Mississippi's 1865 Black Codes
White souchemens, especially landown- slaves as full social equals. Thus, begin- How did the black codes fit into
ers and business owners, feared that ning in late 1865, several southern
President Andrew Johnson's Re
construction program!
emancipation would produce a labor states, including Mississippi, enacted
crisis; freedmen, they expected, would laws designed to control black labor,
Some northerners charged that
the black codes were a backdoor
either refuse to work or strike hard bar- mobility, and social status, Northern-
attempt at reestablishing slavery.
gains with cheir former masters. White ers responded to the codes as a provo- Do you agree?
soucherners also recoiled from the cation, a bold move to deny the result of
If southern states enacted black
prospect of having to treat their former the war and its consequences.
codes to stabilize labor relations,
how did the provisions below ef-
fect char objective?
From An Act to Confer Civil Rights
legally employed by the alleged employer, and has good
on Freedmen, and for other Purposes
cause to quit said employer. Either party shall have the
Section 1. All freedmen, free negroes
negroes and mulatroes may
right of appeal to the county court, pending which the al-
sue and be sued, implead and be impleaded, in all the leged deserter shall be remanded to the alleged employer
courts of law and equity of this State, and may acquire the decision of the county court shall be final
or otherwise disposed of, as shall be right and just; and
personal property, and choose in action, by descent or
purchiase, and may dispose of the same in the same man-
ner and to the same extent that white persons may: Pro- From An Act to Amend the Vagrant Laws
vided. That the provisions of this section shall not be so of the State
construed as to allow any freedman, free negro or mu- Section 2. All freedoren, free negroes and melarroes in
Latto to rent or lease any lands or tenements e
Xem in in- this Starc. over the age of eighteen years, found on the
corporated dries or towns, in which places the corporate second Monday in January, 1866, or thereafter. With no
authorities shall control the same.
lawful ernployment or business, or found unlawfully as-
Section 7. Every civil officer shall, and every person sembling themselves together, either in the day or night
may, arrest and carry back to his or hver kyal employer time, and all white persons assembling themselves with
any freedman, free negro or mulatto who shall have q- freedmen. Free negroes or mulaittees, or usually associ-
the service of his or her employer before the expiration aring with freednes. free regrees or mulattoes, on terms
of his or her term of service with good cause and said of equality or living in adultery or fornication with a
officer and person shall be emailed to receive for arrest freed woman, freed rzegro or mulatto, shall be deemed
ing and carrying back every deserting employee aforemad vagrants, and on conviction thereof shall be fined in a
the sum of five dollars, and ten cents per mile from the
sum not exceeding in the cof freedman, free negro
place of arrest to the place afdelivery; and the same shall or mulatto. fit dollars, and a white man two hundred
be paid by the employer, and held as a menolf' for so much dollars de prisonment at the discretion of the court,
against the wages of said deserting amplexe : Provide the free negro not exceeding ten days and the white man
char said arrested party, after being su returneala marip not exceeding six months.
peal to the justice of the peace or member of the board or
police of the county, who, on notice to the alleged em
u nekantrauen Steel
ployer, shall try summarily whether sidd appellant is derita
Global Perspectives
Emancipation and Freedom in the United States and Russia
Tsar Alexander II (1855-1881) freed farms equally between the landlords tions. In other words, they were as
Russia's serfs in 1861, two years before and the former serfs, compensating the much tied to the land after emancipa-
Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation owners for the divided property.
tion as before. And, as a method to im-
Proclamation. Although Russian serfs In theory at least, Russian serfs prove the quality of agricultural
had more rights than American slaves, seemed in a better position than the cultivation, the multiplicity of small
both were tied to the land and to their southern freedmen to secure economic plots and impoverished peasants was
landlords/masters. The liberation of the independence, given the land they re- also a failure.
serts was part of a broader reform plan ceived. One Russian official exulted, As in the United States, violence
designed to help modernize Russia. "The people are erect and trans- marred the transition from bondage to
On becoming tsar in 1855, Alexan- formed; the look, the walk, the speech, freedom. Rebellions flared in several
der II had relaxed the speech, travel, everything is changed." But the Russ- parts of Russia, but the tsar's armies
and press restrictions imposed by his ian serfs found their economic situa- put these uprisings down quickly.
predecessors, resulting in an influx of tion little improved. The land chosen Some of the former serfs managed to
Western ideas into Russia. These ideas for redistribution was marginal, and escape to towns and cities and become
helped create widespread public sup- redistribution came with a major part of the growing laboring class,
port
for the liberation of the serfs. The catch: The former serfs were required much as freedmen went to southern
tsar couched his emancipation procla- to repay the state on the installment cities. In the cities, both former serfs
mation in the ideals of God and coun- plan. Given the quality of the land, the and slaves came closer to the free-labor
try, but its origin lay primarily in relatively high interest rates attached ideal posited but not supported by
Russia's economic aspirations and the
to the loans, and the vast numbers of their respective governments. In rural
tsar's political strategy. While most
serfs and their families, repayment was areas, reform broke down through a
Americans perceived their liberated unrealistic even in the long term. To lack of planning and a failure of will.
slaves as forming an agricultural work- ensure that the former serfs would pay
ing class, Alexander made land owner-
u After emancipation, did the Russ-
the tsar allowed local governments
ian serf or the American slave
ship one of the major attractions of to keep the peasants on their land until have a better opportunity to es-
emancipation. The government divided they fulfilled their financial obliga- tablish economic independence?
up,
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