Sec. 6. All contracts for labor made with freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes for a longer period than one month shall be in writing, and in duplicate, attested and read to said freedman, free negro, or mulatto by a beat, city or county officer, or two disinterested white persons of the county in which the labor is to be performed, of which each party shall have one; and said contracts shall be taken and held as entire contracts, and if the laborer shall quit the service of the employer before the expiration of his term of service, without good cause, he shall forfeit his wages for that year up to the time of quitting.

Sec. 7. .. Every civil officer shall, and every person may, arrest and carry back to his or her legal employer any freedman, free negro, or mulatto who shall have quit the service of his or her employer before the expiration of his or her term of service without good cause; and said officer and person shall be entitled to receive for arresting and carrying back every deserting employe aforesaid the sum of five dollars, and ten cents per mile from the place of arrest to the place of delivery; and the same shall be paid by the employer, and held as a set-off for so much against the wages of said deserting employe: Provided, that said arrested party, after being so returned, may appeal to the justice of the peace or member of the board of police of the county, who, on notice to the alleged employer, shall try summarily whether said appellant is legally employed by the alleged employer, and has good cause to quit said employer; either party shall have the right of appeal to the county court, pending which the alleged deserter shall be remanded to the alleged employer or otherwise disposed of, as shall be right and just; and the decision of the county court shall be final. Sec. 9. . . If any person shall persuade or attempt to persuade, entice, or cause any freedman, free negro, or mulatto to desert from the legal employment of any person before the expiration of his or her term of service, or shall knowingly employ any such deserting freedman, free negro, or mulatto, or shall knowingly give or sell to any such deserting freedman, free negro, or mulatto, any food, raiment, or other thing, he or she shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction,

shall be fined not less than twenty-five dollars and not more than two hundred dollars and the costs; and if said fine and costs shall not be immediately paid, the court shall sentence said convict to not exceeding two months' imprisonment in the county jail, and he or she shall moreover be liable to the party injured in damages: Provided, if any person shall, or shall attempt to, persuade, entice, or cause any freedman, free negro, or mulatto to desert from any legal employment of any person, with the view to employ said freedman, free negro, or mulatto without the limits of this State, such person, on conviction, shall be fined not less than fifty dollars, and not more than five hundred dollars and costs; and if said fine and costs shall not be immediately paid, the court shall sentence said convict to not exceeding six months imprisonment in the county jail.

Sec. 10. .. it shall be lawful for any freedman, free negro, or mulatto, to charge any white person, freedman, free negro, or mulatto by affidavit, with any criminal offense against his or her person or property, and upon such affidavit the proper process shall be issued and executed as if said affidavit was made by a white person, and it shall be lawful for any freedman, free negro, or mulatto, in any action, suit or controversy pending, or about to be instituted in any court of law or equity in this state, to make all needful and lawful affidavits as shall be necessary for the institution, prosecution or defense of such suit or controversy.

Sec. 11... the penal laws of this State, in all cases not otherwise specially provided for, shall apply and extend to all freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes.

Certain Offenses of Freedmen (Mississippi)

Laws of Mississippi, 1865, p. 165.

[November 29, 1865] Sec. I. Be it enacted, That no freedman, free negro or mulatto, not in the military service of the United States government, and not licensed so to do by the board of police of his or her county, shall keep or carry fire-arms of any kind, or any ammunition, dirk or bowie knife, and on conviction

thereof in the county court shall be punished by fine, not exceeding ten dollars, and pay the costs of such proceedings, and all such arms or ammunition shall be forfeited to the informer; and it shall be the duty of every civil and military officer to arrest any freedman, free negro, or mulatto found with any such arms or ammunition, and cause him or her to be committed to trial in default of bail.

Sec. 2. . Any freedman, free negro, or mulatto committing riots, routs, affrays, trespasses, malicious mischief, cruel treatment to animals, seditious speeches, insulting gestures, language, or acts, or assaults on any person, disturbance of the peace, exercising the function of a minister of the Gospel without a license from some regularly organized church, vending spirituous or intoxicating liquors, or committing any other misdemeanor, the punishment of which is not specifically provided for by law, shall, upon conviction thereof in the county court, be fined not less than ten dollars, and not more than one hundred dollars, and may be imprisoned at the discretion of the court, not exceeding thirty days.

