Unit
Years: 1865-1877
Culture & Community
Economy & Society
Freedom & Equal Rights
Historical Events, Movements, and Figures
When Republican President Abraham Lincoln ran for reelection in 1864 during the American Civil War, he chose the Tennessee-born Democrat, Andrew Johnson to serve as his Vice President. While Tennessee seceded and joined the Confederacy, Johnson remained loyal to the Union. Lincoln was assassinated on April 15, 1865 only six days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered, making Johnson president of the United States at a pivotal moment in reconstructing the Union.
President Johnson surprised the nation with his approach to Reconstruction. Johnson was a defender of states’ rights and ignored Congress in favor of his own policies to reconstruct the Union. The Thirteenth Amendment had ended slavery and freed formerly enslaved people but did not go so far as to grant citizenship rights to these four million people. In this post-war context of a new presidential administration and tensions regarding the process of reconstructing a deeply divided country, the legal status of freedpeople was an open question. This legal void meant that there was an opportunity for former Confederate Southern states to determine the legal status of freedpeople.
What emerged were laws, known as Black Codes. These pieces of legislature were passed by Southern state legislatures. The codes defined the legal status of freedpeople and determined the extent to which they had rights and responsibilities as citizens. These Black Codes became a source of national tension and controversy.
As different visions for Reconstruction emerged between President Johnson and Congress, Black Codes were at the center of political debates and motivated debate over the future legal status and rights afforded to freedpeople in a reconstructed United States.
All freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes shall have the right to sue and be sued, plead and be impleaded, in all the different and various courts of this State, to the same extent that white persons now have by law. And they shall be competent to testify only in open court, and only in cases in which freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes are parties, either plaintiff or defendant. . . .
The following persons are vagrants, in addition to those already declared to be vagrants by law. . . . A stubborn or refractory servant; a laborer or servant who loiters away his time, or refuses to comply with any contract for any term of service without just cause. . . .
When any person shall be convicted of vagrancy as provided for in this act, the justice of the peace may, at his discretion, either commit such person to jail, to the house of correction, or hire such person to any person who will hire the same for a period not longer than six months for cash; and the proceeds of such hiring, after paying all costs and charges, shall be paid into the county treasury for the benefit of the helpless in the poor house. . . .
It shall be the duty of the sheriffs, justices of the peace, and other civil officers of the several counties in this State to report to the probate courts all minors under the age of eighteen years, who are orphans, without visible means of support, or whose parent or parents have not the means, or who refuse to provide for and support said minors, and thereupon it shall be the duty of said probate court to apprentice said minor to some suitable and competent person. If said minor be a child of a freedman, the former owner of said minor shall have the preference, when proof shall be made that he or she shall be a suitable person for that purpose.
It shall not be lawful for any person to interfere with, hire, employ, or entice away, or induce to leave the service of another, any laborer or servant, who shall have stipulated or contracted in writing to serve for any given number of days, weeks or months.
Source: “Laws in Relation to Freedmen,” 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Freedman’s Affairs, 170-72.
It shall not be lawful for any negro, mulatto, or other person of color to own, use, or keep in his possession, or under his control, any bowie-knife, dirk, sword, fire-arms, or ammunition of any kind, unless he first obtain a license to do so from the judge of probate of the county in which he may be a resident for the time being.
If any negro, mulatto, or other person of color shall intrude himself into any religious or other public assembly of white persons, or into any railroad car or other public vehicle set apart for the exclusive accommodation of white people, he shall be deemed to be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be sentence to stand in the pillory for one hour, or be whipped, not exceeding thirty-nine stripes.
When any person of color shall enter into a contract to serve as a laborer, if he shall refuse or neglect to perform the stipulations of his contract by wilful disobedience of orders, wanton impudence, or disrespect to his employer or his authorized agent, failure or refusal to perform the work assigned him, idleness or abandonment of the premises of the employment of the party with whom the contract was made, he or she shall be liable upon complaint of his employer or his agent, to be arrested and tried before the criminal court of the county, and upon conviction shall be subject to all the pains and penalties prescribed for the punishment of vagrancy.
If any person shall entice, induce, or otherwise persuade any laborer or employee to quit the services of another to which he was bound by contract, before the expiration of the term of service stipulated in the said contract, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
If any white female resident within this State shall hereafter attempt to intermarry, or shall live in a state of adultery or fornication, with any negro, mulatto, or other person of color, she shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor. If any negro, mulatto, or other person of color shall hereafter live in a state of adultery or fornication with any white female resident of this State, he shall be deemed to be guilty of a misdemeanor.
Source: “Laws in Relation to Freedmen,” 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Freedman’s Affairs, 174-76.
Free persons of color shall be competent witnesses in all the courts of this State, in civil cases whereto a free person of color is a party, and in all criminal cases wherein a free person of color is defendant, or wherein the offence charged is a crime or misdemeanor against the person or property of a free person of color.
If any officer shall knowingly issue any marriage license to parties either or whom is of African descent and the other a white person, such office shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. If any office, or minister of the Gospel, shall marry such persons together, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
All minors may, by whichever parent has the control of them, be bound out as apprentices to any respectable person until they attain the age of twenty-one, or for a shorter period. To the master shall belong the proceeds of the apprentice’s labor; but at the expiration of his term of service, a faithful apprentice shall be entitled to a small allowance from the master with which to begin life; the amount to be left in the first instance to the master’s generosity.
Source: “Laws in Relation to Freedmen,” 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Freedman’s Affairs, 179-81.
All persons engaged as laborers in agricultural pursuits shall be required, within the first ten days of the month of January of each year, to make contracts for labor for the then ensuing year.
