Editing Barbados Slave Code (section)

{{Short description|1661 slave law in English colony of Barbados}}
{{Slavery}}
The '''Barbados Slave Code''' of 1661,<ref>https://slaveryandfreedomlaws.lib.unb.ca/laws/barbados-1661</ref> officially titled as '''An Act for the better ordering and governing of Negroes''', was a law passed by the [[Parliament of Barbados]]<ref>Michael Grossberg, Christopher Tomlins (eds), ''The Cambridge History of Law in America, Volume 1''. Cambridge University Press, p. 260. {{ISBN|978-0-521-80-305-2}}</ref> to provide a legal basis for [[slavery]] in the [[English overseas possessions|English colony]] of [[Barbados]] and, ostensibly, to standardize procedures for managing the island's increasing slave population, which had tripled since 1640.<ref name=":0" /> It is the first comprehensive Slave Act,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Rugemer|first=Edward B.|date=2013|title=The Development of Mastery and Race in the Comprehensive Slave Codes of the Greater Caribbean during the Seventeenth Century|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5309/willmaryquar.70.3.0429|journal=The William and Mary Quarterly|volume=70|issue=3|pages=429–458|doi=10.5309/willmaryquar.70.3.0429|jstor=10.5309/willmaryquar.70.3.0429 |issn=0043-5597|url-access=subscription}}</ref> and the code's preamble, which stated that the law's purpose was to "protect them [slaves] as we do men's other goods and Chattels", established that black slaves would be treated as chattel property in the island's court.