The slave codes were laws relating to
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
and enslaved people, specifically regarding the
Atlantic slave trade and chattel slavery in the Americas.
Most slave codes were concerned with the rights and duties of free people in regards to enslaved people. Slave codes left a great deal unsaid, with much of the actual practice of slavery being a matter of traditions rather than formal law.
The primary colonial powers all had slightly different slave codes.
French colonies
From the 16th to the 17th centuries, the First French colonial empire stretched from a total area at its peak in 1680 to over , the second largest empire in the world at the time behind only the Spanish Empire. During the 19th and 20th centuri ...
, after 1685, had the
Code Noir
The (, ''Black code'') was a decree passed by the French King Louis XIV in 1685 defining the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire. The decree restricted the activities of free people of color, mandated the conversion of all e ...
specifically for this purpose.
The Spanish had some laws regarding slavery in
Las Siete Partidas
The ''Siete Partidas'' (, "Seven-Part Code") or simply ''Partidas'', was a Castilian statutory code first compiled during the reign of Alfonso X of Castile (1252–1284), with the intent of establishing a uniform body of normative rules for the ...
, a far older law that was not designed for the slave societies of the Americas.
[Igersoll 1995, pp. 24-25] English colonies
The English overseas possessions, also known as the English colonial empire, comprised a variety of overseas territories that were colonised, conquered, or otherwise acquired by the former Kingdom of England during the centuries before the Ac ...
largely had their own local slave codes, mostly based on the codes of either the colonies of
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate) ...
or
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
.
In addition to these national and state- or colony-level slave codes, there were city ordinances and other local restrictions regarding enslaved people.
Typical slave codes
There are many similarities between the various slave codes. The most common elements are:
*Movement restrictions: Most regions required any slaves away from their plantations or outside of the cities they resided in to have a pass signed by their master. Many cities in the slave-states required slave tags, small copper badges that enslaved people wore, to show that they were allowed to move about.
*
Marriage restrictions: Most places restricted the marriage rights of enslaved people, ostensibly to prevent them from trying to change masters by marrying into a family on another plantation.
[Ingersoll 1995, pp. 29-30] Marriage between people of different races was also usually restricted.
*Prohibitions on gathering: Slave codes generally prevented large groups of enslaved people from gathering away from their plantations.
*Slave patrols: In the slave-dependent portions of North America, varying degrees of legal authority backed
slave patrol
Slave patrols—also known as patrollers, patterrollers, pattyrollers or paddy rollersVerner D. Mitchell, Cynthia Davis (2019). ''Encyclopedia of the Black Arts Movement''. p. 323. Rowman & Littlefield—were organized groups of armed men who m ...
s by plantation owners and other free whites to ensure that enslaved people were not free to move about at night, and to generally enforce the restrictions on slaves.
*Trade and commerce by slaves: Initially, most places gave enslaved people some land to work personally and allowed them to operate their markets. As slavery became more profitable, slave codes restricting the rights of enslaved people to buy, sell, and produce goods were introduced. In some places, slave tags were required to be worn by enslaved people to prove that they were allowed to participate in certain types of work.
*Punishment and killing of slaves: Slave codes regulated how slaves could be punished, usually going so far as to apply no penalty for accidentally killing a slave while punishing them.
Later laws began to apply restrictions on this, but slave-owners were still rarely punished for killing their slaves.
[Morris 1999, pp 171-172] Historian
Lawrence M. Friedman
Lawrence Meir Friedman (born April 2, 1930) is an American Legal education, law professor, historian of American legal history, and author of nonfiction and fiction books. He has been a member of the faculty at Stanford Law School since 1968.
Bi ...
wrote: "Ten Southern codes made it a crime to mistreat a slave.... Under the
Louisiana Civil Code
The ''Louisiana Civil Code'' (LCC) constitutes the core of private law in the State of Louisiana. The Louisiana Civil Code is based on a more diverse set of sources than the laws of the other 49 states of the United States: substantive law between ...
of 1825 (art. 192), if a master was ′convicted of cruel treatment,′ the judge could order the sale of the mistreated slave, presumably to a better master."
*Education restrictions: Some codes made it
illegal to teach slaves to read.
England's American colonies and the United States
There was no central English slave code; each colony developed its own code. In the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, after their
independence
Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the statu ...
, the individual states ratified new constitutions, but their laws were generally a continuation of the laws those regions maintained prior to that point and their slave codes remaining unchanged.
The first comprehensive English slave code was established in Barbados, an island in the
Caribbean, in 1661. Many other slave codes of the time are based directly on this model. Modifications of the Barbadian slave codes were put in place in the
Colony of Jamaica
The Crown Colony of Jamaica and Dependencies was a British colony from 1655, when it was captured by the English Protectorate from the Spanish Empire. Jamaica became a British colony from 1707 and a Crown colony in 1866. The Colony was prima ...
in 1664, and were then greatly modified in 1684. The Jamaican codes of 1684 were copied by the
colony of South Carolina
Province of South Carolina, originally known as Clarendon Province, was a province of Great Britain that existed in North America from 1712 to 1776. It was one of the five Southern colonies and one of the thirteen American colonies. The monar ...
in 1691.
