In 1685, the French king Louis XIV decreed the Code Noir, a regulation of the treatment of slaves. Although the Code Noir was established to protect the rights of St. Dominican slaves and despite the presence of a rural police, due to Saint-Domingue's difficult terrain and the seclusion of various plantations, some slaves were abused. There are extreme cases recorded where slaves were whipped, burned, buried alive, restrained and allowed to be bitten by swarms of insects, mutilated, raped, and had limbs amputated. On some plantations, slaves caught eating the sugar cane crop would be forced to wear tin muzzles in the fields.
