Virginia Slave LawsPrinter Friendly Version (PDF) Virginia S.docx

Virginia Slave Laws
Printer Friendly Version (PDF): Virginia Slave Laws.pdf
Context: When the colony of Virginia began, most labor on the
tobacco plantations that drove its economy was done by English
or Irish indentured servants. These servants sold themselves for
periods of time, usually seven years, in exchange for debt relief
or passage to the New World. However, with the poor
conditions in the newly-settled areas, life expectancy for
servants was very short—often two or three years. So even after
the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in 1619, few Virginian
planters were willing to pay the higher price for their “lifetime”
of labor. Slaves and servants, therefore, most often received
equal treatment, sharing the same harsh punishments (such as
whipping for running away), but also opportunity for eventual
freedom. Conversion to Christianity could mean the
emancipation of a slave, there was frequent social interaction
between the two groups, including intermarriage, and a general
sense of shared status. But as conditions improved by the 1650s
and life expectancies grew, investment in African laborers
enslaved for life became more valued. As a result, the Virginia
House of Burgesses (the colony’s government body) began to
differentiate the status of European and African laborers by law.
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.

September 1667
Whereas some doubts have risen whether children that are
slaves by birth, and by the charity and piety of their owners
made partakers 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, through slaves, or those of
greater growth if capable, to be admitted to that sacrament.
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 deprivate 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.
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 [the extension of time of service], 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.
Edited by: Prof. Stephen Duncan
Primary Source Material: William Waller Hening, Statues at
Large; Being a Collection of All of the Laws of Virginia
(Richmond, Va.: Samuel Pleasnats, 1809-23), Vol. II, pp. 170,
260, 266, 270.
"Virginia Slave Laws" is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license by Prof. Stephen Duncan at Bronx
Community College.
An Indian Slave Woman Confesses to WitchcraftDigital History
ID 67
Author: Salem Village
Date:1691
Annotation:
In 1691, a group of girls in Salem, Massachusetts, accused an
Indian slave named Tituba of witchcraft. Tituba's confession
ignited a witchcraft scare which left 19 men and women hanged,
one man pressed to death, and over 150 more people in prison
awaiting trial.
For two decades, New England had been in the grip of severe
social stresses. A 1675 conflict with the Indians known as King
Philip's War had resulted in more deaths relative to the size of
the population than any other war in American history. A
decade later, in 1685, King James II's government revoked the
Massachusetts charter. A new governor, Sir Edmund Andros,
sought to unite New England, New York, and New Jersey into a
single Dominion of New England. He also tried to abolish
elected colonial assemblies, restrict town meetings, and impose
direct control over militia appointments, and permitted the first

public celebration of Christmas in Massachusetts. After William
III replaced James II as King of England in 1689, Andros's
government was overthrown, but Massachusetts was required to
eliminate religious qualifications for voting and to extend
religious toleration to sects such as the Quakers. The late
seventeenth century also marked a sudden increase in the
number of black slaves in New England.
The 1637 Pequot War produced New England's first known
slaves. While many Indian men were transported into slavery in
the West Indies, many Indian women and children were used as
household slaves in New England. The 1641 Massachusetts
Body of Liberties recognized perpetual and hereditary servitude
(although in 1643, a Massachusetts court sent back to Africa
some slaves who had been kidnapped by New England sailors
and brought to America). Tituba was one of the growing number
of slaves imported from the West Indies.
Probably an Arawak born in northeastern South America, Tituba
had been enslaved in Barbados before being brought to
Massachusetts in 1680. Her master, Samuel Parris, had been a
credit agent for sugar planters in Barbados before becoming a
minister in Salem, Massachusetts. In late 1691, two girls in
Parris's household and two girls from nearby households began
to exhibit strange physical symptoms including convulsions and
choking. To counteract these symptoms, Tituba made a
"witchcake" out of rye meal and urine. This attempt at counter-
magic led to Tituba's arrest for witchcraft. She and two other
women--Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne--were accused of
bewitching the girls. Tituba confessed, but the other two women
protested their innocence. Good was executed; Osborne died in
prison.
As Elaine G. Breslaw has shown, Tituba's confession that she
had consorted with Satan and attended a witches' coven fueled
fears of a diabolical plot to infiltrate and destroy Salem's godly
community. In her testimony, Tituba drew upon Indian and
African, as well as English, notions of the occult.
Tituba later recanted her confession, saying that she had given

false testimony in order to save her life. She claimed "that her
Master did beat her and otherways abuse her, to make her
confess and accuse...her Sister-Witches."
Document:
Tituba an Indian woman brought before us by Const[able]
Joseph Herrick of Salem upon Suspicion of witchcraft by her
committed according to [th]e complaint of Jos[eph] Hutcheson
and Thomas Putnam &c of Salem Village as appears per warrant
granted Salem 29 Febr[uar]y 1691/2. Tituba upon examination
and after some denial acknowledged the matter of fact
according to her examination given in more fully will appear,
and who also charged Sarah Good and Sara Osburne with the
same....
(H) Tituba what evil spirit have you familiarity with.
(T) None.
(H) Why do you hurt these children.
(T) I do not hurt them.
(H) Who is it then.
(T) The devil for ought I know.
(H) Did you never see the devil.
(T) The devil came to me and bid me serve him.
(H) Who have you seen.
(T) Four women sometimes hurt the children.
(H) Who were they.
(T) Goode Osburn and Sarah Good and I do not know who the
others were. Sarah Good and Osburne would have me hurt the
children but I would not. She further saith there was a tall man
of Boston that she did see.
(H) When did you see them.
(T) Last night at Boston.
(H) what did they say to you.
(T) They said hurt the children
(H) And did you hurt them
(T) No there is 4 women and one man they hurt the children and
they lay upon me and they tell me if I will not hurt the children
they will hurt me.

(H) But did you not hurt them
(T) Yes but I will hurt them no more.
(H) Are you not sorry you did hurt them.
(T) Yes.
(H) And why then doe you hurt them.
(T) They say hurt children or wee will doe worse to you.
(H) What have you seen.
[T] A man came to me and say serve me.
(H) What service.
(T) Hurt the children and last night there was an appearance that
said kill the children and if I would not go on hurting the
children they would do worse to me.
(H) What is this appearance you see.
(T) Sometimes it is like a hog and sometimes like a great dog,
this appearance she saith she did see 4 times.
(H) What did it say to you?
(T) ...The black dog said serve me but I said I am afraid he said
if I did not he would doe worse to me.
(H) What did you say to it.
(T) I will serve you no longer. then he said he would hurt me
and then he looked like a man and threatens to hurt me, she said
that this man had a yellow bird that kept with him and he told
me he had more pretty things that he would give me if I would
serve him.
(H) What were these pretty things.
(T) He did not show me them.
(H) What also have you seen
(T) Two rats, a red rat and a black rat.
(H) What did they say to you.
(T) They said serve me.
(H) When did you see them.
(T) Last night and they said serve me, but I said I would not
(H) What service.
(T) She said hurt the children.
(H) Did you not pinch Elizabeth Hubbard this morning
(T) The man brought her to me and made me pinch her

(H) Why did you goe to Thomas Putnams last night and hurt his
child.
(T) They pull and hall me and make me goe
(H) And what would have you doe.
[T] Kill her with a knife.
Left. Fuller and others said at this time when the child saw
these persons and was tormented by them that she did complain
of a knife, that they would have her cut her head off with a
knife.
(H) How did you go?
(T) We ride upon stickes and are there presently.
(H) Doe you goe through the trees or over them.
(T) We see nothing but are there presently.
[H] Why did you not tell your master.
[T] I was afraid they said they would cut of[f] my head if I told.
[H] Would you not have hurt others if you co[u]ld.
[T] They said they would hurt others but they could not
[H] What attendants hath Sarah Good.
[T] A yellow bird and shee would have given me one.
[H] What meate did she give it?
[T] It did suck her between her fingers.
[H] Did not you hurt Mr Currins child?
[T] Goode good and goode Osburn told that they did hurt Mr
Currens child and would have had me hurt him two, but I did
not
. [H] What hath Sarah Osburn?
[T] Yellow dog, she had a thing with a head like a woman with
2 legges, and wings. Abigail Williams that lives with her Uncle
Parris said that she did see the same creature, and it turned into
the shape of Goode Osburn.
[H] What else have you seen with Osburn?
[T] Another thing, hairy it goes upright like a man it hath only 2
legges.
[H] Did you not see Sarah Good upon Elizabeth Hubbard, last
Saturday?
[T] I did see her set a wolfe upon her to afflict her, the persons

with this maid did say that she did complain of a wolfe.
T. She further saith that shee saw a cat with good at another
time.
[H] What cloathes doth the man go in?
[T] He goes in black clothes a tall man with white hair I thinke.
[H] How doth the woman go?
[T] In a white hood and a black hood with a top knot.
[H] Doe you see who it is that torments these children now.
[T] Yes it is Goode Good, shee hurts them in her own shape
[H] And who is it that hurts them now.
[T] I am blind now. I cannot see.
William E. Woodward, comp. Records of Salem Witchcraft
(Roxbury, 1864), I, 11-48.
Source: William E. Woodward, comp., Records of Salem
Witchcraft (Roxbury, Mass., Priv. print for W.E. Woodward
1864), Vol. 1, pp. 11-48.
The American Yawp Reader
Eliza Lucas Letters, 1740-1741
Eliza Lucas Letters, 1740-1741
Eliza Lucas was born into a moderately wealthy family in South
Carolina. Throughout her life she shrewdly managed her money
and greatly added to her family’s wealth. These two letters from
an unusually intelligent financial manager offer a glimpse into
the commercial revolution and social worlds of the early
eighteenth century.
Letter to a friend in London
May 2, 1740
I flatter myself it will be a satisfaction to you to hear I like this
part of the world, as my lot has fallen here—which I really do. I
prefer England to it, ‘tis true, but think Carolina greatly
preferable to the West Indies, as was my Papa here I should be
very happy.
We have a very good acquaintance from whom we have received
much friendship and civility. Charles Town, the principal one in

