“An act for regulating slaves. (1 Nev.  L., c. 10.) Sect. 1.  Against trading with slaves. 2.  For arrest of slaves being without pass. 3.  Negro belonging to another province, not having license, to be whipped and committed to jail. 4.  Punishment of slaves for crimes to be by three or more justices of the peace, with five of the principal freeholders, without a grand jury; seven agreeing, shall give judgment. 5.  Method in such causes more particularly described.  Provides that ’the evidence of Indian, negro, or mulatto slaves shall be admitted and allowed on trials of such slaves, on all causes criminal.’ 6.  Owner may demand a jury. 7, 8.  Compensation to owners for death of slave. 9.  A slave for attempting to ravish any white woman, or presuming ’to assault or strike any free man or woman professing Christianity,’ any two justices have discretionary powers to inflict corporal punishment, not extending to life or limb. 10.  Slaves, for stealing, to be whipped. 11.  Penalties on justices, &c., neglecting duty. 12.  Punishment for concealing, harboring, or entertaining slaves of others. 13.  Provides that no Negro, Indian, or mulatto that shall thereafter be made free, shall hold any real estate in his own right, in fee simple or fee tail. 14.  ’And whereas it is found by experience that free Negroes are an idle, slothful people, and prove very often a charge to the place where they are,’ enacts that owners manumitting, shall give security, &c."[478]

Nearly all the humane features of the Jersey laws were supplanted by severe prohibitions, requirements, and penalties.  The trial by jury was construed to mean that one Negro’s testimony was good against another Negro in a trial for a felony, allowing the owner of the slave to demand a jury.  Humane masters were denied the right to emancipate their slaves, and the latter were prohibited from owning real property in fee simple or fee tail.  Having stripped the Negro of the few rights he possessed, the General Court, during the same year, went on to reduce him to absolute property, and levied an impost-tax of ten pounds upon every Negro imported into the colony, to remain in force for seven years.

In 1754 an Act provided, that in the borough of Elizabeth any white servant or servants, slave or slaves, which shall “be brought before the Mayor, &c., by their masters or other inhabitant of the Borough, for any misdemeanor rude or disorderly behavior, may be committed to the workhouse to hard labor and receive correction not exceeding thirty lashes."[479] This Act was purely local in character, and indiscriminate in its application to every class of servants.  It was nothing more than a police regulation, and as such was a wholesome law.