The Louisiana Black Code

The Louisiana Black Code (Code Noir)

Immediately after the Civil War ended, Southern states enacted "black codes" that allowed African Americans certain rights, such as legalized marriage, ownership of property, and limited access to the courts, but denied them the rights to testify against whites, to serve on juries or in state militias, vote, or start a job without the approval of the previous employer. These codes were all repealed in 1866 when Reconstruction began (http://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/themes/black-codes/).

Th implementation of the Black Codes in Louisiana also served as the catalyst for the syncretization of the African Spirits with the Catholic saints in New Orleans Voudou.

THE LAW OF SLAVERY IN THE STATE OF LOUISIANA – 1847

Compiled for the National Era by a Marylander

I. THE CIVIL CODE OF LOUISIANA. Promulgated June 20, 1825.

DEFINITIONS, &c.

ART. 35. A slave is one who is in the power of a master to whom he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, and his labor; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire anything, but what must belong to his master.
ART. 38. Freemen are those who have preserved their natural liberty – that is to say, who have the right of doing whatever is not forbidden by law.
ART. 95. Free persons and slaves are incapable of contracting marriage together; the celebration of such marriages is forbidden, and the marriage is void. There is the same incapacity and the same nullity with respect to marriages contracted by free white persons with free people of color.
ART. 155. There are in this State two classes of servants, to wit: the free servants and the slaves.
ART. 156. Free servants are, in general, all free persons who let, hire, or engage their services to another to be employed at any work, commerce, or occupation whatever, for the benefit of him who has contracted with them, or a certain price or retribution, or upon certain conditions.
ART. 157. There are three kinds of free servants in this State, to wit:

Those who only hire out their services by the day, week, month, or year, in consideration of certain wages.
Those who engage to serve for a fixed time for a certain consideration, and who are therefore considered, not as having hired out, but as having sold their services.
Apprentices – that is, those who engaged to serve any one, in order to learn some art, trade, or profession.

OF SLAVES, &c.

ART. 172. The rules prescribing the police and conduct to be observed with respect to slaves in this State, and the punishment of their crimes and offences, are fixed by special laws of the Legislature.
ART. 173. The slave is entirely subject to the will of his master, who may correct and chastise him, though not the unusual rigor, nor so as to maim or mutilate him, or to expose him to the danger of loss of life, or to cause his death.
ART. 174. the slave is incapable of making any kind of contract, except those which relate to his own emancipation.
ART. 175. All that a slave possesses belongs to his master; he possesses nothing of his own, except his peculium – that is to say, the sum of money or movable estate which his master chooses he should possess.
ART. 176. They can transmit nothing by succession or otherwise.
ART. 177. The slave is incapable of exercising any public office or private trust; he cannot be tutor, curator, executor, nor attorney; he cannot be a witness in either civil or criminal matters .He cannot be a party in any civil action, either as plaintiff or defendant, except when he has to claim or prove his freedom.
ART. 178. When slaves are prosecuted for offences they have committed, notice must be given to their masters.
ART. 179. Masters are bound by the acts of their slaves done by their command; but in case they should not have authorized or instructed them, they shall be answerable only for so much as they have benefited (jusqu’a concurrence de ce qui aura tourne a leur profit) by the transaction.
ART. 180. The master shall be answerable for all the damages occasioned by an offence or quasi offence committed by his slave, independent of the punishment inflicted on the slave.
ART. 181. The master may discharge himself from such responsibility by abandoning his slave to the person injured; in which case, such person shall sell such slave at public auction, in the usual form, to obtain payment of the damages and costs, and the balance, if any, shall be returned to the master.
ART. 182. Slaves cannot marry without the consent of their masters, and their marriages do not produce any of the civil effects which result from such contract.
ART. 183. Children born of a mother then in a state of slavery, whether married or not, follow the condition of their mother; they are consequently slaves, and belong to the master of their mother.
ART. 184. A master may manumit his slave either by an act inter vivos, or by a disposition made in prospect of death, provided such emancipation be made with the forms and under the conditions prescribed by law.
ART. 185. No one can emancipate his slave unless the slave has attained the age of thirty years, and has behaved well at least for four years preceding his emancipation.
ART. 186. The slave who has saved the life of his master, his master’s wife, or one of his children, may be emancipated at any age.
ART. 187. The master who wishes to emancipate his slave is bound to make a declaration of his intentions to the judge of the parish where he resides; the judge must order notice of it to be published during forty days and if, at the expiration of this delay, no opposition be made, he shall authorize the master to pass the act of emancipation.
ART. 188. The act of emancipation imports an obligation, on the part of the person granting it, to provide for the subsistence of the slave emancipated, if he should be unable to support himself.
ART. 189. An emancipation is irrevocable on the part of the master or his heirs.
ART. 190. Any enfranchisement made in fraud of creditors, or of the portion reserved by law to forced heirs, is null and void; if the slave manumitted was specially mortgaged; but in this case the enfranchisement shall take effect, provided the slave, or any one on his behalf, shall pay the debt for which the mortgage was given.
ART. 191. No master of slaves shall be compelled to enfranchise any slave, except in cases where the enfranchisement shall be made for services rendered to the State, and on the state paying to the master the appraised value of the manumitted slave.
ART. 192. In like manner, no master shall be compelled to sell his slave, but in one of two cases to wit: first, when, being only co-proprietor of the slave, his co-proprietor demands the sale, in order to make partition of the property; the second, when the master shall be convicted of cruel treatment of his slave, and the judge shall deem proper to pronounce, besides the penalty established for such cases, that the slave shall be sold at public auction, in order to place him out of reach of the power which his master has abused.
ART. 193. The slave who has acquired the right of being free at a future time, is from that time capable of receiving, by testament or donation. Property given or devised to him must be preserved for him, in order to be delivered to him in kind when his emancipation shall take place.
ART. 196. The child born of a woman after she has acquired the right of being free at a future time, follows the condition of its mother, and becomes free at the time fixed for her enfranchisement, even if the mother should die before that time.
ART. 221. The acknowledgment of an illegitimate child shall be made by a declaration executed before a notary public, in presence of two witnesses, when ever it shall not have been made in the registering of the birth or baptism of such child. No other proof of acknowledgment shall be admitted in favor of children of color.
ART. 226. Free illegitimate children of color may also be allowed to prove their descent from a father of color only.
ART. 230. Illegitimate children of every description may make proof of their natural maternal descent, provided the mother be not a married woman.
ART. 322. The following persons cannot be tutors, to wit: Slaves
ART. 492. The children of slaves and the young of animals belong to the proprietor of the mother of them, by right of accession.
ART. 631. He who has the use of one or more slaves or animals has the right to enjoy their service for his wants and those of his family.
ART. 945. All free persons, even minors, lunatics, persons of insane mind, and the like, may transmit their estates ab intestato, and inherit from others.
Slaves alone are incapable of either.
ART. 1361. Where slaves have been given the donee is not permitted to collate them in kind; he is bound to collate for them by taking less, according to the value of the slaves at the time of the donation.
ART. 1362. Therefore, the donation of slaves contains an absolute transfer of the rights of the donor to the donee, in the slaves thus given. They are at the risk of the donee, who is bound to support their loss or deterioration, at the same time that he profits by the children born of them; and if the donee dispose, in good faith, of all or any of the slaves, the action of revendication for recovering the slaves, on the part of his co-heirs, for the collation due to them, will not be against those who are purchasers or holders of the slaves.
ART. 1462. Slaves cannot dispose of, or receive by donation inter vivos or mortis causa, unless they have been previously and expressly enfranchised conformably to law, or unless they are expressly enfranchised by the act itself by which the donation is made to them.
ART. 1584. The following persons are absolutely incapable of being witnesses to testaments:

1. Women, of what age soever
2. Male children who have not attained the age of sixteen years; complete.
3. Persons insane, deaf, dumb, or blind.
4. Persons whom the criminal laws declare incapable of exercising civil functions.
5. Slaves.

ART. 1775. All persons have the capability to contract, except those whose incapacity is specially declared by law. These are – persons of insane mind, slaves, those who are interdicted, minors, or married women.
ART. 2300. The masters of slaves are responsible for the damage occasioned by them; the master, however, has the right of abandoning his slave in discharge of that responsibility.
ART. 2425. A sale is sometimes made of a thing to come, as of what shall accrue from an inheritance, of slaves or creatures yet unborn, or such like other things, although not yet existing.
ART. 2454. The tradition or delivery of slaves takes place, either by real delivery made to the buyer, or the mere consent of the parties.
ART. 2500. The latent defects of slaves and animals are divided into two classes – vices of body and vices of character.
ART. 2502. The absolute vices of slaves are leprosy, madness, and epilepsy.
ART. 2505. The vices of character, which give rise to the redhibition of slaves, are confined to the cases in which it is proved that the slave has committed a capital crime; or that he is addicted to theft; or that he is in the habit of running away. The slave shall be considered as being in the habit of running away when he shall gave absented himself from his master’s house twice for several days, or once more than a month.

