Robert Beverley try a rich Jamestown planter and you may slaveholder
Robert Beverley into Servants and you may Slaves
So it excerpt from his Record and give County of Virginia, authored in the 1705, demonstrably depicts the brand new compare ranging from white servants and black slaves.
The Servants, it identify from the Labels away from Slaves for a lifetime, and you will Servants for a time. Slaves could be the Negroes, in addition to their Posterity, pursuing the reputation of one’s Mom, depending on the Maxim, partus sequitur ventrem [status employs the fresh womb]. He is call’d Slaves, in respect of the time of its Servitude, since it is forever.
Servants, are those and this serve only for many years, according to time of the Indenture, or the Individualized of the country. New Custom of the country occurs up on particularly enjoys zero Indentures. Regulations in this situation are, that if such as for instance Servants be lower than Nineteen years old, they must be brought to the Courtroom, to possess how old they are adjudged; and you may regarding Decades he’s judg’d become off, they should serve up to it visited five and you can twenty: In case it become adjudged well over Nineteen, they are next in order to feel Servants toward name of 5 years. More