SLAVE REVOLTS
SLAVE REVOLTS Joe E. ... Craig Starnaman US History 26 November 2003 The Slave Revolts or Rebellions numbered over two hundred and fifty from 1663 through 1860, however they accomplished very little in the way of earning slave freedom. There were only a handful of major revolts and most of them ended in a massacre of the revolting black slaves. This coupled with the ever stifling oppression and brutality the slaves faced prevented any revolts from having a major impact on the institution of slavery. The slave revolts were largely ineffective because of the total oppression of the black slave, this oppression started with the various slave codes, that stripped blacks of their freedom, dignity, and humanity, and these codes or laws almost methodically became more stringent and brutal after each major revolt. The oppression for slaves reached its peak with the Runaway Slave Act of 1850. From as early as 1629 in Jamestown, Virginia, codes or laws were being passed that segregated, humiliated and oppressed the black slave in the new world. ... Perhaps the most hideous of these early codes was the code passed in October of 1669 that stated “…if any slave resist his master (or other by his masters order correcting him) and by the extremity of the correction chance to die, that his death shall not be accompted felony, but the master … be acquit from molestation, since it can not be presumed that prepensed malice should induce any man to destroy his owne estate. ... No longer would a slave have to be brought before a court to process crimes, the master had ultimate power. The slave codes of 1705 also reaffirmed that a slave who was killed by his master’s hand during punishment “shall be free of all punishment…as if such accident never happened.” The Virginia Slave Codes of 1705 became the model of slave codes for other colonies. The first slave revolt in what would soon become the United States of America occurred in Virginia in 1663. ... The New York City Slave Rebellion of 1712 occurred after several slaves had a meeting in a tavern.