Slave Codes: Crash Course Black American History #4

Slave codes were a method of protecting the investment of white enslavers in the Colonies by restricting the lives of enslaved people in almost every imaginable way. The codes restricted enslaved people’s ability to move around, or engage in commerce that could make them financially independent - they restricted the opportunities that would allow them to live with even relative freedom. Today, we'll learn how Colonies put laws in place to restrict the movement and freedoms of enslaved people and free Black people.

VIDEO SOURCES

Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998).
John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans (New York: Knopf, 1967).
Claude M. Steele, Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do (Reprint Edition ed. 2011).
Peter H. Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion (New York: W.W. Norton, 1974).
Jennifer L. Morgan, Partus sequitur ventrem: Law, Race, and Reproduction in Colonial Slavery, 22 Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism 1–17 (2018).

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VIDEO SOURCES

-Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998).
-John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans (New York: Knopf, 1967).
-Claude M. Steele, Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do (Reprint Edition ed. 2011).
-Peter H. Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion (New York: W.W. Norton, 1974).
-Jennifer L. Morgan, Partus sequitur ventrem: Law, Race, and Reproduction in Colonial Slavery, 22 Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism 1–17 (2018).

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[johndanielson]

Crash Course is about to teach what a lot of American schools don't want to

[tnttagger]

absolutely tragic that this series isn't being viewed by nearly as many people that it should be

[chamilitary]

I love your knowledge about the African American history. As a black man myself I can see how this is relevant. The legacy of the slave code still lives on til this day. I look forward to your future videos.

[Justgofoods]

This video has over 1M views. Awesome! I plan to see EVERY video in this series.

[elora]

Roots 1977 made me cry but it was needed. I live in England but American history is taught here. This crash course was worth watching.

[ajt]

Painful, but important knowledge. Thank you.

[tresaidhy]

Watched all of this series this morning and my goodness I'm ashamed in how much i did not know about my own history.

[rockstar]

Black American History should be an essential part of education in the United States.

[EcceJack]

This continues to be a very enlightening series. Thank you for the clear explanations!

[Miikhiel]

This is both powerful and disheartening.

[alexanderphilip]

Very calm and reasoned presentation. This should be taught in schools. Facts not opinions.

[Hugatreeme]

Reading those laws typed out on that old piece of paper was chilling...

[mauriciomf]

Clint is doing a great job. Such a shame that the subject matter requires discussions of Black American History to be somber and depressing. So glad to be learning about it

[anapizarrohernandez]

Thank you for taking your time to make these great educational videos Crash Course. This very important, so we learn the root of when all of these issues started.

[AngelTiel]

As much as I have learned from and enjoyed other series, I subscribed via Patreon because of this series. Being from the UK, we are taught about the slave trade to some extent but very little about how the laws in the US developed. (Under the framework laid out by the British monarchy and legal systems until the US gained independence, I might add). I knew nothing of how the laws were literally made up on the hoof to be discriminatory.
We can't go back in time and we can't correct every wrong from the past but it's never been clearer to me that the legacy of colonialism impacts an individual's life chances and opportunities today. Until there is a level of cultural acceptance as to the history of the US and that it's rise as a world power owed an awful lot to the work of the enslaved, appropriate restitution is unlikely to happen. For many people, this series will be a starting point in their understanding of that cultural history.

[JoelRipke]

I think this history is important to know. Thank you

[bari-raerudolph]

This is an invaluable resource to ad to my early American history course. Students love it.

[MrChristiangraham]

Thanks again, Clint. I'm learning a lot through this series.

[Bruh_]

These videos are amazing and incredibly interesting. Great job guys 👍🏻

[ingaman]

Clint, you are probably the best person to host this series.