In the antebellum South, many states passed laws that made it a crime for someone to mistreat, abuse, neglect, or murder a slave. Were these laws ever enforced? Are there any records of someone receiving punishment because of how they treated a slave?
As a follow-up, how did these laws come into effect - who proposed and campaigned for them and what were their motivations (was slave welfare really the primary concern or were optics more important)?