History Lesson 7 — Slavery by Law

Brought to you by Baldy’s Music Group

Slavery by Law is a hard-hitting spoken word performance that uncovers how slavery was not just enforced by chains in the field, but by laws in the courts. Every restriction on movement, every denial of freedom, every punishment for escape was codified in legal statutes. It was not chaos — it was policy.

From colonial America through the 1800s, lawmakers wrote slavery into the very framework of society. Slave patrols were legalized, marriages denied, literacy outlawed, and entire generations trapped by legislation that defined Black life as property. These laws gave cover to violence, made injustice appear orderly, and turned human bondage into a matter of “justice.”

This performance forces us to see slavery for what it truly was: a system engineered and sustained by lawmakers who used the pen as their most powerful weapon. Slavery was not just tolerated — it was legislated.