South Carolina slave codes

The South Carolina slave codes were the body of law governing enslaved people in the colony and later state of South Carolina, beginning with an initial code adopted in 1695 that was based on Jamaica's 1684 code, itself derived from Barbados's 1661 code, and substantially revised in 1712 and 1739. The 1712 code declared enslaved Africans to be, in its own words, of barbarous, wild, savage natures, and used that framing to justify governing them differently from European colonists. The codes barred enslaved people from leaving their owner's property without permission or a white escort, from working for wages, farming for themselves, owning livestock, operating boats, or trading, from wearing fine clothing, and, after 1739, from learning to read or write, and prescribed punishments including whipping, branding, mutilation, and death for violations. South Carolina's code became a model for slave law elsewhere in North America, adopted by Georgia in 1770 and later by Florida through Georgia's version. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/