All labor contracts shall be made with the heads of families; they shall embrace the labor of all the members of the family able to work, and shall be binding on all minors of said families.
When in health the laborer shall work ten hours during the day in summer and nine hours during the day in winter. He shall obey all proper orders of his employer or his agent; take proper care of his work mules, horses, oxen, stock; also all agricultural implements; and employers shall have the right to make a reasonable deduction from the laborer’s wages for injuries done to animals or agricultural implements committed to his care, or for bad or negligent work.
Failing to obey reasonable order, neglect of duty, and leaving home without permission will be deemed disobedience; impudence, swearing, or indecent language to, or in the presence of, the employer, his family, or agent, or quarreling and fighting with one another shall be deemed disobedience.
It shall not be lawful for any person or persons to carry fire-arms on the premises or plantations of any citizens without the consent of the owner or proprietor.
Any one who shall persuade or entice away, feed, harbor, or secret any person who leaves his or her employer, with whom she or he has contracted or is assigned to live, or any apprentice who is bound as an apprentice, without the permission of his or her employer, said person or persons so offending shall be liable for damages to the employer.
Source: “Laws in Relation to Freedmen,” 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Freedman’s Affairs, 181-87.
If any free negro intermarry with any white woman, or if any white man shall intermarry with any negro woman, on conviction thereof such negro shall become a slave during life, and such white man or white woman who shall so intermarry shall become servants during the term of seven years.
No negro or mulatto, whether free or slave, and no Indian, shall be admitted as evidence in any matter depending in any court, or before any justice of the peace, where any white person is concerned. Any negro or mulatto, whether slave or free, may be a witness for or against any negro or mulatto, slave or free, in any proceeding whatever.
Apprenticeship laws
The several orphans’ courts of this State shall, upon information being given to them, summon before them the child of any free negro, and if it shall appear upon examination before such court that it would be better for the habits and comfort of such child that it should be bound as an apprentice to some white person, if a male till he is of the age of twenty-one years, or if a female till she is of the age of eighteen years.
If any negro, or other person, shall entice or persuade any negro apprentice to run away or abscond from the service of the master, such negro or other person so offending shall be subject to fine and imprisonment.
If any negro abscond, or run away, the orphans’ court of the county shall have full power to adjudge and order such apprentice to serve further time, after the expiration of the period for which such apprentice may be bound, as will compensate the master or person entitled to the service for all loss occasioned by such running away.
Source: “Laws in Relation to Freedmen,” 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Freedman’s Affairs, 187-90.
Laws of contract
Every civil officer shall, and every person may, arrest and carry back to his or her legal employer any freedman, free negro, or mulatto who shall have quit the service of his or her employer before the expiration of his or her term of service without good cause; and said officer and person shall be entitled to receive for arresting and carrying back every deserting employee aforesaid the sum of five dollars, and ten cents per mile from the place of arrest to the place of delivery; and the same shall be paid by the employer, and held as a set off for so much against the wages of said deserting employee.
Upon affidavit made by the employer of any freedman, free negro or mulatto, or other credible person, before any justice of the peace or member of the board of police, that any freedman, free negro or mulatto legally employed by said employer has illegally deserted said employment, such justice of the peace or member of the board of police issue his warrant or warrants, returnable before himself or other such officer, to any sheriff, constable or special deputy, commanding him to arrest said deserter, and return him or her to said employer.
If any person shall persuade or attempt to persuade, entice, or cause any freedman, free negro or mulatto to desert from the legal employment of any person before the expiration of his or her term of service, or shall knowingly employ any such deserting freedman, free negro or mullato, or shall knowingly give or sell to any such deserting freedman, free negro or mulatto, any food, raiment, or other thing, he or she shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction, shall be fined not less than twenty-five dollars and not more than two hundred dollars and costs; and if the said fine and costs shall not be immediately paid, the court shall sentence said convict to not exceeding two months imprisonment in the county jail, and he or she shall moreover be liable to the party injured in damages.
Apprenticeship laws
It shall be the duty of all sheriffs, justices of the peace, and other civil officers of the several counties in this State, to report to the probate courts of their respective counties semiannually, at the January and July terms of said courts, all freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes, under the age of eighteen, in their respective counties, beats, or districts, who are orphans, or whose parent or parents have not the means or who refuse to provide for and support said minors; and thereupon it shall be the duty of said probate court to order the clerk of said court to apprentice said minors to some competent and suitable person on such terms as the court may direct, having a particular care to the interest of said minor.
The said court shall require the said master or mistress to furnish said minor with sufficient food and clothing; to treat said minor humanely; furnish medical attention in case of sickness; teach, or cause to be taught, him or her to read and write, if under fifteen years old, and will conform to any law that may be hereafter passed for the regulation of the duties and relation of master and apprentice: Provided, that said apprentice shall be bound by indenture, in case of males, until they are twenty-one years old, and in case of females until they are eighteen years old.
In the management and control of said apprentices, said master or mistress shall have the power to inflict such moderate corporeal chastisement as a father or guardian is allowed to infliction on his or her child or ward at common law: Provided, that in no case shall cruel or inhuman punishment be inflicted.
If any apprentice shall leave the employment of his or her master or mistress, without his or her consent, said master or mistress may pursue and recapture said apprentice, and bring him or her before any justice of the peace of the county, whose duty it shall be to remand said apprentice to the service of his or her master or mistress; and in the event of a refusal on the part of said apprentice so to return, then said justice shall commit said apprentice to the jail of said county, on failure to give bond, to the next term of the county court; and it shall be the duty of said court at the first term thereafter to investigate said case, and if the court shall be of opinion that said apprentice left the employment of his or her master or mistress without good cause, to order him or her to be punished, as provided for the punishment of hired freedmen, as may be from time to time provided for by law for desertion, until he or she shall agree to return to the service of his or her master or mistress.
