Ch. 2.2. Primary Sources: The Emergence of Race-Based Slave Law
The laws and cases below show the gradual emergence of Virginia’s slave law over the mid- and late-seventeenth century, by which time most African-Americans of the second generation or more spoke English and had converted to Christianity. Pay particular attention to the various ways of or categories used to describe different kinds of people.
A. An Act Declaring that Negro Women’s Children are to Serve According to the Condition of the Mother. 1662, Virginia General Assembly (Hening, ed., Statutes at Large, vol. 2, p. 170).
This statute was a dramatic departure from the English tradition in which a child received his or her status from his or her father. The General Assembly also hoped that an increased fine would discourage white men and women from having sexual partners who were African or of African descent.
Whereas some doubts have arisen whether children got by any Englishman upon a negro woman should be slave or free, Be it therefore enacted and declared by this present grand assembly, that all children born in this country shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother. And that if any Christian shall commit fornication with a negro man or woman, he or she so offending shall pay double the fines imposed by the former act.
B. An Act Concerning Negroes and Other Slaves, Maryland Assembly, 1664
Be it enacted by the Right Honorable the Lord Proprietary by the advice and consent of the upper and lower house of this present General Assembly, that all Negroes or other slaves already within the Province, and all Negroes and other slaves to be hereafter imported into the province, shall serve durante vita [hard labor for life]. And all children born of any Negro or other slave shall be slaves as their fathers were, for the term of their lives. And forasmuch as divers freeborn English women, forgetful of their free condition and to the disgrace of our nation, marry Negro slaves, by which also divers suits may arise touching the issue of such women, and a great damage befalls the masters of such Negroes for prevention whereof, for deterring such freeborn women from such shameful matches. Be it further enacted by the authority, advice, and consent aforesaid, that whatsoever freeborn woman shall marry any slave from and after the last day of this present Assembly shall serve the master of such slave during the life of her husband. And that all the issue of such freeborn women so married shall be slaves as their fathers were. And be it further enacted, that all the issues of English or other freeborn women that have already married Negroes shall serve the masters of their parents till they be thirty years of age and no longer.
C. An Act Declaring that Baptism of Slaves does not Exempt them from Bondage. Sept., 1667, Virginia General Assembly (Hening, Statutes at Large, vol. 2, p. 260).
Whereas some doubts have risen whether children that are slaves by birth, and by the charity and piety of their owners made partakers of the blessed sacrament of baptism, should by virtue of their baptism be made free: It is enacted and declared by this grand assembly, and the authority thereof, that the conferring of baptism does not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or freedom; that diverse masters, freed from this doubt, may more carefully endeavor the propagation of Christianity by permitting children, though slaves, or those of greater growth if capable, to be admitted to that sacrament.