III. BLACK CODE OF LOUISIANA. Law of June 7, 1806.

SEC. 1. Slaves shall have free enjoyment of Sundays, and shall be paid fifty cents a day, or its customary equivalent, for their labor when employed by the free inhabitants – provided this privilege shall not be extended to slaves employed as servants, carriage drivers, hospital waiters, or in carrying provisions to market.
SEC. 2. Every owner shall give to each of his slaves one barrel of Indian corn, or its equivalent, in rice, beans, or other grain, and one pint of salt, in kind, every month, under a penalty of a fine of ten dollars for every offence against this provision.
SEC. 3. The slave to whom his master shall not give a lot of the ground he owns, to be cultivated by the slave for the slave’s own account, shall positively receive from his master one linen shirt, and one pair of line pantaloons for the summer, and a linen shirt and woollen great coat and a pair of woollen pantaloons for the winter.
SEC. 4. Slaves disabled by old age, sickness or any other cause, whether their disease be incurable or not, shall be fed and maintained by their masters, in the manner prescribed by the second and third sections of this act, under the penalty of a fine of twenty-five dollars for each offence against this provision.
SEC. 5. It shall be the duty of the master to procure for his sick slaves all kinds of temporal and spiritual assistance which their situation may demand.
SEC. 6. No master shall be discharged from the obligation of feeding his slaves, by allowing them, instead of feeding them, to work certain days in the week for their own account, under a penalty of twenty-five dollars for every offence against this provision.
SEC. 7. The slaves shall be allowed half an hour for breakfast during the whole year; from the 1st of November to the 1st of May they shall be allowed two hours for dinner, and the rest of the year one hour and a half; but if the masters shall cause the meals of the slaves to be prepared the time fixed for rest shall be abridged half an hour per day.
SEC. 8. Slaves, disabled by old age or otherwise, having children, can only be sold with such of their children as they may think proper to go with.
SEC. 9. Every person is expressly prohibited from selling separately from their mothers children slaves under ten years of age.
SEC. 10. Slaves shall be considered as real estate, and shall be subject to mortgage, seizure, and sale, as real estate.
SEC. 12. No master shall suffer on his plantation assemblies of any slaves but his own, under penalty of paying all the damage to the masters of the strange slaves, in consequence of permitting them to assemble.
SEC. 14. Any persons finding a slave carrying corn, rice, pulse, (legumes,) or any other provisions whatever, for the purpose of selling them, without a permission in writing from his master, shall have a right to stop and seize the said provisions, for reward, provided they may take two dollars from the master, in lieu of the said provisions; but if it be proved that the master has given permission, in writing, to his slave to carry, &c., and that it was destroyed by the parties seizing, then such parties shall be punishable by fine of twenty dollars; of, if insolvent, by two months’ hard labor.
SEC. 15. As the person of a slave belongs to his master, no slave can possess anything in his own right, or dispose in any way of the produce of his industry, without the consent of his master,
SEC. 17. Slaves shall be prosecuted in criminal cases, without it being necessary to make their masters parties thereto, unless the master be an accomplice; and for this purpose slaves shall be indicted and tried, without appeal, &c.
SEC. 19. No slave shall, by day or by night, carry any visible or hidden arms, not even with a permission to do so, on pain of such arms being appropriated to any person who shall seize them, &c.: Provided, That a slave may carry the arms of his master from the master to some one else, if authorized to do so by a writing to that effect.
SEC. 20. Slaves employed in hunting shall always carry with them permission, in writing, to have fire-arms, such permission being renewed every day, and having no effect beyond the limits of the plantations of the masters,
SEC. 21. As slaves may say they are free, free people of color who carry arms shall have with them a certificate attesting their freedom, or they shall be liable to lose their arms.
SEC. 22. Masters, in case of robbery or other damage done by their slaves, shall, beside the corporal punishment to which the slave is subject, pay all damages, or abandon the slave to the person robbed, &c., within five days from the time of sentence.
SEC. 23. A master, denouncing his slave as a runaway, shall be exempt from reparation for the injuries caused by his slave.
SEC. 24. All persons are prohibited from selling to any slaves intoxicating liquors (des boissons eniorantes) without a permission in writing from their masters, which the sellers shall keep fifteen days for their justification, under the penalty of being answerable for the damages and paying a fine of twenty dollars, to go one-half to the county treasury and one-half to the informer; and any person who shall sell or furnish, in any manner whatever, to any slave, intoxicating liquor, either for cash or in exchange for provisions, shall forfeit and pay a fine not exceeding one hundred dollars, nor less than twenty dollars, &c.
SEC. 25. Every slave found on horseback, without permission, in writing, from his master, shall receive 25 lashes, and be sent home to his master, who shall pay twelve and a half cents per mile for carrying back the slave.
SEC. 26. Every master having runaway slaves shall report them to the judge of the county in which he resides, and the judges shall enter in a book the report of the master, &c.
SEC. 27. The keeper of the county jail, where a runaway slave might be caught, shall pay to the captors, whether free or slave, three dollars for ever slave caught on the highways, &c., and ten dollars for every slave taken in the woods, &c., and delivered to the said jailer, which sum shall be reimbursed by the master of the slave.
SEC. 28, 29. The slaves thus arrested shall be condemned to hard labor by the authorities of the county, &c., they providing for their maintenance, house-room, clothing, and medical attendance; and if after two years, &c., they shall not be reclaimed by their masters, the said slaves shall be sold, &c., and after paying expenses, &c., the balance of the money shall be paid into the public treasury, &c.
SEC. 30. To keep slaves in order and lawful submission, no master shall allow them to go beyond the city in which they dwell, or beyond the plantation to which they belong, without a permission, in the following form:

