Slave Codes

(noun)

Slave codes were laws in each U.S. state defining the status of slaves and the rights of their owners and giving slave owners absolute power over their slaves.

Examples of Slave Codes in the following topics:

  • Slave Codes

    • Slave codes were laws that were established in each state to define the status of slaves and the rights of their owners.
    • Slave codes in the Northern colonies were less harsh than slave codes in the Southern colonies, but contained many similar provisions.
    • The slave codes of the tobacco colonies (Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia) were modeled on the Virginia code established in 1667.
    • Owners refusing to abide by the slave code were fined and forfeited ownership of their slaves.
    • The district’s official printed slave code was issued only a month beforehand.

  • Slave Families

    • Slave codes and slaveholder practices often denied slaves autonomy over their familial relationships.
    • Slave marriages were illegal in Southern states, and slave couples were frequently separated by slave owners through sale.
    • In The Slave Community (1979), historian John W.
    • Blassingame grants that slave owners did have control over slave marriages.
    • Blassingame in his book The Slave Community

  • Slave Culture

    • In many respects, American slave culture was a culture of survival and defiance against the American slave system.
    • In the absence of a successful slave revolution, as in Haiti (although there were some abortive attempts by black slaves to violently claim their freedom), American slaves practiced other forms of resistance.
    • To regulate the relationship between slave and owner, including legal support for keeping slaves as property, state legislatures adopted various slave codes to reinforce white legal sanctions over the enslaved black population.
    • While each state had its own slave code, they shared many similarities.
    • Literate slaves taught illiterates how to read and write, despite state laws that forbid slaves from literacy.

  • African-American Culture

    • In most states, slaves were forbidden to read or write.
    • To regulate the relationship between slave and owner, including legal support for keeping slaves as property, state legislatures adopted various slave codes to reinforce white legal sanctions over the enslaved black population.
    • While each state had its own slave code, they shared many similarities.
    • Because slaves were proscribed from reading or writing, American slaves adopted a strong oral tradition--passing down songs, prayers, laments, and stories through music and storytelling.
    • Slaves on a South Carolina plantation (The Old Plantation, c. 1790)

  • An Empire of Commerce

    • By the time of the American Revolution, one in five colonists was an African slave .
    • Even after release from indenture, many of these white people remained in the economic lower classes, though they were not subject to the slave codes.
    • The slave codes became more harsh as time passed, denying almost all liberty to slaves in the southern colonies.
    • Neither southerners, who used slaves as field laborers and servants, nor northerners, who supplied slaves and food to the southern and Caribbean plantations and consumed the products of slave labor, questioned the economic value of slavery.
    • The Atlantic slave trade contributed greatly to the economic growth of the colonies.

  • Resistance to Slavery

    • A literate slave named Jemmy led a large group of slaves in an armed insurrection against white colonists, killing several before militia stopped them.
    • In the wake of the Stono Rebellion, South Carolina passed a new slave code in 1740 called An Act for the Better Ordering and Governing of Negroes and Other Slaves in the Province—also known as the Negro Act of 1740.
    • This law imposed new limits on slaves’ behavior, prohibiting slaves from assembling, growing their own food, learning to write, and traveling freely.
    • In addition, one in five New Yorkers was a slave, and tensions ran high between slaves and the free population, especially in the aftermath of the Stono Rebellion.
    • Seventy slaves were sold to the West Indies.

  • White Society in the South

    • Ownership of large numbers of slaves made the work of planters completely managerial.
    • Among slaveholders, the concentration of slave ownership was unevenly distributed.
    • Perhaps around seven percent of slaveholders owned roughly three-quarters of the slave population.
    • White racism in the South was sustained by official systems of repression such as the "slave codes" and elaborate codes of speech, behavior, and social practices illustrating the subordination of blacks to whites.
    • Slave "patrollers" and "overseers" also won prestige in their communities.

  • Conclusion: The State of Slavery before the War

    • Many proponents of slavery argued that the system protected slaves, their masters, and society as a whole.
    • Some free blacks chose to work within the institution of slavery, hired by rural governments as police forces tasked with maintaining order among slave populations and chasing runaway slaves.
    • Darker-skinned slaves tended to engage in manual labor in the fields, whereas lighter-skinned slaves tended to work in the house on less labor-intensive jobs.
    • The laws in slaveholding states, including slaves codes that were established for the purpose of defining the status of slaves and the rights of their owners, left slaves who were treated unfairly without defense or recourse.
    • One estimate suggests that by 1850, 100,000 slaves had escaped via the Railroad.

  • Hammurabi's Code

    • It consisted of 282 laws, with punishments that varied based on social status (slaves,  free men and property owners).
    • If one destroy the eye of a man's slave or break a bone of a man's slave he shall pay one-half his price."
    • The ardu was a slave, whose master paid for his upkeep but also took his compensation.
    • Ardu could own property and other slaves, and could purchase his own freedom.
    • However, if the woman was considered a "bad wife" she might be sent away, or made a slave in the husband's house.

  • The Underground Railroad

    • One estimate suggests that by 1850, 100,000 slaves had escaped via the "Railroad".
    • Ostensibly the compromise redressed all regional problems; however, it coerced officials of free states to assist slave catchers if there were runaway slaves in the area and granted slave catchers national immunity when in free states to do their job.
    • As a de facto bribe, judges were paid more ($10) for a decision that forced a suspected slave back into slavery than for a decision finding the slave to be free ($5).
    • It came to be referred to as a "railroad" due to the use of rail terminology in the code used by its participants.
    • Often the conductor would pretend to be a slave to enter a plantation.