If any person entice away any apprentice from his or her master or mistress, or shall knowingly employ an apprentice, or furnish him or her food or clothing without the written consent of his or her master or mistress, or shall sell or give said apprentice spirits without such consent, said person so offending shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall, upon conviction there of before the county court, be punished as provided for the punishment of person enticing from their employer hired freedmen, free negroes or mulattoes.
Vagrancy laws
All rogues and vagabonds, idle and dissipated persons, beggars, jugglers, or persons practicing unlawful games or plays, runaways, common drunkards, common night-walkers, pilferers, lewd, wanton, or lascivious persons, in speech or behavior, common railers and brawlers, persons who neglect their calling or employment, misspend what they earn, or do not provide for the support of themselves or their families, or dependents, and all other idle and disorderly persons, including all who neglect all lawful business, habitually misspend their time by frequenting houses of ill-fame, gaming-houses, or tippling shops, shall be deemed and considered vagrants, under the provisions of this act, and upon conviction thereof shall be fined not exceeding one hundred dollars, with all accruing costs, and be imprisoned, at the discretion of the court, not exceeding ten days.
All freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes in this State, over the age of eighteen years, found on the second Monday in January, 1866, or thereafter, with no lawful employment or business, or found unlawful assembling themselves together, either in the day or night time, and all white persons assembling themselves with freedmen, Free negroes or mulattoes, or usually associating with freedmen, free negroes or mulattoes, on terms of equality, or living in adultery or fornication with a freed woman, freed negro or mulatto, shall be deemed vagrants, and on conviction thereof shall be fined in a sum not exceeding, in the case of a freedman, free negro or mulatto, fifty dollars, and a white man two hundred dollars, and imprisonment at the discretion of the court.
All justices of the peace, mayors, and aldermen of incorporated towns, counties, and cities of the several counties in this State shall have jurisdiction to try all questions of vagrancy in their respective towns, counties, and cities, and it is hereby made their duty, whenever they shall ascertain that any person or persons in their respective towns, and counties and cities are violating any of the provisions of this act, to have said party or parties arrested, and brought before them, and immediately investigate said charge, and, on conviction, punish said party or parties, as provided for herein. And it is hereby made the duty of all sheriffs, constables, town constables, and all such like officers, and city marshals, to report to some officer having jurisdiction all violations of any of the provisions of this act, and in case any officer shall fail or neglect any duty herein it shall be the duty of the county court to fine said officer, upon conviction, not exceeding one hundred dollars, to be paid into the county treasury for county purposes.
Keepers of gaming houses, houses of prostitution, prostitutes, public or private, and all persons who derive their chief support in the employments that militate against good morals, or against law, shall be deemed and held to be vagrants.
Source: “Laws in Relation to Freedmen,” 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Freedman’s Affairs, 190-97.
Marriage between a white person and a person of color shall be void; and every person authorized to solemnize the rites of matrimony who shall knowingly solemnize the same between such persons shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor.
Persons of color shall be capable of bearing evidence in all controversies in law and in equity, where the rights of persons or property of persons of color shall be put in issue, and also in pleas of the State, there the violence, fraud, or injury alleged shall be charged to have been done by or to persons of color. In all other civil and criminal cases such evidence shall be deemed inadmissable, unless by consent of the parties of record.
It shall be the duty of the several courts of pleas and quarter sessions to bind out, as apprentices, all children of free negroes where the parents with whom such children may live do not habitually employ their time in some honest, industrious occupation.
Source: “Laws in Relation to Freedmen,” 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Freedman’s Affairs, 197-202.
A person of color who is in the employment of a master engaged in husbandry shall not have the right to sell any corn, rice, peas, wheat, or other grain, any flour, cotton, fodder, hay, bacon, fresh meat of any kind, poultry of any kind, animal of any kind, or any other product of a farm, without having written evidence from such master that he has the right to sell such product.
Persons of color constitute no part of the militia of the State, and no one of them, without permission in writing from the district judge, or a magistrate, shall be allowed to keep a fire-arm, sword, or other military weapon.
It shall not be lawful for a person of color to be owner, in whole or in part, of any distiller where spirituous liquors, or in retailing the same, in a shop or elsewhere.
No person of color shall migrate into and reside in this State unless, within twenty days after his arrival within the same, he shall enter into a bond, with two freeholders as sureties, to be approved by the judge of the district court or a magistrate, in a penalty of one thousand dollars, conditioned for his good behavior and for his support, if he should become unable to support himself.
Upon view of a misdemeanor committed by a person of color, any person present may arrest the offender and take him before a magistrate to be dealt with as the case may require. In case of a misdemeanor committed by a white person towards a person of color, any person may complain to a magistrate, who shall cause the offender to be arrested.
A child over the age of two years, born of a colored parent, may be bound by the father, if he be living in the district, or in case of his death or absence from the district, by the mother, as an apprentice to any respectable white or colored person who is competent to make a contract. The master shall receive to his own use the profits of the hire of his apprentice.
All persons who have not some fixed and known place of abode, and some lawful and reputable employment; those who have not some visible and known means of a fair, reputable, and honest livelihood; and common prostitutes; those who are found wandering from place to place, vending, bartering, or peddling any articles of commodities, without a license from the district judge or other proper authority; all common gamblers, persons who lead idle or disorderly lives, or keep or frequent disorderly or disreputable houses or places; who, not having sufficient means of support, are able to work, and do not work; those who (whether or not they own lands or are lessees or mechanics) do not provide a reasonable and proper maintenance for themselves and families; fortune tellers, study beggars, common dunkards, those who hunt game of any description, or fish on the land of others, or frequent the premises, contrary to the will of the occupants, shall be deemed vagrants, and be liable to the punishment hereinafter prescribed.
