Our History is American History - Slave Codes

Welcome to any first time visitors to my blog! Welcome back to those who've been here before! What we learned about slavery... ok maybe just me... was that slaves were made to pick cotton and then Abraham Lincoln freed us after the Civil War. But what we... ok maybe me.... didn't learn was what was life like for a slave . The movie Roots gave us glimpse but no way Alex Haley could tell the whole story. We're gonna learn what we can though... we're gonna learn. 

Slave code, in U.S. history, any of the set of rules based on the concept that enslaved persons were property, not persons. Inherent in the institution of slavery were certain social controls, which enslavers amplified with laws to protect not only the property but also the property owner from the danger of slave violence. The slave codes were forerunners of the Black codes of the mid-19th century.

Slaves did not accept their fate without protest. Many instances of rebellion were known to Americans, even in colonial times. These rebellions were not confined to the South. In fact, one of the earliest examples of a slave uprising was in 1712 in Manhattan. As African Americans in the colonies grew greater and greater in number, there was a justifiable paranoia on the part of the white settlers that a violent rebellion could occur in one's own neighborhood. It was this fear of rebellion that led each colony to pass a series of laws restricting slaves' behaviors. The laws were known as SLAVE CODES.

Slaves had few legal rights: in court their testimony was inadmissible in any litigation involving whites. A slave accused of any crime against a white person was doomed and no testimony could be made by a slave against a white person. Therefore, the slave's side of the story could never be told in a court of law. Of course, slaves were conspicuously absent from juries as well. Slaves could make no contract, nor could they own property; even if attacked, they could not strike a white person. There were numerous restrictions to enforce social control: slaves could not be away from their owner’s premises without permission; they could not assemble unless a white person was present; they could not own firearms; they could not be taught to read or write, nor could they transmit or possess “inflammatory” literature; they were not permitted to marry any white person and in some colonies they could not marry each other.

Slave codes varied slightly from colony to colony, but most made bondage a lifelong condition and ensured that all descendants of slaves would be slaves as well. Slave codes gave white masters nearly total control over the lives of slaves, permitting owners to use such corporal punishments as whipping, branding, maiming, and torture. Obedience to the slave codes was exacted in a variety of ways. Such punishments as whipping, branding, and imprisonment were commonly used. Some enslaved persons, especially those who committed violence against whites, were killed, although slaves’ value to their owners as labor discouraged the practice. Although white masters could not legally murder their slaves, some did and were never prosecuted. Slave codes were not always strictly enforced, but, whenever any signs of unrest were detected, the appropriate machinery of the state would be alerted and the laws more strictly enforced. With each new rebellion, the slave codes became ever stricter, further abridging the already limited rights and privileges this oppressed people might hope to enjoy.

Slave codes ended with the Civil War but were replaced by other discriminatory laws known as "black codes" during Reconstruction (1865-77). The black codes were attempts to control the newly freed African Americans by barring them from engaging in certain occupations, performing jury duty, owning firearms, voting, and other pursuits. At first, the U.S. Congress opposed black codes by enacting legislation such as the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875 and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. But by the time of the so-called Compromise of 1877, civil rights for blacks had eroded, as Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court, and northerners lost interest in the issue. The slave codes essentially lived on in Jim Crow laws and other forms of discrimination until successfully challenged in the civil rights era of the 1950s and 1960s.