Editing Slave codes (section)

{{Short description|Subset of laws regarding chattel slavery and enslaved people}}
{{slavery}}

The '''slave codes''' were laws relating to [[slavery]] and enslaved people, specifically regarding the [[Atlantic slave trade]] and chattel slavery in the Americas.

Most slave codes were concerned with the rights and duties of free people in regards to enslaved people. Slave codes left a great deal unsaid, with much of the actual practice of slavery being a matter of traditions rather than formal law.

The primary colonial powers all had slightly different slave codes. [[New France|French colonies]], after 1685, had the [[Code Noir]] specifically for this purpose.<ref name="ingersoll, 1995, pp. 26-27">{{Cite journal |last=Ingersoll| first=Thomas N.|date=1995|title=Slave Codes and Judicial Practice in New Orleans, 1718-1807|journal=Law and History Review|volume=13|issue=1|pages=26–27| doi=10.2307/743955 |jstor=743955| s2cid=144941094}}</ref> The Spanish had some laws regarding slavery in [[Siete Partidas|Las Siete Partidas]], a far older law that was not designed for the slave societies of the Americas.<ref name="ingersoll, 1995, pp. 24-25">Igersoll 1995, pp. 24-25</ref> [[British colonization of the Americas|English colonies]] largely had their own local slave codes, mostly based on the codes of either the colonies of [[Barbados]] or [[Colony of Virginia|Virginia]].<ref name="Rugemer 2013, 430">{{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|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|s2cid=151934533}}</ref>

In addition to these national and state- or colony-level slave codes, there were city ordinances and other local restrictions regarding enslaved people.