“The bearer, (negro or mulatto,) named ______, has leave to go from _______ to _______ for _____ days (or hours).” Dated day of delivery. This order shall be signed by the master, &c., or some one by his, &c., authority; and every slave found beyond the limits of the city or plantation, &c., without such person, or without a white person accompanying him, shall be punished with twenty lashes by the person arresting him, and shall be sent back to his master, who shall pay one dollar, &c.

SEC. 31. Any person, not authorized, giving a permission to a slave, shall be liable to pay fifty dollars for the offence, or suffer one month’s public labor.
SEC. 32. If a slave shall be found absent from his usual place of working or residence without permission, or without being accompanied by some white person, and shall refuse to be examined by any freeholder, the said freeholder may seize and correct the slave,and if the slave shall resist, or try to escape, the freeholder is hereby authorized to make use of arms to arrest him, taking care, however, not to kill him; but if the slave shall attack and strike the said freeholder, the freeholder can lawfully kill the said slave.
SEC. 33. If any slave, lawfully employed, shall be beaten by any person without cause or lawful authority, the person so offending shall pay for every such offence a fine of ten dollars; and if the slave so beaten shall be mutilated or rendered incapable of working, the offender shall pay the master two dollars a day, besides the fine. And if the slave be forever rendered unable to work, the offender shall pay the master the appraised value of the slave, or be forever maintained at the expense of the offending party; but if the offender shall not be able to pay the said fine, &c., then he shall be imprisoned for not less than one month, nor more than a year.
SEC. 34. Every justice of the peace, &c., may order the assembly of the posse comitatus, to disperse runaway slaves, &c., and may authorize search for arms, ammunition, stolen goods, &c., and apprehend slaves suspected of having committed crimes, &c.
SEC. 35. It is lawful to fire upon runaway slaves who may be armed, and who, being pursued, refuse to surrender.
SEC. 36. Any person wounded or disabled, &c., in the pursuit of runaway slaves, or slaves charged with any crime, &c., shall be rewarded by legislative act, &c., and if killed in the pursuit, &c., his heirs shall receive the reward, &c.
SEC. 37. Masters, either in person or by others, shall have power to pursue and search for their fugitive slaves, wherever they may be, without prior notice, except in the principal dwelling house, &c.

Collection: African American Newspapers
Publication: THE NATIONAL ERA
Date: September 2, 1847
Title: THE LAW OF SLAVERY IN THE STATE OF LOUISIANA – 1847
Author: A MARYLANDER.
Location: Washington, D.C.

More History at: http://www.accessible-archives.com/2011/08/law-of-slavery-in-the-state-of-louisiana/#ixzz3IQ89RibX

Edict of the King:
On the subject of the Policy regarding the Islands of French America
March 1685
Recorded at the sovereign Council of Saint Domingue, 6 May 1687.

