WHEREAS, the plantations and estates of this Province cannot be well and sufficiently managed and brought into use, without the labor and service of negroes and other slaves; and forasmuch as the said negroes and other slaves brought unto the people of this Province for that purpose, are of barbarous, wild, savage natures....it is absolutely necessary, that constitutions, laws and orders, should in this Province be made and enacted, for the good regulating and ordering of them....
Slaves codes were laws that reinforced the thought that blacks were nothing but working animals to the white plantation owners. They lived in small shacks on dirt floors with mostly no furniture or way to have comfort. Six days out of the week is how much labor they endured, most of the time from sun up to sun down, meaning the the hot days of summer were long. Often the plantation owner had a foreseer, a person that enforced the days work, and more so than not the overseer was harsh, unsimpathetic, and violent. However, the plantation owner wanted to make sure his property, the slaves, were worth his investment and would often do away with the foreseer due to his property being over worked to much and lack of accomplishment was getting done around the plantation.
There is nothing in todays society, of the United States, that even comes close to the centuries that allowed slavery. State and federal prisons of today seems like a vacation when you compare it the days of slavery. If i was given a choice, to either be sent to todays prison or sent back into the early colonial days as a slave and maybe have a chance at freedom by escape, I would choose a modern day prison sentence. Atleast if you try to escape prison, a few years just get tacked on more to you initial sentence as where if you were a slave that had been captured, you better start saying your prayers. Whipping was the punishment most black slaves were given for just about everything that violated the codes. Black slaves were truely treated like animals and to me, thats just plain discusment. I am thankful for the society that I live in today, even though curruption and wrong doing still exists, nothing as bad as slavery will ever be repeated.
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Hi Garrett,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post on slave codes along with the picture you included. Your comparison between the treatment and rights of slaves and those in our current prison system are so true. The slaves didn’t have any rights as human beings they were mistreated, whipped, had their children sold off, starved and worked under terrible conditions for long periods of time. To make these even worse slaves didn’t commit any crime they were simple sold into the system. Yet the prisoners in our jails today get to enjoy luxuries that many of the working poor in our society today don’t even get to enjoy; including medical, food, housing, entertainment, education and so on. Some of these prisoners have done horrible unthinkable things victimized other innocent people yet they still get basic needs and luxury items such as workout equipment, T.V. and cigarettes. These are people who committed heinous crimes such as kidnapping, rape and murder yet they get to keep their rights and receive basic needs and luxuries and oh too often get released and repeat their viciousness on more innocent victims.
On a positive note, I just came across an interesting article in People magazine (June 27, 2011) called Healing Slavery's Wounds. It show cases several stories of individuals tracing their roots to discover their genealogie as descendants of slaves and slave owners and how theys come together and built friendships of trust, understanding and respect.
Kristie Myers