Introduction

This timeline of laws is compiled from excerpts of Connecticut statutes from the 17th, 18th and first half of the 19th centuries. They are presented on this website because they applied to enslaved persons. While some laws only applied to black persons or Native Americans others applied to servants in general, apprentices, children and also women who were under the guardianship of their husbands and therefore legally considered minors.

The statutes and laws chosen here have been categorized into four topics:

• Fugitive Laws and Slave Trade

• Slave Code

• Manumission Laws

• Abolition of Slavery Laws

TIMELINE

Fugitive Laws and Slave Trade

Fugitive laws regulated punishments of a fugitive, legalized ways for the owner to retrieve the fugitive and stated which persons were allowed to bring a fugitive back to his or her master. Slave trade laws attempted to restrict or forbid the trade of enslaved persons.

1643: Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies of New England

1650: The Code of 1650 - subsection Indians

Late 1600s: An Act to prevent the Running away of Indian and Negro Servants

Early 1700s: An Act relating to Masters, and Servants and Apprentices

1788: An Act to prevent the slave trade

1789: An Act in addition to an Act, entitled an Act, to prevent the Slave-Trade

1792: An Act in addition to an Act, entitled an Act to prevent the Slave-Trade

1838: An Act to comply with federal fugitive slave laws (not official name)

1848: An Act to Prevent Slavery - Section 5

1854: An Act for the Defense of Liberty in this State

Slave Code

“Slave Code” or “Black Code” were laws that only applied to black persons and Native Americans. They were not only discriminatory in their effect but also in the way they were written.

Late 1600s: An Act to prevent the Disorder of Negro and Indian-Servants and Slaves, in the Night-Season

1700s: Act to prevent unseasonable Night Walking

Early 1700s: Act Against Breaking the Peace

1730: An Act for the Punishment of Negro, Indian and Molatto Slaves for speaking Defamatory Words

1700s: An Act for the Punishment of Defamation

1797: An Act to Repeal Part of an Act Entitled, “An Act for the Punishment of Defamation”

1797: An Act to Repeal Certain Paragraphs of an Act Entitled, “An Act Concerning Indian, Mulatto, and Negro, Servants, and Slaves”

1797: An Act to Repeal Part of an Act Entitled, “An Act Against Breaking the Peace”

Manumission Laws

Manumission laws were laws that regulated the master’s obligations setting enslaved persons free.

Early 1700s: An Act relating to slavery

1784: An Act Concerning Indian, Mulatto, and Negro Servants and Slaves

1792: An Act in addition to, and alteration of an Act, concerning Indian Mulatto, and Negro Servants, and Slaves

Abolition of Slavery Laws

Abolition laws either gradually or finally outlawed that persons could legally enslave other persons.

1784: An Act Concerning Indian, Mulatto, and Negro Servants and Slaves

1797: An Act in addition to an Act, entitles, “An Act concerning Indian, Mulatto and Negro Servants and Slaves”

1848: An Act to Prevent Slavery

EXPLANATION OF ACTS

Fugitive Laws and Slave Trade

1643: Early Fugitive Law
Official Name: Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies of New England

An early treaty from 1643, the Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies of New England is an early treaty from 1643. Section 8 regulated that fugitive servants and possibly captivated Native Americans could be brought back to their masters across plantation boundary lines. This law is sometimes cited as the first fugitive slave law.

1650: Slave trade established
Official Name: The Code of 1650 - subsection Indians

The subsection on “Indians” in Code of 1650 established by law the exchange of captured Native Americans for slaves.

Excerpt:

“It was thought fitt, that upon such seizure, the delinquent, or satisfaction bee again demanded of the Sagamore, or plantation of indians guilty, or accessary, as before; and if it bee denied, that then the magistrates of this jurisdiction deliver up the indian seized by the partye or partyes endammaged, either to serve, or to bee shipped out and exchanged for neagers, as the case will justly beare; and though the commissioners foresee, that said severe, though just proceeding may provoke the indians to an unjust seizing of some of ours, yet they could not, at present, find no better means to preserve the peace of the colonyes; ...”

Late 17th Century: Law on Fugitive “Negro or Indian” Servants
Official Name: An Act to prevent the Running away of Indian and Negro Servants

This act declared a “Negro or Indian Servant or Servants” who was wandering “out of Town bounds or place to which they belong, without a ticket” to be a “Runaway” and “every person Inhabiting in this Colony” could seize them and bring them back to their “Master or Owner” who was then obliged to pay for the cost. In addition, “Ferry-men” would have to pay a fine for transporting “Indian or Negro Servants, without a Certificate.”

