Slave rules were made to keep slaves under control. If a slave ever broke a rules they would get whipped. Early slave codes were the same as the slave codes in the later years except that the early slave codes didn't have as many codes as the later years and that in the early years slavery was religious based. In the later years of slavery, it because race based. Any African or African-American people would be a slave. The picture below gives you an idea of how slaves were treated. This picture doesn't show how bad it is if they don't follow the rules though. All of the slaves are working and the white people are just standing around watching them work, waiting for them to mess up.