this province, is a polite, agreeable place. The people live very
gentle and very much in the English taste. The country is in
general fertile and abounds with venison and wild fowl; the
venison is much higher flavored than in England but ‘tis seldom
fat.
My Papa and Mama’s great indulgence to me leaves it to me to
choose our place of residence either in town or country, but I
think it more prudent as well as agreeable to my Mama and self
to be in the country during Father’s absence. We are 17 mile by
land and 6 y water from Charles Town—where we have about 6
agreeable families around us with whom we live in great
harmony.
I have a little library well furnished (for my papa has left me
most of his books) in which I spend part of my time. My music
and the garden, which I am very fond of, take up the rest of my
time that is not employed in business, of which my father has
left me a pretty good share—and indeed, ‘twas unavoidable as
my Mama’s bad state of heath prevents her going through any
fatigue.
I have the business of 3 plantations to transact, which requires
much writing and more business and fatigue of other sorts than
you can imagine. But least you should imagine it too
burdensome to a girl at my early time of life, give me leave to
answer you; I assure you I think myself happy that I can be
useful to so good a father, and by rising very early I find I can
go through much business. But least you should think I shall be
quite moped with this way of life I am to inform you there is to
worthy ladies in Charles Town, Mrs. Pickney and Mrs. Cleland,
who are partial enough to me to be always pleased to have me
with them, and insist upon making their houses my home when
in town and press me to relax, a little much oftener than ’tis my
honor to accept of their obliging entreaties. But I sometimes am
with one or the other for 3 weeks or a month at a time, and
enjoy all the pleasures Charles Town affords, but nothing gives
me more than subscribing myself.
Yr. most affectionate and most obliged humble servt.

Eliza. Lucas
Letter to her father
June 4, 1741
Never were letters more welcome than yours of Feb. 19th and
20th and March the 15th and 21st, which came almost together.
It was near 6 months since we had the pleasure of a line from
you. Our fears increased apace and we dreaded some fatal
accident befallen, but hearing of your recovery from a
dangerous fit of illness has more than equaled, great as it was,
our former anxiety. Nor shall we ever think ourselves
sufficiently thankful to Almighty God for the continuance of so
great a blessing.
I sympathize most sincerely with a calamity as the scarcity of
provisions and the want of the necessarys of life to the poorer
sort. We shall send all we can get of all sorts of provisions
particularly what you write for. I write this day to Starrat for a
barrel of butter.
We expect the boat dayly from Garden Hill when I shall be able
to give you an account of affairs there. The cotton, guiney corn,
and most of the ginger planted here was cut off by a frost. I
wrote you a former letter we had a fine crop of indigo seed upon
the ground, and since informed you the frost took it before it
was dry. I picked out the best of it and had it planted but there
is not more than a hundred bushes of it come up—which proves
the more unlucky as you have sent a man to make it. I make no
doubt indigo will prove a very valuable commodity in time if
we could have the seed from the West Indies time enough to
plant the latter end of March, that the seed might be dry enough
to gather before our frost. I am sorry we lost this season. We
can do nothing towards it now but make the works ready for
next year. The lucern is yet dwindlering, but Mr. Hunt tells me
‘tis always so here the first year.
The death of my Grandmamma was, as you imagine, very
shocking and grievous to my Mama, but I hope the
considerations of the miserys that attend so advanced an age
will help time to wear it off. I am very much obliged to you for

the present you were so good to send me of the fifty pound bill
of exchange which I duly received.
We hear Carthagene is taken.
Mr. Wallis is dead. Capt. Norberry was lately killed in a duel by
Capt. Dobrusee, whose life was despaired of by the wounds he
received. He is much blamed for quarreling with such a
brawling man as Norberry who was disregarded by every body.
Norberry has a wife and 3 or 4 children in very bad
circumstances to lament his rashness.
Mama tenders her affections and Polly joins in duty with.
My Dr. Papa
Your most obedient and ever devoted daughter
E. Lucas
Harriott Horry Ravenel, Eliza Pinckney (New York: 1896), 5-6,
8-10.
Available through the Internet Archive
Women, Race, and the Law in Early America
Page 1 of 25
PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA,
AMERICAN HISTORY (oxfordre.com/americanhistory). (c)
Ox-
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use only; commercial use is strictly prohibited (for details see
Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).
date: 16 May 2020
Subject: Colonial History, Legal History, Cultural History,
Women's History

Online Publication Date: Sep 2015 DOI:
10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.12
Terri L. Snyder
Summary and Keywords
Everywhere across European and Indigenous settlements in
17th- and 18th-century
North America and the Caribbean, the law or legal practices
shaped women’s status and
conditioned their dependency, regardless of race, age, marital
status, or place of birth.
Historians have focused much of their attention on the legal
status, powers, and experi-
ences of women of European origin across the colonies and
given great consideration to
the law of domestic relations, the legal disabilities of coverture,
and women’s experiences
as plaintiffs and defendants, both civil and criminal, in colonial
courts. Early American le-
galities, however, differed markedly for women of color—
whether free, indentured, or en-
slaved, and whether Native or African in origin or descent—
whose relationships to the le-
gal regimes of early America were manifold and complex. In
their status under the law,
experiences at the bar, and, as a result, positions in household
polities, women of color
reckoned with a set of legalities that differed from those of their
European counterparts.
The diversity of women’s experiences of the law was shaped not
only by race but also by
region: Indigenous people had what one historian has labeled

jurispractices, while Euro-
peans brought and created a jurisprudence of race and status
that shaped treatments of
women of color across imperial spaces. A widely comparative
analysis of women and the
law reflects ways in which race shaped women’s status under
and experiences of the law
as well as the legalities of their marriages in pre-Revolutionary
America.
Keywords: legal history, colonial history, women, race, legal
status, marriage
Race, Slavery, and the Law
The most important legal distinction for women and men in
early North America was
their status along the range of freedom and unfreedom. Scholars
of prerevolutionary
North America argue against neat conceptualizations of slavery
and freedom in starkly
oppositional terms; instead, they recognize that a range of
multiple dependencies existed
across the regions of early North America. In the earliest years
of settlement, before the
mid-17th century, Africans, Europeans, and Indigenous
Americans understood human
bondage as part of a continuum that might range from temporary
to permanent. In order
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Page 2 of 25
Ox-
date: 16 May 2020
to understand the position of women under the law, it is useful
first to discuss the variety
of unfree statuses that coexisted across early America.
The three principal groups that populated early modern North
America—Africans, Native
Americans, and Europeans—all practiced varieties of slavery
and captivity. In the earliest
years of the settlement of British America, slavery was initially
a fluid category, one not
necessarily permanent, inheritable, or fixed. Rather, for both
men and women, slave sta-
tus encompassed the possibility of change through baptism and
legal challenge; the same
was true of New Netherland. Outside of these jurisdictions, in
French, Spanish, and Na-
tive settlements, African- or Native-descended women in
particular could alter their sta-
tus through marriage, adoption, or work. Although the English
settlements, as opposed to

the French and Spanish, had few legal models for slavery aside
from apprenticeship law,
for the most part Europeans considered enslavement to be an
acceptable legal status for
cultural outsiders. Although Virginia law required Irish and
other “aliens” to serve longer
terms than English servants, lawmakers viewed Natives and
Africans as pagans or cap-
tives taken in war, attributes that justified their permanent
enslavement. Similarly, for
some Indians and Africans as well, enslavable groups were war
captives and others un-
derstood to be cultural outcasts; slaving defined who was
included or excluded. Initially,
Europeans did not restrict slavery to Africans and their
descendants in America. In North
America, Europeans traded Indian slaves—some two to four
million from the late 15th to
the early 19th centuries, many of whom were initially enslaved
by other Native Ameri-
cans.1
In contrast, a range of unfree statuses existed in Native
communities across early North
America. Although Native America was remarkably diverse in
the centuries before Euro-
pean settlement, Indigenous communities had developed
distinctly complex practices of
captivity, treating prisoners as spoils of war, as slaves, or as
hostages or pawns in inter-
community diplomatic interactions, and these norms crossed
ethnic lines in the north. If
these practices appear to have lacked what Europeans
recognized as jurisprudence—a
written body of laws, a corpus of legal theories, and a judiciary
system—Native Ameri-

cans engaged in what Katherine Hermes calls jurispractice; that
is, they adhered to cus-
toms of acting legally, for instance using standard mechanisms
and adhering to rules for
resolving disputes, remedying wrongs, and punishing crimes.
Within Native communities,
slavery was governed by these legal structures and existed
across a continuum that might
range from temporary unfreedom to permanent bondage.2
A range of behaviors blurred the differences between enslaved
and free, from Creek set-
tlements in southern Georgia and Florida north to New France
and across the continent
to the Texas and New Mexico borderlands. In the southwest
borderlands, Native commu-
nities before and after Spanish contact practiced a unique form
of slavery in which
women and children were captives and hostages. Because
slavery was tied to kinship
rather than labor, however, the captured women sometimes
became cultural mediators
despite their marginalization. Among Southern Indians, slavery
was a status on the con-
tinuum of captivity. Cultural and political outsiders—prisoners
of war, individuals traded
as property, and even those who voluntarily came to Indian
communities—were slaves
Page 3 of 25

