“denounced” him suffered the penalty of having his ears cut off and being branded on his shoulder with a fleur-de-lis.  For a second offence the penalty was to hamstring the fugitive and brand him on the other shoulder.  For the third such offence he suffered death.  Freed or free-born Negroes who gave refuge to fugitive slaves had to pay 30 livres for each day of retention and other free persons 10 livres a day.  If the freed or free-born Negroes were not able to pay the fine, they could be reduced to the condition of slaves and sold as such.

The slaves were socially ostracized.  Marriage of whites with slaves was forbidden, as was also the concubinage of whites and manumitted or free-born blacks with slaves.  The consent of the parents of a slave to his marriage was not required.  That of the master was sufficient, but a slave could not be forced to marry against his will.

There were, however, somewhat favorable provisions which made this code seem a little less rigorous.  The slaves had to be well fed and the masters could not force them to provide for themselves by working for their own account certain days of the week and slaves could give information against their owners, if not properly fed or clothed.  Disabled slaves had to be sent to the hospital.  Husbands, wives, and their children under the age of puberty could not be seized and sold separately when belonging to the same master.  The code forbade the application of the rack to slaves, under any pretext, on private authority, or mutilation of a limb, under penalty of confiscation of the slave and criminal prosecution of the master.  The master was allowed, however, to have his slave put in irons and whipped with rods or ropes.  The code commanded officers or justices to prosecute masters and overseers who should kill or mutilate slaves, and to punish the murder according to the atrocity of the circumstance.

Other provisions were still more favorable.  The slaves had to be instructed in the Catholic religion.  Slaves appointed by their masters as tutors to their children were held set free.  Moreover, manumitted slaves enjoyed the same rights, privileges and immunities that were enjoyed by those born free.  “It is our pleasure,” reads the document, “that their merit in having acquired their freedom shall produce in their favor, not only with regard to their persons, but also to their property, the same effects that our other subjects derive from the happy circumstance of their having been born free."[13]

From the first appearance of the gens de couleur in the colony of Louisiana dates the class, the gens de couleur libres.  The record of the legal tangles which resulted from the attempts to define this race in Louisiana is most interesting.  Up to 1671, all Creoles, Mulattoes, free Negroes, etc., paid a capitation tax.  In February 12 of that year, M. de Baas, Governor-General of Martinique, issued an order exempting the Creoles.  Those