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 The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and ...

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, 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 estima ...

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 are ...

. 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 wrote: "Ten Southern codes made it a crime to mistreat a slave.... Under the Louisiana Civil Code 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 Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, 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 stat ...

, 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 The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both 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 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 ...

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 t ...

, and

North Carolina North Carolina () is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 28th largest and List of states and territories of the United ...

) 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, 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

, 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 Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

, 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 The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves of 1807 (, enacted March 2, 1807) is a United States federal law that provided that no new slaves were permitted to be imported into the United States. It took effect on January 1, 1808, the earliest da ...

on 1 January 1808, made it a felony to import slaves from abroad.

French slave codes

The French colonies in North America were the only portion of the Americas to have an effective slave code applied from the center of the empire.

King Louis XIV , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Ver ...

applied the

in 1685, and it was adopted by

Saint-Domingue Saint-Domingue () was a French colony in the western portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, in the area of modern-day Haiti, from 1659 to 1804. The name derives from the Spanish main city in the island, Santo Domingo, which came to ref ...

in 1687 and the

French West Indies The French West Indies or French Antilles (french: Antilles françaises, ; gcf, label= Antillean Creole, Antiy fwansez) are the parts of France located in the Antilles islands of the Caribbean: * The two overseas departments of: ** Guadeloupe ...

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 Réunion (; french: La Réunion, ; previously ''Île Bourbon''; rcf, label= Reunionese Creole, La Rényon) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas department and region of France. It is located approximately east of the island o ...

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 bord ...

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 to ...

, which had very few slaves. The Code Noir was developed in part to combat the spread of

Protestantism Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

and thus focuses more on religious restrictions than other slave codes. The Code Noir was significantly updated in 1724. The city of

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

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 November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

, 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 were local laws, similar to those in other regions. There was an overarching legal code, Las Siete Partidas, 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 Frank Tannenbaum (1893–1969) was an Austrian-American historian, sociologist and criminologist, who made significant contributions to modern Mexican history during his career at Columbia University. Early life Tannenbaum was born in Austria on ...

, 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 *

; French black code *

New York slave codes The New York slave codes were a series of slave codes The slave codes were laws relating to slavery and enslaved people, specifically regarding the Atlantic slave trade and chattel slavery in the Americas. Most slave codes were concerned with ...

South Carolina slave codes South Carolina established its first slave code in 1695. The code was based on the 1684 Jamaica slave code, which was in turn based on the 1661 Barbados Slave Code. The South Carolina slave code was the model for other North American colonies. G ...

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 ...

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

External links

on PBS.org
Slave codes of District of Columbia

The 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