Slave codes

Slave codes were a set of laws that allowed a slave's master to retrieve their slave from free states without their permission.

Some codes made teaching to mulattos, Indians and indentured slaves illegal.

South Carolina established its slave code in 1712, based on the 1688 English slave code employed in Barbados. The South Carolina slave code served as the model for other colonies in North America. In 1770, Georgia adopted the South Carolina slave code, and Florida adopted the Georgia code. The 1712 South Carolina slave code included provisions such as:

The South Carolina slave code was revised in 1739 with the following amendments:

Some elements of the codes were rarely or laxly enforced as they imposed costs or limitations upon (politically powerful) slaveowners. For instance, well after 1712, slaves commonly worked for hire in Charleston.

The slave codes of the tobacco colonies (Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia) were modeled on the Virginia code, which was initially established in 1667. The 1682 Virginia code included the following provisions:

Slaves were a common sight in the nation's capital. Harsh regulation of the urban slaves, most of whom were servants for the government elite, was in effect until the 1850s. Compared to some southern codes, the District of Columbia was relatively moderate. Slaves were allowed to hire their services and live apart from their masters, and free blacks were even allowed to live in the city and operate schools. The code could be used by attorneys and clerks who referred to it to draft contracts or briefs. By 1860, there were over 11,000 free blacks and over 3,000 slaves. Following the Compromise of 1850, the sale of slaves was outlawed. Slavery ended in 1862 and nearly 3,000 slaves were offered a compensation. The official printed slave code was issued only a month before slavery ended there.

Slave codes in the northern colonies, before slavery was abolished, were less harsh than slave codes in the southern colonies but contained many similar provisions, such as forbidding slaves from leaving the owner's land, forbidding whites from selling alcohol to slaves, and specifying punishment for attempting to escape.

Southern slave codes made willful killing of a slave illegal in most cases. For example, in 1791, the North Carolina legislature made the willful killing of a slave murder unless it was done who was resisting or under moderate correction. Historian Lawrence M. Friedman wrote: "Ten Southern codes made it a crime to mistreat a slave.... Under the Louisiana Civil Code of 1825 (art. 192), if a master was "convicted of cruel treatment," the judge could order the sale of the mistreated slave, presumably to a better master."

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