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Many other slave codes of the time are based directly on this model. Modifications of the Barbadian slave codes were put in place in the Colony of Jamaica in 1664, and were then greatly modified in 1684. The Jamaican codes of 1684 were copied by the colony of South Carolina, first in 1691, [3] and then immediately following the Stono Rebellion ...
"Said the wife of an ex-negro trader in Virginia to a freedmen who was skinning a live catfish, 'How can you be so cruel!'—'Why,' said the intelligent contraband, 'Dis is de way dey used to do me, and I'se gwine to get even wid somebody.'" (Waynesboro Record, Waynesboro, Penn., March 9, 1866)
Enslaved people were punished by whipping, shackling, hanging, beating, burning, mutilation, branding, rape, and imprisonment. Punishment was often meted out in response to disobedience or perceived infractions, but sometimes abuse was performed to re-assert the dominance of the enslaver (or overseer) over the enslaved person. [14]
Slaves were punished by whipping, shackling, hanging, beating, burning, mutilation, branding and imprisonment. Punishment was most often meted out in response to disobedience or perceived infractions, but sometimes abuse was carried out to re-assert the dominance of the master or overseer of the slave. [191]
Although it authorized and codified cruel corporal punishment against slaves under certain conditions, it forbade slave owners from torturing them, separating married couples, or separating young children from their mothers. It also required owners to instruct slaves in the Catholic faith. [133] [134]
The efficacy of traditional, community-based punishments waned during the eighteenth century. [81] Penal servitude, a mainstay of British and colonial American criminal justice, became nearly extinct during the seventeenth century, at the same time that Northern states, beginning with Vermont in 1777, began to abolish slavery. [82]
Punishments were a matter of public or royal law, where the disciplinary power over slaves could be considered more severe than that for domestic servants yet less severe than that for soldiers. Masters could only chain and whip slaves "when they believe that their slaves deserved it" and cannot, at will, torture their slaves, or put them to death.
The Act is sometimes portrayed as an example of extending basic human rights to slaves. Whilst that may be correct, it is also probable that the Act had considerably less altruistic purposes. Agitation amongst slaves was increasing in the region at the time, and slave rebellions were becoming increasingly frequent. Trying to moderate the ...