The South Carolina slave code served as the model for many other colonies in North America. In 1755,
colony of Georgia
In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...
adopted the South Carolina slave code.
Virginia's slave codes were made in parallel to those in Barbados, with individual laws starting in 1667 and a comprehensive slave code passed in 1705. In 1667, the Virginia House of Burgesses enacted a law which didn't recognize the conversion of African Americans to Christianity despite a baptism. In 1669, Virginia enacted “An act about the casual killing of slaves” which declared masters who killed slaves deemed resisting were exempt from felony charges. In 1670, they enacted a law prohibiting free Africans from purchasing servants who weren't also African. In 1680, Virginia passed Act X, which prohibited slaves from carrying weapons, leaving their owner's plantation without a certificate, or raising a hand against "Christians".
The slave codes of the other tobacco colonies (
Delaware
Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...
,
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
, and
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...
) were modeled on the Virginia code.
[Christian, pp. 27-28] While not based directly on the codes of Barbados, the Virginia codes were inspired by them. The shipping and trade that took place between the West Indies and the Chesapeake meant that planters were quickly informed of any legal and cultural changes that took place. According to historian
Russell Menard Russell Menard, Emeritus Professor at the University of Minnesota specializes in the economic and social history of the British colonies in North America. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Iowa in 1975. Most of his work has been on the econo ...
, when Maryland put its slave code in place the influence of the Barbadian codes as a "cultural hearth" for the law is noted with members of the Maryland legislature having been former residents of Barbados.
The northern colonies developed their own slave codes at later dates, the strictest being in the
colony of New York
The Province of New York (1664–1776) was a British proprietary colony and later royal colony on the northeast coast of North America. As one of the Middle Colonies, New York achieved independence and worked with the others to found the Unit ...
, which passed a comprehensive slave code in 1702 and expanded that code in 1712 and 1730.
The
slave trade
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
was abolished throughout the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...
by the
Slave Trade Act of 1807
The Slave Trade Act 1807, officially An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom prohibiting the slave trade in the British Empire. Although it did not abolish the practice of slavery, it ...
. In 1833, the
Slavery Abolition Act
The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will. IV c. 73) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which provided for the gradual abolition of slavery in most parts of the British Empire. It was passed by Earl Grey's reforming administrati ...
ended slavery throughout the British Empire.
In the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, there was a division between
slave states in the South and free states in the North. At the start of the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
, there were 34 states in the United States, 15 of which were slave states, all of which had slave codes. The 19 free states did not have slave codes, although they still had laws regarding slavery and enslaved people, covering such issues as how to handle slaves from slave states, whether they were runaways or with their owners.
Slavery was not banned nationwide in the United States until the
Thirteenth Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865. The
Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves on 1 January 1808, made it a felony to import slaves from abroad.
French slave codes
The
French colonies in North America
New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spain ...
were the only portion of the Americas to have an effective slave code applied from the center of the empire.
King Louis XIV applied the
Code Noir
The (, ''Black code'') was a decree passed by the French King Louis XIV in 1685 defining the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire. The decree restricted the activities of free people of color, mandated the conversion of all e ...
in 1685, and it was adopted by
Saint-Domingue in 1687 and the
French West Indies in 1687,
French Guiana
French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label=French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic coast of South America in the Guianas. ...
in 1704,
Réunion in 1723, and
Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
in 1724. It was never applied in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, which had very few slaves. The Code Noir was developed in part to combat the spread of
Protestantism
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
and thus focuses more on religious restrictions than other slave codes. The Code Noir was significantly updated in 1724.
The city of
in Louisiana developed slave codes under Spain, France, and the United States, due to Louisiana changing hands several times, resulting in a very complex set of slave codes. The needs of the locals were usually held in favor over any outside laws.
[Ingersoll 1995, pp. 23-24]
France abolished slavery after the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...
, first by freeing second-generation slaves in 1794. Although it was reinstated under Napoleon with the law of 20 May 1802.
Spanish slave codes
In practice, the slave codes of the
Spanish colonies
The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its prede ...
were local laws, similar to those in other regions. There was an overarching legal code,
Las Siete Partidas
The ''Siete Partidas'' (, "Seven-Part Code") or simply ''Partidas'', was a Castilian statutory code first compiled during the reign of Alfonso X of Castile (1252–1284), with the intent of establishing a uniform body of normative rules for the ...
, which granted many specific rights to the slaves in these regions, but there is little record of it actually being used to benefit the slaves in the Americas. Las Siete Partidas was compiled in the thirteenth century, long before the colonization of the new world, and its treatment of slavery was based on the
Roman tradition.
Frank Tannenbaum, an influential sociologist who wrote on the treatment of slaves in the Americas, treated the laws in Las Siete Partidas as an accurate reflection of treatment, but later scholarship has moved away from this viewpoint, arguing that the official laws in Las Siete Partidas did not reflect practices in the colonies.
