Bilboes

[justawench]

I came across the unusual punishment of the bilboes in an article in Early American Life magazine, which was described as frequently used on ships to restrain sailors. Looking for more information I found this link which says:

The Bilboe was a form of shackle used from the 16th Century onward till at least the end of the Golden Age of Piracy.

Comments

[compassrose7577]

I was familiar with these things, and I can't even read your notations on them, because my claustrophobia won't allow me. They really creep me out!

LOL! But then so does a lot of the 18th Century sense of how to treat their fellow man. Such inhumanity seems to stem from a cheap value of life.

Anyway... thanks for the info!

[justawench]

Property crimes seem to have been very harshly punished in the 18th cent.

However, things were different in the early colonies than in say, London. Everyone working was so critical to their survival that there was no such thing as long prison stays. You were either branded or otherwise punished or put to death pretty quickly because they couldn't afford having a non-working mouth to feed. [Does that make sense? My sentence structure went off the rails there]

I just finished watching Season 1 of "City of Vice" and it delves into the philosophy of crime and punishment in the mid-18th C. On the one hand, crime was out of control; but on the other, there was this huge impoverished underclass who had to steal or starve since there were no social safety nets.

Hm, apparently I had a lot to say on this subject!

[soubie]

No, your second paragraph makes perfect sense (it's still used in some parts of the world to explain why they execute or at least maim people for what we would consider very little reason).

I was looking at what I think were a set of bilboes aboard HMS Victory just the other day (as it happens) and they had a brief side-note on the theory of crime and punishment at the time.

As I understand it, imprisonment in C18, including in England, wasn't really a sentence in and of itself. Prisons were generally just holding-cells for those who were to be hanged, branded, flogged, etc.- or transported, another common punishment (not possible in the colonies, of course)- which was why they were hardly like prisons today- generally it would just be a huge cellar where a great mass of people were thrown in together, men, women, kids, whoever- only special cases were singled out. (As such, the prison scenes in Moll Flanders are rather more realistic with those in PotC- certainly, ships of the line wouldn't waste space with cages in the hold). (A