1. SLAVE LAWS IN THE CARIBBEAN
Presented By:
Rashad Andrewin
October 2nd, 2012

2. Summary of Topics
 The Institution of Slavery in Caribbean
 The British Slave Laws
 The French Slave Laws
 The Spanish Slave Laws

3. THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY
IN THE CARIBBEAN
 Slavery is a relationship in which two people
are involved and is of an exploitive nature
 It is not new to the Americas but it is most
distinguishable during the colonial period in
the Americas with the rise of African Slavery
 European objective: Gold, God, Glory (3G’s)
 Europeans came looking for mineral wealth
but eventually turned to agriculture , mainly
sugar

4. CONT.
 Amerindians were inadequate for forced
labour due to many factors working against
them
 New labourers were need to which the
Africans fit the criteria
 This lead to the formation of the Atlantic
Slave Trade or the Triangular Trade that would
result in the displacement of many ethnic
groups from Africa to mingle in the Americas
and form different races now existent

5. THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE

6. BRITISH COLONIAL EMPIRE

7. BRITISH COLONIAL OCCUPATION
 The British West Indies was organized to
produce wealth
 Europeans preserved their culture and
dominated all aspects of life
 By 1830 most blacks had no memory of Africa
and the traditions began to fail
 INFORMALITY WAS THE RULE
 The British West Indies couldn’t develop a
profound local identity

8. Cont.
 The Caribbean colonies were small, isolated
and weak
 Schemes to increase white population
constantly failed and led to a mostly black
population
 The West Indies did not have grandeur
buildings to compare with other colonies in
the New World
 Public facilities were limited to the bare
minimum

9. Cont.
 Overland communication were deplorable,
many roads were impassable
 Intellectual life wasn’t esteemed for
agriculture took up the time so there wasn’t
accommodation for superior mental facilities
 Reading was mostly restricted to the local
news focused mainly on commercial topics
 The cost of basic necessities were twice of
what they were in England

10. Cont.
 Slave Society was stratified in terms of
occupation and origins
 African were divided along lines of ethnic
groups
 Domestic servants and artisans formed a
slave elite and were different from field slaves
 The tasks of domestic slaves were light and
while field slaves performed the hard
relentless labour of cane cultivation

11. Cont.
 In the West Indies social, religious and
educational matters were subjugated for
economic needs
 There was no equality between master and
slave in the British West Indies but a mutual
modus operandi

12. BRITISH SLAVE LAWS

13. BRITISH SLAVE LAWS
 Barbados, Antigua and Martinique were the
first important slave societies of the
Caribbean
 By the mid 18th Century Jamaica had become
the largest and most brutal slave society in
the British West Indies
 Slaves were supervised under demanding
masters who gave them little medical care
and so contracted many diseases

14. CONT.
 Slave laws in the British empire developed
slowly over centuries characterized by
indecision and varying rationales on the
treatment of slaves
 Until 1807 there was no legislative
intervention in relation to slavery therefore
the common law was freely developed
 The English had laws giving equality and fair
treatment to its citizens as far back as the
Magna Carta in 1215

15. CONT.
 Ownership of slaves was legitimate on the
grounds that they were infidels being not
Christian and “uncivilized”
 Slavery itself was illegal in England and so as
soon as slaves entered the country they were
free
 By 1700 there was no extensive use of slave
labour in England as in the colonies

16. BARBADOS SLAVE CODE

17. Cont.
 The Code was established in 1661 to provide
legal basis for slavery in Barbados
 Code’s preamble: “to protect slaves as we do
men’s other Goods and Chattels “
 It sought to protect slaves ostensibly from
cruel masters and vice versa
 However it provided far more extensive
protection for masters
 Law required masters to provide slaves with
one set of clothing per year