Ox-
date: 16 May 2020
who brought human capital and social standing to her or his
master. Particularly in the
southeast and the continental interior, where the balance of
power remained on the side
of Natives as opposed to Europeans, the former often defined
captivity and slavery on
their own terms. Captives were not necessarily either prisoners,
property, or intended
strictly for labor.3
Gender mattered within these varying statuses and definitions
because women typically
predominated as captives and assumed distinct roles that might
range from pawns to
agents. Within Native communities, women were often spared
by their captors, while
male prisoners were executed; this strategy “maximized the
demographic benefits of slav-
ery,” because in times of high mortality women’s reproductivity
was the best way of re-
building community populations.4 Along the eastern seaboard
and up into New France,
for instance, enslaved Indians were treated, much like their
African counterparts, as chat-
tel properties; they performed domestic, artisanal, field, sexual,
and reproductive labor,

even if their status remained uncertain and shaded into freedom.
In New France, Native
terminology equated slaves with domestic properties—“dogs”—
and placed captives on
the lowest rungs of membership in their adopting clans. Female
captives among the
Cherokee faced a similar range of possibilities. They could be
married or adopted into
clans; if these options were not available, however, they were
kept as slaves who labored
to support their masters and existed as social outsiders. French
Louisiana provides yet
another example; there, Indians relied in part on exchanging
women captives in order to
forge trade and diplomatic alliances. Such captives could easily
become slaves. The Cad-
dos traded captive Apache women to the French settlements;
these women were desir-
able commodities as household servants and sexual partners,
unwilling or otherwise, so
slavery made Indian women sexually available to their captors,
traders, and owners. In
addition, women also served as hostages in diplomatic
negotiations both between Native
groups and Native and European power brokers. Moreover,
among the widespread Native
trade networks, exchanges of captives—again, predominantly
women—were part of diplo-
matic strategies rather than sources of labor.5
Shortly after the 1650s, and in contrast to the range of
unfreedom in Native America,
laws in European settlements in northern, eastern, and southern
North America, includ-
ing the Caribbean, made slavery increasingly inflexible. In
these regions, particularly in

the mid-Atlantic and southern colonies, indentured servitude
and slavery coexisted. The
former was distinguished by its temporary character and
retention of rights; servants, in
theory, lost none of their legal protections as British subjects,
though in practice they
were dependent, bound, and coerced.6 While these labor
systems coexisted and shared
certain features, legislators worked assiduously to
institutionalize the differences be-
tween indenture and slavery in law. Statutes tied slavery to
racial difference, a condition
specific to people of color—that is, to Africans, Indians, and
mixed-race individuals like
mulattos and mustees (having one-eighth black ancestry), as
well as their descendants.
After 1650, Europeans across early America enacted a series of
statutes that legally de-
fined slavery as a permanent, heritable condition based on the
maternal status of Africans
and their descendants. Europeans continued to trade and
purchase Indian slaves or en-
Page 4 of 25
Ox-

date: 16 May 2020
slave them as punitive retribution in the wake of wars, but late-
17th-century British North
Americans, for instance, began to establish some limits on
Indian slavery. In New Eng-
land, enslaved Indian captives did not necessarily transfer their
status to their progeny,
and some jurisdictions required legal permission before the
children of enslaved Indian
captives could be purchased or sold. New England prohibited
Indian slavery after 1700,
as Virginia had recently done, but Native American workers
continued in various forms of
unfreedom thereafter.7 Nonetheless, in both north and south, the
law of slavery and the
restriction of slavery to groups defined by race—Africans,
Indians, and their descendants
—was well established by the turn of the 18th century. Further
elaboration of these codes
would continue, of course, but the law of slavery, particularly
in its connection to Africans
and their descendants, remained fundamentally unaltered in
European settlements across
North America until the era of the American Revolution.
Women, Race, and Legal Status
The varied range of race and status across cultures and colonies
is central to any consid-
eration of women and the law in early North America for two
reasons. First, the propor-
tion of women who arrived as slaves exceeded that of those who
arrived as free migrants.

Probably four-fifths of all women who came to North America
before 1800 were not Euro-
pean. In addition, women typically comprised between 40 and
49 percent of captives tak-
en from the Gold Coast between 1662 and 1700; during those
same years, they outnum-
bered men in the slave cargoes taken from the Bight of Biafra.
Second, women often pre-
dominated among Native American captives. By 1708, for
instance, one-third of Native
Americans in South Carolina were enslaved, and Native women
were three to five times
more likely to be enslaved than their male counterparts. A
similar predominance of
women as captives can be found in New France in the north and
New Spain in the south.
While male captives were more likely to be executed, their
female counterparts were
more likely to be adopted into tribes because of their potential
as reproductive, house-
hold, and domestic laborers. Women also predominated among
free black populations in
the upper south and cities like New Orleans, where urban
markets allowed them to sell
goods or services and purchase their manumission with the
proceeds.8
Most of the women who came to early European settlements in
North America did so as
forced migrants from Africa, and their race and fertility were
the foundational elements
of the first slave laws enacted by Europeans. Across most of
early North America, African
slaves and their descendants inherited their enslaved status from
their mothers. Although
the number of laws governing slavery—and enslaved women—

accumulated over the
course of the colonial period, the legal doctrine of partus
sequitur ventrem—progeny fol-
lows the womb—was one of the first, and it inextricably bound
racial slavery to maternal
identity. The doctrine first established the inheritability, and
hence the permanence, of
slavery as a legal status.9
The law not only defined who might be a slave in America—the
progeny of enslaved
women—it also encouraged owners to consciously view the
fertility of their enslaved
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women as a form of market capital. For instance, Jennifer L.
Morgan’s analysis of the es
tates and wills of Caribbean slave owners reveals that they
clearly comprehended the po-
tential value of African women’s reproductivity. Planters’

purchasing patterns reflect their
efforts not only to build their workforce but also to do so in a
way that provided opportu-
nities for sexual relationships among their enslaved workers. In
sharp contrast to the
southern and Caribbean British colonies, enslaved people
constituted a tiny fraction of
New England’s population. Moreover, very much unlike their
southern counterparts,
northern slave owners in the colonial period did not prize
fertility in their female slaves;
since their children were likely sold—and sometimes infants
were given away—because
owners did not want the burden of supporting them, enslaved
women may have attempt-
ed to avoid pregnancy.10
In addition to institutionalizing inheritable slavery in female
reproductivity, the law also
provided planters with economic incentives to encourage the
fertility and reproductivity
of their enslaved women. The law did not penalize owners who
raped or otherwise sexual-
ly coerced their enslaved women. On occasions, masters sued
those who had harmed,
sexually or otherwise, their enslaved women in order to regain
lost value. While enslaved
women transferred their status to their progeny, other laws
stripped them of their legal
identity, leaving them no standing under the law. Enslaved
women had no recourse for
sexual harm, regardless of the status of the perpetrator, although
the earliest colonial
statutes universally instructed masters to provide adequate
provisioning and reasonable
treatment to their enslaved subjects. Rape and sexual coercion

were difficult crimes even
for a free woman to establish and gain convictions for in the
colonial courts. Enslaved
women endured coerced sex with masters, overseers, and other
white authorities, but in-
dictments were exceptionally uncommon and practically
nonexistent, although theory it
was possible to charge and convict a white man for raping an
enslaved woman.11
Across European settlements, however, the law and experience
of enslaved women varied
with region. In New Spain and New France, masters appear to
have been more account-
able to their slaves under the law. Imperial legal codes, such as
provisions of Spain’s Las
Siete Partidas (Seven Part Code, probably written in the 13th
century) and Recopilación
de leyes de los reinos de las Indias (Compilation of the Law of
the Kingdoms of the Indies,
1681) and France’s Code Noir (Black Code, initially written in
1685 but revised in 1724),
regulated slavery as well as relationships between the enslaved
and owners, enslaved and
free people of color, and those of African and European
descent. These jurisprudential
codes were enforced but were also subject to local custom and
influence, in which the
Catholic Church and its ecclesiastical courts played a
significant role. Beyond the stipula-
tion that masters provide adequate food, clothing, and religious
instruction, in New Spain
the codes bore directly on women by requiring masters to honor
marriage vows between
slaves and keep enslaved couples together. For instance, the
Code Noir stipulated that

masters could not force slaves to marry against their will, sell
wives and husbands away
from one another, or separate parents from children. In addition,
it provided a mecha-
nism by which some enslaved women gained freedom through
intermarriage, although it
expressly prohibited marriage between enslaved women and free
men. The law contained
a proviso that if a man was unmarried “during his concubinage
with this slave,” the cou
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ple could marry according to the church rules, and she and their
children would be grant-
ed freedom. Such marriages remained relatively rare in the
French period but gained
recognition under Spanish rule. Similarly, under the Siete
Partidas, ecclesiastical courts
heard the complaints of enslaved wives who sought remedy or
legal separation from abu-

