October 1705
Virginia consolidates racial slavery in its servants-and-slaves act
Virginia; enslaved Africans and Indigenous people
Virginia’s October 1705 servants-and-slaves act consolidated racial bondage, preserved slavery despite later Christian conversion, and regulated pursuit and punishment. Section XIII also required freedom dues for imported servants without yearly wages when their service ended: corn and money or goods, with a firearm for men.
Dates preserve the source’s precision. This entry is part of a selected historical record; its qualifications and sources are retained below.
Context / qualification
The law protected some servants while maintaining slavery, but freedom dues were not a grant to every white person. Section XIII does not grant fifty acres. The act authorized dismemberment under a specified procedure for captured outlying slaves; it was one colony’s law, not a uniform American code.
Additional historical context
The 1705 act specified freedom dues for imported servants without yearly wages when their service ended: supplies and money or goods, and a firearm for men. Section XIII does not grant fifty acres or give a benefit to every white person. These dues existed alongside the act’s maintenance of racial slavery.
Sources
- Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, chapter 2, pp. 35, 37–38; supplied print pages, edition/year unidentified
- Virginia servants and slaves act (1705), §§ IV, VII–VIII, XIII, XXXIV–XXXVII; manuscript transcription collated with Hening 3:447–461 ↗
- Virginia servants and slaves act (1705), excerpt §§ IV, VII–VIII, XXXIV–XXXVII; Hening 3:447–463 (section XIII omitted) ↗