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THE NEW YORK SLAVE CODE
Slaveholding was practiced in New York throughout the colonial period. In keeping with this practice it inspired, over time, the development of a code of law specific to its need. Under this code relationships between master and slave were regulated and punishments deemed appropriate devised. Although slaveholding was prevalent during both the Dutch and the English periods of control, extant Dutch laws are scattered, incomplete, and ambiguous in purpose, and thus do not offer a coherent picture. By comparison, those from the English period do form a unit and can be treated systematically.
New York laws pertaining to slavery during that period are contained in The Colonial Laws of New York from the Year 1664 to the Revolution. In addition, their substance has been abstracted and published four times: in 1897 by Edwin Vernon Morgan, in 1900 by A. Judd Northrup, in 1944 by Edwin Olson, and by Edgar J. McManus in 1966. With the exception of Northrup's, the treatments are essentially episodic and impressionistic. Consequently, the adaptive process inherent in the making of the laws is obscured. Furthermore, the tone struck at times is palliative. For example, both McManus and Olson maintain that enforcement of the code was never intentionally harsh.
Nevertheless, these authors do offer suggestive comments. Morgan, for his part, asserts at one point:
The main interest of the slave code turns on the regulations to prevent conspiracy and sedition. The fear of servile risings was constantly in the minds of our ancestors. Their savage legislation governing slave life is only intelligible in the light of this fact.
McManus, commenting along similar lines, concludes that "Corrosive insecurity was in fact the price every member of the community paid for slavery," while Olson avers, "...slavery within itself bred crime." These observations imply that the code was a synthetic adaptation to problems posed by the practice of slavery. And with reason, for when complete the code existed as the visible outcropping of profound and paradoxical forces at work in the slave infected society.
Directly after their accession to power in 1664 the English authorities promulgated in the name of their liege lord, the Duke of York, a set of laws designed to control public life in New York....