📅 1 January 1761
A 1760 Jamaican act took effect on 1 January 1761 and criminalized practices the colonial state called Obeah. It authorized death or transportation after conviction and also restricted enslaved...
📅 1 March 1788
A consolidated slave law came into force on 1 March 1788, replacing earlier acts and restating controls on enslaved people. It prescribed severe penalties for flight, resistance, alleged Obeah and...
📅 11 December 1816
The Jamaican legislature passed a law requiring a more particular return and enrolment of enslaved people. The measure was presented as a way to guard against illegal imports after the British trade...
📅 2 November 1664
The code required written tickets for travel, prescribed punishments for resistance, and treated enslaved people as inheritable property. The archive notes that it closely copied Barbados’s 1661...
📅 5 September 1683
The law required tickets for travel and described enslaved people as property available to satisfy debts. It explicitly said that becoming Christian did not make an enslaved person free. Those rules...
📅 24 November 1774
A statute funding British regiments also regulated the importation of enslaved people. It required shipmasters to report cargoes, imposed duties, and created port inspections. It set different rates...
📅 22 December 1775
The assembly confirmed that wills could transfer enslaved people as property, including some wills that did not meet the English Statute of Frauds. It set a future standard for wills to be properly...
