Virginia Race Laws on Slavery
Even though the history of black people in Virginia began in 1619, the transition of their status, which was indentured servants to long-term or life-long slaves did not start then. It happened in a gradual process. According to speculations from some historians, the first black or Africans were slaves even before they step their feet in Virginia. Others argue that slavery in North America became institutional after 1660. Although the law of slavery was introduced and passed in the early 1640s in Massachusetts, it took 20 years for the law to be given in Virginia.
Slavery was introduced in Virginia in 1619 after it was found to be an English colony by “The London Virginia Company.” The company then developed a headright system that encouraged their colonies to move indentured servants into the territory as human labour. As it happened, the slave traders were busy capturing slaves in Africa and forcing them into the big slave ship, “The White Lion,” transporting them to Virginia.
In the third month of the year 1620, around 32 Africans became documented as residents of Virginia. By the year 1650, the number of registered African had increased to 300, which was about 1% of the population of the English people in Europe then estimated at 30,000. Just like the 4000 indentured whites, the Africans were deemed to be indentured servants because the slavery law had not yet been passed in Virginia.
See Paul 29 for more analysis of how the population of the Africans increased and how slavery was introduced.
By 1661, many Africans had earned their freedom and had received around 50 acres of land as a token of appreciation from their indentures. They began to grow their crops and tobacco just like their former masters, although they were required to pay for their land to be surveyed to patent it. The English and white indentured servants also went through the same process after gaining their freedom. However, in an event requiring punishment, the blacks indenture servants were punished harshly than the white indentured servants by the courts.
Treating the White indentured servants better than the back indentured servants is deemed to be the first and the earliest legality to slavery in Virginia. It not only denoted the racial disparity in the way the black servants were treated compared to their white counterparts, but also the demotion of blacks and Africans in the white colonies from being indentured servants into slaves. A historian, Leon Higginbotham, argues that the colonies were also developing new policies to force black indentured servants into a lifetime of servitude.
While courts were busy sentencing blacks to a lifetime of serving and making them slaves, Some masters failed to acknowledge the expiration and end of their black indentured servants. For instance, a case of a master, Anthony Johnson, who was found to be holding his black servant John Casor, past the time of their contract. He was persuaded by one of his neighbours Parker to release John for he had served his term, but he refused. John Casor went to work for Parker as an indentured servant after signing a new contract with him. Johnson went to the court and opened allegations against him, claiming that Parker had stolen one of his servants. In the case of Johnson vs Parker, the Northampton court ruled that “seriously considering and maturely weighing the premises, do find that the said Mr Robert Parker most unjustly keepeth the said Negro from Anthony Johnson, his master…It is, therefore, the Judgement of the Court and ordered that the said John Casor Negro forthwith return unto the service of the said master Anthony Johnson and that Mr Robert Parker makes payment of all charges in the suit.” On the other hand, John Casor was sentenced to a life as an indentured servant to Johnson.
For more cases that led to racial disparity, see Alden 311-354
A law that had been passed, stating “in case any English servant shall run away in company with any Negroes who are incapable of making satisfaction by addition of time…[he] shall serve for the time of the said Negroes absence,” gave a legal confirmation to the already existed practice of lifetime enslaving of the black servants. The courts later passed more laws which accepted slavery with more conditions than just a lifetime of service but slavery.
The English common law holding that among British and English subjects, a child would inherit their father’s status was changed and a new doctrine, “Partus Sequitur Ventrem” was adopted to establish the legal status of the children born in the colony. According to the declaration, the children were deemed to inherit the status of their mothers. Hence, children born to enslaved mothers would remain slaves for the rest of their lives, even if their fathers were English subjects.
See Law 6: December 1662-ACT, XII. Negro women’s children to serve according to the condition of the mother, for more clarification on the law
Works Cited
Vaughan, Alden T. “The Origins Debate: Slavery and Racism in Seventeenth-Century Virginia.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 97.3 (1989): 311-354.
Finkelman, Paul. “The origins of colourism in early American law.” Colour Matters: Skin Tone Bias and the Myth of a Postracial America 29 (2013).
See Law 6: December 1662-ACT, XII. Negro women’s children to serve according to the condition of the mother.