Beheadings and other disfigurements were quite common in the colonial
era. Rape and murder inevitably brought the death penalty accompanied
by the perpetrator's head being placed on a pike at a prominent place,
usually a major crossroad in rural areas. Hence the racists names for
some places in Virginia in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Jim Watkinson
James D. Watkinson, Ph.D.
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