Name ________________
Directions: Read the following on slave codes. Then choose one of the following options:
1. Translate 3-4 slave codes below and answer one of the two questions.
2. Translate 5-6 slave codes below, provide examples of each, and answer one of the two
questions.
3. Translate 5-10 slave codes from the following website, provide examples of each, and
then answer one or both of the questions:
http://academic.udayton.edu/race/02rights/slavelaw.htm#11.
Slave Codes
By Cathy Pearl
Slave owners did anything that they could to keep slaves
from running away. They did not want the slaves to do or
learn anything that might help them. One way the owners
did this was with laws called slave codes.
Slave codes were laws that were passed in states in the
South. The laws tried to keep slaves from running away or
fighting back. Each state had different laws. But all of the
laws had parts that were the same.
Slave Codes in Different Southern States
Violence and other Injustices against Slaves
• Virginia, 1705 – "If any slave resists his master...correcting such a slave, and shall
happen to be killed in such correction...the master shall be free of all punishment...as if
such accident never happened."
• South Carolina, 1712 - "Be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, That no master,
mistress, overseer, or other person whatsoever, that hath the care and charge of any
negro or slave, shall give their negroes and other slaves leave...to go out of their
plantations.... Every slave hereafter out of his master's plantation, without a ticket, or
leave in writing, from his master...shall be whipped...."
• Louisiana, 1724 - "The slave who, having struck his master, his mistress, or the
husband of his mistress, or their children, shall have produced a bruise, or the
shedding of blood in the face, shall suffer capital punishment."
Owning Weapons
•
Arkansas - Sec. 23. “Any gun or other offensive or defensive weapon found in the
possession of a slave, without having the written permission of his master to carry the
same, may be seized by any person, and upon proof of such seizure before a justice of
the peace of the county where the same shall have been made, such gun or weapon
shall be by the order of such justice, adjudged and forfeited to the seizor [sic] for his
own use, and such slave shall receive by the order of such justice, any number of
stripes not exceeding thirty.”
Reading by Slaves Illegal
Some Slavery Codes made teaching, Mulatto, Indian and indentured slaves illegal. [2]
• Alabama, 1833, section 31 - "Any person or persons who attempt to teach any free
person of color, or slave, to spell, read, or write, shall, upon conviction thereof by
indictment, be fined in a sum not less than two hundred and fifty dollars, nor more than
five hundred dollars."
• Alabama, 1833, section 32 - "Any free person of color who shall write for any slave a
pass or free paper, on conviction thereof, shall receive for every such offense, thirtynine lashes on the bare back, and leave the state of Alabama within thirty days
thereafter..."
• Alabama, 1833, section 33 - "Any slave who shall write for any other slave, any pass
or free-paper, upon conviction, shall receive, on his or her back, fifty lashes for the first
offence, and one hundred lashes for every offence thereafter..."
Question:
1. If you grew up in the South in the 1800's and you learned the slaves codes of
your state, what impact do you think they would have on you in terms of
shaping your views on slaves? Explain by writing in complete sentences on a
separate sheet of paper.
2. If you were a slave and somehow learned to read – enough to understand the
slave codes of your state – what impact would these“rules”have on you?
Explain by writing in complete sentences on a separate sheet of paper.
Slave Codes – Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Researched April 24, 2011
http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=5054
Wikipedia. Researched April 24, 2011.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_codes