First Half of 18th Century: Fugitive Law pertaining to Servants and Apprentices
Official Name: An Act relating to Masters, and Servants and Apprentices

This act included provisions that punished apprentices or servants who ran away and forced them back into service or apprenticeship, unless the master committed an act of cruelty. There were several older and newer acts regulating the Master and Servant relationship. This law regulating the relationship between masters and servants also applied to apprentices and is an example that laws in some respects applied to servants, including enslaved persons (servants for life) in the same way as to apprentices. Connecticut’s laws used the terms “slaves” and “servants” often interchangeable, such as in this act.

The law also applies to minors and women: Children were under the “government” of their parents, and wifes were under the guardianship of their husbands (known as coverture or “femme covert”).

1788: General Prohibition of the Slave Trade
Official Name: An Act to prevent the slave trade

Section 1-3 prohibited the slave trade overall. Section 4 included an exception that allowed for transportation out of state “for the Purpose of Residence.” Section 5 included an interesting registration requirement under penalty for “Possessors” of Children born after March 1, 1784. Half of the penalty amount would be allocated to poor people of the town where the Child resided. This is assumingly to fund support for the poor as support from former owners diminished due to the possibility to get a certificate to be free of liability for manumitted slaves.

1789: Amendment to Slave-Trade Act from 1788
Official Name: An Act in addition to an Act, entitled an Act, to prevent the Slave-Trade

This act referred to section 3 of the Act to prevent the Slave-Trade from 1788 and specified payments on the fine of violating the provision.

1792: Another Amendment to the Slave-Trade Act from 1788
Official Name: An Act in addition to an Act, entitled an Act to prevent the Slave-Trade

This act raised the penalty for illegally transporting citizens out of state or otherwise aiding the slave trade from $167 to $334.

1838: Supporting fugitive laws from other states
Official Name: An Act to comply with federal fugitive slave laws (not official name)

This law regulated the judicial procedure of a writ of habeas corpus of a person accused to be a fugitive and held in custody. If a jury found the accused to be a free person, the person was free to leave. If the jury found the claimant (that is the person who filed the writ of habeas corpus) to be a slave or otherwise owing serviced, the master or any agent received a certificate allowing him to to take the enslaved person to his or her place of residence.

From the name of the act as well as the way it was written the reader can infer that the law was generally supportive of the federal fugitive slave law. At the time of this statute, 1838, slavery was not yet officially abolished. Even though the act was supporting the federal fugitive slave law, the goal of the act was to ensure that no free person was unjustly put (back) into servitude.

The official name of this act was: “An Act for the fulfilment of the obligations of this State, imposed by the Constitution of the United States, in regard to persons held to service or labor in one State escaping into another, and to secure the right of Trial by Jury, in the cases herein mentioned.”

Further information on the federal fugitive slave acts can be found here:
https://www.britannica.com/event/Fugitive-Slave-Acts

The text of the Federal Fugitive Slave Act from 1793 can be found here:
https://parks.ny.gov/documents/historic-preservation/FugitiveSlaveAct1793.pdf

1854: Defending the freedom of former slaves in Connecticut from slave hunters
Official Name: An Act for the Defense of Liberty in this State

This law addresses the mandates of the Fugitive Slave Act from 1850. Further information on the federal fugitive slave acts can be found here.

The text of the Federal Fugitive Slave Act from 1850 can be found here.

While the 1838 statute on fugitives was more supportive of the federal fugitive slave law, this act from 1854 is quite different in its name and systematic: The name of the act “An Act for the defense of Liberty in this State” suggests the defiant stance for at that time slavery was abolished in Connecticut. Also, instead of regulating the complaint of an alleged fugitive person filing a writ of habeas corpus, the act starts with punishing a person who falsely declares a free person to be a slave. Section 6 restricted the pursuit of fugitives even more by making it a crime to obstruct an officer who is in the pursuit of arresting a person who falsely declares a free person to be a slave.
Interestingly, section 7 exempts runaway apprentices from this act. The law on apprentices is part of the master servant relationship. Some early laws applied to apprentices, servants, slaves, women and to children. The laws on apprentices developed in the 1800s to include their own fugitive laws and damages. Even though the 13th Amendment in 1865 outlawed the involuntary servitude of apprentices as well as slavery, fugitive apprentice laws stayed on the books even though they might not have been enforced.

