Slave Codes

The white male political and social power structure in the American colonies and slaveholding states needed an effective way to regulate and control the African slave population and keep them subjugated to white society. As the population of enslaved people of African descent grew in America, individual colonies and states began to pass and enforce statutes and other laws that severely restricted black slaves from enjoying even the most basic of human rights, like the right to marry and to keep one's family intact. Citizens of the American colonies and United States were worried about slave insurrections and collaborations between lower-class, indentured white servants and African slaves, a fear that was not unfounded. These restrictive laws were called slave codes and existed throughout the American colonies from the early 1600s and in the United States through the end of the Civil War.

The slaveholders feared not only the possibility of slave insurrections and collaboration between slaves and white indentured servants; more generally, they feared that the mixing of the races would lead to the deterioration of the political, socioeconomic, and legal power of those white Americans who controlled American society. In the majority of the slaveholding states, slaves of African descent could not marry, could not own, buy, or sell real estate or personal property, were prohibited from learning to read and write, and were forbidden to assemble with other African slaves for religious ceremonies or for any other purposes.

The slave codes reinforced the low status and positions of servitude that African American slaves held in Southern society; most of the slaveholding, white citizens believed that slaves of African descent were inferior beings rightfully within the complete control of the white people who owned them. For example, according to Article 35 of the Louisiana Civil Code, "[a] slave is one who is in the power of his master, to whom he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry and his labour; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire any thing but what must belong to his master" (Davis 1845, p. 1). In addition, under the Louisiana slave law, it was legal for any free white person to seize and reprimand any slave of African descent who was away from his usual place of work or residence and who was not in the presence of a white person. Even if the person who found an unaccompanied black slave was not the slave's owner, the free white citizen was authorized to use weapons against the slave to prevent him from resisting or from trying to escape. He could even kill the slave if the slave assaulted or struck a free white person. Similarly, under the Louisiana slave code, if a slave willfully struck his master, mistress, or white overseer and the blow caused bruising or bleeding to any of the people mentioned, he would receive the penalty of death.

Under the slave codes of the majority of slaveholding states, an African American slave could not testify against a white American citizen in either a criminal or civil lawsuit, and could not be a party to any lawsuit, except a freedom suit. If a slave were the only witness to a crime, this would not be enough to uphold a conviction of a white American citizen. These two prohibitions had an adverse effect on the black slaves who endangered themselves by testifying against free white people, as well as American society in general, because many people were set free after committing heinous crimes because the only witnesses were slaves of African descent. By restricting the rights of members of American society who were not free under the law, and by barring the testimony of African American slaves, enactors of the slave codes effectively interfered with the rights and safety of other citizens too. These types of restrictive provisions were typical of the slave codes enacted in other slave states and existed until the end of the Civil War in 1865, when they were replaced by Black Codes that restricted the rights of the newly freed African Americans.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Davis, Edward M. Extracts from the American Slave Code. Philadelphia: The Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, 1845. Available online in Sources in U.S. History Online: Slavery in America. Gale. Available at http://galenet.galegroup.com.

Higginbotham, A. Leon, Jr.. In the Matter of Color, Race, and the American Legal Process: The Colonial Period. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.

Stroud, George M. A Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several States of the United States of America. Philadelphia: Kimber and Sharpless, 1827. Available online in Sources in U.S. History Online: Slavery in America. Gale. Available at http://galenet.galegroup.com.

Wheeler, Jacob D. A Practical Treatise on the Law of Slavery: Being a Compilation of All the Decisions Made on That Subject, in the Several Courts of the United States. New York: A. Pollock Jr., 1837. Available online in Sources in U.S. History Online: Slavery in America. Gale. Available at http://galenet.galegroup.com.

                                       Jocelyn M. Cuffee