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Slave code, any of the 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.
- Reconstruction Begins
- Passage of The Black Codes
- Limits on Black Freedom
- Impact of The Black Codes
When President Abraham Lincoln announced the impending passage of the Emancipation Proclamation in early 1863, the stakes of the Civil War shifted dramatically. A Union victory would mean no less than revolution in the South, where the “peculiar institution” of slaveryhad dominated economic, political and social life in the antebellum years. In Apr...
Even as former enslaved people fought to assert their independence and gain economic autonomy during the earliest years of Reconstruction, white landowners acted to control the labor force through a system similar to the one that had existed during slavery. To that end, in late 1865, Mississippi and South Carolina enacted the first black codes. Mis...
Under Johnson’s Reconstruction policies, nearly all the southern states would enact their own black codes in 1865 and 1866. While the codes granted certain freedoms to African Americans—including the right to buy and own property, marry, make contracts and testify in court (only in cases involving people of their own race)—their primary purpose was...
The restrictive nature of the codes and widespread Black resistance to their enforcement enraged many in the North, who argued that the codes violated the fundamental principles of free labor ideology. After passing the Civil Rights Act (over Johnson’s veto), Republicans in Congress effectively took control of Reconstruction. The Reconstruction Act...
The slave codes were laws relating to slavery and enslaved people, specifically regarding the Atlantic 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.
Mar 25, 2020 · One of the legal strategies that Euro-American enslavers devised to control the time, energy, and mobility of enslaved people of African descent was slave codes. Enslavers began to codify these restrictions into laws in the 17th century.
Oct 1, 2020 · When slavery ended in the United States, freedom still eluded African Americans who were contending with the repressive set of laws known as the black codes. Widely enacted throughout the South...
- Nadra Kareem Nittle
- 1 min
Slave codes had ruinous effects on African American society. It was illegal to teach a slave to read or write. Religious motives sometimes prevailed, however, as many devout white Christians educated slaves to enable the reading of the Bible.
The American Slave Code in Theory and Practice (1853) William Goodell, an abolitionist, outlines the “slave code” of conduct in this encyclopedia of legal and social order. In this chapter, Goodell outlines the laws surrounding marriages of enslaved people as contracts.
