Virginia’s Act III: Baptism Does Not Exempt Slaves from Bondage

Audience

The statutes passed by the House of Burgesses were legal measures designed to regulate and control the various groups of people living in the colony. The statute on baptism passed by the colonial assembly in 1667 was directed at slaveholders and constructed judiciary restraints designed to legally clarify that religious rites of passage carried no legitimate secular weight. Since newspapers did not appear in the Virginia Colony until the eighteenth century, the majority of its inhabitants would have learned of the 1667 statute through verbal means. Although some colonists corresponded through letters, most colonists shared their news by discussing various topics in taverns, shops, and churches. News from the colonial legislature was also carried from farm to farm by merchants, family, and friends.