Which law were created by southern states to limit the freedom of former slaves?

Answer 1

I think the answer you are looking for is the set of laws commonly known as "Jim Crow" laws. These laws, which came about in the Reconstruction South, were designed to deny recently-freed blacks the means and methods of attaining social and political equality. Examples are the poll tax - requiring a potential voter to pay for the privilege of voting; literacy requirements in order to register to vote; and similar laws.

While many of these laws were stricken in the 1960's and '70's, some of them still exist on the books.

Answer 2

Jim Crow laws

and poll tax

Answer 3

Fugitive Slave Law - any runaway caught had to be returned to the South.

Answer 4

These laws were referred to as "black codes" and were specifically designed to curtail the civil rights, movement/migration, economic, political, and personal liberties of African slave descendants.

Contrary to popular belief, they were not restricted to the South, the former Confederate States of America [CSA]. The first laws of this sort originated in the northern states to keep free blacks under white social and economic domination. Ohio adopted a series of black codes in 1804, Illinois in 1811.

Here are descriptions of the Mississippi and the South Carolina Black Codes:

"Negroes must make annual contracts for their labor in writing; if they should run away from their tasks, they forfeited their wages for the year. Whenever it was required of them they must present licenses (in a town from the mayor; elsewhere from a member of the board of police of the beat) citing their places of residence and authorizing them to work. Fugitives from labor were to be arrested and carried back to their employers. Five dollars a head and mileage would be allowed such ***** catchers. It was made a misdemeanor, punishable with fine or imprison- ment, to persuade a freedman to leave his employer, or to feed the runaway. Minors were to be apprenticed, if males until they were twenty-one, if females until eighteen years of age. Such corporal punishment as a father would administer to a child might be inflicted upon apprentices by their masters. Vagrants were to be fined heavily, and if they could not pay the sum, they were to be hired out to service until the claim was satisfied. Negroes might not carry knives or firearms unless they were licensed so to do. It was an offence, to be punished by a fine of $50 and imprisonment for thirty days, to give or sell intoxicating liquors to a *****. When negroes could not pay the fines and costs after legal proceedings, they were to be hired at public outcry by the sheriff to the lowest bidder...."

"In South Carolina persons of color contracting for service were to be known as "servants," and those with whom they contracted, as "masters." On farms the hours of labor would be from sunrise to sunset daily, except on Sunday. The negroes were to get out of bed at dawn. Time lost would be deducted from their wages, as would be the cost of food, nursing, etc., during absence from sickness. Absentees on Sunday must return to the plantation by sunset. House servants were to be at call at all hours of the day and night on all days of the week. They must be "especially civil and polite to their masters, their masters' families and guests," and they in return would receive "gentle and kind treatment." Corporal and other punishment was to be administered only upon order of the district judge or other civil magistrate. A vagrant law of some severity was enacted to keep the negroes from roaming the roads and living the lives of beggars and thieves."