2013 UTC Southern Slave Codes There is some POV pushing by the editor who wrote the following and I question their sources However Southern slave codes did make willful killing of a slave illegal in most cases Beginning in 1822 slaves in Mississippi were protected by law from cruel and unusual punishment by their owners After 1820 in response to the inability to import new slaves from Africa some slaveholders improved the living conditions of their slaves to influence them not to attempt escape I m not going to include anything else in lieu of this statement but I believe this statement should be deleted As a historian who teaches American History at a well known University I can tell you that this was not the case Some slaves were treated very poorly some were treated ok and some were treated well The treatment of slaves was diverse not uniform See my references below Thanks Most of these slave codes included punishments for slaves not mastershence the name slave codes There have been ample cases of abuse and murder under this system One could read any slave narrative and find that this was the case The killing of a slave was typically not considered murder Although it would not behoove slave owners to kill valuable property it did occur if they deemed the slave particularly willful or a persistent runaway etc One court case from Mississippi does not change this fact Read the slave narrative of William Anderson There is also a good article about the use of dogs in the Antebellum South for the retrieval of slaves Thanks 14 26 17 October