How Did a 1662 Virginia Law Make Slavery Hereditary?

In 1662, Virginia passed a law that helped determine the future of American slavery. It established that a child’s enslaved or free status would follow the mother, not the father. And the consequences were enormous. To understand why, go back to Elizabeth Key. Key was born in colonial Virginia to an African mother and an English father, Thomas Key, who had served in Virginia’s House of Burgesses. She was held in bondage despite her father’s status as a free Englishman. But in 1655, she challenged her enslavement in court. Her argument relied partly on English legal traditions in which a child’s status was associated with the father. She also pointed to her Christian baptism and the terms under which she had been held in service. In 1656, Elizabeth Key won her freedom. The court recognized her claim, and she received compensation for years of service beyond her lawful term. But six years later, Virginia lawmakers changed the rules. In December 1662, the colonial assembly declared: “All children borne in this country shalbe held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother.” That sentence helped establish hereditary racial slavery in Virginia. If an enslaved woman gave birth, her child inherited her enslaved status. Even if the father was white. Even if he was free. Even if he was the man who enslaved the mother. The child could legally become the property of the enslaver. And that created a devastating economic incentive. The children of enslaved women could be inherited, sold, mortgaged, or forced to labor. Enslavers could increase their wealth through the births of children to women they held in bondage. The same 1662 statute also increased penalties for certain interracial sexual relationships. Virginia’s lawmakers were regulating interracial relationships while ensuring that children born to enslaved women remained enslaved. The legal principle became known as: Partus sequitur ventrem. The offspring follows the womb. And its consequences lasted for generations. Consider Sally Hemings. She was enslaved at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. Historical evidence establishes that Jefferson fathered her children. But because Hemings was enslaved, her children were born enslaved too. Their father’s freedom and political power did not automatically make them free. The rule had been established in Virginia generations earlier. The law made slavery something a child could inherit at birth. And it made the reproductive lives of enslaved women central to the expansion of American slavery. #ElizabethKey #SallyHemings #BlackHistory #Slavery #VirginiaHistory #PartusSequiturVentrem #AmericanHistory #ColonialAmerica #HistoryTok #blackhistoryfacts