An attempt to unify the Spanish slave codes, the Codigo Negro, was cancelled without ever going into effect because it was unpopular with the slave-owners in the Americas.
The Laws of the Indies were an ongoing body of laws, modified throughout the history of the Spanish colonies, that incorporated many slave laws in the later versions.
[Ingersoll 1995, pp. 53-54]
Other slave codes
*
Barbados slave codes
*
Code Noir
The (, ''Black code'') was a decree passed by the French King Louis XIV in 1685 defining the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire. The decree restricted the activities of free people of color, mandated the conversion of all e ...
; French black code
*
New York slave codes
The New York slave codes were a series of slave codes passed in the Province of New York to regulate slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an ...
*
South Carolina slave codes
*
Virginia slave codes of 1705 The Virginia Slave Codes of 1705 (formally entitled An act concerning Servants and Slaves), were a series of laws enacted by the Colony of Virginia's House of Burgesses in 1705 regulating the interactions between slaves and citizens of the crown col ...
See also
*
Anti-literacy laws in the United States
*
Atlantic slave trade
*
Conscription
*
Convict leasing
Convict leasing was a system of forced penal labor which was practiced historically in the Southern United States, the laborers being mainly African-American men; it was ended during the 20th century. (Convict labor in general continues; f ...
*
Coolie
A coolie (also spelled koelie, kuli, khuli, khulie, cooli, cooly, or quli) is a term for a low-wage labourer, typically of South Asian or East Asian descent.
The word ''coolie'' was first popularized in the 16th century by European traders acros ...
*
Debt bondage
*
Forced labor
Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...
*
Human trafficking
*
Indentured servant
Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an "indenture", may be entered "voluntarily" for purported eventual compensation or debt repaymen ...
s
*
International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition
*
Slave narrative
The slave narrative is a type of literary genre involving the (written) autobiographical accounts of enslaved Africans, particularly in the Americas. Over six thousand such narratives are estimated to exist; about 150 narratives were published as s ...
*
Slave rebellion
*
Slave Trade Act
Slave Trade Act is a stock short title used for legislation in the United Kingdom and the United States that relates to the slave trade.
The "See also" section lists other Slave Acts, laws, and international conventions which developed the conce ...
s
*
Slave trade
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
**
Janissaries
**
Mamluk
Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning " slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') ...
s
**
Saqaliba
Saqaliba ( ar, صقالبة, ṣaqāliba, singular ar, صقلبي, ṣaqlabī) is a term used in medieval Arabic sources to refer to Slavs and other peoples of Central, Southern, and Eastern Europe, or in a broad sense to European slaves. The t ...
*
Slavery in Africa
*
Slavery in Canada
Slavery in Canada includes both that practised by First Nations from earliest times and that under European colonization.
Britain banned the institution of slavery in present-day Canada (and British colonies) in 1833, though the practice of sl ...
*
Slavery in the colonial United States
Slavery in the colonial history of the United States, from 1526 to 1776, developed from complex factors, and researchers have proposed several theories to explain the development of the institution of slavery and of the slave trade. Slavery stron ...
*
Slavery in the United States
The legal institution of human chattel slavery, comprising the enslavement primarily of Africans and African Americans, was prevalent in the United States of America from its founding in 1776 until 1865, predominantly in the South. Sl ...
**
Origins of the American Civil War
Historians who debate the origins of the American Civil War focus on the reasons that seven Southern states (followed by four other states after the onset of the war) declared their secession from the United States (the Union) and united to ...
**
North Carolina v. Mann
''North Carolina v. Mann'', 13 N.C. 263 ( N.C. 1830) (or ''State v. Mann'', as it would have been identified within North Carolina), is a decision in which the Supreme Court of North Carolina ruled that slave owners had absolute authority over t ...
*
Unfree labour
Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...
*
Wage slavery
Wage slavery or slave wages refers to a person's dependence on wages (or a salary) for their livelihood, especially when wages are low, treatment and conditions are poor, and there are few chances of upward mobility.
The term is often us ...
Notes
References
* Christian, Charles M., and Bennet, Sari, ''Black saga: the African American experience : a chronology'', Basic Civitas Books, 1998
* Thomas Cooper and David J. McCord, ed., ''Statutes at Large of South Carolina'', (10 Vols., Columbia, 1836–1841) VII, pp. 352–356.
* B. F. French, ''Historical Collections of Louisiana:Embracing Translations of Many Rare and Valuable Documents Relating to the Natural, Civil, and Political History of that State'' (New York: D. Appleton, 1851)
Slave Code for the District of Columbia
Further reading
* Goodell, William (1853). ''The American Slave Code in Theory and Practice: Its Distinctive Features Shown by Its Statutes, Judicial Decisions, and Illustrative Face''
External links
on
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
.org
Slave codes of District of ColumbiaThe American Slave Code in Theory and Practice: Its Distinctive Features Shown by Its Statutes, Judicial Decisions, and Illustrative Face
{{History of slavery in the United States
United States slavery law
Slavery in North America
Slavery in the British Empire
Slavery law