[MUSIC PLAYING] Throughout history,
many societies have used tarring and
feathering for both punishment and humiliation. The practice reaches as far
back as the 12th century. And despite the fact that
most people associate the ritual with the
late 18th century, the last known instance
occurred as recently as 1981. So today, we're going to take
a look at the brutal history behind tarring and feathering. But before we get started, be
sure to subscribe to the Weird History channel and let us
know in the comments below what other historical punishments
you would like to hear about. OK. These feathers were
not meant to fly. [MUSIC PLAYING] King Richard I of England, also
known as Richard the Lionheart, was an exalted ruler who
held the throne from 1189 until his death 10 years later. Considered a chivalrous king, he
was well liked by his kingdom. He also developed a reputation
as a great military leader, becoming a principle
commander of the Third Crusade and even winning victories
against the legendary Saladin. He was the first person
to ever be documented as threatening to
have someone tarred and feathered as a punishment. The relevant language
comes from an order Richard gave his troops as they
were headed to the Holy Land on a crusade in 1189. On the subject of thieves
being discovered on his ships, the king declared that
"he shall first be shaved, then boiling pitch shall
be poured upon his head, and a cushion of
feather shook over it so that he may be
publicly known. And at the first land
where the ships put in, he shall be cast on shore." Well, that does sound
like a cruel punishment. You have to admit, that
man was an innovator. Whether they were really
original to him or not, King Richard's ideas about the
use of tarring and feathering as a punishment must have
struck a chord with his people, because they were still using
the process hundreds of years later. In 1623, a group
of nuns and priests were subjected to the procedure. Since members of
religious orders were highly esteemed
in past centuries, they were punished severely
for behaving outside of their prescribed boundaries. Although little is known
about the incident itself, they were apparently
tarred and feathered for public drunkenness
on the say-so of the Bishop of Halverstade. Records show that in
1696, a London bailiff who was attempting to serve
process on a debtor was tarred and feathered
for his trouble. Tarring and feathering a debt
collector, I think I get it. [MUSIC PLAYING] The English liked
tarring and feathering so much they brought it
with them to the Americas, where it became a popular form
of protest in the 18th century. Take the case of
Captain William Smith, who was accused of
ratting out smugglers to British customs authorities. Smith was hunted
down by a Virginia mob who tarred and feathered
him and then threw him in the harbor. And there are many
such incidents. Why was tarring and feathering
so popular in colonial times? Well, it was greatly a
matter of convenience. The average American pillow
was filled with feathers, and tar was also
readily available since pine tar was used as
a common sealant in most shipyards. As the necessary materials
were easily available to the average citizen,
tarring and feathering quickly became a favorite method of
punishment and humiliation among the colonists. And this was especially true
after the passing of the Stamp Act, when the colonists
turned their outrage on British officials regularly. Another reason behind
the widespread embrace of tarring and
feathering was that, contrary to popular
belief, it was not fatal. The survival rate was
actually very high, even if the punishment
itself was slow, brutal, and incredibly embarrassing. In fact, there is no
record of a person dying from the punishment during
the entire American colonial era. Today when you hear tar, you
probably think of asphalt. But in the times
of the colonists, tar referred to pine
tar, or resin, which is a glue-like material that
was also known as pitch. Pine tar can be procured
when pine wood is heated to extremely
high temperatures in a low-oxygen environment. This process turns
the resin into a carbonized and incredibly
sticky substance. Pine tar was widely used
on wooden sailing ships as a sealant and
wood preservative. Today, it's used in products
like shampoo and skin treatments and by
professional baseball players. Pine tar is also
the easiest phrase you can say to make Kansas
City Royal George Brett angry. The assumption that tarring was
an extremely hot and painful process stems from the
modern association of tar with asphalt. In
fact, asphalt must be heated to a much higher
temperature than pine tar in order to reach
a pliable state. The difference is about
300 degrees Fahrenheit versus 140 degrees Fahrenheit. The point being pine
tar would generally not cause any lasting
damage from burns. That being said, it was hot
enough to cause some damage. A judge named Peter
Oliver once observed a man being tarred
and feathered and said hot pitch was poured upon
him, which blistered his skin. Still, as hot as
the pitch could get, the most lasting
injuries were most likely tied to the victim's
reputation and pride. The most common
materials used globally for tarring and feathering were,
in fact, pine tar and feathers. But when those
eponymous ingredients were in short supply, Americans
did what they do best-- they got creative and began
to use other materials they had readily on hand. Some common substitutes
