Slavery in the United States has been a part of the nation’s history for hundreds of years, and yet it did not end abruptly. As the Civil came to an end, southern authorities started to enact a number of restrictive state legislation, generally known as black codes. By limiting the civic engagement of liberated individuals, the regulations institutionalized white supremacy. While these rules might seem not so limiting, they are indeed another form of slavery. According to Cambridge Dictionary, slavery is “the condition of being legally owned by someone else and forced to work for or obey them” (Cambridge Dictionary, n.d.). However, in general, black codes not only denied people of color of fundamental freedoms, such as voting but employed subtle approaches to continue slavery.
Prior to the war, slavery had been a cornerstone of the area’s stability and prosperity. Yet, after, black codes preserved the same consistency by reviving the colonial economic order while disguising it as a free-labor system. The evidence of this being another form of slavery is that courts connecting young African American children to white landowners who would subsequently put them to labor under new apprenticeship regulations based on black codes (Khan Academy, n.d.). Agreements with their contractors, who were sometimes their former owners, were made mandatory for freed slaves who were of legal age (Khan Academy, n.d.). Since those agreements forbade African Americans from employment for more than one contractor, they were unable to improve their meager pay or unfavorable working circumstances (Khan Academy, n.d.). Aside from this, most formerly enslaved people could not either rent or lease property, which made them stuck in the vicious circle of being employed by their white contractors.
Hence, although the restrictions after Civil War may not appear too onerous, they are, in fact, another type of slavery. Black codes used deceptive methods to keep slavery viable in addition to denying people of color access to fundamental freedoms like voting. Black codes kept the same stability by restoring the colonial economic order and masking it as a free-labor system. In fact, white employers were able to hire formerly enslaved people since labor agreements were mandatory.
References
Cambridge Dictionary. (n.d.). Slavery. Web.
Khan Academy. (n.d.). Black Codes. Web.