Shackles on my Feet: African
American Laws
of 19th-Century Texas
By
Theodore Bolton
Texas
Slave Codes
Texas
Black Codes
Legislation, Court
Decisions, etc.
Constitutional provisions
Iron mask, collar, leg shackles and
spurs used to restrict slave
Library of
Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
African American specific
laws is a basic feature of Texas history. At the base of
many of these laws was the understanding that the
lowliest of whites was, before the law and before
society, in a superior position to even the most favored
slave or free African American. Texas's institutions,
both social and legal, constantly reminded the African
American that he was less than a human being.
Slave
Codes The
institution of slavery in the south was supported by the
legal system. The entire life of the African American
slave was controlled by rules and regulations. In
addition to those passed by individual masters for their
own plantations there were many local and state laws. The
subjugation of the African American slave was
accomplished by the threat and use of violence,
this violence was codified in the laws of Texas.
Black
Codes After
the Civil War laws were passed by Southern state
legislatures to define the legal place of blacks in
society. In Texas the Eleventh Legislature produced these
codes in 1866. The intent of the legislation was to
reaffirm the inferior position that slaves and free
African American had held in antebellum Texas and to
regulate black labor. The codes reflected the
unwillingness of white Texans to accept blacks as equals
and also their fears that freedmen would not work unless
coerced. The use of the political and legal system to
regulate black behavior was accompanied by a literal
reign of terror
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