Theslave codes were laws relating toslavery and enslaved people, specifically regarding theAtlantic 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, after 1685, had theCode Noir specifically for this purpose.[1] The Spanish had some laws regarding slavery inLas Siete Partidas, a far older law that was not designed for the slave societies of the Americas.[2]English colonies largely had their own local slave codes, mostly based on the codes of either the colonies ofBarbados orVirginia.[3]
In addition to these national and state- or colony-level slave codes, there were city ordinances and other local restrictions regarding enslaved people.
There are many similarities between the various slave codes. The most common elements are:
There was no central English slave code; each colony developed its own code, often with reference toRoman law and its treatment of thestatus of slaves.[13]After theUnited States established independence in theAmerican Revolutionary War of 1775–1783, the individual states ratified new constitutions, but their laws were generally a continuation of the laws those regions had maintained prior to that point, and their slave codes remained unchanged.[citation needed]
The first comprehensive slave-code in an English colony was established in Barbados, an island in theCaribbean, 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 theColony of Jamaica in 1664, and were then greatly modified in 1684. The Jamaican codes of 1684 were copied by thecolony of South Carolina, first in 1691,[3] and then immediately following the Stono Rebellion, in 1740. The South Carolina slave-code served as the model for many other colonies in North America.[14] In 1755, thecolony of Georgia adopted the South Carolina slave code.[15]
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.[16] In 1667, the VirginiaHouse of Burgesses enacted a law which did not 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 that 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".[17]
The slave codes of the othertobacco colonies (Delaware,Maryland, andNorth Carolina) were modeled on the Virginia code.[18] While not based directly on the codes of Barbados, the Virginia codes were inspired by them.[19][20] The shipping and trade that took place between the West Indies and the Chesapeake (the "final passage" of theTriangular Trade) meant that planters quickly became aware of any legal and cultural changes that took place.[21] According to historianRussell Menard, when Maryland put its slave code in place in the 1660s the Barbadian codes functioned as a "legal cultural hearth" for the law, with members of the Maryland legislature having been former residents of Barbados.[22]
The northern colonies developed their own slave-codes at later dates, with the strictest evolving in thecolony of New York, which passed a comprehensive slave code in 1702 and expanded that code in 1712 and 1730.[23]
The BritishSlave Trade Act 1807 abolished theslave trade throughout theBritish Empire. In 1833, theSlavery Abolition Act ended slavery throughout the British Empire.[24]
TheUnited States experienced divisions betweenslave states in the South and free states in the North. At the start of theAmerican Civil War in 1861, 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.[citation needed]
Slavery was not banned nationwide in the United States until theThirteenth Amendment was ratified by 27 states by December 6, 1865. The 1807Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, in effect on 1 January 1808, had made it a felony to import slaves from abroad.
TheFrench colonies in North America were the only portion of the Americas to have an effective slave code applied from the center of the empire. KingLouis XIV applied theCode Noir in 1685, and it was adopted bySaint-Domingue in 1687 and theFrench West Indies in 1687,French Guiana in 1704,Réunion in 1723, andLouisiana in 1724. It was never applied inCanada, which had very few slaves. The Code Noir was developed in part to combat the spread ofProtestantism and thus focuses more on religious restrictions than other slave codes. The Code Noir was significantly updated in 1724.[1]
The city ofNew 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.[25]
France abolished slavery after theFrench Revolution, first by freeing second-generation slaves in 1794.[26] Although it was reinstated under Napoleon with theLaw of 20 May 1802
In practice, the slave codes of theSpanish 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 theRoman 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.[27]
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.[28]
TheLaws 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.[29]
English slave law [...] was not imposed by the motherland; rather, it was the result of local processes, involving colonial judges and local authorities. Colonial judges had to create a law on slavery in a context in which they could not rely on any established slave code. For this reason, it was common practice to refer to Roman law, and thus to a system that was comparatively harsher on slaves than the one Spanish society was able to elaborate during the course of its medieval history.
This period of migration saw thousands of people move from Barbados to Virginia. Both Virginia's role in the slave trade and its knowledge ofplantation management grew as a result.
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