In the seventeenth-century English world—both at home and in the colonies—physical mutilation was a standard mark of justice. The Pilgrims and their Puritan neighbors imported those same penalties. “Branding” meant searing a hot iron into the flesh (usually the cheek, hand, or shoulder) to leave a permanent scar showing the crime’s initial—B for blasphemy, A for adultery, T for theft, etc. “Ear-cropping” involved slicing off part of one or both ears, often in public. These punishments were inten