Louis, by the grace of God, King of France and Navarre: to all those here present and to those to come, GREETINGS. In that we must also care for all people that Divine Providence has put under our tutelage, we have agreed to have the reports of the officers we have sent to our American islands studied in our presence. These reports inform us of their need for our authority and our justice in order to maintain the discipline of the Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith in the islands. Our authority is also required to settle issues dealing with the condition and quality of the slaves in said islands. We desire to settle these issues and inform them that, even though they reside infinitely far from our normal abode, we are always present for them, not only through the reach of our power but also by the promptness of our help toward their needs. For these reasons, and on the advice of our council and of our certain knowledge, absolute power and royal authority, we have declared, ruled, and ordered, and declare, rule, and order, that the following pleases us:

Article I. We desire and we expect that the Edict of 23 April 1615 of the late King, our most honored lord and father who remains glorious in our memory, be executed in our islands. This accomplished, we enjoin all of our officers to chase from our islands all the Jews who have established residence there. As with all declared enemies of Christianity, we command them to be gone within three months of the day of issuance of the present [order], at the risk of confiscation of their persons and their goods.

Article II. All slaves that shall be in our islands shall be baptized and instructed in the Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith. We enjoin the inhabitants who shall purchase newly-arrived Negroes to inform the Governor and Intendant of said islands of this fact within no more that eight days, or risk being fined an arbitrary amount. They shall give the necessary orders to have them instructed and baptized within a suitable amount of time.

Article III. We forbid any religion other than the Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith from being practiced in public. We desire that offenders be punished as rebels disobedient of our orders. We forbid any gathering to that end, which we declare to be conventicle, illegal, and seditious, and subject to the same punishment as would be applicable to the masters who permit it or accept it from their slaves.

Article IV. No persons assigned to positions of authority over Negroes shall be other than a member of the Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith, and the master who assigned these persons shall risk having said Negroes confiscated, and arbitrary punishment levied against the persons who accepted said position of authority.

Article V. We forbid our subjects who belong to the so-called "reformed" religion from causing any trouble or unforeseen difficulties for our other subjects or even for their own slaves in the free exercise of the Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith, at the risk of exemplary punishment.

Article VI. We enjoin all our subjects, of whatever religion and social status they may be, to observe Sundays and the holidays that are observed by our subjects of the Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith. We forbid them to work, nor make their slaves work, on said days, from midnight until the following midnight. They shall neither cultivate the earth, manufacture sugar, nor perform any other work, at the risk of a fine and an arbitrary punishment against the masters, and of confiscation by our officers of as much sugar worked by said slaves before being caught.

Article VII. We forbid them also to hold slave markets or any other market on said days at the risk of similar punishments and of confiscation of the merchandise that shall be discovered at the market, and an arbitrary fine against the sellers.

Article VIII. We declare that our subjects who are not of the Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith, are incapable of contracting a valid marriage in the future. We declare any child born from such unions to be bastards, and we desire that said marriages be held and reputed, and to hold and repute, as actual concubinage.

Article IX. Free men who shall have one or more children during concubinage with their slaves, together with their masters who accepted it, shall each be fined two thousand pounds of sugar. If they are the masters of the slave who produced said children, we desire, in addition to the fine, that the slave and the children be removed and that she and they be sent to work at the hospital, never to gain their freedom. We do not expect however for the present article to be applied when the man was not married to another person during his concubinage with this slave, who he should then marry according to the accepted rites of the Church. In this way she shall then be freed, the children becoming free and legitimate. . . .

Article XI. We forbid priests from conducting weddings between slaves if it appears that they do not have their masters' permission. We also forbid masters from using any constraints on their slaves to marry them without their wishes.

Article XII. Children born from marriages between slaves shall be slaves, and if the husband and wife have different masters, they shall belong to the masters of the female slave, not to the master of her husband.

Article XIII. We desire that if a male slave has married a free woman, their children, either male or female, shall be free as is their mother, regardless of their father's condition of slavery. And if the father is free and the mother a slave, the children shall also be slaves. . . .

Article XV. We forbid slaves from carrying any offensive weapons or large sticks, at the risk of being whipped and having the weapons confiscated. The weapons shall then belong to he who confiscated them. The sole exception shall be made for those who have been sent by their masters to hunt and who are carrying either a letter from their masters or his known mark.

Article XVI. We also forbid slaves who belong to different masters from gathering, either during the day or at night, under the pretext of a wedding or other excuse, either at one of the master's houses or elsewhere, and especially not in major roads or isolated locations. They shall risk corporal punishment that shall not be less than the whip and the fleur de lys, and for frequent recidivists and in other aggravating circumstances, they may be punished with death, a decision we leave to their judge. We enjoin all our subjects, even if they are not officers, to rush to the offenders, arrest them, and take them to prison, and that there be no decree against them. . . .