sive spouses. Moreover, enslaved couples occasionally
successfully sued masters who
failed to live up to the law in these regards.12
Not all women of African or Indian descent were enslaved,
however, and the free black
population, particularly in the upper South and urban areas,
grew in numbers throughout
the early period. A conservative estimate suggests that free
blacks comprised up to 10
percent of the population in the upper South and were more
numerous in urban jurisdic-
tions such as Charleston, St. Augustine, and New Orleans.
Women often predominated in
the free black population. In the upper South, they outnumbered
their free male counter-
parts by 2:1, and in New Orleans, for instance, where women
comprised about half of the
population of African descent, two-thirds of them were free.
Like their European counter-
parts, free blacks were able to pursue and protect their rights
under law; they could, for
instance, own property, file lawsuits, make contracts, issue
wills, and sue and be sued.13
Still, for mixed-race women in early America, their very
ancestries meant that, while free,
these women were differently marked by the legal system, and
they occupied a status
that differed from both their free white and enslaved black
counterparts. In French
Louisiana, free blacks could be returned to slavery and sold if
they had been convicted of
certain crimes (harboring runaways and theft, for instance) and
were unable to pay their
legal fines; in other jurisdictions, free black women were

subjected to illegal trafficking.14
Across British North America, free blacks were legally
designated as a debased class of
people. In Pennsylvania in 1726, lawmakers required a bond on
emancipated slaves, free
blacks could be required to labor without pay, and free men of
color could be sold into
slavery if they married white women.15 In Virginia, a 1723 law
for the most part barred
manumissions. Free blacks purchasing a family member’s
freedom would have to obtain
the permission of the governor and council or ostensibly have to
pay for their relative’s
passage out of the colony.16 Across British North America,
many free blacks were born as
the products of mixed-race, out-of-wedlock unions, which
meant that they became bound
servants for their first two or three decades. By the terms of an
early-18th-century Vir-
ginia law, children born to free women who had themselves
been bound servants were re-
quired to serve the same amount of time as their mothers.17
In addition, when free women of color married enslaved men,
those unions challenged
early American understandings of household status in ways that
the reverse (that is,
when free men of color married enslaved women) did not. In a
society in which patriar-
chal authority was enshrined in the law, free women of color
who married enslaved men
initially must have posed challenges to the logic of coverture.
Under the law of domestic
relations, a husband was vested in rights to his wife’s property
and body upon marriage.

There were limits, but husbands gained possessory rights to
their wives’ personal and re
al property (including enslaved property); married women could
not make contracts or
buy or sell property, nor were they entitled to their own
earnings without their husbands’
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consent. This doctrine of coverture was at the time referred to
as the law of “baron and
feme,” meaning lord and woman rather than husband and wife.
The challenge of the free
wife with an enslaved husband was easily resolved, however:
lawmakers extended cover-
ture to mixed-status marriages and, when necessary, vested
wives’ legal identities in the
masters of their husbands.18
The need to distinguish among the various legal statuses of
enslaved women, free women

of color, and free women of European descent was evidenced
early on in North American
law. In mid-17th-century Virginia, for instance, statutes
stipulated that adult women of
color were to be taxed, like all men. However, adult white
women were not taxed at all,
with attempts to tax indentured white women proving
unenforceable. These laws created
some of the earliest statutory distinctions among free Virginia
women and made race a
“cornerstone” of womanhood. When confusion over the status
of free black women arose
a couple of decades later, a new law declared that, despite their
freedom, they should not
“be admitted to a full fruition of the exemptions and
impunities” of English women. The
taxes levied on women of color reflected the assumption that,
unlike their white counter-
parts, free women of color were suitable for physically
burdensome agricultural labor and
occupied a debased position across colonial America. Further
non-gender-specific legal
disabilities followed in the early 18th century, when all free
people of color were de-
barred from serving as witnesses in trials, except for those of
slaves.19
From the fourth decade of the 17th century, then, the law was
instrumental in shaping
the meaning and experience of freedom along the lines of
gender and race. Yet even for
enslaved and free women of color, the law was rooted in time
and place, in specific com-
munities of real people. Local legal officials could and did on
occasion acknowledge that
marginalized individuals who, despite the seemingly strict

statutory definitions of slavery
and status, deserved redress in courts of law.
In contrast to enslaved and free African and Indian women and
their descendants, female
migrants from Europe were governed by the common law of
coverture, plus specific colo-
nial statutes that defined their access to property, the nature of
their labor, and the con-
tours of their speech. Regardless of their legal status along the
continuum of enslaved
and free, these women were able to use the courts to protect
their interests in property
as well as in attempts to safeguard their persons. For European
women, upon marriage, a
wife’s legal identity ceased to have a separate legal existence
from her husband; in
British law she was transformed from a feme sole (a single
woman, a status that extended
to widows) to a feme covert (a married woman), rendering her a
legal dependent of her
husband, unable, with important exceptions, to own property,
make contracts, or collect
wages. While these terms are specific to English law, French,
Spanish, and Dutch law all
placed greater or lesser restraints on married women, who were
considered to be wards
of their husbands. In contrast to the British model of coverture,
for example, wives in
Spanish America retained property rights during marriage; they
retained legal control
over their property and could will it independently of their
husbands.20 While European
women were legally disabled upon marriage, they had recourse
to legal devices—prenup-
tial agreements, equity jurisdiction, feme sole trader status—

that under certain circum-
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stances ameliorated the harsh effects of the law. In addition,
propertied women were ac-
corded a degree of power based upon their rank; they were able
to secure legal rights to
act independently of their husbands, even when their marriages
had disintegrated and the
law provided no options for divorce.21
During the colonial period, European women in America
remained entitled to the legal
protections provided by imperial authorities, even when they
occupied unfree statuses,
such as indentured servitude. For instance, when masters or
mistresses mistreated their
indentured servant women physically or sexually or violated the
terms of their labor con-
tracts, the servants had a right to complain at the local court for

redress; in some juris-
dictions, their pleas met with remedies from the bench.
Nevertheless, patriarchal models
of authority prevailed, and despite their access to the courts,
indentured women re-
mained restricted by a series of laws that gave their masters
extensive powers over them.
They could not marry or travel while under contract, and if they
ran away, became preg-
nant, or challenged their masters, they would be penalized with
extra terms of service.
While the law in Virginia, for instance, penalized masters who
impregnated their servant
women by freeing the latter, at the same time the statute averred
that such women might
be unfairly “induced to lay all their bastards to their masters” in
order to gain their free-
dom. The statutory language is clearly indicative of class-based
notions of dissolute sexu-
ality. Indeed, the statutes enacted across imperial North
America, like those iterated
above, were devoted to creating and enforcing differences
among women on the basis of
not only race but class as well.22
Marriage
Native Americans understood a range of conjugal unions, only
some of which paralleled
the Western concept of marriage. Particularly, before contact
with Europeans, when Na-
tive American law held sway, polygyny—the marriage of one
man to several women—was
a normal feature of many Native societies across the Americas,
practiced mostly by elites.
Most individuals in Indian communities engaged in
monogamous unions with other indi-

viduals, but these could be dissolved at the discretion of either
party. These marriages
forged kin and clan associations, social bonds, and diplomatic
alliances. However, where
European trade networks, expansion, and settlements penetrated
existing Native Ameri-
can communities, the colonizers attempted to align Native
marital practices with their
own laws. Marriage was central to European social and religious
order, and in New Eng-
land, New France, and New Spain, for instance, missionaries
worked earnestly to per-
suade their converts of the superiority of European marriage;
indeed, Native conjugal
practices were a central institution that Europeans sought to
control. In many cases, Eu-
ropean and Indian conflicts over marriage reshaped gender roles
of Native men and
women.23
From the colonial southeast, across the continent, and in the
southwest, marriage among
Native Americans was a central instrument in brokering and
fostering intercultural al-
liances. On imperial frontiers, for instance, intermarriage
between European men and
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Indigenous women cemented diplomatic and economic alliances
between Indigenous
communities and European traders. Like their male
counterparts, women indigenous to
North America who married Europeans held a unique status,
simultaneously within and
outside the European legal systems. The French expression à la
façon du pays—by the
custom of the county—reflected the extent to which these
marriages proceeded accord-
ing to cultural convention rather than law. In a later period,
some European men took ad-
vantage of this extralegality to dissolve these relationships
when it suited them, some-
thing that would have been nearly impossible in marriages
among whites. Nearer to Eu-
ropean settlements, such customary marriages were also
considered to be a means of as-
similating enslaved Native American wives into the culture of
their husbands, but it is im-
portant to recognize that these “marriages” usually rested on
coercion rather than coop-
eration. As one scholar argues for New France, for captive
Indigenous women, rising
from slavery into freedom sometimes required “prolonged
submission to what could be
defined as serial rape.”24

