And for thousands of white people, it was a shocking image that helped fuel the fires of abolition during the Civil War.Ī photograph of Peter’s back became one of the most widely circulated images of slavery of its time, galvanizing public opinion and serving as a wordless indictment of the institution of slavery. It was a hideous constellation of scars: visual proof of the brutality of slavery. The marks extended from his buttocks to his shoulders, calling to mind the viciousness and power with which he had been beaten. Raised welts and strafe marks crisscrossed his back. And when he joined the Union Army after his escape from slavery, Peter exposed his scars during a medical examination. During Peter's enslavement on John and Bridget Lyons’ Louisiana plantation, Peter endured not just the indignity of slavery, but a brutal whipping that nearly took his life. When he reached the soldiers, Peter’s clothing was ragged and soaked with mud and sweat.īut his 10-day ordeal was nothing compared to what he had already been through. He had been pursued for miles, had run barefoot through creeks and across fields. An escaped enslaved man named Peter showing his scarred back at a medical examination in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1863.īy the time he made it to a Union encampment in Baton Rouge in March 1863, Peter had been through hell.
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