An Act Respecting Slaves, Free Negroes, and Mulattoes (1847)

Negroes and Mulattoes.

An Act respecting slaves, free negroes and mulattoes.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Missouri, as follows:

§ 1. No person shall keep or teach any school for the instruction of negroes or mulattoes, in reading or writing, in this State.

§ 2. No meeting or assemblage of negroes or mulattoes, for the purpose of religious worship, or preaching, shall be held or permitted where the services are performed or conducted by negroes or mulattoes, unless some sheriff, constable, marshal, police officer, or justice of the peace, shall be present during all the time of such meeting or assemblage, in order to prevent any seditious speeches, and disorderly and unlawful conduct of every kind.

§ 3. All meeting of negroes or mulattoes, for the purposes mentioned in the two preceding sections, shall be considered unlawful assemblages, and shall be suppressed by sheriffs, constables, and other public officers.

§ 4. No free negro or mulatto shall, under any pretext, emigrate to this State, from any other State or territory.

§ 5. If any person shall violate the provisions of this act, he shall, for every such offence, be indicted and punished by fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding six months, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

§ 6. Free negroes and mulattoes who are under the age of twenty-one years, and who would not be entitled to receive from the county court a license to remain in this State, if they were twenty-one years old, shall not be bound out as apprentices in this State.

Approved February 16, 1847.