TÄTE IAVERY TATUTES - ProQuest

The Statute Laws of the Slave South, 1789-1865
By Paul Finkelman
Afro-American slavery was the product of economic, social, and political forces
in Europe, Africa, and the New World. When they arrived in the New World,
the Spanish moved almost immediately to enslave Native Americans. In the
early sixteenth century the Spanish began to import African slaves to the New
World. By 1607, when the English established their first permanent settlement
in Virginia, slavery was an entrenched and flourishing institution in the Spanish,
Portuguese, French, and Dutch colonies of the Americas.
Slavery came late to that area of North America which evolved into the United
States. Blacks first arrived in Virginia in 1619 but there is no evidence that
these first African arrivals were treated as slaves. As late as 1650 blacks in
Virginia, Maryland, and the other English colonies had an uncertain status. 1
Some were slaves for life, while others gained their freedom after short in-
dentures. By 1700, however, slavery was entrenched in the legal and economic
systems of Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina, and New York. 2 When
Americans declared their independence from Britain in 1776 African and Afro-
American slaves could be found in every one of the newly independent states.
However, during and immediately after the Revolution the northern states began
to abolish slavery through constitutional clauses, judicial interpretation, or
laws known as gradual emancipation statutes. By 1804 every state north of
Maryland had either ended slavery outright or adopted laws to guarantee its
ultimate abolition. 3
In the states south of Pennsylvania slavery remained. Southerners were not
totally immune to the ideas of the Declaration of Independence. Some
southerners freed their slaves in the wake of the Revolution. George Washington,
for example, provided in his will for the emancipation of his slaves. However,
most of the southern founders remained unwilling to implement the ideals
of the Revolution when it came to their own property. Even Thomas Jeffer-
son, the author of the phrase "all men are created equal," failed to eman-
cipate the overwhelming majority of his approximately 220 slaves. 4
If the leaders of the Revolution were unmoved by their own rhetoric, it is
perhaps not surprising that most other southerners also failed to act. Although
hundreds of southern slaves gained their freedom in the revolutionary period,
the vast majority of the South's slaves remained in bondage during the period
their masters fought for independence. In 1790, the U.S. Census recorded fewer
than 35,000 free blacks living in the South along with nearly 650,000 slaves.
This contrasts dramatically with the North, where the New England states and
Pennsylvania had already taken steps to end slavery, with dramatic results. Ap-
proximately 7,500 slaves remained in those states, but their free black popula-
tion exceeded 19,000. 5
During the Revolution then, America became two quite distinct sections:
the slaveholding South and the free North. While northern legislators developed
statutes to end slavery, southern legislators faced the more formidable task
of adopting legislation to maintain their institution. This microfiche collec-
tion documents how the legislatures of the American South maintained slavery
State Slavery Statutes vii