The precise relationship between race and freedom in early-seventeenth-century Virginia was ambiguous. The first Africans arrived there in 1619. Interestingly, existing records leave open the possibility that they were considered indentured servants rather than slaves. Indentured servants were bound in servitude for a set period of time, often seven years, usually in payment of a debt. Many early British migrants to Virginia were themselves indentured servants, men and women who had temporarily given up their freedom voluntarily in exchange for passage. In these early decades, slaves and indentured servants worked alongside one another, enduring the same difficult conditions and forging social relationships. Moreover, for much of the seventeenth century free Africans in Virginia enjoyed the same rights as whites, with some even owning slaves themselves. The situation began to change around midcentury, as Virginia elites took steps to clarify the status of slaves and servants and established a direct link between race and slavery. By the early eighteenth century a well-defined racial hierarchy prevailed—one that defined blacks as legally inferior to whites and therefore suitable for enslavement. As you read these selections from the colonial Virginia laws, consider the ways they tighten the connection between race and slavery.

Act XII, December 1662

Negro women’s children to serve according to the condition of the mother.

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.

Act III, September 1667

An act declaring that baptism of slaves does not exempt them from bondage.

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 endeavour the propagation of Christianity by permitting children, though slaves, or those of greater growth if capable, to be admitted to that sacrament.

Act IV, September 1668

About runaways.

Whereas it has been questioned whether servants running away may be punished with corporal punishment by their master or magistrate since the act already made gives the master satisfaction by prolonging their time by service, It is declared and enacted by this assembly that moderate corporal punishment inflicted by master or magistrate upon a runaway servant, shall not deprive the master of the satisfaction allowed by the law, the one being as necessary to reclaim them from persisting in that idle course, as the other is just to repair the damages sustained by the master.

Act I, October 1669

An act about the casual killing of slaves.

Whereas the only law in force for the punishment of refractory servants resisting their master, mistress or overseer cannot be inflicted upon Negroes, nor the obstinacy of many of them by other than violent means suppressed, Be it enacted and declared by this grand assembly, if any slave resist his master (or other by his master’s order correcting him) and by the extremity of the correction should chance to die, that his death shall not be accounted felony, but the master (or that other person appointed by the master to punish him) be acquit from molestation, since it cannot be presumed that prepensed malice (which alone makes murder felony) should induce any man to destroy his own estate.

Source: William Waller Hening, The Statues at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia from the First Session of the Legislature, in the Year 1619, vol. 2 (New York: R. & W. & G. Bartow, 1823), pp. 170, 260, 266, 270.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER