Photo of slave wearing collar device Wilson Chinn

Photo of slave wearing collar device Wilson Chinn

Slave collars made of iron were used to discipline and identify slaves who were considered risks of becoming runaways. This broken collar once had three prongs. Abolitionist Theodore Weld in his provocative treatise American Slavery As It Is described the use of a similar collar on a spirited slave near Charleston, South Carolina, who served her mistress as a seamstress: “A handsome mulatto woman, about eighteen or twenty years of age, whose independent spirit could not brook the degradation of slavery, was in the habit of running away.”

For this offence, she was repeatedly and severely whipped, and a “heavy iron collar, with three long prongs projecting from it, was placed round her neck, and a strong and sound front tooth was extracted, to serve as a mark to describe her, in case of escape

Wilson Chinn (fl. 1863) was an escaped American slave from Louisiana who became known as the subject of photographs documenting the extensive use of torture received in slavery. The "branded slave" photograph of Chinn with "VBM" (the initials of his owner, Volsey B. Marmillion) branded on his forehead, wearing a punishment collar, and posing with other equipment used to punish slaves became one of the most widely circulated photos of the abolitionist movement during the American Civil War and remains one of the most famous photos of that era.

Known for Subject of photos demonstrating instruments of torture, widely circulated during the American Civil War

The New York Times writer Joan Paulson Gage, noted in 2013 that "The images of Wilson Chinn in chains, like the one of Gordon and his scarred back, are as disturbing today as they were in 1863. They serve as two of the earliest and most dramatic examples of how the newborn medium of photography could change the course of history.