Marital unions of enslaved men and women in British North
America proceeded accord-
ing to custom and generally carried no legal protections.
However, in other European ju-
risdictions, marriages between slaves carried legal recognition.
In 17th-century New Am-
sterdam, for instance, a group of enslaved men petitioned their
owner, the Dutch West In-
dia Company, for their freedom and that of their wives. Their
request was granted, but it
came with significant qualifications and did not reflect the
status of all New Netherland
slaves. Those granted “half-freedom” were permitted to farm,
but if they failed to pay an
annual tax, they would be returned to slavery. Despite its
limitations, the status of “half-
free” helped to establish a more formal recognition of marriage.
In addition, some en-
slaved women in New Netherland appear to have been
successful in their requests for
free status because of the value that whites placed on their
domestic labor.25
In French and Latin America, slaves were often granted a
limited legal personality with
regard to marriage. While practices varied, several types of
legally recognized marital
arrangements seem to have been possible within and across the
status of enslaved and
free; occasionally, they were racially exogamous as well.
Moreover, the legal recognition
of marriages among slaves and between enslaved and free
persons had the backing of ec-
clesiastical courts and the Catholic Church: depending upon
jurisdiction, enslaved people
could successfully sue masters who threatened to separate

couples or families, for cruel-
ty, and as well as to protect their property rights. Evidence from
Latin America and
French and Spanish Louisiana testifies to some official
recognition of unions between
slaves as well as between enslaved and free blacks, and,
occasionally, between whites and
blacks. When courts—usually ecclesiastical jurisdictions—ruled
in favor of enslaved cou-
ples over masters, they upheld the legal primacy of marriage
over slavery.26
In addition, in some jurisdictions marriage provided an avenue
out of slavery. Despite its
ban on interracial marriage, an early version of the Code Noir
stipulated that concubines
bearing children to unmarried free men would gain their
freedom if the couple married.
Although a later revision of the Code eliminated the legality of
sex across the color line,
interracial unions occurred, and some were sanctioned.
Moreover, in comparison to Eng-
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lish jurisdictions, the manumission policies under both the
French and Spanish regimes
were more liberal and defined for ex-slaves and free people of
color. In particular, when
the Spanish assumed power in Louisiana in 1769, slaves were
able to make use of
coaración, a legal mechanism that allowed them to purchase
their freedom even when
their masters were opposed. This accounted for half of all
manumissions after the as-
sumption of New Orleans. The conditions and legal regimes in
Spanish settlements creat-
ed a society in which racially mixed unions were tolerated and
in which free blacks, and
particularly the women who predominated among that
population, enjoyed the possibili-
ties of legal, social, and economic standing. Despite French and
Spanish hostility towards
free blacks, the imperial powers left unscathed many of their
rights as subjects.27
The situation across colonial British America could not have
been more different. Colonial
statutes almost always proscribed marriage and sex between
Europeans and African- or
Indian-descended people, often under penalty of banishment.28
In many jurisdictions be-
fore the founding of the United States, these statutes were
strictly enforced and offend-
ers suffered penalties and punishments, but there were
exceptions, particularly on the
frontiers of settlement, where local custom sometimes tolerated

such unions.29 Several
types of marital unions existed among people of color across the
early modern Americas.
Some marriages had legal standing, others held tenuous claims
to the law’s protection,
and still others lacked legal sanction altogether. “Indian” or
“Negro” marriages, as some
colonists called them, were understood in various times and
places as legitimate and le-
gal, and Europeans likely recognized in them elements of what
the English termed
spousals or self-marriages. Extralegal, if locally recognized,
unions seem to have predomi-
nated in regions such as the Chesapeake (as well as colonial
Louisiana and Florida) and
resulted from various causes, among them uneven sex ratios, the
initial legal indetermi-
nacy between slavery and servitude, religious attitudes,
economic and political instability,
and the mixing of Africans, Europeans, and Native Americans.
If free African- and Indian-descended women were able to
marry under these terms, they
could not expect that marriage would guarantee the protections
and disabilities of cover-
ture as their European counterparts did. Marriages between two
enslaved spouses were
denied legal protection altogether in British North America.
Throughout the early modern
Americas, political authorities tailored legal regimes, including
the legalities of marriage,
to reflect both imperial inheritance and the realities of New
World settlements. The “Indi
an,” “Christian,” “Negro,” and “irregular” or common-law
marriages found in 18th-centu-
ry British North America did not carry the same legal

protections that were evident in
Latin America. Although religion often played a role in
formalizing marriage among
slaves in English colonies—the largest number of marriages
occurred among slaves
owned by ministers and deacons—ministers devised vows that
emphasized masters’ full
property rights over their slaves. At wedding ceremonies,
enslaved couples or free per-
sons of color marrying enslaved spouses were required to
concede their owners’ right to
sell and separate them.30
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Marriage and slavery often existed in tension with one another
as legal institutions, and
many people of color attempted to negotiate the law’s
conflicting aims, especially when
one spouse was free and the other was enslaved and, as a result,
their mixed-status mar-

riage straddled the lines of freedom and slavery. Free black men
in late colonial and revo-
lutionary New England, for example, sought to exploit these
competing tensions to their
advantage. They sued the owners of their enslaved wives,
arguing that their rights as
husbands superseded the property rights of their wives’ masters
and that the enslave-
ment of wives deprived free black husbands of their rights.
These legal strategies em-
ployed by plaintiffs set coverture against slavery and used the
legal subordination of
wives to husba claims that met with some success in the lower
courts.31
Coverture positioned wives and husbands differently in
marriage, of course. In late-18th-
century New England, for instance, the rules of coverture were
used to limit the rights of
enslaved and free women. For instance, enslaved wives—despite
the legal uncertainty of
“Negro marriage”—could not sue for their freedom or file
lawsuits on their own behalf
because they were femes covert, although unmarried enslaved
women could do so. In
mixed-status marriages in which wives were free and husbands
were enslaved, however,
women could not consistently claim rights as heads of
households and were forced to bal-
ance their rights as heads of households with their subordination
as wives. Free women
of color would need to carefully navigate the competing aims of
masters, local courts, and
statute law in order to keep their families intact. They would
need to develop their skills
as litigators and their legal acumen if they were to survive the

shifting legalities of mar-
riage and race occurring all around them.32
Crime
Although the association between women and the crime of
witchcraft looms large in the
contemporary imagination of early North America, women were
far more likely to be ac-
cused of slander or defamation, sexual crimes, or running away
than of felony witchcraft.
In all of these cases, the crimes and their punishments
intersected with and varied ac-
cording to race and status under the law. Where women were the
targets of defamation,
for instance, the offending words typically cast aspersions on
their sexual reputations and
could also extend to accusations of interracial liaisons. For
women, gossip was a way not
only to judge others but also to enforce collective values.
Slander was a major mechanism
for women to exercise power in early modern America, a classic
weapon of the weak;
women had few other means to attack their enemies.33
Fornication outside marriage and bastardy, or out-of-wedlock
pregnancy, predominated as
crimes for which free women were prosecuted in early North
America. In these and other
cases involving free women’s bodies and reproductivity, legal
testimony provided by mid-
wives or matrons’ juries was used to establish paternity or the
commission of a crime,
such as infanticide. This was one of the few official functions
of women before the colo-
nial courts, one that recognized their legal expertise.

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Prosecutions for fornication and bastardy occurred in the North
American colonies
throughout the colonial period. Some urban centers, such as
Philadelphia and New Or-
leans, exhibited a relative tolerance for a range of sexual
behaviors outside of marriage
and an acceptance for unofficial marital practices; both of these
spanned across class and
race.34 The situation in New England and the Chesapeake was
far different. In the for-
mer, a double standard—or the drive to hold women alone
accountable for sexual infrac-
tions, rather than alongside their partners—emerged by the 18th
century. Extramarital
sex was punished with whippings or fines, even when the
offending couple married, and,
particularly in the early years of settlement, required public
penance as well. Where ser-
vants were numerous, such as in the Chesapeake, lawmakers

evidenced a concerted drive
to prosecute their sexual crimes. Here, too, men were
prosecuted alongside women;
while the latter bore the brunt of punishments, the courts were
interested in determining
paternal identity in order to secure support for the child.
Servant women who bore chil-
dren out of wedlock in the time of their servitude were saddled
with a year or two of ex-
tra service in order to pay for their misdeeds. Statutes in
particular indicted the charac-
ter of servant women who bore children out of wedlock. While
they censured masters’
sexual relationships with their servant women, laws also
cautioned that such women were
likely to wrongly or falsely name their masters as the fathers of
their out-of-wedlock chil-
dren. Authorities also enacted particular punishments for white
women who engaged in
interracial sex, selling them into long-term labor contracts.
Prosecutions of sex crimes before the courts were shaped by
racial considerations from
nearly the beginning of settlement, and by the early 18th
century some British colonial ju-
risdictions had written race-specific statutes punishing bastardy.
In Virginia, mixed-race
offspring of white women and men of color were sentenced to
thirty years of service; sim-
ilarly, the out-of-wedlock offspring of free women of color who
had been servants in Vir-
ginia, for instance, were often bound over for similarly lengthy
terms of service, typically
thirty to thirty-one years. In the upper south, these laws
effectively shaped the household
polity for free blacks, creating a bound system of mixed-race, if

nominally free, laborers.
Many free mixed-race children became servants for at least the
first three decades of
their lives.35 Following English practice, local justices had
discretionary powers to inden-
ture the children of parents who were judged to be unable to
provide for their offspring.
As had been the case in England since the enactment of the
16th-century Statute of Artifi-
cers, it was perfectly acceptable to compel free individuals, if
they were poor, to labor.
Keeping family members together was less important to the law
than forcing the poor to
work.36
Unlike their free counterparts, enslaved women could not
legally be construed to be
mothers, because the legal status of slavery for the most part
negated prosecutions for
fornication and bastardy. In another point of contrast, enslaved
women were subjected to
plantation justice as well as the criminal justice system that
lawmakers erected specifical-
ly for slaves. When they stood before the court as criminal
defendants, African and Indian
slaves and servants were more likely to be convicted than their
European counterparts.
Enslaved women were subjected to all manner of private
punishments meted out by their
masters or mistresses or, if tried in the separate slave courts
established in Virginia and

