HISTORY 2CS3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Siete Partidas, Spanish West Indies, Code Noir
10 Mar 2020
School
Department
Course
Professor
Lecture 16: Freedom and Slavery
Course: History 2CS3
Learning Outcomes:
1. Describe the differences in slave laws in different imperial regions of the
Caribbean
2. Explain the development of slaves’ autonomous existence
Slave Laws
• Slave owners and Whites in slave societies were aware that slaves outnumbered
them
o E.g. Jamaica – between 1770 and 1820, slaves outnumbered whites 10:1
• Whites were aware of their vulnerability
o Feared that the enslaved men and women who they forced to work would
revolt
• Needed a mechanism to force enslaved men, women, and children to work
o Individual estates – owners, slave drivers, overseers used coercion and
incentives to accomplish these aims
o Used harsh corporal punishment to force slaves to work and to punish
▪ E.g. whip was one of the tools that slave owners used to maintain
their power
• Legislation was another tool
o In all societies with slaves, governments crafted legislation to deal with
these fears and maintain white control
o Governments of France, Spain, and the Netherlands all passed laws
dealing with slavery
o French colonies – this body of slave legislation was called code noir
o Spanish colonies – it was called the Siete Partidas
o British government passed slave laws especially in the late 18th century
▪ Response to growing anti-slavery movement
▪ Individual colonial governments in the British Empire passed laws
• The Spanish slave laws appeared less harsh than those of the British
o Developed in Spain to deal with its own slave
o Slaves were seen as dependent people; not just as property
o Slave owners had rights over slaves but also had duties
o Owners could inflict corporal punishment but if a master killed a slave,
they could be prosecuted as a criminal (unlike in British colonies)
o Owners had to provide food, clothing, care for ill, and to allow slaves to
follow church rules
o Slave families weren’t to be broken up when a slave was sold
• Spain’s colonies in the Americas – relatively liberal slave laws allowed slaves to
purchase themselves
o A result was the emergence of a free black and mixed population
