Manumission was restricted only by the
requirement of court approval; and slaves employed by their masters in
tutorial capacity were declared _ipso facto_ free. In police regards, the
travel and assemblage of slaves were restrained, and no one was allowed to
trade with them without their masters' leave; slaves were forbidden to have
weapons except when commissioned by their masters to hunt; fugitives were
made liable to severe punishments, and free negroes likewise for harboring
them. Negroes whether slave or free, however, were to be tried by the same
courts and by the same procedure as white persons; and though masters were
authorized to apply shackles and lashes for disciplinary purpose, the
killing of slaves by them was declared criminal even to the degree of
murder.[5]
[Footnote 5: This decree is printed in _Le Code Noir_ (Paris, 1742), pp.
318-358, and in the Louisiana Historical Society _Collections_, IV, 75-90.
The prior decree of 1685 establishing a slave code for the French West
Indies, upon which this for Louisiana was modeled, may be consulted in
L. Peytraud, _L'Esclavage aux Antilles Francaises_ (Paris, 1897), pp.
158-166.]
Nearly all the provisions of this relatively liberal code were adopted
afresh when Louisiana became a territory and then a state of the Union.
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