Labor provisions
All persons of color who make contracts for service or labor shall be known as servants, and those with whom they contract shall be known as masters.
On farms, or in out-door service, the hours of labor, except on Sunday, shall be from sunrise to sunset, with a reasonable interval for breakfast and dinner. Servants shall rise at the dawn in the morning, feed, water, and care for the animals on the farm, do the usual and needful work about the premises, prepare their meals for the day, if required by their master, and begin the farm work or other work by sunrise. The servant shall be careful of all the animals and property of the master, and especially of the animals and implements used by him; shall protect the same from injury by other persons, and shall be answerable for all property lost, destroyed, or injured by his negligence, dishonesty, or bad faith.
Servants shall be quiet and orderly in their quarters, at their work, and on the premises; shall extinguish their lights and fires, and retire to rest at reasonable hours.
No person of color shall pursue or practice the art, trade, or business of an artisan, mechanic, or shop-keeper, or any other trade, employment, or business (besides that of husbandry or that of a servant under a contract for service or labor) on his own account for his own benefit, or in partnership with a white person, or an agent or servant of any person, until he shall have obtained a license therefore from the judge of the district court, which license shall be good for one year only.
Source: “Laws in Relation to Freedmen,” 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Freedman’s Affairs, 202-20.
Persons of African and Indian descent are hereby declared to be competent witnesses in all courts of this State, in as full a manner as such persons are by an act of Congress competent witnesses in all the courts of the United States; and all laws and parts of laws of the State excluding such persons from competency, are hereby repealed. This act shall not be so construed as to give colored persons the right to vote, hold office, or sit on juries in his State.
The provisions of this act shall not be so construed as to require the education of colored and white children in the same school.
Source: “Laws in Relation to Freedmen,” 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Freedman’s Affairs, 220-21.
Any person who shall persuade or entice away from the service of an employer any person who is under a contract of labor to such employer, or any apprentice who is bound as such, from the service of his master, or who shall feed, harbor, or secret such person under contract, or apprentice who has left the employment of employer or master, without the permission of such employer or master, the person or persons so offending shall be liable in damages to the employer or master.
All labor contracts shall be made with the heads of families; they shall embrace the labor of all the members of these family named therein able to work, and shall be binding on all minors of said families.
The labor of the employee shall be governed by the terms stipulated in the contract: he shall obey all proper orders of his employer or his agent, take proper care of his work-mules, horses, oxen, stock of all character and kind; also, all agricultural implements; and employers shall have the right to make a reasonable deduction from the laborer’s wages for injuries done to animals, or agricultural implements committed to their care, or for bad or negligent work. Failing to obey reasonable orders, neglect of duty, leaving home without permission, impudence, swearing, or indecent language to, or in the presence of, the employer, his family, or agent, or quarreling and fighting with one another, shall be deemed disobedience.
Laborers, in the various duties of the household, and in all the domestic duties of the family, shall, at all hours of the day or night, and on all days of the week, promptly answer all calls and obey and execute all lawful orders and commands of the family in whose service they are employed. It is the duty of this class of laborers to be especially civil and polite to their employer, his family, and guests, and they shall receive gentle and kind treatment.
Apprenticeship provisions
It shall be the duty of all sheriffs to report to the judge of the county court all indigent or vagrant minors within their respective counties, and also all minors whose parent or parents have not the means, or who refuse, to support said minors, and thereupon it shall be the duty of the county judge to apprentice said minor to some suitable or competent person, on such terms as the court may direct.
If any apprentice shall run away from, or leave the employ of, his master or mistress without permission, said master or mistress may pursue and recapture said apprentice, and bring him before any justice of the peace of the county, whose duty it shall be to remand said apprentice to the service of his master or mistress.
Any person who shall knowingly and wilfully entice away an apprentice, or conceal or harbor a deserting apprentice, shall, upon conviction thereof, pay to the master or mistress five dollars per day for each day.
Vagrancy provisions
A vagrant is hereby declared to be an idle person, living without any means of support, and making no exertions to obtain a livelihood by any honest employment. All persons who stroll about to tell fortunes, or to exhibit tricks or cheats in public, not licensed by law; common prostitutes and professional gamblers, or persons who keep houses for prostitutes or for gamblers; persons who go about to beg alms, and who are not afflicted or disabled by a physical malady or misfortune; and habitual drunkards, who abandon, neglect, or refuse to aid in the support of their families, and who may be complained of by their families; or persons who stroll idly about the streets of town or cities, having no local habitation and no honest business or employment, each and all of the above aforesaid classes be, and they are hereby, declared vagrants, coming within the meaning of this act.
A peace officer shall arrest a vagrant and bring him or her before the court or magistrate issuing the warrant, and if no peace officer can be conveniently procured the warrant may be directed to any private person, who shall execute and return the warrant according to law.
Source: “Laws in Relation to Freedmen,” 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Freedman’s Affairs, 221-27.
If any person shall entice away from the service of another any laborer employed by him under a contract as provided by this act, knowing of the existence of such contract, or shall knowingly employ a laborer bound to service to another under such contract, he shall forfeit to the party aggrieved not less than ten nor more than twenty dollars for every such offence.
Colored persons and Indians shall be admitted as witnesses in all civil cases and proceedings at law in which a color person or an Indian is a party, or may be directly benefitted or injured by the result.
