Slave codes were laws passed in colonial North America to regulate any state of subjection to a force, and were abolished after the U.S. Civil War. Slave codes were long criticized by abolitionists for their brutality. There have been a number of legal definitions in the U.S regarding slaves:

• Virginia, 1639 - “Act X. All persons except Negroes are to be provided with arms and ammunitions or be fined at the pleasure of the governor and council.”
• Maryland, 1664 - “That whatsoever free-born 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.”
• Virginia, 1705 - “All servants imported and brought into the Country who were not Christians in their native Country Negro, mulatto and Indian slaves within this dominion ^*" target="_blank" >shall be held to be real estate. If any slave resist his master ^*" target="_blank" >the master shall be free of all punishment [... as if such accident never happened.”

• Virginia, 1667 - “Act III. 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.”

• Virginia, 1682 - “Act I. It is enacted that all servants which shall be imported into this country either by sea or by land, whether Negroes, Moors ^* 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.”

Reading by slaves illegal

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These slavery Codes/laws also made reading by black children illegal. ^* (see also General_intelligence_factor)

See also

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• African slave trade
• Barbados Slave Code
• Conscription
• Coolie
• Debt bondage
• Forced labor
• History of slavery in the United States
  • Origins of the American Civil War
  • North Carolina v. Mann
• Indentured servants
• International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition
• Magdalen Asylums
• Sexual slavery
• Slave narrative
• Slave rebellion
• Slave soldiers
• Slave trade
  • janissaries
  • Mamluks
  • Saqaliba
• Trafficking in human beings
• Unfree labour
• Wage slavery

External links

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• http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1p268.html
• http://rs6.loc.gov/ammem/sthtml/stpres02.html Slave codes of District of Columbia
• http://academic.udayton.edu/race/02rights/slavelaw.htm Slave codes of State of Georgia

See also

• Goodell, William (1853). The American Slave Code in Theory and Practice: Its Distinctive Features Shown by Its Statutes, Judical Decisions, and Illustrative Face. On line available at http://www.dinsdoc.com/goodell-1-0a.htm