law for slaves in a separate colony or state, extended from Barbados through the southeastern trio of commonwealths on the continent.  The island of Barbados, as we have seen, was the earliest of the permanent English settlements in the tropics and one of the first anywhere to attain a definite regime of plantations with negro labor.  This made its assembly perforce a pioneer in slave legislation.  After a dozen minor laws had been enacted, beginning in 1644, for the control of negroes along with white servants and for the recapture of runaways, the culmination in a general statute came in 1688.  Its occasion, as recited in the preamble, was the dependence of plantation industry upon great numbers of negro slaves whose “barbarous, wild and savage nature ... renders them wholly unqualified to be governed by the laws, customs and practices of our nation,” and the “absolutely necessary consequence that such other constitutions, laws and orders should be in this island framed and enacted for the good regulating and ordering of them as may ... restrain the disorders, rapines and inhumanities to which they are naturally prone and inclined, with such encouragements and allowances as are fit and needful for their support, that ... this island through the blessing of God thereon may be preserved, His Majesty’s subjects in their lives and fortunes secured, and the negroes and other slaves be well provided for and guarded against the cruelties and insolences of themselves or other ill-tempered people or owners.”

The statute itself met the purposes of the preamble unevenly.  The slaves were assured merely in annual suits of clothing, and the masters were given claim for pecuniary compensation for slaves inveigled away or illegally killed by other freemen; but the main concern of the statute was with routine control and the punishment of slave malfeasances.  No slaves were to leave their masters’ premises at any time unless in company with whites or when wearing servants’ livery or carrying written passes, and offenders in this might be whipped and taken into custody by any white persons encountering them.  No slaves were to blow horns or beat drums; and masters were to have their negro houses searched at frequent intervals for such instruments, as well as for weapons, runaway slaves and stolen goods.  Runaways when caught were to be impounded, advertised and restored to their masters upon payment of captors’ and custodians’ fees.  Trading with slaves was restricted for fear of encouraging theft.  A negro striking a white person, except in lawful defense of his master’s person, family or goods, was criminally punishable, though merely with lashes for a first offense; and thefts to the value of more than a shilling, along with all other serious infractions, were capital crimes.  Negro transgressors were to be tried summarily by courts comprising two justices of the peace and three freeholders nearest the crime and were to be punished immediately upon conviction.