Manumission Laws

1702 or 1711: Liability for former Masters to pay living expenses for freed slaves
Official Name: An Act relating to slavery

This manumission law created a whole set of settlement cases throughout the 18th and early 19th century. Settlement cases were lawsuits where towns sued previous masters of enslaved persons to pay for their living expenses when the towns found themselves obligated to pay for impoverished former servants for life.
The abolition law of 1784 allowed for an exception for masters who manumitted slaves. Under that law masters could get a certificate that freed them from this liability.

1792: Easing Liability for paying living expenses for freed slaves
Official Name: An Act in addition to, and alteration of an Act, concerning Indian Mulatto, and Negro Servants, and Slaves

This act made it easier for slave owners who wanted to manumit a slave to get a certificate that would free the owner from the liability to pay for living expenses should the manumitted person become poor. If the freed person was found by civil authorities or selectmen to be of “good health” and between the age of 25 and 45 years, a certificate would be granted.

Slave Code

2d Half of 17th Century: law preventing black persons to be out after 9 p.m.
Official Name: An Act to prevent the Disorder of Negro and Indian-Servants and Slaves, in the Night-Season

The “Act to prevent the Disorder of Negro and Indian-Servants and Slaves, in the NIght-Season” was part of the black code because it did not apply to non-black or non-native american persons. The reader should note that punishment is whipping, while laws that applied to other governed persons (i.e. non-black servants, women or children) as well as black persons declared a monetary fine - see in comparison the Night Walking act of the middle to late 18th century.

18th Century: Curfew laws for governed persons
Official Name: An Act to prevent unseasonable Night Walking

This 18th century Act to prevent unseasonable Night Walking” was another law pertaining to actions at night. Conversely to the “An Act to prevent the Disorder of Negro and Indian-Servants and Slaves, in the Night-Season” <add link to #3>, this law applied to “(...) any Persons that are under the Government of Parents, Guardians or Masters; (...)”. Technically black servants would fall under both laws but freed slaved would only fall under the “An Act to prevent the Disorder of Negro and Indian-Servants and Slaves, in the Night-Season” but not under the “Act to prevent unseasonable Night Walking.”

Late 17th to early 18th Century: Punishment for Breaking the Peace
Official Name: An Act Against Breaking the Peace

The “Act Against Breaking the Peace” distinguished penalties for “Indian, Negro and Mulatto Servants, and Slaves”. Section 3 of this act is part of the “Slave code laws”, laws that only applied to Slaves, Indians and Mulatto Servants. It is noteworthy that the act states that punishment is set by the judge but elaborates on the maximum limit. While the court sets in section 3 a maximum limit of “not exceeding 30 Stripes for one offence,” it sets in section 6 and 8 that applied to all persons the maximum limit of “not exceeding Thirty-four Dollars” or “not exceeding the Sum of Sixty-seven Dollars”. Section 3 was one of the laws that was repealed 1797.
It should also be noted that section 7 of this law states punishments for breaking “the Peace by secretly assaulting, beating, maiming, wounding or hurting another.” This law also applied to assaults committed against enslaved persons.

1730: Punishment for Defamatory Words
Official Name: An Act for the Punishment of Negro, Indian and Molatto Slaves for speaking Defamatory Words

This “slave code”. specified whipping, whereas as punishment laws applying to the general public at this time period decreed either money fines or left punishment at the discretion of a Justice of the Peace or judge. It is also noteworthy that there was at the time no statute that explicitly enacted the institution of slavery but that slavery was existing and mirrored only by reference through the laws. This is the case here as the punishment explicitly also demands that the “Slave to Convict, shall be sold (...)” to pay for the charges unless the Master (or Mistress) would pay the charges.

Second Half of 18th Century: Punishment for defamation
Official Name: An Act for the Punishment of Defamation

This law was one of the slave code laws because it distinguished punishments for defamation by race. Section 1 punished “any person” for slander or defamation with a fine, but section 2 punished “any Negro, Indian, or Molatto-Slave” offensive words, the punishment would be “whipping on the naked Body (...) not exceeding forty Stripes.” Section 2 was repealed in 1797. The punishment of whipping was in a way inherent to the institution of slavery because an enslaved person would generally not have had the money to pay a fine. In addition, an enslaved person was liable to pay money damages to the offended person and therefore section 2 also calls for the sale of the enslaved person to pay for the costs if not his or her Master or Mistress would pay. However, a Master or Mistress could pay to keep their enslaved person, but they had to be able to pay for it. Interestingly section 2 provided the enslaved person to bring forward any evidence in their defense. One can see that this also protected the Master or Mistress from keeping the enslaved persons should he or she have been falsely accused of this crime.

1797: Repeal of Punishment for Defamation
Official Name: An Act to Repeal Part of an Act Entitled, “An Act for the Punishment of Defamation”

This act repealed section 2 of the defamation law which distinguished between punishments of “Negro, Indian, or Molatto-Slaves.”

1797: Repeal of several Slave Codes
Official Name: An Act to Repeal Certain Paragraphs of an Act Entitled, “An Act Concerning Indian, Mulatto, and Negro, Servants, and Slaves”

This act repealed section 1 through 8 of the 1784 gradual abolition law. Sections 1 through 8 included fugitive laws and punishments for staying out after 9 p.m.

1797: Repeal of punishment for Breaking the Peace
Official Name: An Act to Repeal Part of an Act Entitled, “An Act Against Breaking the Peace”

This act repealed section 3 of the Act Against Breaking the Peace.

Abolition of Slavery laws

1784: Gradual Abolition Law
Official Name: An Act Concerning Indian, Mulatto, and Negro Servants and Slaves

This act abolished slavery in Connecticut with the limitations that only children born after March 1, 1784 will become free (of services) at the age of 25. In 1817 the Connecticut Supreme Court clarified in the case of Windsor v. Hartford that such a child was not enslaved but in servitude until age 25. Because this act did not free enslaved people instantly but over a pretty long period of time, the law is sometimes called a “sunset law.”

Excerpt from Section 13:

“An Act Concerning Indian, Mulatto, and Negro Servants and Slaves” in 1784, Section 13: “And whereas found Police requires that the Abolition of Slavery should be effected as soon as may be, consistent with the Rights of Individuals, and the Public Safety and Welfare , Therefore be it enacted , That no Negro or Mulatto Child, that shall, after the first Day of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-four, be born within this State, shall be held in Servitude, longer until they arrive to the age of 25 Years, notwithstanding the Mother or Parent of such Child was held in Servitude at the time of its Birth; but such Child, at the Age aforesaid, shall be free: any Law, Usage, or Custom to the contrary notwithstanding.”

In addition, this act updated or restated older laws: 1 -4 are a newer version of the An Act to prevent the Running away of Indian and Negro Servants, although the law extended it to apply to “Vagrants or suspected Persons.” Section 7 restated (with a higher redemption cost) the Act to prevent the Disorder of Negro and Indian-Servants and Slaves, in the Night-season <add internal link find #3>. An interesting addition is section 9 that prevented bringing of new slaves into the state as that would have been “injurious to the Poor”. A short note on this: After the Revolutionary war, the economy had suffered, and Connecticut was not as dependent on enslaved labor anymore. That was also a reason why abolition of slavery in form of gradual abolition found majority.
Note on manumission: Section 11 restated the old law that Masters or their heirs were liable to pay for persons who had been manumitted by the Master afterwards became poor. The purpose of this law was that the town (and therefore the public) should not have to pay for living expenses of any impoverished manumitted slaves. An important new section 12 provided exceptions for this liability. An Act from 1792 made it easier to get exempted from this liability.

1797: Amending the 1784 law and lowering the age of freedom
Official Name: An Act in addition to an Act, entitles, “An Act concerning Indian, Mulatto and Negro Servants and Slaves”

This Act amended the Act from 1784 and lowered the age of becoming free of servitude from 25 years to 21 years.

1848: Final Abolition Law in Connecticut: An Act to Abolish Slavery
Official Name: An Act to Prevent Slavery

This Act not only abolished slavery in Connecticut but also includes fugitive and slave trade laws as well as references to important decisions from the Conneticut Supreme Court.
Section 1 of this act abolished slavery with the simple sentence: “Be it enacted (...) that no person shall hereafter be held in slavery in this state.”

Section 6 clarifies that enslaved persons when brought to Connecticut from other states will become free.

Section 2 addresses the issue of paying for the living expenses of persons who would become free but are or will become poor. Section 2 follows the manumission laws that have been in place since the first decade of the 18th century that held the former owner or his or her estate or heirs liable to pay for impoverished manumitted persons, unless they were exempted.

Sections 3 and 4 restate slave trade laws.

Section 5 includes a law from 1844 that addresses fugitive slaves and prohibits judges to serve warrants for fugitive slaves. However, the last sentence provides an exception for slave owners from other states if they can derive their right from the US constitution. This law was enacted two years before the federal Fugitive Slave Act from 1850, but the federal Fugitive Slave Act from 1797 was in place and referred to in that last sentence.

Link to text of Fugitive Slave Act from 1797.

It is also noteworthy that this law was enacted after the 1842 Supreme Court decision Prigg v. Pennsylvania where the Court decided that the federal government had the authority to enforce federal fugitive slave acts in the states.