Sec. 3... If any white person shall sell, lend, or give to any freedman, free negro, or mulatto any fire-arms, dirk or bowie knife, or ammunition, or any spirituous or intoxicating liquors, such person or persons so offending, upon conviction thereof in the county court of his or her county, shall be fined not exceeding fifty dollars, and may be imprisoned, at the discretion of the court, not exceeding thirty days.

Sec. 5. . . If any freedman, free negro, or mulatto, convicted of any of the misdemeanors provided against in this act, shall fail or refuse for the space of five days, after conviction, to pay the fine and costs imposed, such person shall be hired out by the sheriff or other officer, at public outcry, to any white person who will pay said fine and all costs, and take said convict for the shortest time.

North Carolina "Black Code"

Public Laws of North Carolina, session of 1866, p. 99; and Senate Ex. Doc. no. 26, 39 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 197. [March 10, 1866]

Sec. I.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State

of North Carolina, . That negroes and their issue, even where one ancestor in each succeeding generation to the fourth inclusive is white, shall be deemed persons of color.

Sec. 2. All persons of color who are now inhabitants of this State shall be entitled to the same privileges, and are subject to the same burthens and disabilities, as by the laws of the State were conferred on, or were attached to, free persons of color, prior to the ordinance of emancipation, except as the same may be changed by law.

Sec. 3. Persons of color shall be entitled to all the privileges of white persons in the mode of prosecuting, defending, continuing, removing and transferring their suits at law and in equity; and likewise to the same mode of trial by jury, and all the privileges appertaining thereto. And in all proceedings in equity by or against them, their answer shall have the same force and effect in all respects as the answer of white persons.

Sec. 4. In all cases of apprenticeship of persons of color, under chapter five (5) of the revised code, the master shall be bound to discharge the same duties to them as to white apprentices. . [and the word white is stricken from the code]: Provided always, That in the binding out of apprentices of color, the former masters of such apprentices, when they shall be regarded as suitable persons by the court, shall be entitled to have such apprentices bound to them, in preference to other persons.

[Chapter 5, section 3, of the revised code, as amended by this act, reads thus:

The master or mistress shall provide for the apprentice diet, clothes, lodging, and accommodations fit and necessary; and such apprentice shall teach or cause to be taught to read and write, and the elementary rules of arithmetic; and at the expiration of every apprenticeship shall pay to each apprentice six dollars, and furnish him with a new suit of clothes, and a new Bible; and if upon complaint made to the court of pleas and quarter sessions it shall appear that any apprentice is ill-used, or not taught the trade, profession and employment to which he was bound, or that any apprentice is not taught reading,

writing, and arithmetic as aforesaid, the court may remove and bind him to some other suitable person.]

[Section 6, chapter 5, of the revised code of North Carolina, as amended by this act, reads thus:

If any apprentice, whether colored or otherwise, who shall be well used by his master, and who shall have received from his said master not less than twelve months' schooling, shall absent himself, after arriving at the age of eighteen years, from his master's service before the term of his apprenticeship shall have expired, every such apprentice shall be compelled to make satisfaction to the master for the loss of his service; and in case any apprentice shall refuse to make such satisfaction, his master may recover by warrant before any justice of the peace such satisfaction, not exceeding sixty dollars, as the justice may determine ought to be made by such apprentice; or the master may have his action on the case against the apprentice, for his default: Provided, That no apprentice shall be compelled to make any satisfaction, but within seven years next after the end of the term for which he shall be bound to serve.]

Sec. 5. In all cases where men and women, both or one of them were lately slaves and are now emancipated, now cohabit together in the relation of husband and wife, the parties shall be deemed to have been lawfully married as man and wife at the time of the commencement of such cohabitation, although they may not have been married in due form of law. And all persons whose cohabitation is hereby ratified into a state of marriage shall go before the clerk of the court of pleas and quarter sessions of the county in which they reside, at his office, or before some justice of the peace, and acknowledge the fact of such cohabitation, and the time of its commencement, and the clerk shall enter the same in a book kept for that purpose; and if the acknowledgment be made before a justice of the peace, such justice shall report the same in writing to the clerk of the court of pleas and quarter sessions, and the clerk shall enter the same as though the acknowledgment had been made before him; and such entry shall be deemed prima facie evidence of the allegations therein contained. For making such entry and giving a certificate of the same, the clerk