collectors would enforce it.
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