1702 Slave Code

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After the Dutch relinquished New Netherlands into the hands of the British, who subsequently renamed it New York, the colony’s institution of slavery was transformed into a cruel enterprise whose harsh, Draconian laws reflected the fear slave owners and law-makers had regarding the occurrence of slave insurrections. The redundancy of slave doctrines passed in New York reflects that despite the colony’s efforts to enact severe penalties for disobedience, slave defiance was recurrent and practically inevitable. The first ordinance passed in 1682 made it a crime for, “negroes [to leave] their master’s homes or plantations on Sundays ‘or any other unseasonable time’ without the handwritten consent of their masters,” (Higginbotham, 1978, pg. …show more content…
119) thereby giving masters the benefit of the doubt that if they needed to brutally reprimand their slaves, the law protected them. And, by legalizing these arbitrarily callous actions, this alludes to the notion that the enslaved population was not a submissive community. Another provision in the doctrine stated that slaves were not permitted to assemble in groups of three or more and if slaves congregated regardless they would be, “whipt upon the naked back at discretion of any Justice of the peace,” (Higginbotham, 1978, pg. 119). The basis for the illegality of slaves gathering lies in the slave owners’ acknowledgement of there being strength in numbers and their fear that if slaves were to form alliances, revolution could follow. The 1702 Slave Code also barred people from being able to trade with slaves without the permission of the slave master thereby insinuating that law-makers were concerned about slaves having access to various commodities including--but not limited to--arms and weapons …show more content…
The regulations passed after the 1712 slave uprising were inarguably rooted in desperate efforts to stop another coup from taking place. Judging by the names of these doctrines alone, one can get an idea as to how distressed slave owners were of another insurrection. In 1712, resulting from the rebellion, the slave act entitled, “An Act for preventing Suppressing and punishing the Conspiracy and Insurrection of Negroes and other Slaves” (Higginbotham, 1978, pg. 119) was passed, followed by the 1717 doctrine, “An Act for Explaining and Rendring more Effectual an Act of the Generall Assembly of this Colony…” (Higginbotham, 1978, pg. 119). By the writers of the 1717 act using the words, “more effectual an act”, it can be assumed that the legislation passed in 1712 was evidently incompetent and ineffective. Therefore, by the colony of New York passing multiple acts that addressed the nuisance of slave revolts and the heinous disciplinary action to prevent it, there had to be a recurrent problem with slaves fighting back. In the summer of 1741, whites’ fears of another slave insurrection resurfaced with, “unexplained fires in New York City...that damaged several buildings, including a fort, its chapel and barracks, and the governor’s home,” (Higginbotham, 1978,
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