Article XVIII. We forbid slaves from selling sugar cane, for whatever reason or occasion, even with the permission of their master, at the risk of a whipping for the slaves and a fine of ten pounds for the masters who gave them permission, and an equal fine for the buyer.

Article XIX. We also forbid slaves from selling any type of commodities, even fruit, vegetables, firewood, herbs for cooking and animals either at the market, or at individual houses, without a letter or a known mark from their masters granting express permission. Slaves shall risk the confiscation of goods sold in this way, without their masters receiving restitution for the loss, and a fine of six pounds shall be levied against the buyers. . . .

Article XXVII. Slaves who are infirm due to age, sickness or other reason, whether the sickness is curable or not, shall be nourished and cared for by their masters. In the case that they be abandoned, said slaves shall be awarded to the hospital, to which their master shall be required to pay six sols per day for the care and feeding of each slave. . . .

Article XXXI. Slaves shall not be a party, either in court or in a civil matter, either as a litigant or as a defendant, or as a civil party in a criminal matter. And compensation shall be pursued in criminal matters for insults and excesses that have been committed against slaves.

Article XXXIII. The slave who has struck his master in the face or has drawn blood, or has similarly struck the wife of his master, his mistress, or their children, shall be punished by death. . . .

Article XXXVIII. The fugitive slave who has been on the run for one month from the day his master reported him to the police, shall have his ears cut off and shall be branded with a fleur de lys on one shoulder. If he commits the same infraction for another month, again counting from the day he is reported, he shall have his hamstring cut and be branded with a fleur de lys on the other shoulder. The third time, he shall be put to death.

Article XXXIX. The masters of freed slaves who have given refuge to fugitive slaves in their homes shall be punished by a fine of three hundred pounds of sugar for each day of refuge.

Article XL. The slave who has been punished with death based on denunciation by his master, and who is not a party to the crime for which he was condemned, shall be assessed prior to his execution by two of the principal citizens of the island named by a judge. The assessment price shall be paid by the master, and in order to satisfy this requirement, the Intendant shall impose said sum on the head of each Negro. The amount levied in the estimation shall be paid for each of the said Negroes and levied by the [Tax] Farmer of the Royal Western lands to avoid costs. . . .

Article XLII. The masters may also, when they believe that their slaves so deserve, chain them and have them beaten with rods or straps. They shall be forbidden however from torturing them or mutilating any limb, at the risk of having the slaves confiscated and having extraordinary charges brought against them.

Article XLIII. We enjoin our officers to criminally prosecute the masters, or their foremen, who have killed a slave under their auspices or control, and to punish the master according to the circumstances of the atrocity. In the case where there is absolution, we allow our officers to return the absolved master or foreman, without them needing our pardon.

Article XLIV. We declare slaves to be charges, and as such enter into community property. They are not to be mortgaged, and shall be shared equally between the co-inheritors without benefit to the wife or one particular inheritor, nor subject to the right of primogeniture, the usual customs duties, feudal or lineage charges, or feudal or seigneurial taxes. They shall not be affected by the details of decrees, nor from the imposition of the four-fifths, in case of disposal by death or bequeathing. . . .

Article XLVII. Husband, wife and prepubescent children, if they are all under the same master, may not be taken and sold separately. We declare the seizing and sales that shall be done as such to be void. For slaves who have been separated, we desire that the seller shall risk their loss, and that the slaves he kept shall be awarded to the buyer, without him having to pay any supplement. . . .

Article LV. Masters twenty years of age may free their slaves by any act toward the living or due to death, without their having to give just cause for their actions, nor do they require parental advice as long as they are minors of 25 years of age.

Article LVI. The children who are declared to be sole legatees by their masters, or named as executors of their wills, or tutors of their children, shall be held and considered as freed slaves.

Article LVIII. We declare their freedom is granted in our islands if their place of birth was in our islands. We declare also that freed slaves shall not require our letters of naturalization to enjoy the advantages of our natural subjects in our kingdom, lands or country of obedience, even when they are born in foreign countries.

Article LIX. We grant to freed slaves the same rights, privileges and immunities that are enjoyed by freeborn persons. We desire that they are deserving of this acquired freedom, and that this freedom gives them, as much for their person as for their property, the same happiness that natural liberty has on our other subjects.

Versailles, March 1685, the forty second year of our reign.Signed LOUIS,and below the King.Colbert, visa, Le Tellier.Read, posted and recorded at the sovereign council of the coast of Saint Domingue, kept at Petit Goave, 6 May 1687, Signed Moriceau.