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From: Pat Fletcher <>
Subject: Re: Slave Codes-Please Explain
Date: 15 Feb 1998 11:58:56 -0800


>On Fri, 23 Jan 1998 18:32:37 -0600 (CST), "Debrah Durham"
><> wrote:
>> Subject: Slave Codes-Please Explain
>>
>>.... I have located lots of info on different laws that were
>> passed regarding slavery but I am thoroughly confused as to which ones
>> were considered the Slave/Black Codes. Can you clarify this for me or
>> point me in the right direction?
>
>Ms. Durham,
>
>Somewhere in my collection is Winthrop Jordan's book, _White Over Black_,
>which, as i recall, goes into the various laws/codes in some detail. I
>cannot find that book at present, but many libraries have it (published
>before 1974). Though i failed to find that book, i did find August Meier's
>and Elliott Rudwick's book _From Plantation to Ghetto_ (New York: Hill and
>Wang, Third Edition 1976).
>
>On pp. 40-41, they write: The first Negroes ... landed at Jamestown in
>1619.... Fragmentary evidence indicates that by 1640 black servants in
>Virginia occupied a status distinctly subordinate to white bondsmen. Not
>until the 1660's, however, was a rudimentary slave code enacted...."
>
>They go on to discuss the first 3 formal laws, including the 1662 law in
>which, contrary to English common law, "the Virginia House of Burgess
>enacted a statute declaring that children born in the colony would be bond
>or free according to the status of their mothers." (p. 43)
>
>Apparently the term "Black Laws" refers to laws "regulating the behavior of
>free Negroes in the [states of the] Old Northwest [Territory]" which were
>"based upon the slave codes of the southern states." (p. 92) The authors
>discuss the Black Laws, and the changing laws and customs in the northeast,
>on pages 90-98.
>
>On the other hand, "During the period of Presidential Reconstruction
>(1865-6), ... the southern states passed the highly discriminatory Black
>Codes that attempted to remand Negroes almost to a state of servitude...."
>(p. 165)
>
>"The Jim Crow, or segregation, laws were largely a product of the late
>nineteenth century. Segregation by custom, however, and even occasionally
>by statute, was already common during the antebellum period." (p. 95)
>
>Hope this helps.
>Pat Fletcher
>
>
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