Apprenticeship Laws Forcibly Separate Black Families After Emancipation

Black Codes in multiple states included 'apprenticeship' provisions authorizing courts to bind Black children — particularly orphans and children of 'paupers' — to former slaveholders as unpaid laborers until age 18 (girls) or 21 (boys). In Maryland, over 2,500 Black children were apprenticed to former slaveholders in 1865–1866. Parents who had been separated from their children under slavery and who sought to reunite their families found their children legally bound to former masters. Freedmen's Bureau agents documented widespread use of the apprenticeship system to separate families and re-enslave children — a continuation of the family separation that had been slavery's most devastating practice.