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other slave colonies, they were convicted in a summary justice
system and endured far
more severe punishments than their free and European
counterparts. Some evidence
from after the period of the American Revolution suggests that
local communities mitigat-
ed these punishments or more actively sought redress for
enslaved women who had been
convicted of crimes. In these cases, the abstraction of the law
could be undercut by the
concrete knowledge of communities, and cases, even those
involving slaves, could hinge
on local knowledge.37
Conclusion: Toward the American Revolution
Historians of early American women have argued for some time
that the Revolution did
not substantially alter the legal status of free women. The
Revolution did not challenge
coverture or alter the law of domestic relations, and, in fact,
female subordination may
have even been strengthened in the landscape of the early
Republic. Legal changes in the

wake of the Revolution did, however, liberalize complete
divorce in the United States.
While colonial statutes had allowed partial divorces in the form
of legal separations (a
mensa et thoro), only a few jurisdictions had offered absolute
divorce (a vincula) either
through the courts, as in Connecticut, or through private
legislative act. Making divorce,
albeit on the premise that one party was at fault, more widely
available carried fairly radi-
cal implications for marriages involving free women.
The Revolution did, however, alter the landscape of slavery in
the new United States.
Northern states, where slavery was never as directly central to
the labor system as it was
in the south, began enacting gradual emancipation statutes in
the wake of the American
Revolution. Although in the southern colonies the earliest codes
defining racial slavery
were elaborated throughout the colonial period and remained in
place through the Civil
War, a wave of manumissions in the upper south followed in the
wake of the American
Revolution, when legislators briefly liberalized emancipation
statutes. In the north, free
women of color became involved in antislavery work; in the
south, they became active pe-
titioners and litigants in court, seeking to maintain or secure the
freedom of themselves
and their families. Yet, while slavery may have been dismantled
or compromised in some
jurisdictions, that did not quell racism. In contrast, the U.S.
acquisition of Louisiana in
1803 introduced laws in the former French territory that
hardened the boundaries be-

tween enslaved and free and limited the freedoms of its free
black population. Manumis-
sions were restricted to those above the age of thirty, and newly
freed individuals were
ordered to leave the territory. Marriages across status (between
enslaved and free peo-
ple) were outlawed, as were interracial unions. The lines of
legitimate inheritance, previ-
ously much more expansive in Louisiana, were changed to
strictly follow marriages. In
addition, while Pennsylvania repealed its ban on interracial
marriage in 1780, existing
and new statutory laws against interracial marriage and sex
were strengthened and
spread through much of the new United States. Some Indian
nations also enacted prohibi-
tions against intermarriage with African Americans. The altered
landscape of slavery in
the aftermath of the American Revolution had some liberatory
consequences for women
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date: 16 May 2020
of color, but its more repressive features are the ones that truly
mark the institution
through the eve of the Civil War.38
Discussion of the Literature
The earliest studies of women and the law in early America
include Richard B. Morris,
Studies in the Early History of American Law, With Special
Reference to the Seventeenth
and Eighteenth Centuries (1930); Julia Cherry Spruill, Women’s
Life and Work in the
Southern Colonies (1932); and Mary Ritter Beard, Woman as
Force in History: A Study in
Traditions and Realities (1946). A renewed concern for the
topic remerged alongside fem-
inism in the 1970s, and by the early 21st century the
intersection of gender and the law
had become an established subfield of both U.S. women’s
history and early American
studies. One early expression of the need to consider the
gendered politics of law can be
seen in Linda K. Kerber, et al., “Beyond Roles, Beyond
Separate Spheres: Thinking about
Gender in the Early Republic.”39 The intersection of the law
with gender and racial forma-
tion in early America is a touchstone in Kathleen M. Brown’s
influential review essays,
“Brave New Worlds: Women's and Gender History”40 and
“Beyond the Great Debates:
Gender and Race in Early America,”41 as well as in her book
Good Wives, Nasty Wenches,
and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial
Virginia.42 See also Sharon
Block and Kathleen M. Brown, “Clio in Search of Eros:

Redefining Sexuality in Early
America”;43 Karin Wulf, “Women and Families in Early
(North) America and the Wider (At-
lantic)”;44 and Terri L. Snyder, “Refiguring Women in Early
America.”45
The earliest works on early American women and the law
focused almost exclusively on
British America—mostly on New England—and the realms of
women’s legal status, prop
erty, and domestic relations. These include Marylynn Salmon,
Women and the Law of
Property in Early America;46 Linda K. Kerber, Women of the
Republic: Intellect and Ideol-
ogy in Revolutionary America;47 Joan R. Gundersen and Gwen
Victor Gampel, “Married
Women’s Legal Status in Eighteenth-Century New York and
Virginia”;48 Mary Beth Nor
ton, Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of
American Women, 1750–
1800;49 and Linda E. Speth, “‘More than Her Thirds’: Wives
and Widows in Colonial Vir-
ginia.”50 Although not explicitly focused on legal history per
se, legal status is foundation-
al to the work of Lois Green Carr and Lorena S. Walsh, “The
Planter's Wife: The Experi-
ence of White Women in Seventeenth-Century Maryland.”51
Historians have also evi-
denced an interest in crime, including, of course, witchcraft.
See for instance Barbara S.
Lindeman, “‘To Ravish and Carnally Know’: Rape in
Eighteenth-Century
Massachusetts”;52 John Putnam Demos, Entertaining Satan:
Witchcraft and the Culture of
Early New England;53 N. E. H. Hull, Female Felons: Women
and Serious Crime in Colonial

Massachusetts;54 and Carol F. Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape
of a Woman: Witchcraft in
Colonial New England.55
In the 1990s, historians began to consider women’s relations to
the law from a variety of
perspectives, focusing particularly on women’s appearances in
court. Their work evi-
denced a concern for the larger implications of legalities for
power relations in society,
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date: 16 May 2020
with work on the Chesapeake and New England still
predominating. See for instance,
Cornelia Hughes Dayton, Women Before the Bar: Gender, Law,
Society in Connecticut,
1639–1789;56 Susan Juster, Disorderly Women: Sexual Politics
and Evangelicalism in Rev-
olutionary New England;57 Deborah A. Rosen, Courts and
Commerce: Gender, Law, and

the Market Economy in Colonial New York;58 and Kathleen M.
Brown’s radical rethinking
of women’s legal status in conjunction with changing race and
class relations in Good
Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race,
and Power in Colonial Vir-
ginia.59 Mary Beth Norton offered a comparative examination
of gendered power in the
households and communities of 17th-century New England and
the Chesapeake in Found-
ing Mothers and Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of
American Society.60 In Not
All Wives: Women of Colonial Philadelphia,61 Karin A. Wulf
shifted attention to the legal
status of unmarried women in mid-Atlantic Philadelphia. Other
works investigating
women’s experiences in the courts include Kirsten Fischer,
Suspect Relations: Sex, Race,
and Resistance in Colonial North Carolina;62 Linda L. Sturtz,
“Within Her Power”: Proper
tied Women in Colonial Virginia;63 Terri L. Snyder, Brabbling
Women: Disorderly Speech
and the Law in Early Virginia;64 Sharon Block, Rape and
Sexual Power in Early America;65
and Clare A. Lyons, Sex Among the Rabble: An Intimate
History of Gender and Power in
the Age of Revolution, Philadelphia, 1730–1830.66 See also
Holly Brewer, “The Transfor
mation of Domestic Law.”67 Some studies focusing explicitly
on marriage—particularly ir-
regular marriage—include Richard Godbeer, Sexual Revolution
in Early America68 and
Carole Shammas, A History of Household Government in
America.69

A growing literature on Indigenous women has provided a
much-needed corrective to the
predominance of Anglo America. Even more importantly, this
material has fundamentally
altered the geographical scope of early American history.
Important titles include Sylvia
Van Kirk, Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society,
1670–1870;70 Ann Marie Plane,
Colonial Intimacies: Indian Marriage in Early New England;71
Sarah M. S. Pearsall, “‘Hav
ing Many Wives’ in Two American Rebellions: The Politics of
Households and the Radical-
ly Conservative”;72 Susan Sleeper-Smith, Indian Women and
French Men: Rethinking the
Cultural Encounter in the Western Great Lakes;73 James F.
Brooks, Captives and Cousins:
Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest
Borderlands;74 Ann Little, Abraham in
Arms: War and Gender in Colonial New England;75 Juliana
Barr, Peace Came in the Form
of a Woman: Indians and Spaniards in the Texas Borderlands;76
Kathleen DuVal, “Inter
marriage and Métissage in Colonial Louisiana”;77 Daniel
Mandell, Tribe, Race, History:
Native Americans in Southern New England, 1780–1880;78
Michelle LeMaster, Brothers
Born of One Mother: British-Native American Relations in the
Colonial Southeast;79 and
Brett Rushforth, Bonds of Alliance: Indigenous and Atlantic
Slaveries in New France.80 An
instructive treatment of the Creek Mary Musgrove
Bosomworth’s negotiation of Euro
pean legalities can be found in Joshua Piker, The Four Deaths
of Acorn Wheeler: Telling
Stories in Colonial America.81

Similarly, the literature on enslaved and free women of color,
both within and outside of
British North America, has measurably deepened in recent
years. Although not explicitly
focused on early America, Deborah Gray White, Ar’n’t I a
Woman: Female Slaves in the
Plantation South, remains an indispensable starting point for the
study of women and
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date: 16 May 2020
slavery. Jennifer L. Morgan concentrates explicitly on the early
modern period in Labor-
ing Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery.82
Works examining race and
gender in southern Spanish and French North American and
Caribbean possessions in-
clude Barbara Bush, Slave Women in Caribbean Society, 1630–
1838;83 the essays collect-
ed in The Devil’s Lane: Sex and Race in the Early South, ed.
Catherine Clinton and