The overseers of the poor are required, on discovering any vagrant within their respective counties, to make information thereof to any justice of the peace. Such justices shall, by warrant, order such vagrant to be employed in labor for any term not exceeding three months, and to be hired out for the best wages that can be procured.
Source: “Laws in Relation to Freedmen,” 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Freedman’s Affairs, 227-30.
All freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes shall have the right to sue and be sued, plead and be impleaded, in all the different and various courts of this State, to the same extent that white persons now have by law. And they shall be competent to testify only in open court, and only in cases in which freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes are parties, either plaintiff or defendant. . . .
The following persons are vagrants, in addition to those already declared to be vagrants by law. . . . A stubborn or refractory servant; a laborer or servant who loiters away his time, or refuses to comply with any contract for any term of service without just cause. . . .
When any person shall be convicted of vagrancy as provided for in this act, the justice of the peace may, at his discretion, either commit such person to jail, to the house of correction, or hire such person to any person who will hire the same for a period not longer than six months for cash; and the proceeds of such hiring, after paying all costs and charges, shall be paid into the county treasury for the benefit of the helpless in the poor house. . . .
It shall be the duty of the sheriffs, justices of the peace, and other civil officers of the several counties in this State to report to the probate courts all minors under the age of eighteen years, who are orphans, without visible means of support, or whose parent or parents have not the means, or who refuse to provide for and support said minors, and thereupon it shall be the duty of said probate court to apprentice said minor to some suitable and competent person. If said minor be a child of a freedman, the former owner of said minor shall have the preference, when proof shall be made that he or she shall be a suitable person for that purpose.
It shall not be lawful for any person to interfere with, hire, employ, or entice away, or induce to leave the service of another, any laborer or servant, who shall have stipulated or contracted in writing to serve for any given number of days, weeks or months.
Source: “Laws in Relation to Freedmen,” 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Freedman’s Affairs, 170-72.
It shall not be lawful for any negro, mulatto, or other person of color to own, use, or keep in his possession, or under his control, any bowie-knife, dirk, sword, fire-arms, or ammunition of any kind, unless he first obtain a license to do so from the judge of probate of the county in which he may be a resident for the time being.
If any negro, mulatto, or other person of color shall intrude himself into any religious or other public assembly of white persons, or into any railroad car or other public vehicle set apart for the exclusive accommodation of white people, he shall be deemed to be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be sentence to stand in the pillory for one hour, or be whipped, not exceeding thirty-nine stripes.
When any person of color shall enter into a contract to serve as a laborer, if he shall refuse or neglect to perform the stipulations of his contract by wilful disobedience of orders, wanton impudence, or disrespect to his employer or his authorized agent, failure or refusal to perform the work assigned him, idleness or abandonment of the premises of the employment of the party with whom the contract was made, he or she shall be liable upon complaint of his employer or his agent, to be arrested and tried before the criminal court of the county, and upon conviction shall be subject to all the pains and penalties prescribed for the punishment of vagrancy.
If any person shall entice, induce, or otherwise persuade any laborer or employee to quit the services of another to which he was bound by contract, before the expiration of the term of service stipulated in the said contract, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
If any white female resident within this State shall hereafter attempt to intermarry, or shall live in a state of adultery or fornication, with any negro, mulatto, or other person of color, she shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor. If any negro, mulatto, or other person of color shall hereafter live in a state of adultery or fornication with any white female resident of this State, he shall be deemed to be guilty of a misdemeanor.
Source: “Laws in Relation to Freedmen,” 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Freedman’s Affairs, 174-76.
Free persons of color shall be competent witnesses in all the courts of this State, in civil cases whereto a free person of color is a party, and in all criminal cases wherein a free person of color is defendant, or wherein the offence charged is a crime or misdemeanor against the person or property of a free person of color.
If any officer shall knowingly issue any marriage license to parties either or whom is of African descent and the other a white person, such office shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. If any office, or minister of the Gospel, shall marry such persons together, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
All minors may, by whichever parent has the control of them, be bound out as apprentices to any respectable person until they attain the age of twenty-one, or for a shorter period. To the master shall belong the proceeds of the apprentice’s labor; but at the expiration of his term of service, a faithful apprentice shall be entitled to a small allowance from the master with which to begin life; the amount to be left in the first instance to the master’s generosity.
Source: “Laws in Relation to Freedmen,” 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Freedman’s Affairs, 179-81.
All persons engaged as laborers in agricultural pursuits shall be required, within the first ten days of the month of January of each year, to make contracts for labor for the then ensuing year.
All labor contracts shall be made with the heads of families; they shall embrace the labor of all the members of the family able to work, and shall be binding on all minors of said families.
When in health the laborer shall work ten hours during the day in summer and nine hours during the day in winter. He shall obey all proper orders of his employer or his agent; take proper care of his work mules, horses, oxen, stock; also all agricultural implements; and employers shall have the right to make a reasonable deduction from the laborer’s wages for injuries done to animals or agricultural implements committed to his care, or for bad or negligent work.
Failing to obey reasonable order, neglect of duty, and leaving home without permission will be deemed disobedience; impudence, swearing, or indecent language to, or in the presence of, the employer, his family, or agent, or quarreling and fighting with one another shall be deemed disobedience.
It shall not be lawful for any person or persons to carry fire-arms on the premises or plantations of any citizens without the consent of the owner or proprietor.
Any one who shall persuade or entice away, feed, harbor, or secret any person who leaves his or her employer, with whom she or he has contracted or is assigned to live, or any apprentice who is bound as an apprentice, without the permission of his or her employer, said person or persons so offending shall be liable for damages to the employer.
Source: “Laws in Relation to Freedmen,” 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Freedman’s Affairs, 181-87.
