Virginia+Slave+Laws

Source: //The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of all Laws of Virginia, from the first Session of the Legislature in the year 1619//, William W. Hening, ed., New York and Philadelphia, 1819–1823, II, pp. 26, 170, 260, 266, 270.

I. On Running Away with Negroes (March 1660)
//Be it enacted// that in case any English servant shall run away in company with any Negroes who are incapable of making satisfaction by addition of time … the English so running away in company with them shall serve for the time of the said Negroes' absence as they are to do for their own by a former act.

II. On The Nativity Conditions of Slavery (December 1662)
//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.

III. On Baptism And Bondage (September 1667)
//Whereas// some doubts have risen whether children that are slaves by birth, and by the charity and piety of their owners made par-takers 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.

IV. On Corporal Punishment (September 1668)
//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.

V. On The Killing Of Slaves (October 1669)
//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 be suppressed by other than violent means, //be it enacted and declared by this Grand Assembly// if any slave resists 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 a felony, but the master (or that other person appointed by the master to punish him) be acquitted from molestation, since it cannot be presumed that premeditated malice (which alone makes murder a felony) should induce any man to destroy his own estate. //Pray! what thing in the world can be worse toward us than if men should rob or steal us away and sell us for slaves to strange countries, separating husband from wife and children?// Resolutions of Germantown Mennonites, 1688