18. Cont.
 It didn’t however set standards for the slave’s
diet, housing or working conditions
 Also denied basic rights such as right to life,
allowing slave masters to do whatever they
pleased to the slave
 This slave code also served as the basis for
slave codes in Jamaica (1664) and Antigua
(1702)

19. FRENCH COLONIAL EMPIRE

22. CODE NOIR
 Was a decree originally passed by King Louis XIV in
1685
 Defined conditions of slavery in the French colonial
empire
 The document is said to contain 60 different articles
governing French Colonial life.
 It asserted French sovereignty and secured the
future of the sugar industry
 Was largely influenced by religious morals by the
arrival of Catholic leaders in Martinique
 Was applied to the West Indies in 1687 and in
Canadian New France

23. CODE NOIR
 Comprise of two main section, the disability
and the beneficent section
 All laws were to keep slaves in their rightful
place, to squelch uprisings and rebellions and
to make slave completely dependent on the
master

24. IMPORTANT ARTICLES IN CODE
NOIR
 Jews could not reside in the French colonies
 slaves must be baptized in the Roman Catholic
Church
 children born between married slaves were also
slaves, belonging to the female slave's master
 slaves must not carry weapons except under
permission of their masters for hunting purposes
 slaves belonging to different masters must not
gather at any time under any circumstance

25. Cont.
 slaves should not sell sugar cane, even with
permission of their masters
 masters must give food (quantities specified) and
clothes to their slaves, even to those who were sick
or old
 free blacks who harbour fugitive slaves would be
beaten by the slave owner and fined 300 pounds of
sugar per day of refuge given
 masters may chain and beat slaves but may not
torture nor mutilate them
 slave husband and wife (and their prepubescent
children) under the same master were not to be sold
separately

26. SPANISH COLONIAL EMPIRE

27. SPANISH COLONIAL EMPIRE
 Slavery in the Spanish colonies began with
settlers enslaving local indigenous people
 They used slavery and production quotas to
force labour to bring return on colonial
investments
 Slavery production quotas= ENCOMIENDA,
REPARTIMIENTO, REDUCCIONES
 During the first decades slavery caused the
deaths of thousands of indigenous people

28. CONT.
 After pressure from clerical influences
mandated the protection of the native
people, enslavement of the population began
to dissolve
 Moves to protect Amerindians: LAWS OF
BURGOS, THE NEW LAWS, THE LAWS OF
THE INDIES
 After the freeing of indigenous populations
the Spanish began importing African slaves,
buying them off the British and Dutch traders

29. CONT.
 Mainland slavery in the Spanish colonies
ended in the 18th century but not in Cuba and
Puerto Rico where sugar was still highly
profitable

30. LAS SIETE PARTIDAS

31. LAS SIETE PARTIDAS
 Was a Castilian statutory code which established
a body of normative rules for the kingdom
 Originally called Libro de los Leyes not until 14th
century was called Siete Partidas
 Its influence extended to the Latin American
colonies
 Has been described as humanist encyclopaedia,
containing philosophical, moral and theological
topics including view points of the Abraham
religions

32. CONT.
 The Fourth Partida contains the information on slavery
 The fourth partida consists of 27 articles comprising 256 laws. Its
subject is family law, as well as other permanent relationships
between people, other than matrimony and biological kinship.
It deals with engagement (4,1,2); matrimony (4,2,1) and the
capacity, form, and validity of the canon law to which it is
subject; divorce (which does not refer to the dissolution of the
matrimonial bond, but rather with separation or the cessation of
cohabitation); legitimate and illegitimate patrimony (4,14,1);
parens patriae (the rights of the state to intervene in the interests
of minor children); slavery (4,23,8), described as the "vilest thing
in this world" after sin itself; the civil status of persons (free and
slave; noble and commoner; clergy and laity; legitimate and
illegitimate; Christian, Moor, and Jew; male and female); serfdom
and fiefs; and the bonds of friendship.

33. slavery (4,23,8), is
described as the
"vilest thing in this
world" after sin itself