Thank you for using Who Built America?  The project is currently in beta with new features to be implemented over the coming months, so please check back. If you have feedback or encounter any bugs, please fill out this form.

American Social History Projec
WHO BUILT AMERICA?

Georgia Black Codes, 1868

Background: The following Black Codes from the 1868 Georgia Code of Laws set out extremely harsh punishments for theft and vagrancy. While race is not explicitly mentioned in them, Black men and women were overwhelmingly charged and convicted under these laws.

Sections 4330 - 4336: The stealing of a horse or mule shall be punished with death, unless recommended by the jury to the mercy of the Court, in which even the punishment shall be confinement and labor in the Penitentiary for any time not less than two years nor longer than five years. Cattle stealing shall be denominated simple larceny . . . [and] shall be punished as prescribed in Section 4245 [a fine of up to ,000; up to six months imprisonment; whipping of up to 39 lashes; up to twelve months work in a chain gang or public works; and any one or more of these punishments, at the discretion of the Judge]. The stealing of a hog or hogs is simple larceny . . .the punishment of hog stealing shall be as prescribed in Section 4245 of this code. 


Section 4476: All persons wandering or strolling about in idleness, who are able to work and have no property to support them; all persons leading an idle, immoral, or profligate life, who have no property to support them, and who are able to work, and who do not work; all persons able to work, having no property to support them, and who have not some visible and known means of a fair, honest, and reputable livelihood . . . shall be deemed and considered vagrants, and shall be indicted as such; and it shall be lawful for any person to arrest said vagrants, and have them bound over for trial to the next term of the County Court, and, upon conviction, they shall be fined or imprisoned, or sentenced to work on the public works or roads for not longer than a year, or shall, in the discretion of the Court, be bound out to some person for a time, not longer than one year . . .

Source: 1868 Irwin's Code, Revised edition. From Historical Georgia Digests and Codes, University of Georgia School of Law, https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/ga_code/10.