Virginia House of Burgesses

Virginia Slave Code of 1705 Consolidates Comprehensive Racial Caste System Into Law

1705-10-01 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 9/10

The Virginia House of Burgesses enacts “An act concerning Servants and Slaves,” a comprehensive 41-section legal code consolidating and strengthening nearly two decades of piecemeal slave legislation into a unified framework that permanently establishes racial slavery as Virginia’s …

Virginia House of Burgesses Virginia Colony Slaveholders slavery institutional-corruption slave-codes legal-framework racial-caste

Virginia Enacts Partus Sequitur Ventrem Making Slavery Hereditary Through Mothers

1662-12-01 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 9/10

The Virginia House of Burgesses enacts a law establishing that “all children borne in this country shalbe held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother,” implementing the Roman legal doctrine of partus sequitur ventrem (literally “that which is born follows the …

Virginia House of Burgesses Virginia Colony Slaveholders slavery institutional-corruption slave-codes legal-framework generational-bondage