Rough ‘n’ Tumble Snapshot: Bad Georgia Road by Mark Hatmaker

The following excerpt is from Whitman Mead’s Travels in North America [1820.]

The author refers to an incident he witnessed in 1817 while travelling though Georgia.

Such gatherings, according to Mead, occurred 2-3 times per week where folks would gather to fellowship, feast, drink, dance, gamble, exchange wares, and often following the ever-present horse-race a public challenge may be issued.

At which time:

“A ring is formed, free for anyone to enter and fight…After a few rounds, they generally clinch, throw down, bite and gouge, and the conquered creeps out under the ring as a signal of his submission.”

Mead tells of meeting several past combatants who had noses bitten off, eyes gouged out, and more than a few who had been castrated in such affairs.

Many of these now unsavory tactics were not mere desperation moves in the heat-of-battle but sought for targets-of-acquisition with their own strategy and methods.

[For more Rough & Tumble history see this blog,and for pragmatic applications of old school tactics historically accurate andviciously verified see our RAW Subscription Service.]

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