If any free negro intermarry with any white woman, or if any white man shall intermarry with any negro woman, on conviction thereof such negro shall become a slave during life, and such white man or white woman who shall so intermarry shall become servants during the term of seven years.
No negro or mulatto, whether free or slave, and no Indian, shall be admitted as evidence in any matter depending in any court, or before any justice of the peace, where any white person is concerned. Any negro or mulatto, whether slave or free, may be a witness for or against any negro or mulatto, slave or free, in any proceeding whatever.
Apprenticeship laws
The several orphans’ courts of this State shall, upon information being given to them, summon before them the child of any free negro, and if it shall appear upon examination before such court that it would be better for the habits and comfort of such child that it should be bound as an apprentice to some white person, if a male till he is of the age of twenty-one years, or if a female till she is of the age of eighteen years.
If any negro, or other person, shall entice or persuade any negro apprentice to run away or abscond from the service of the master, such negro or other person so offending shall be subject to fine and imprisonment.
If any negro abscond, or run away, the orphans’ court of the county shall have full power to adjudge and order such apprentice to serve further time, after the expiration of the period for which such apprentice may be bound, as will compensate the master or person entitled to the service for all loss occasioned by such running away.
Source: “Laws in Relation to Freedmen,” 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Freedman’s Affairs, 187-90.
Laws of contract
Every civil officer shall, and every person may, arrest and carry back to his or her legal employer any freedman, free negro, or mulatto who shall have quit the service of his or her employer before the expiration of his or her term of service without good cause; and said officer and person shall be entitled to receive for arresting and carrying back every deserting employee aforesaid the sum of five dollars, and ten cents per mile from the place of arrest to the place of delivery; and the same shall be paid by the employer, and held as a set off for so much against the wages of said deserting employee.
Upon affidavit made by the employer of any freedman, free negro or mulatto, or other credible person, before any justice of the peace or member of the board of police, that any freedman, free negro or mulatto legally employed by said employer has illegally deserted said employment, such justice of the peace or member of the board of police issue his warrant or warrants, returnable before himself or other such officer, to any sheriff, constable or special deputy, commanding him to arrest said deserter, and return him or her to said employer.
If any person shall persuade or attempt to persuade, entice, or cause any freedman, free negro or mulatto to desert from the legal employment of any person before the expiration of his or her term of service, or shall knowingly employ any such deserting freedman, free negro or mullato, or shall knowingly give or sell to any such deserting freedman, free negro or mulatto, any food, raiment, or other thing, he or she shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction, shall be fined not less than twenty-five dollars and not more than two hundred dollars and costs; and if the said fine and costs shall not be immediately paid, the court shall sentence said convict to not exceeding two months imprisonment in the county jail, and he or she shall moreover be liable to the party injured in damages.
Apprenticeship laws
It shall be the duty of all sheriffs, justices of the peace, and other civil officers of the several counties in this State, to report to the probate courts of their respective counties semiannually, at the January and July terms of said courts, all freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes, under the age of eighteen, in their respective counties, beats, or districts, who are orphans, or whose parent or parents have not the means or who refuse to provide for and support said minors; and thereupon it shall be the duty of said probate court to order the clerk of said court to apprentice said minors to some competent and suitable person on such terms as the court may direct, having a particular care to the interest of said minor.
The said court shall require the said master or mistress to furnish said minor with sufficient food and clothing; to treat said minor humanely; furnish medical attention in case of sickness; teach, or cause to be taught, him or her to read and write, if under fifteen years old, and will conform to any law that may be hereafter passed for the regulation of the duties and relation of master and apprentice: Provided, that said apprentice shall be bound by indenture, in case of males, until they are twenty-one years old, and in case of females until they are eighteen years old.
In the management and control of said apprentices, said master or mistress shall have the power to inflict such moderate corporeal chastisement as a father or guardian is allowed to infliction on his or her child or ward at common law: Provided, that in no case shall cruel or inhuman punishment be inflicted.
If any apprentice shall leave the employment of his or her master or mistress, without his or her consent, said master or mistress may pursue and recapture said apprentice, and bring him or her before any justice of the peace of the county, whose duty it shall be to remand said apprentice to the service of his or her master or mistress; and in the event of a refusal on the part of said apprentice so to return, then said justice shall commit said apprentice to the jail of said county, on failure to give bond, to the next term of the county court; and it shall be the duty of said court at the first term thereafter to investigate said case, and if the court shall be of opinion that said apprentice left the employment of his or her master or mistress without good cause, to order him or her to be punished, as provided for the punishment of hired freedmen, as may be from time to time provided for by law for desertion, until he or she shall agree to return to the service of his or her master or mistress.
If any person entice away any apprentice from his or her master or mistress, or shall knowingly employ an apprentice, or furnish him or her food or clothing without the written consent of his or her master or mistress, or shall sell or give said apprentice spirits without such consent, said person so offending shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall, upon conviction there of before the county court, be punished as provided for the punishment of person enticing from their employer hired freedmen, free negroes or mulattoes.
Vagrancy laws
All rogues and vagabonds, idle and dissipated persons, beggars, jugglers, or persons practicing unlawful games or plays, runaways, common drunkards, common night-walkers, pilferers, lewd, wanton, or lascivious persons, in speech or behavior, common railers and brawlers, persons who neglect their calling or employment, misspend what they earn, or do not provide for the support of themselves or their families, or dependents, and all other idle and disorderly persons, including all who neglect all lawful business, habitually misspend their time by frequenting houses of ill-fame, gaming-houses, or tippling shops, shall be deemed and considered vagrants, under the provisions of this act, and upon conviction thereof shall be fined not exceeding one hundred dollars, with all accruing costs, and be imprisoned, at the discretion of the court, not exceeding ten days.
All freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes in this State, over the age of eighteen years, found on the second Monday in January, 1866, or thereafter, with no lawful employment or business, or found unlawful assembling themselves together, either in the day or night time, and all white persons assembling themselves with freedmen, Free negroes or mulattoes, or usually associating with freedmen, free negroes or mulattoes, on terms of equality, or living in adultery or fornication with a freed woman, freed negro or mulatto, shall be deemed vagrants, and on conviction thereof shall be fined in a sum not exceeding, in the case of a freedman, free negro or mulatto, fifty dollars, and a white man two hundred dollars, and imprisonment at the discretion of the court.
All justices of the peace, mayors, and aldermen of incorporated towns, counties, and cities of the several counties in this State shall have jurisdiction to try all questions of vagrancy in their respective towns, counties, and cities, and it is hereby made their duty, whenever they shall ascertain that any person or persons in their respective towns, and counties and cities are violating any of the provisions of this act, to have said party or parties arrested, and brought before them, and immediately investigate said charge, and, on conviction, punish said party or parties, as provided for herein. And it is hereby made the duty of all sheriffs, constables, town constables, and all such like officers, and city marshals, to report to some officer having jurisdiction all violations of any of the provisions of this act, and in case any officer shall fail or neglect any duty herein it shall be the duty of the county court to fine said officer, upon conviction, not exceeding one hundred dollars, to be paid into the county treasury for county purposes.
Keepers of gaming houses, houses of prostitution, prostitutes, public or private, and all persons who derive their chief support in the employments that militate against good morals, or against law, shall be deemed and held to be vagrants.
Source: “Laws in Relation to Freedmen,” 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Freedman’s Affairs, 190-97.
Marriage between a white person and a person of color shall be void; and every person authorized to solemnize the rites of matrimony who shall knowingly solemnize the same between such persons shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor.
Persons of color shall be capable of bearing evidence in all controversies in law and in equity, where the rights of persons or property of persons of color shall be put in issue, and also in pleas of the State, there the violence, fraud, or injury alleged shall be charged to have been done by or to persons of color. In all other civil and criminal cases such evidence shall be deemed inadmissable, unless by consent of the parties of record.
It shall be the duty of the several courts of pleas and quarter sessions to bind out, as apprentices, all children of free negroes where the parents with whom such children may live do not habitually employ their time in some honest, industrious occupation.
Source: “Laws in Relation to Freedmen,” 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Freedman’s Affairs, 197-202.
A person of color who is in the employment of a master engaged in husbandry shall not have the right to sell any corn, rice, peas, wheat, or other grain, any flour, cotton, fodder, hay, bacon, fresh meat of any kind, poultry of any kind, animal of any kind, or any other product of a farm, without having written evidence from such master that he has the right to sell such product.
Persons of color constitute no part of the militia of the State, and no one of them, without permission in writing from the district judge, or a magistrate, shall be allowed to keep a fire-arm, sword, or other military weapon.
It shall not be lawful for a person of color to be owner, in whole or in part, of any distiller where spirituous liquors, or in retailing the same, in a shop or elsewhere.
No person of color shall migrate into and reside in this State unless, within twenty days after his arrival within the same, he shall enter into a bond, with two freeholders as sureties, to be approved by the judge of the district court or a magistrate, in a penalty of one thousand dollars, conditioned for his good behavior and for his support, if he should become unable to support himself.
Upon view of a misdemeanor committed by a person of color, any person present may arrest the offender and take him before a magistrate to be dealt with as the case may require. In case of a misdemeanor committed by a white person towards a person of color, any person may complain to a magistrate, who shall cause the offender to be arrested.
A child over the age of two years, born of a colored parent, may be bound by the father, if he be living in the district, or in case of his death or absence from the district, by the mother, as an apprentice to any respectable white or colored person who is competent to make a contract. The master shall receive to his own use the profits of the hire of his apprentice.
All persons who have not some fixed and known place of abode, and some lawful and reputable employment; those who have not some visible and known means of a fair, reputable, and honest livelihood; and common prostitutes; those who are found wandering from place to place, vending, bartering, or peddling any articles of commodities, without a license from the district judge or other proper authority; all common gamblers, persons who lead idle or disorderly lives, or keep or frequent disorderly or disreputable houses or places; who, not having sufficient means of support, are able to work, and do not work; those who (whether or not they own lands or are lessees or mechanics) do not provide a reasonable and proper maintenance for themselves and families; fortune tellers, study beggars, common dunkards, those who hunt game of any description, or fish on the land of others, or frequent the premises, contrary to the will of the occupants, shall be deemed vagrants, and be liable to the punishment hereinafter prescribed.
Labor provisions
All persons of color who make contracts for service or labor shall be known as servants, and those with whom they contract shall be known as masters.
On farms, or in out-door service, the hours of labor, except on Sunday, shall be from sunrise to sunset, with a reasonable interval for breakfast and dinner. Servants shall rise at the dawn in the morning, feed, water, and care for the animals on the farm, do the usual and needful work about the premises, prepare their meals for the day, if required by their master, and begin the farm work or other work by sunrise. The servant shall be careful of all the animals and property of the master, and especially of the animals and implements used by him; shall protect the same from injury by other persons, and shall be answerable for all property lost, destroyed, or injured by his negligence, dishonesty, or bad faith.
Servants shall be quiet and orderly in their quarters, at their work, and on the premises; shall extinguish their lights and fires, and retire to rest at reasonable hours.
