Sec. 38.—No slave may buy, sell, or exchange any kind of goods, or hold any boat, or bring up for his own use any horses or cattle, under a penalty of forfeiting the whole.—p. 110.
Sec. 7.—Slaves or free colored persons are punished with death, for wilfully burning or destroying any stack of produce or any building.—p. 115.
Sec. 15.—The punishment of a slave for striking a white person, shall be for the first and second offences at the discretion of the court,[4] but not extending to life or limb, and for the third offence death; but for grievously wounding or mutilating a white person, death for the first offence; provided, if the blow or wound is given in defence of the person or property of his master, or the person having charge of him, he is entirely justified.
Act of Feb. 22, 1824, Sec. 2.—A slave for wilfully striking his master or mistress, or the child of either, or his white overseer, so as to cause a bruise or shedding of blood, shall be punished with death.—p. 125.
Act of March 6, 1819.—Any person cutting or breaking any iron chain or collar used to prevent the escape of slaves, shall be fined not less than two hundred dollars, nor more than one thousand dollars, and be imprisoned not more than two years nor less than six months.—p. 64 of the session.
Law of January 8, 1813, Sec. 71.—All slaves sentenced to death or perpetual imprisonment, in virtue of existing laws, shall be paid for out of the public treasury, provided the sum paid shall not exceed $300 for each slave.
Law of March 16, 1830, Sec. 93.—The state treasurer shall pay the owners the value of all slaves whose punishment has been commuted from that of death to that of imprisonment for life, &c.
If any slave shall happen to be slain for refusing to surrender him or herself, contrary to law, or in unlawfully resisting any officer or other person, who shall apprehend, or endeavor to apprehend, such slave or slaves, &c., such officer or other person so killing such slave as aforesaid, making resistance, shall be, and he is by this act, indemnified, from any prosecution for such killing aforesaid, &c.—Maryland Laws, act of 1751, chap xiv., § 9.
And by the negro act of 1740, of South Carolina, it is declared: