2.9 Slavery in the Colonial Era

Slavery becomes race-based law

By the mid-1600s, colonies moved from a mixed system of indentured servitude and slavery to codified race-based chattel slavery. Laws like Virginia's 1662 hereditary slavery statute (child's status followed the mother, *partus sequitur ventrem*) and later comprehensive slave codes stripped enslaved Africans of legal personhood, making bondage lifelong, inheritable, and tied specifically to African ancestry.

Expansion driven by labor demand

The growth of cash crop economies (tobacco, rice, indigo, sugar) increased demand for a cheap, controllable labor force. Colonies increasingly relied on the transatlantic slave trade rather than indentured European labor, especially after events like Bacon's Rebellion (1676) showed elites the risks of uniting poor whites and enslaved/indentured Black laborers.

Codifying control and resistance

Slave codes regulated nearly every aspect of enslaved life: restricting movement, assembly, literacy, and marriage, while codifying punishments. These laws responded partly to fears of resistance and rebellion, revealing that enslaved people never passively accepted bondage—codes tightened control precisely because enslavers feared uprisings, flight, and solidarity across racial lines.

Key terms

Partus sequitur ventrem

Legal doctrine (Virginia, 1662) stating a child's enslaved status followed the mother's status, making slavery hereditary.

Slave codes

Colonial laws regulating and restricting enslaved people's movement, assembly, literacy, marriage, and behavior, with codified punishments.

Bacon's Rebellion (1676)

Uprising uniting poor whites and Black laborers against Virginia's government; led elites to entrench race-based slavery to prevent future alliances.

Cash crop economy

Agricultural systems (tobacco, rice, indigo, sugar) that drove demand for a large, cheap, controllable labor force in the colonies.

Chattel slavery

A system in which enslaved people are treated as legal property, owned for life, with status inherited by their children.

Try an AP-style question

Virginia's 1662 law declared that a child's status followed…

1. the mother
2. the father
3. the church's decision
4. the owner's choice