in the 1800s were syrup and
cattails, which are both food products as
opposed to building materials and stuffing. Being syruped and
cattailed doesn't quite have the same ring to it as
being tarred and feathered. But rhetorical aspects
aside, they got the job done. [MUSIC PLAYING] History is replete
with stories of people who win the lottery twice,
but not everyone is so lucky. Take John Malcolm, a
staunch British loyalist and comptroller for
the customs service who bore the distinction of
being publicly tarred and feathered not
just once, but twice. The first incident
occurred in Maine in 1773 and became an integral element
in Malcolm's local reputation. In this instance, he
was being punished by a group of angry sailors. However, it wasn't as bad
as it could have been, because the attackers
applied the tar and feathers over his clothes. The second tarring
and feathering occurred in Boston
in 1774 after Malcolm was stopped by a local
man, George Hewes, for yelling at a boy. Malcolm struck Hewes
down with his cane, and a mob soon gathered
outside his home, outraged. Instead of caving to the mob,
he egged them on, shouting, you say I was
tarred and feathered and that it was not
done in a proper manner? Damn you. Let me see the man
that dare do it better. Now, if you think
daring an angry mob to do a better job at
tarring and feathering you is a bad idea, then
congratulations. You're smarter
than John Malcolm. He was stripped to
the waist, whipped and beaten before being
tarred and feathered for the second time in his life. He was then forced to drink
tea until he puked because, at that point, why not? His second punishment
was so severe that his skin peeled off in
chunks, which he saved in a box to show the king how
much he had suffered. After the incident,
Malcolm moved back to England, which,
all things considered, seemed to make everybody happy. [MUSIC PLAYING] Born in 1830, religious
leader Joseph Smith is most famous for being
the founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day
Saint movement. In his mid-20s, he
published the Book of Mormon, which he
claimed he discovered written on gold plates in a
language he called reformed Egyptian. The publication attracted
tens of thousands of people to his movement and
kick-started what today is a global religion
with millions of followers. So where does the tarring
and feathering come in? Well, in the middle of the
night on March 24, 1832, Smith was dragged from his bed. Community members were
angry about a few things. First off was his supposed
plan to take land from them and place it under
his own control. But perhaps the
most pressing reason for the midnight kidnapping
was the accusation that he had been intimate with
a young girl in the community. It would feel good to
praise the angry mob for their civic
mindedness when it came to the protection of children. But during the events
described, they also forced Smith's wife and
baby from inside the house, and a few days later, the
baby died from exposure. Smith was badly beaten and
covered in tar and feathers. But apparently, the mob
failed to make their point. Smith's friends spent the
night cleaning him up. And the next morning, despite
being wounded and weak, he still preached
to his congregation. [MUSIC PLAYING] As previously mentioned,
the popularity of tarring and
feathering was largely a function of how easy it is
to procure tar and feathers. It follows that when something
so dangerous is so accessible, it's bound to fall into
the hands of the worst kind of people. As such, one prominent example
of tarring and feathering involved a high school
principal from Willow Run school district, a town located
35 miles west of Detroit in Michigan. The town had a long
history of racial tension. And in 1971, just four
years after 43 people died in racial riots
in nearby Detroit, Dr. R. Wiley Brownlee
was kidnapped, tarred and feathered by the KKK. What did Brownlee do to
deserve such an attack? Well, he was a white
man who was advocating the public recognition
of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. While this example
is relatively recent, it's worth pointing out that
the Klan had historically used this punishment
on African Americans. [MUSIC PLAYING] All good things
must come to an end, and all bad things usually
peter out eventually too. Tarring and feathering
had a good long run that lasted
centuries, but it now seems to have gone
the way of the dodo. The last recorded
instance of this fairly horrifying phenomenon
happened to one Elizabeth Jamieson, who
was tarred and feathered on her wedding day in 1981. The ex-wife of her
husband-to-be, Marietta McElwey, was angry
that Jamieson was proceeding with the wedding
in spite of McElwey's threats. McElwey and her
sister essentially held Jamieson at gunpoint before
chopping off her long hair, stripping her torso, and
tarring and feathering her from the waist up. While the attack was no
doubt pretty terrifying, it did not succeed in its goal. Determined to carry on
with her wedding plans, Jamieson recovered
from the incident and went forward
with the wedding, wearing a short wig to hide her
butchered hair and hopefully a good amount of perfume
to mask the tar stench. Good for her. We hope it worked out and she
got some really great wedding gifts. So what do you think? Why would you tar
and feather someone? Let us know in the
comments below. And while you're at it, check
out some of these other videos from our Weird History.
