This is a picture of a slave who was beaten because he broke one of the slave codes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Slave_Route_Project
Slave Codes Many states passed things known as slave codes. Slave codes were an outline of the rights, acceptable treatment, and rules of the slaves. Slave codes varied from state to state, but they did have things in common with each other. Slaves were not allowed to own any property, ones who lived off the plantation had curfews, and if a slave was in court with a white person they were doomed because the slave's side of the story wasn't allowed to be told in the court of law. Over time these laws became even more strict. The reason for having slave codes were to insure that the slaves stay where they are supposed to and if they did break the rules, then they would have to be punished. A few examples of these slave codes were; slaves couldn't make any kind of contract including marriage, any slave caught stealing would be whipped, if a child has one free parent and one slave parent the child is considered free as long as the free parent is the child's mother, and many more. http://www.ushistory.org/us/6f.asp http://mrstreit.webs.com/Slave%20Codes%20Examples.pdf