26 October 1723
LegislationBook sources
Maryland restricts gatherings and authorizes mutilation of enslaved people
Colonial Maryland
Maryland’s 1723 law authorized constables to patrol suspected gathering places and whip enslaved people found without the required permission. It allowed a justice to order one ear cropped when an enslaved person struck a white person, and authorized legally empowered pursuers to kill specified outlying slaves who resisted capture.
Dates preserve the source’s precision. This entry is part of a selected historical record; its qualifications and sources are retained below.
Context / qualification
The statute describes one ear, not both. Its lethal-force clause has conditions; it is not permission to kill every fugitive. Claims about hanging and quartering require a separate statute and are not attributed to this act.
Sources
- Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, chapter 2, p. 35; supplied print pages, edition/year unidentified
- Maryland, 1723 chapter XV, §§ II–VII; Thomas Bacon, Laws of Maryland, pp. 342–343, Maryland State Archives ↗
- Maryland, 1723 chapter XV, §§ IV–VII, p. 343: ear-cropping and pursuit ↗