Slave Brander – Australian International Academy

Museum Artefact
By Sara Adel 9A
This ‘artifact’ is a slave brander as used during the Atlantic Slave Trade by the owners of
slaves. Slaves were branded with the initials of their owner as a form of identification and/or
punishment, done with red-hot iron rods. Slaves were also branded when they were bought at
auctions with the purchaser’s initials or mark.
Slaves were often branded on a visible part of their bodies, for example on their back, chest,
arms, hands, abdomen, or face. The whole procedure was very painful and left a burning scar
on the slave’s skin in the shape of their owner’s initials, making the ‘ownership’ obvious and
a painful reminder of the slave’s place as nothing more than an object. Slaves were also
barely clothed, making their skin more exposed and making it easier to see the scar. In terms
of punishment, when a slave tried to run away, the owner would often burn the letter ‘R’ on
their face to identify them as a runaway, and mark them as a ‘criminal’. Branding would
make it easier for people to identify their slaves and differentiate them from others. It was a
way of ‘marking property’ as if the slave were objects or animals. Sometimes, the
punishment of branding would go hand-in-hand with other punishments like flogging, slitting
noses and cutting off ears.
Nowadays, this sort of thing continues on farm animals to identify them, but even then, it is
now considered animal cruelty, so isn’t looked on in a very good light and isn’t widespread at
all. Instead, people pierce a tag on their ears or paint on their fur.
Not so Fun Fact: Slaves weren’t the only people to get branded. Criminals who repeated
offenses or who committed drastic crimes regarding freeing slaves were also branded to
publicly humiliate them for their crimes and identify them if they committed a crime again.
For example, according to the African American Registry, a white man named Jonathan
Walker, who was born in 1790, was arrested in 1844 for trying to free slaves by smuggling
them into the Bahamas. He was in jail for more than a year and was branded with the letters
‘SS’ on his palm, which stood for ‘Slave Stealer”.

Real life examples: (taken from American Slavery as it is, compiled by

Theodore D. Weld published in 1839)
- 1838 - Mr Micajah Ricks “Ran away, a negro woman and two children; a few days
before she went off, I burnt her with a hot iron, on the left side of her face, tried to
make the letter M.”
- 1836 - J. L. Jolley “Was committed to jail a negro man, says his name is Josiah…and
branded on the thigh and hips, in three or four places, thus (J. M.)”
- 1837 - Mr William Stansell “Ran away, a negro boy Harper-has a scar on one of his
hips in the form of a G”
- 1837 - Mr W. Riley “Ran away, a negro man, has a scar on the ankle produced by a
burn, and a mark on his arm resembling the letter S”