The act places limits on plantation floggings

Clause 5 allowed two enslaved people belonging to the same owner to marry through an authorized clergyman or priest, but required written permission from that owner. Clergy were also to judge...

Clause 6 required each plantation to maintain a hospital in a suitable, healthy location for enslaved people who were sick, injured, or infirm. An “hospital-book” was to record names, admission and...

Clause 7 prohibited compelling most enslaved plantation workers to leave home before daybreak, work through breakfast or dinner, or continue after sunset. It allowed an exception for production...

Clause 8 gave a woman with five living children attached to a plantation fifty-two days during the year to cultivate provision grounds. Its stated purpose was to encourage the increase and...

Clause 9 forbade owners from turning away enslaved people considered unable to work because of illness, age, or infirmity. Owners had to keep and support them; magistrates could investigate neglect...

Clause 13 allowed prosecution for cruel wounding, mutilation, or confinement without support. Where the enslaver was convicted, a court could order the person sold to another buyer or declare them...

Clause 14 permitted an enslaved person alleged to have been wantonly punished or confined to testify in the trial of the person accused of that abuse. In that specific setting the witness did not need...

Clause 15 authorized justices to investigate reports that an enslaved person had been improperly punished or confined, and to arrange an allowance during an inquiry. But if officials judged the...

Clause 16 defined an enslaved person absent from an owner or employer for forty-eight hours on working days, without a ticket or permit, as a runaway. The definition converted unlicensed mobility into...

Clause 19 required the Provost Marshal to keep captured runaways in custody, post their names at the courthouse, and advertise their names and owners—or physical descriptions if owners were unknown—in...