Michelle Gillespie;84 Jane Landers, Black Society in Spanish
Florida;85 Jennifer M. Spear,
Race, Sex, and Social Order in Early New Orleans;86 Emily
Clark, The Strange History of
the American Quadroon: Free Women of Color in the
Revolutionary Atlantic World;87
Hilary McD. Beckles, Natural Rebels: A History of Enslaved
Women in Barbados;88
Christine M. Walker, “Pursuing Her Profits: Women in Jamaica,
Atlantic Slavery and a
Globalising Market, 1700–60”;89 and Heather Miyano
Kopelson, Faithful Bodies: Creating
Religion and Race in the Puritan Atlantic.90
Primary Sources
In many cases, the laws and statutes for various imperial
colonies across North America
and the Caribbean have been published in multiple volume sets
over the course of the
19th and 20th centuries. Many are now available electronically
through Google Books,
the Internet Archive, or legislative, state library, and university
websites. The slave codes
of Barbados and Jamaica can be found in Carla Gardina Pestana
and Sharon V. Salinger,
eds., The Early English Caribbean, 1570–1770, Vol. 391 and
Stanley Engerman, Seymour
Drescher, and Robert Paquette, eds., Slavery.92 While a close
reading of statutes is imper-
ative for understanding the timing and evolution of laws
regarding race and women
across colonial America, statutes are best considered in
conjunction with other juridical
sources.
To best view the law of race and gender in application and

experience, early American
scholars often turn to judicial records of local, provincial,
notarial, and imperial jurisdic-
tions across and outside of the United States. Unlike the statute
collections listed above,
comparatively few court records have been published or made
available digitally, but this
is changing; some of the printed compilations are available via
the Internet Archive or
Google Books. However, students should bear in mind that
printed compilations may ex-
clude court papers that accompanied the cases, and so checking
against unpublished
archival materials still remains essential for in-depth legal
history. Students would also do
well to consult the websites of state libraries or governments in
order to see which of
their collections have been digitized.
What follows is a representative but by no means exhaustive list
of primary sources, and,
as can be seen, English sources for New England and the upper
south are overrepresent-
ed. For Louisiana, the Caribbean, and New France, there is less
republication of original
sources, although that is changing. In consulting archives, early
Americanists should
move beyond strictly legal sources. As historians have
demonstrated, legal handbooks,
church and probate records, diaries of planters, and accounts of
guardians of the poor,

Page 17 of 25
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date: 16 May 2020
for instance, can be used fruitfully, augmenting legal sources by
providing evidence of the
law in action.
Published Primary Sources
For New England and northern colonies, see J. Hammond
Trumbull and Charles Hoadly,
eds., The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, 1636–
1776;93 John A. Noble, ed.,
Records of the Court of Assistants of the Colony of
Massachusetts Bay 1630–1692;94
George Francis Dow, ed., Records and Files of the Quarterly
Courts of Essex County
Massachusetts;95 and the New Hampshire Provincial and State
Papers.96 For Virginia, see
Susie M. Ames, ed., County Court Records of Accomack-
Northampton, Virginia, 1632–
1640;97 Susie M. Ames, ed., County Court Records of
Accomack-Northampton, Virginia,
1632–1640;98 and H. R. MacIlwaine, ed., Minutes of the
Council and General Court of Vir-

ginia, 1622–1632, 1670–1676.99 For Maryland, see William
Hand Browne, et al., eds.,
Archives of Maryland,100 also available as Archives of
Maryland Online.
Online or Digitized Sources
• The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and
Diplomacy.
• Code Noir (1685), translated; see “Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity: Exploring the French
Revolution,” Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New
Media, George Mason Uni-
versity.
• Code Noir (1724), translated; see Pasquier, Michael T. “Code
Noir of Louisiana,” in
KnowLA Encyclopedia of Louisiana, edited by David Johnson.
Louisiana Endowment for
the Humanities, 2010–. Article published January 6, 2011.
• Digest of the Civil Laws Now in Force in the Territory of
Orleans, with Alterations
and Amendments Adapted to Its Present System of Government.
New Orleans: Brad-
ford and Anderson, 1808.
• Digital Library on American Slavery, University of North
Carolina, Greensboro; con-
tains runaway ads and freedom petitions.
• Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Maryland, and
Delaware, a database created by Paul Heinegg, who has
compiled all available refer-

ences to free African Americans in local courts of the upper
south, organized by family
surname.
• The Jesuits Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and
Explorations of the Jesuit
Missionaries in New France, 1610–1679, ed. Reuben Gold
Thwaites; available and fully
searchable through the Internet Archive.
• Legislative Petitions Database, Library of Virginia, Richmond,
Virginia.
• Digital Archive of Massachusetts Anti-Slavery and Anti-
Segregation Petitions, Har-
vard University.
• The Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania, 1682-1700, Vol. I,
1682–1700, ed. Robert Ca-
ble (Harrisburg, PA: Legislative Reference Bureau).
http://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/html/index.html
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/
https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/335/
http://www.knowla.org/entry/742/
http://www1.law.lsu.edu/clo/digest-online
http://www1.law.lsu.edu/clo/digest-online
http://library.uncg.edu/slavery/
http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/
http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/
https://archive.org/details/jesuitrelationsa10thwa
https://archive.org/details/jesuitrelationsa10thwa
http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/guides/petitions
https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2015-ma-anti-slavery-

anti-segregation-petitions-digital-archive-launch
http://www.palrb.us/
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date: 16 May 2020
• Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive.
• The South Carolina Department of Archives and History has
digitized some of its
records from the colonial period, including grand jury
presentments and transcripts of
wills.
• Transatlantic Slave Trade Database.
• Virtual Jamestown provides links to selected statutes as well
as court records, inden-
ture contracts, and an eight-volume compilation of court notices
of runaways from
1645–1734.
Further Reading
Barr, Julianna. Peace Came in the Form of a Woman: Indians

and Spaniards in the Texas
Borderlands. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
2007.
Block, Sharon. Rape and Sexual Power in Early America.
Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 2006.
Brown, Kathleen M. Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious
Patriarchs: Gender, Race,
and Power in Colonial Virginia. Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1996.
Kerber, Linda K. Women of the Republic: Intellect and
Ideology in Revolutionary America.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980.
Morgan, Jennifer L. Laboring Women: Reproduction and
Gender in New World Slavery.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
Norton, Mary Beth. Founding Mothers and Fathers: Gendered
Power and the Forming of
American Society. New York: Knopf, 1996.
Plane, Ann Marie. Colonial Intimacies: Indian Marriage in Early
New England. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 2000.
Snyder, Terri L. Brabbling Women: Disorderly Speech and the
Law in Early Virginia. Itha-
ca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003.
Spear, Jennifer M. Race, Sex, and Social Order in Early New
Orleans. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2009.

Wulf, Karin A. Not All Wives: Women of Colonial
Philadelphia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univer-
sity Press, 2000.
In addition to these monographs, two edited collections are
indispensible to any consider-
ation of women, race, and the law in early America:
Grossberg, Michael, and Christopher Tomlins, eds. The
Cambridge History of Law in
America. Vol. 1, Early America (1580–1815). New York:
Cambridge University Press,
2008.
http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/home.html
http://archives.sc.gov/onlineresearch/Pages/DigitalCollections.a
spx
http://www.slavevoyages.org/
http://www.virtualjamestown.org/
Page 19 of 25
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date: 16 May 2020

Tomlins, Christopher L., and Bruce H. Mann, eds. The Many
Legalities of Early America.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.
Notes:
(1) . Sally E. Hadden, “The Fragmented Laws of Slavery in the
Colonial and Revolutionary
Eras,” in The Cambridge History of Law in America, vol. I, ed.
Michael Grossberg and
Christopher Tomlins (New York: Cambridge University Press,
2008), 255; Christina Sny-
der, Slavery in Indian Country: The Changing Face of Captivity
in Early America
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 6; Alan
Gallay, The Indian Slave Trade:
The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670–
1717 (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 2002), 8; Brett Rushforth, Bonds of Alliance:
Indigenous and Atlantic
Slaveries in New France (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 2012), 9–13;
and William Waller Hening, The Statutes at Large, Being a
Collection of All the Laws of
Virginia, vol. I (New York: R. & G. & W Bartow, 1869), 247,
441, 538.
(2) . Katherine Hermes, “The Law of Native Americans, to
1815,” in The Cambridge Histo
ry of Law in America, vol. 1, ed. Grossberg and Tomlins, 32–33
(32–62, inclusive);
Michelle LeMaster, Brothers Born of One Mother: British-
Native American Relations in
the Colonial Southeast (Charlottesville: University of Virginia
Press, 2012), 6–7; Snyder,

Slavery in Indian Country, 4–6.
(3) . Snyder, Slavery in Indian Country, 4–6.
(4) . Rushforth, Bonds of Alliance, 46–47.
(5) . Ibid., 15–71; Snyder, Slavery in Indian Country, 4–6;
Denise I. Bossy, “Indian Slavery
in Indian and British Societies,” in Indian Slavery in Colonial
America, ed. Alan Gallay
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009), 212–213;
Julianna Barr, Peace Came in the
Form of a Woman: Indians and Spaniards in the Texas
Borderlands (Chapel Hill: Universi-
ty of North Carolina Press, 2007), 79–86; Kathleen DuVal,
“Intermarriage and Métissage
in Colonial Louisiana,” William and Mary Quarterly 65 (2008):
267–304.
(6) . Simon P. Newman, A New World of Labor: The
Development of Plantation Slavery in
the British Atlantic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2013), 3, 71–107.
(7) . Margaret Ellen Newell, “Indian Slavery in Colonial New
England,” in Gallay, ed., In
dian Slavery in Colonial America, 57–58; C. S. Everett, “They
shalbe slaves for their
lives”: Indian Slavery in Colonial Virginia,” in Gallay, ed.,
Indian Slavery in Colonial Amer-
ica, 67–108.
(8) . David Eltis, The Rise of African Slavery in America (New
York: Cambridge University
Press, 2000), 97; Jennifer L. Morgan, Laboring Women:
Reproduction and Gender in New

