Download or read book HeinOnline's Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619-1860 written by Thomas D. Morris and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 575 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is the first comprehensive history of the evolving relationship between American slavery and the law from colonial times to the Civil War. As Thomas Morris clearly shows, racial slavery came to the English colonies as an institution without strict legal definitions or guidelines. Therefore, laws governing slaves and slavery had to be incorporated into the body of English common law that formed the basis of legal culture throughout the colonial South.