On this date in 1822, Johan Wilhelm Gebhardt was executed at the Dutch-founded South African settlement of Paarl. His offense, unusual but not unheard-of in our executioner’s annals: killing his slave.
According to Alex Mountain in An Unsung Heritage: Perspectives on Slavery, the 21-year-old Gebhardt, who managed the farm belonging to his father, Rev. Johan Wilhelm Gebhardt Sr., had ordered a slave named Joris flogged “for not working properly.”
the flogging was done repeatedly by a slave called November who had been warned by Gebhardt, who remained present throughout the torture, that he too would be severely punished if he did not flog Joris properly. The flogging was done with a variety of instruments and from time to time salt and vinegar were rubbed into his wounds.
It was only when Joris lost consciousness that the torture stopped.
Joris died that night.
The western Cape had recently been taken under British management, and these looked with surprising hostility on the murder of Joris. Gebhardt was not suffered to plead to manslaughter in order to escape his fate.
Mountain reproduces a photo of Gebhardt’s gravestone (found “being used as a small bridge across a ditch”) with the lines
Rest in Peace
Unfortunate Youth
Your Career was short
and you were led Astray
Few were the Pleasures of your Life
And many your Sufferings!
There’s no gravestone for Joris, of course.
On this day..
- 1615: Anne Turner
- 1892: Thomas Neill Cream, "I am Jack the ..."
- 2016: Jia Jinglong, nail gun avenger
- 1996: Ellis Wayne Felker
- 1591: Barnabe Brisson, at the hands of the Sixteen
- 2011: Reginald Brooks, flipping the bird
- 2011: Oba Chandler
- 1781: Tupac Katari
- 1808: Sultan Mustafa IV, by his brother
- 1539: Richard Whiting, the last Abbot of Glastonbury
- 1924: Daisuke Namba, for the Toranomon Incident
- 1949: Nathuram Godse, Gandhi's assassin