ABSTRACT
Slave and Black Codes. A body of laws governing slaves accu mulated which had as its goals policing and suppressing blacks. Some of the provisions of the law were barbaric, and startled north ern readers, when they were later called to their attention. For the most part, such laws were anachronistic, rather than deliberately malevolent. Branding and burning at the stake, for example, had been acceptable measures of social control in colonial days, when different standards of social life were universally accepted. Some slave-control laws were cruel and inhuman, rather than barbaric, and, to be properly assayed, need to be compared with general measures elsewhere governing murder, theft, sexual assaults, break ing contracts, and other social relations.
