Lawes Divine, Morall, and Martiall, colloquially known as Dale's Code, is a governing document enacted in 1610 (then published in 1612) by the Deputy Governor of Virginia

Thomas Dale Sir Thomas Dale ( 157019 August 1619) was an English soldier and colonial administrator who served as deputy-governor of the Colony of Virginia in 1611 and again from 1614 to 1616. Dale is best remembered for the energy and the extreme rigour ...

. The code, among other things, created a rather

authoritarian Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in democracy, separation of powers, civil liberties, and ...

system of government for the

Colony of Virginia The Colony of Virginia was a British Empire, British colonial settlement in North America from 1606 to 1776. The first effort to create an English settlement in the area was chartered in 1584 and established in 1585; the resulting Roanoke Colo ...

. It established a "single ruling group" that "held tight control of the colony." The word "martial", contained in Dale's Code, refers to the duties of soldiers, while the terms "divine" and "morall" relate to crime and punishment. The code prescribed

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender b ...

for any colonist who endangered the life of the colony by theft or other crimes. Two severe punishments under Dale's Code were: an oatmeal-thief was chained to a tree and left to starve; a pregnant Anne Laydon (Anne Burras) was whipped for "sewing shirts too short" and miscarried. Dale's Code remained in force until 1618. The

Virginia General Assembly The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, and the first elected legislative assembly in the New World. It was established on July 30, ...

replaced the system. Four centuries later, one scholar came up with a theory that it strongly influenced the justice system for decades afterwards, particularly in the governing and punishment of slaves."America and West Indies: July 1624". Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 1, 1574-1660. Ed. W Noel Sainsbury(London, 1860), British History Online. Web. 30 October 2024.
/ref> In the "Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 1, 1574-1660," the following unattributed commentary on the code is present:

Notes

Footnote

References

External links

The Devil and Thomas Dale (2011)
at

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

Dale's Code
at the

Columbia Law School Columbia Law School (CLS) is the Law school in the United States, law school of Columbia University, a Private university, private Ivy League university in New York City. The school was founded in 1858 as the Columbia College Law School. The un ...

Simplified version of Dale's Code
at the Jamestown Settlement & Yorktown Victory Center James River (Virginia) 1612 in law {{US-law-stub