World Slavery (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
2004), 77, 84–85; Rush-
forth, Bonds of Alliance, 46–47; Barbara Krauthamer, “A
Particular Kind of Freedom:
Black Women, Slavery, Kinship, and Freedom in the American
Southeast,” in Women and
Slavery: The Modern Atlantic, vol. II, ed. Gwyn Campbell,
Suzanne Miers, and Joseph C.
https://oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001
.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-12#acrefore-9780199329175-
e-12-bibItem-0019
Page 20 of 25
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Miller (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2008), 100–127;
Theda Perdue, Cherokee
Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700–1835 (Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press,
1998), 67–68; and Emily Clark, The Strange History of the
American Quadroon: Free
Women of Color in the Revolutionary Atlantic World (Chapel

Hill: University of North Car-
olina Press, 2013), 92–94.
(9) . Kathleen M. Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and
Anxious Patriarchs: Gender,
Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia (Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press,
1996), 130–132.
(10) . Morgan, Laboring Women, 84–85; Catherine Adams and
Elizabeth H. Pleck, Love of
Freedom: Black Women in Colonial and Revolutionary New
England (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2010), 106–107; Daina Ramey Berry, “For
Sale a Young Negro: Auc-
tions, Breeding, and Women in Early America” (unpublished
paper, WMQ-EMSI-Hunting-
ton Library Workshop, May 27, 2011), 7–10.
(11) . Sharon Block, Rape and Sexual Power in Early America
(Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 2006), 65, 100–101, 116, 177–178, 246;
Adams and Pleck, Love of
Freedom, 44–45.
(12) . Kimberly S. Hanger, Bounded Lives, Bounded Places:
Free Black Society in New Or-
leans, 1769–1803 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997),
23–26; Jennifer M. Spear,
Race, Sex, and Social Order in Early New Orleans (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2009), 52–53, 62–63, 97–98; Michelle McKinley,
“Fractional Freedoms: Slavery, Le
gal Activism, and Ecclesiastical Courts in Colonial Lima, 1593–
1689,” Law and History
Review 28 (2010): 60–66.

(13) . Terri L. Snyder, “Marriage on the Margins: Free Wives,
Enslaved Husbands, and the
Law in the Early American South,” Law and History Review 30
(February 2012): 141–172;
Spear, Race, Sex, and the Social Order, 92.
(14) . Spear, Race, Sex, and the Social Order, 67, 69, 93.
(15) . Erica Armstrong Dunbar, A Fragile Freedom: African
American Women and Emanci-
pation in the Antebellum City (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 2008), 13–14.
(16) . Hening, The Statutes at Large, vol. IV: 132.
(17) . Ibid, 133.
(18) . Linda K. Kerber, No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies:
Women and the Obligations
of Citizenship (New York: Hill and Wang, 1999), 12–15.
(19) . Hening, The Statutes at Large, I: 242; II: 267; III: 87,
258, 447, 453; IV: 133. Brown,
Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs, 116–128.
https://oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001
.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-12#acrefore-9780199329175-
e-12-bibItem-0038
Page 21 of 25

Ox-
date: 16 May 2020
(20) . Deborah A. Rosen, “Women and Property across Colonial
America: A Comparison of
Legal Systems in New Mexico and New York,” William and
Mary Quarterly 60 (April
2003): 355–381.
(21) . See for instance Linda L. Sturtz, Within Her Power:
Propertied Women in Colonial
Virginia (New York: Routledge, 2002) and Mary Beth Norton,
Founding Mothers and Fa-
thers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society
(New York: Knopf, 1996),
passim.
(22) . Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious
Patriarchs; Terri L. Snyder, Brab-
bling Women: Disorderly Speech and the Law in Early Virginia
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell Uni-
versity Press, 2003); Christine Daniels, “‘Liberty to
Complaine’: Servant Petitions in Colo
nial Anglo-America,” in The Many Legalities of Early America,
ed. Christopher Tomlins
and Bruce H. Mann (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 2001), 219–249; and
Hening, The Statutes at Large, vol. II, 167.

(23) . Ann Marie Plane, Colonial Intimacies: Indian Marriage in
Early New England
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), 5; Sarah Pearsall,
“Having Many Wives in
Two American Rebellions: The Politics of Households and the
Radically Conservative,”
American Historical Review 118 (October 2013): 1001–1028.
(24) . Daniel Mandell, Tribe, Race, History: Native Americans
in Southern New England,
1780–1880 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press), xvii;
Juliana Barr, Peace Came in
the Form of a Woman: Indians and Spaniards in the Texas
Borderlands (Chapel Hill: Uni-
versity of North Carolina Press, 2007), 68–108; DuVal,
“Intermarriage and Métissage,”
267–304; Susan Sleeper–Smith, Indian Women and French Men:
Rethinking the Cultural
Encounter in the Western Great Lakes (Amherst: University of
Massachusetts Press,
2001); Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, “African Women in French and
Spanish Louisiana,” in The
Devil’s Lane: Sex and Race in the Early South, ed. Catherine
Clinton and Michelle Gille-
spie (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 247–261;
Sylvia Van Kirk, Many Tender
Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society, 1670–1870 (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press,
1983); Rushforth, Bonds of Alliance, 256 (quote), 255–290.
(25) . Susanah Shaw Romney, New Netherland Connections:
Intimate Networks and At-
lantic Ties in Seventeenth-Century America (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina
Press, 2014), 232–234.

(26) . On Florida, see Jane Landers, Black Society in Spanish
Florida (Chicago: University
of Illinois Press, 1999), 123–129; Jane Landers, “In
Consideration of Her Enormous
Crime: Rape and Infanticide in Spanish St. Augustine” and
Virginia Meacham Gould, “‛A
Chaos of Iniquity and Discord’: Slave and Free Women of Color
in the Spanish Ports of
New Orleans, Mobile, and Pensacola,” in Clinton and Gillespie,
The Devil’s Lane, 206–207
and 232–246, respectively; McKinley, “Fractional Freedoms,”
749–790; and Herbert S.
Klein, African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean
(New York: Oxford University
Press, 1986).
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date: 16 May 2020
(27) . Spear, Sex, Race, and the Social Order 13; Ira Berlin,
Slaves Without Masters: The
Free Negro in the Antebellum South (New York: Random

House, 1974), 109–132.
(28) . Colonies banning interracial marriage, sex, or both
include New Netherland (1638),
Virginia (1691), Massachusetts (1705), North Carolina (1715),
South Carolina (1717),
Pennsylvania (1726), Delaware (1726), Georgia (1750), and (by
royal decree) French
Louisiana (1724). See Peggy Pascoe, What Comes Naturally:
Miscegenation Law and the
Making of Race in America (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2010), 20–21.
(29) . Adams and Pleck, Love of Freedom, 112–113.
(30) . Plane, Colonial Intimacies, 24–25, 130–131; Heather
Miyano Kopelson, Faithful Bod-
ies: Creating Religion and Race in the Puritan Atlantic (New
York: New York University
Press, 2014), 219–230; Spear, Race, Sex, and Social Order, 17–
68; Adams and Pleck, Love
of Freedom, 90–95, 114–116.
(31) . Adams and Pleck, Love of Freedom, 115–116; see also
Kirsten Sword, “Wayward
Wives, Runaway Slaves, and the Limits of Patriarchal Authority
in Early America” (PhD
diss., Harvard University, 2002), 215–233; McKinley,
“Fractional Freedoms,” 761–766.
(32) . Adams and Pleck, Love of Freedom, 11, 58, 129–130,
137; Snyder, “Marriage on the
Margins,” 141–172.
(33) . Norton, Founding Mothers and Fathers, 277.

(34) . Clare Lyons, Sex among the Rabble: An Intimate History
of Gender and Power in
the Age of Revolution, Philadelphia, 1730–1830 (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2006), 77–93.
(35) . Holly Brewer, By Birth or Consent: Children, Law, and
the Anglo-American Revolu-
tion in Authority (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 2005), 273.
(36) . Brewer, By Birth or Consent, 12, 255–258, 271–275;
Kerber, No Constitutional Right
to Be Ladies, 52–53; and Christopher Tomlins, “Law,
Population, Labor,” in The Cam
bridge History of American Law, vol. 1, ed. Grossberg and
Tomlins, 232–239.
(37) . Laura F. Edwards, “Enslaved Women and the Law in the
Postrevolutionary Caroli-
nas,” in Women and Slavery: The Modern Atlantic, vol. 2, ed.
Campbell, Miers, and Miller,
128–151; Snyder, “Marriage on the Margins,” 141–172.
(38) . Holly Brewer, “The Transformation of Domestic Law,” in
Grossberg and Tomlins,
ed., Cambridge History of American Law, vol. 1, 288–323; Eva
Sheppard Wolf, Race and
Liberty in the New Nation: Emancipation in Virginia from the
Revolution to Nat Turner’s
Rebellion (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
2006), 67–69; Joanne Pope Mel-
ish, Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and “Race” in
New England (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1998); 1–49; Clark, The Strange
History of the American

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