Description
In a typical tar-and-feathers attack, the mob's victim was stripped to his waist. Hot tar was either poured or painted onto the person while he was immobilized. Then the victim either had feathers thrown on him or was rolled around on a pile of feathers so they stuck to the tar. Often the victim was then paraded around town on a cart or wooden rail. The aim was to inflict enough pain and humiliation on a person to make him either conform his behavior to the mob's demands or be driven from town. The practice was never an official punishment in the United States, but rather a form of vigilante attack.
A more brutal derivation, called pitchcapping, was used by British forces against Irish rebels during the period of the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Sometimes only the head was shaven, tarred and feathered; at other times, a match was held to the feathers to light them and the tar on fire to inflict pain.
Read more about this topic: Tarring And Feathering
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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