The Slave Revolts or Rebellions numbered over two hundred and fifty from 1663 .
through 1860, however they accomplished very little in the way of earning slave .
freedom. There were only a handful of major revolts and most of them ended in a .
massacre of the revolting black slaves. This coupled with the ever stifling oppression and.
brutality the slaves faced prevented any revolts from having a major impact on the.
institution of slavery. The slave revolts were largely ineffective because of the total .
oppression of the black slave, this oppression started with the various slave codes, that.
stripped blacks of their freedom, dignity, and humanity, and these codes or laws almost .
methodically became more stringent and brutal after each major revolt. The oppression for.
slaves reached its peak with the Runaway Slave Act of 1850. .
From as early as 1629 in Jamestown, Virginia, codes or laws were being passed that segregated, humiliated and oppressed the black slave in the new world. These early codes provided for punishment of a white man for fornificating with a black woman, to the servitude of a child until his is 31, that is born of a white mother and black or mulatto father. In addition, these early Jamestown codes also addressed the baptism of slaves, and how it would no longer allow for their freedom There were laws passed that prohibited slaves to travel from Jamestown without a license. Perhaps the most hideous of these early codes was the code passed in October of 1669 that stated " if any slave resist his master (or other by his masters order correcting him) and by the extremity of the correction chance to die, that his death shall not be accompted felony, but the master be acquit from molestation, since it can not be presumed that prepensed malice should induce any man to destroy his owne estate." This law was in effect the first law in the new world that consigned slaves as property.