No person of color shall pursue or practice the art, trade, or business of an artisan, mechanic, or shop-keeper, or any other trade, employment, or business (besides that of husbandry or that of a servant under a contract for service or labor) on his own account for his own benefit, or in partnership with a white person, or an agent or servant of any person, until he shall have obtained a license therefore from the judge of the district court, which license shall be good for one year only.
Source: “Laws in Relation to Freedmen,” 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Freedman’s Affairs, 202-20.
Persons of African and Indian descent are hereby declared to be competent witnesses in all courts of this State, in as full a manner as such persons are by an act of Congress competent witnesses in all the courts of the United States; and all laws and parts of laws of the State excluding such persons from competency, are hereby repealed. This act shall not be so construed as to give colored persons the right to vote, hold office, or sit on juries in his State.
The provisions of this act shall not be so construed as to require the education of colored and white children in the same school.
Source: “Laws in Relation to Freedmen,” 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Freedman’s Affairs, 220-21.
Any person who shall persuade or entice away from the service of an employer any person who is under a contract of labor to such employer, or any apprentice who is bound as such, from the service of his master, or who shall feed, harbor, or secret such person under contract, or apprentice who has left the employment of employer or master, without the permission of such employer or master, the person or persons so offending shall be liable in damages to the employer or master.
All labor contracts shall be made with the heads of families; they shall embrace the labor of all the members of these family named therein able to work, and shall be binding on all minors of said families.
The labor of the employee shall be governed by the terms stipulated in the contract: he shall obey all proper orders of his employer or his agent, take proper care of his work-mules, horses, oxen, stock of all character and kind; also, all agricultural implements; and employers shall have the right to make a reasonable deduction from the laborer’s wages for injuries done to animals, or agricultural implements committed to their care, or for bad or negligent work. Failing to obey reasonable orders, neglect of duty, leaving home without permission, impudence, swearing, or indecent language to, or in the presence of, the employer, his family, or agent, or quarreling and fighting with one another, shall be deemed disobedience.
Laborers, in the various duties of the household, and in all the domestic duties of the family, shall, at all hours of the day or night, and on all days of the week, promptly answer all calls and obey and execute all lawful orders and commands of the family in whose service they are employed. It is the duty of this class of laborers to be especially civil and polite to their employer, his family, and guests, and they shall receive gentle and kind treatment.
Apprenticeship provisions
It shall be the duty of all sheriffs to report to the judge of the county court all indigent or vagrant minors within their respective counties, and also all minors whose parent or parents have not the means, or who refuse, to support said minors, and thereupon it shall be the duty of the county judge to apprentice said minor to some suitable or competent person, on such terms as the court may direct.
If any apprentice shall run away from, or leave the employ of, his master or mistress without permission, said master or mistress may pursue and recapture said apprentice, and bring him before any justice of the peace of the county, whose duty it shall be to remand said apprentice to the service of his master or mistress.
Any person who shall knowingly and wilfully entice away an apprentice, or conceal or harbor a deserting apprentice, shall, upon conviction thereof, pay to the master or mistress five dollars per day for each day.
Vagrancy provisions
A vagrant is hereby declared to be an idle person, living without any means of support, and making no exertions to obtain a livelihood by any honest employment. All persons who stroll about to tell fortunes, or to exhibit tricks or cheats in public, not licensed by law; common prostitutes and professional gamblers, or persons who keep houses for prostitutes or for gamblers; persons who go about to beg alms, and who are not afflicted or disabled by a physical malady or misfortune; and habitual drunkards, who abandon, neglect, or refuse to aid in the support of their families, and who may be complained of by their families; or persons who stroll idly about the streets of town or cities, having no local habitation and no honest business or employment, each and all of the above aforesaid classes be, and they are hereby, declared vagrants, coming within the meaning of this act.
A peace officer shall arrest a vagrant and bring him or her before the court or magistrate issuing the warrant, and if no peace officer can be conveniently procured the warrant may be directed to any private person, who shall execute and return the warrant according to law.
Source: “Laws in Relation to Freedmen,” 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Freedman’s Affairs, 221-27.
If any person shall entice away from the service of another any laborer employed by him under a contract as provided by this act, knowing of the existence of such contract, or shall knowingly employ a laborer bound to service to another under such contract, he shall forfeit to the party aggrieved not less than ten nor more than twenty dollars for every such offence.
Colored persons and Indians shall be admitted as witnesses in all civil cases and proceedings at law in which a color person or an Indian is a party, or may be directly benefitted or injured by the result.
The overseers of the poor are required, on discovering any vagrant within their respective counties, to make information thereof to any justice of the peace. Such justices shall, by warrant, order such vagrant to be employed in labor for any term not exceeding three months, and to be hired out for the best wages that can be procured.
Source: “Laws in Relation to Freedmen,” 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Freedman’s Affairs, 227-30.
A pardon or forgiveness granted by a government or authority, usually to individuals who have committed political offenses or crimes.
A person from the northern states who went to the southern states after the Civil War to profit from the Reconstruction era, often seen as opportunistic or exploitative.
A violent uprising, rebellion, or revolt against established authority or government, often characterized by armed resistance, civil disobedience, or insurgency, and aimed at overthrowing or challenging existing political, social, or economic systems.
An outdated and derogatory term historically used to describe individuals of mixed racial ancestry, particularly African and European descent, and associated with racial classification, discrimination, and stigmatization, often replaced by more respectful and accurate terms such as biracial or mixed-race.
A scalawag was a term used during the Reconstruction era in the United States to describe Southern whites who supported the policies of the Republican Party and advocated for civil rights and racial equality.
A vagrant is a person who wanders from place to place without a permanent home or means of support. Vagrancy often results from poverty, homelessness, or personal circumstances and may involve living on the streets, in shelters, or temporarily lodging in different locations.