Thread by @Limerick1914

Excerpt from an Act to authorize the impressment of slaves and other personal property for military purposes (Mississippi, 1863) #ACW

Rather than printing individual notices, a newspaper in Louisiana published a register of runaway slaves. (Sugar Planter, 15 March 1856)

"It shall not be lawful for any negro or mulatto to intermarry with a white person, within this State..."

"...and all such marriages, are hereby enacted and declared to be absolutely void and of no effect." (Delaware, 1807)

"No free negro or free mulatto shall hereafter come into this State..." (Delaware, 1863) #ACW

Those already resident were barred from:
Owning a weapon
Holding meetings
Voting
Holding public office

They were also put under curfew.

"Free"

"It shall be the duty of the patrol to keep good order and decorum among negroes at public places"

Slave Patrols in North Carolina (1824)

An act to prohibit the publication, circulation, or promulgation of the abolition doctrines (Arkansas, 1850)

"Free negroes incapable of owning a slave" unless the enslaved person was a member of their family (Kentucky, 1851)

"It shall not be lawfull for any negroe...to carry or arme himselfe with any [weapon] of defence or offence..." (Virginia, 1680)

An Act to prevent the future Migration of Free Negroes or Mulattoes to this Territory (Florida, 1826)

An Act to prevent trading with Free Persons of Color in this State (Florida, 1856)

An Act to permit Free Persons of African descent to select their own Masters and become Slaves (Florida, 1858)

An Act to prohibit the practice of permitting slaves to act as if they were free persons of color (Tennessee, 1839)

From the 1850s to the outbreak of the Civil War, legislative provisions for voluntary enslavement were passed in nine slaveholding states.

Dr Emily West: "Essentially, all southern states were moving toward the enslavement of their free people of color." (Family Or Freedom, 26)

George Fitzhugh: "Human interest, self-interest [and] consistency all require that we should enslave the free negro." (1851)

As West points out, the white supremacist ideology re: enslavement or expulsion of the free black population gained momentum post-Dred Scott

Taney's Dred Scott ruling (1857) declared that African Americans, whether free or enslaved, were not and could never be citizens of the U.S.

Taney also ruled that Congress did not have the authority to limit slavery in the federal territories. The Slave Power cld expand unchecked.

"..hereafter all slaves in this state, acquiring a right to freedom...shall be transported to the western coast of Africa" (Tennessee, 1854)

The racist taunt of "go back to Africa" is thus the shortened version. The slaver's demand was for complete subjugation or else expulsion.

Free blacks denied the vote in Virginia as they "always did, and ever will...favour the slaves" (1736) encyclopediavirginia.org/Denying_Free_B…

I've just stumbled upon an extraordinary law that was passed in Georgia (1808).

It stated that "all free negroes" who resided in the large towns and cities of the state were now subjected "to the same police...."

"...regulations and restrictions, as slaves are..."

"An Act to punish all owners of slaves" and guardians of *free persons of color* for allowing them "to live alone" (Georgia, 1857)

"Enforce Obedience or Kill Them."

Anti-Slavery Bugle, 4 Sep 1852. #PatrickHarmon

Legacies. Early 20th century death notices in Louisiana newspapers that laud how the deceased adhered to white supremacist ideology.

Fewer than four in 10 students surveyed (39 percent) understood how slavery “shaped the fundamental beliefs of Americans about race and whiteness.”

theatlantic.com/education/arch…

"One of the reasons that schools don't teach the civil rights movement particularly effectively is because we don't do a very good job of teaching the history that made it necessary, which is our long history of slavery." https://t.co/opf7D9MZB8?amp=1

A discussion in a Scottish newspaper of how the planters in Barbados used castration to punish those involved in a slave revolt (Caledonian Mercury, 7 December 1731)

Until it was repealed in 1861, runaway slaves in Arkansas who were captured and not claimed by their owners were condemned to a penitentiary for life.

In 1851 Delaware banned "free negroes" from coming into the state, and banned those resident from attending *any* political meetings.

The aim? "[Guarding] against the evils of a large free negro population"

"To establish an uniform rule of naturalisation" for "any alien, being a free white person" (U.S. Statute, 1790)

In 1793 the U.S. Congress enacted their first fugitive slave law which required every state to forcibly return slaves who had escaped from other states to their owners. It included a $500 penalty levied against rescuers.

Kentucky (1799): An act directing the county courts to appoint Patrolers "to visit negro quarters [and] suspected places of unlawful assemblies of slaves...any slave found without a pass...shall receive any number of lashes on his or her back, at the discretion of the captain."

Kentucky (1827): A resolution requesting the President of the United States to call the attention of the British Government to the subject of slaves who make their escape into the provinces of Canada.