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APAAS - Topic 2.7 Exploration

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28 views

APAAS - Topic 2.7 Exploration

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Garfield Warren
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Name: __________________________________________

AP African American Studies


Topic 2.7: Slavery and American Law: Slave Codes and Landmark Cases
Topic Exploration Activities
A. Analyze Colonial Slave Codes

Learning Objective 2.7.A: Explain how American law affected the lives and citizenship rights of enslaved and free African Americans between the seventeenth
and nineteenth centuries.

Use pages 105-108 of Freedom on My Mind (our textbook) to fill in the chart for each set of colonial slave codes. (You’ll see more in the
required sources for this topic.) For each of the sets of slave codes listed:
● Summarize the slave codes/laws/rulings in your own words.
● Explain how the code/law/ruling affected the lives and citizenship of enslaved and free African Americans between the seventeenth
and nineteenth centuries.

The Codification of Slavery and Race in Seventeenth-Century Virginia, 1630-1680


Code Summary of the code Explanation
(Year Est.)

1630

1640

Code Summary of the code Explanation


(Year Est.)

1662

1667

1668

1669

1670

The Massachusetts Body of Liberties, 1641


Code Summary of the code Explanation

89

90

91

An Act for Regulating of Slaves in New Jersey, 1713-1741


Code Summary of the code Explanation

§1

§2
Code Summary of the code Explanation

§12

§14

Discussion Prompts: (to be done in class with peers)

1. Describe the legal foundations of slavery in Massachusetts and Virginia. Could anyone be enslaved, or was slavery limited
to peoples of African descent?

2. What powers of punishment and control did Virgina, Massachusetts, and New Jersey slave laws give to white colonists?
To what extent did slave regulations vary over time and place?

3. In what ways did these codes harden the color line in American society by reserving opportunities for upward mobility
and protection from enslavement for white people based on their race and by denying Black people opportunities for
upward mobility and protection from enslavement on the same premise?
B. Laws in Free States

Learning Objective 2.7.A: Explain how American law impacted the lives and citizenship rights of enslaved and free African Americans between the seventeenth
and nineteenth centuries.

Essential Knowledge 2.7.A.4: Free states enacted laws to deny free African Americans opportunities for advancement.

Use the Witness to History “Slavery Laws in Connecticut” Timeline to fill in the chart below with noteworthy laws from the 1600 and 1700s.
(Note the year each law was passed.)

Fugitive Laws and


Slave Trade

Slave Code
Slave Code (cont.)

Manumission Laws

Discussion Prompts: (to be done in class with peers)

1. How did these laws impact the lives and citizenship of enslaved African Americans?

2. How were free Blacks denied opportunities for advancement by these laws?

3. Compare how these laws impacted the lives and citizenship of enslaved African Americans to how they impacted the
lives of citizenship of free African Americans.
4. Compare the free state of Conneticut’s laws to the slave codes of the colonies Massuchusetts and New Jersey (which
would also become free states).

C. Regulations in Other Enslaving Societies

Essential Knowledge 2.7.A.2: Slave codes defined chattel slavery as a race-based, inheritable, lifelong condition and including restrictions on movement,
congregation, possessing weapons, and wearing fine fabrics, among other activities. These regulations manifested in enslaving societies throughout the
Americas, including the Code Noir and Código Negro in French and Spanish colonies, respectively.

Prior to the transatlantic slave trade and the advent of chattel slavery, the institution of slavery was generally based on religous or political
ties rather than race, it was generally not inheritable, and often offered the opportunity to earn one’s freedom. Explore slave codes enacted
by an enslaving societies in the Americas that shaped the institution of slavery into a race-based, inhertiable, lifelong condition with many
restrictions:
● Barbados Slave Code (Britian, 1661) ● The Code Noir (France, 1685) ● El Código Negro (Spain, 1789)

Pick ONE of the codes linked above to focus on and complete the following tasks on a separate sheet of paper and attach it to this packet
after the small group discussion.

A. Describe how the code defines slave/slavery.


B. Categorize and list 10+ restrictions put in place by the code. (Consider categories such as movement, intraracial
interactions, interracial interactions, possessions, activities, appearance, ect.)
C. Identify any part of the code that establishes slavery as being based on something other than race, being non-inheritable,
having an end to the term of enslavement other than death, or extending certain privileges or liberties to the enslaved.

Discussion Prompts: (to be done in class with peers)

1. Compare how these 3 sets of codes define slave/slavery.

2. Compare the kinds of restrictions put in place by these 3 sets of codes.


3. Determine if any of these 3 sets of codes contains regulations that are uncharacteristic of slave codes of the time.

D. Landmark Cases

Essential Knowledge 2.7.B.3: Legal codes and landmark cases intertwined to define the status of African Americans by denying them citizenship rights and
protections. Dred Scott’s freedom suit (1857) resulted in the Supreme Court’s decision that African Americans, enslaved and free, were not and could never
become citizens of the United States.

Use the Library of Congress’s Slavery and the Judiciary, 1740 to 1860 Collection (see Collection Items) to find another landmark case (other
than the one involving Dred Scott) and fill in the chart below.

Name of case:

Plaintiff: Identify & describe side of case. Defendant: Identify & describe side of case.
Ruling/Judgement:

Significance: Focus on rights and protections generally granted to US citizens that Blacks are denied by this case.

Discussion Prompts: (to be done in class with peers)

1. What rights and protections are granted to individuals who are citizens of the United States?

2. Describe the landmark case you chose to focus on.


3. How did landmark cases intertwine to define the status of African Americans by denying them citizenship rights and
protections?

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