Definition
The Black Act refers primarily to the English statute 9 Geo. I. c. 22, enacted in 1723. It was so named because it was prompted by the activities of organized bands of poachers and forest raiders who disguised themselves by blacking their faces. These groups, known as the "Blacks," operated in Epping Forest and the royal forests near Waltham, Essex and Hampshire, destroying deer, maiming cattle, breaking down enclosures, and committing armed intimidation against forest officials and landowners. The Act responded by creating or expanding capital offenses to cover these and related acts of disguised lawlessness, ultimately specifying a large number of crimes punishable by death. It was repealed by 7 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 27, enacted in 1827, as part of a broader rationalization of English criminal law.
A secondary meaning, noted by Rapalje & Lawrence, applies to a body of early Scottish legislation:
BLACK ACTS (Scots Law). Old Scottish statutes passed during the reigns of the Jameses and down to approximately 1586 or 1587. So called because they were printed in black letter type, not because of their subject matter. These are distinct in nature and origin from the English Black Act.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
1. English Black Act (9 Geo. I. c. 22, 1723). The primary referent in English legal dictionaries. A criminal statute targeting disguised offenders committing forest crimes and related depredations. Now repealed.
2. Black Acts (Scots Law). A collected body of early Scottish parliamentary legislation, distinguished by their printing format. Referenced in Bell and Wharton. No substantive connection to the English statute.
3. Indian Act XI of 1836. Noted by Wiktionary as occasionally called a "Black Act" in historical usage. This Indian legislative act placed European subjects on equal footing with native subjects before East India Company courts in civil matters. The label was applied pejoratively by European residents who resented the equalization. Not a standard legal dictionary definition but appears in historical and colonial legal discourse.
Why It Matters in Research
The Black Act is historically significant well beyond its status as a repealed criminal statute. Legal historians and scholars of English criminal law treat it as a landmark in the expansion of capital punishment during the eighteenth century and as a case study in the use of criminal law to protect elite property interests — particularly the game and timber rights of landowners and the Crown. E. P. Thompson's 1975 study Whigs and Hunters brought the statute into sustained scholarly focus and is the essential modern reference for any researcher approaching the Act in historical context.
For corpus researchers working in Law Mind, the Black Act is unlikely to appear as operative law in American materials. Its primary relevance in American sources is negative: Bouvier notes explicitly that the Act was held not to be part of the common law in Georgia (T. U. P. Charlt. 167), which reflects the broader question of which English statutes were received into American common law after independence. This reception question is a recurring research issue in early American legal materials, and the Black Act is one of the sharper examples where American courts declined reception.
Researchers should also be alert to the terminological overlap between "Black Act" and "Black Lung" legislation in modern American labor and workers' compensation law. These are entirely unrelated. The Black Lung Benefits Act, a twentieth-century American workers' compensation statute protecting coal miners, has no historical or conceptual connection to the 1723 English Black Act. The shared word "Black" in each name reflects entirely different derivations.
The Scottish Black Acts present a separate research trap. Any reference to "Black Acts" in Scottish legal history refers to the printed compilation of early statutes, not to criminal or forest law. Researchers working in Scottish legal history should treat the term as a bibliographic reference to a specific printed corpus, not a substantive category of law.
Historical Dictionary Support
The dictionary sources are in substantial agreement on the core definition. All five sources identify the statute as 9 Geo. I. c. 22 and connect it to disguised offenders in the forests near Waltham. Black's (both editions) and Burrill identify Epping Forest specifically; Burrill places Waltham in Hampshire, while Black's places it in Essex — a minor geographic discrepancy in the sources reflecting that the outrages ranged across several forest areas. All sources agree the repeal was effected by 7 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 27, with Bouvier alone citing the repeal statute as c. 11 rather than c. 27, which appears to be an error in Bouvier's text.
Rapalje & Lawrence is the only source among the five to note both the English statute and the Scottish Black Acts in the same entry, making it the most complete for a researcher needing to distinguish the two meanings. Burrill adds a reference to Stephens' Commentaries (4 Steph. Com. 174) alongside Blackstone, providing a second primary treatise anchor. Bouvier's note on American non-reception (the Georgia case) is the sole dictionary entry to address the Act's status in American law and is therefore the most practically useful of the five for American legal research.
None of the historical dictionaries captures the Act's broader significance as a tool of class-based criminal legislation — that interpretive dimension belongs entirely to modern legal historiography, not the dictionary tradition.
Jurisdictional Note
The Black Act was English legislation and never had operative force in American jurisdictions. Its relevance in American law is limited to the question of common-law reception, where at least one American court (Georgia) expressly declined to treat it as received. Researchers working in early American criminal law or game law should not assume the Act's provisions carried over.