Northern colonies enacted restrictive slave codes despite small enslaved populations

Evidence

In the years that followed, South Carolina’s Negro Act became a model for slave codes throughout the colonies, governing Black lives for more than a century. Such laws existed in the Northern colonies as well, even though the enslaved population was comparatively small. In New York, for example, authorities banned enslaved people from gathering in groups larger than three, holding funerals at night, being out after sunset without a lantern, selling food in the streets, playing musical instruments, or associating with free Black people. Enslaved Black people weren’t even allowed to simply ride a horse, for fear they would use the horse to escape. Northerners also implemented strict curfew laws, which targeted all Black people, enslaved and free. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 361

Categorization

• XREF: This is a key empirical datum for the reframing-vs-peripheral dispute: slavery-shaped policing reached even the North, supporting the foundational rather than peripheral claim. Relevant to reader’s case study.
• SHARE: The detail that enslaved New Yorkers couldn’t hold funerals at night or ride a horse — narrow enough to send to someone writing about colonial policing of Black life.