The Jamaican assembly passes its first comprehensive slave code

On 20 May 1655, English forces began the siege of Spanish-held Jamaica after their failed attempt to take Santo Domingo. The invasion changed the colonial power controlling the island; it did not mark...

A Jamaican act made enslaved Africans and servants liable to punishment for leaving a plantation without written permission. It treated ordinary movement as an offense against an owner’s authority and...

The act described enslaved Africans as necessary to plantations and authorized a justice and local inquest to sentence an enslaved person accused of a capital offense. It also prohibited inhabitants...

This statute renewed movement restrictions and punitive measures. It ordered enslavers to report people who had fled, penalized those who helped enslaved people escape, and offered a reward when an...

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...

The Jamaican assembly passed an act for the "better Order and Government of Slaves." It required enslaved people to carry tickets to travel away from plantations, authorized punishment for movement...

Leeward Maroon leader Cudjoe signed a treaty with the colonial government after years of Maroon resistance. The agreement recognized the community's freedom and a defined territory, but it also...

Quao, a Windward Maroon leader, signed a treaty with the British colonial government. The separate agreement followed the Cudjoe treaty and did not represent every Maroon community. Its terms...