Segregation

Although the term may refer to any enforced separation (e.g., by sex, ethnicity, or language), in the United States, it is most often applied to the racial segregation of African Americans during and immediately following slavery. Both laws (de jure) and customs (de facto) enforced the division of whites from nonwhites from before the Civil War through the 1960s. Laws have changed, but housing patterns remain segregated in many areas, and many schools are once again predominantly single race. The reasons for the persistence of residential segregation are complex and are increasingly influenced by the transition from black–white divisions to multiracial and ethnic populations.

Blacks were brought to the American colonies from Africa and enslaved (10 enslaved people were listed in the first census of Jamestown in 1625). An exception was the Creoles of color and Haitian immigrants following a revolt of enslaved people (1791–1804), but their numbers were comparatively small, and they lived mostly in New Orleans. There, and in other areas of French colonization before the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, enslaved people were subject to the 1685 Code Noir edict of Louis XIV. This black code detailed the conditions of slavery, including: the faith in which they were to be instructed (Roman Catholicism), when and whether they could marry and carry weapons (sent by their master to hunt), and to which master their children belonged. It forbade people enslaved by different masters from gathering (even under the “pretext” of a wedding), especially near major roadways; from selling anything (food, animals, or houses) without a letter from their master; and from going to court as a litigant or as a defendant. Enslaved people who attempted to escape were to have their ears cut off and be branded with a fleur-de-lis on one shoulder for a first attempt. A second warranted branding on the other shoulder and having the hamstring cut; punishment for a third escape attempt was death.

American colonies with enslaved people (including the District of Columbia) passed slave codes with similar provisions. They considered enslaved people the property of their masters, and therefore incapable of having individual rights or liberties. Anglo-British colonies looked to the Roman civil code to justify slavery, which it did—considering enslaved people as movable property. English common law court decisions also supported considering enslaved people as property in some cases and were ambiguous about the legal status of enslaved people in others, but at least they did not find the institution and condition of slavery legally unjustifiable in the colonies. The colonies retained these slave codes as they joined the United States. The federal government gave wide latitude to the laws of individual states, intervening only when it seemed that the Union was at risk.