If you are able to read, check out these codes for keeping black people In their place and see if they still apply to you today. Are we still living under these Slave Codes today? Historical Background Slave codes were laws passed in the British colonies to address particular problems and originally took the form of general police laws. In 1644, Barbados passed a series of acts which eventually were codified into a general law in 1688. Slavery and indentured servitude issues intertwined in 17thcentury American life.As the British economy improved and the supply of indentured servants declined in the latter part of the 17thcentury, slavery took root. As early as 1639, Virginia introduced a slave code when it was declared that “All persons except Negroes are to be provided with arms and ammunitions or be fined at the pleasure of the governor and council.” As wealthy Virginia and Maryland planters began to buy slaves in preference to indentured servants during the 1660s and 1670s, new laws appeared. The Virginia Law of 1662 pronounced: “Whereas some doubtshave arisen whether children got by any Englishmen upon a Negro shall be slave or Free, Be it therefore enacted and declared by this present Grand assembly, that all children born in this country shall be held bond or free only According to the condition of the mother. Maryland’s 1664 Law proclaimed “That whatsoever freeborn [English] woman shall intermarry with any slave [...] shall serve the master of such slave during the life of her husband; and that all the issue of such free-born women, so married shall be slaves as their fathers were.” Curiously, chattel slavery developed in British North America before the legal apparatus that supported slavery did. During the late 17th century and early 18th century,harsh new slave codes limited the rights of African slaves and cut off their legal avenues to freedom. For example, in 1667, Virginia expanded these laws to include baptism by stating “Whereas some doubts have arisen whether children that are slaves by birth [...] should by virtue of their baptism be made free, it is enacted that baptism does not alter the condition to the person as to his bondage or freedom; masters freed from this doubt may more carefully propagate Christianity by permitting slaves to be admitted to that sacrament.” A 1682 Virginia Act “enacted that all servants [...] which shall be imported into this country either by sea or by land, whether Negroes, Moors [Muslim North Africans], mulattoes or Indians who and whose parentage and native countries are not Christian at the time of their first purchase by some Christian [...] and all Indians, which shall be sold by our neighboring Indians, or any other trafficking with us for slaves, are hereby adjudged, deemed and taken to be slaves to all intents and purposes any law, usage, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.” A 1691 Virginia law prohibited slaveholders from emancipating slaves unless they paid for the freedmens transportation out of Virginia. This law stipulated that“All servants imported and brought into the Country [...] who were not Christians in their native Country [...] shall be accounted and be slaves. All Negro, mulatto and Indian slaves within this dominion [...] shall be held to be real estate. If any slave resist his master [...] correcting such slave, and shall happen to be killed in such correction [...] the master shall be free of all punishment [...] as if such accident never happened.”
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 10:28:46 +0000
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