Whipped slave. Scarred back of a slave in the southern US state of Louisiana in April 1863, following a whipping by an overseer. The injuries confined the slave, called Peter, to bed for two months following the whipping. The overseer was fired by the slave's owner. During the US Civil War, Louisiana was one of the Confederate States (in the south) fighting the Union States (in the north). One of the issues that the war was fought over was slavery, with the Union's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1863 abolishing slavery. Photographed on 2 April 1863, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA.