Virginia’s Act XII: Negro Women’s Children to Serve according to the Condition of the Mother

Audience

There are, in a sense, three separate audiences for this document: the Virginians who created and implemented the statutes, the residents and officials of the larger British Empire who would later model similar legislation on it, and those persons whose actions directly affected female African slaves and their progeny. All three audiences had vested interests in the act’s implementation and perceived it differently. Anglo-Virginians perceived the legislation largely as expedient. For large landowners, the inheritability of slaves’ status provided a captive labor force that would increase over time. It also clearly defined distinct racial lines between Anglo-Americans and their African slaves. Officials in different areas of the British Empire had similar motives for accepting and adapting the legislation. In England, primarily the members of Parliament and merchants responded to the statute, albeit at a distance. Neither slavery nor its inheritability affected their daily lives. In other British colonies, Anglo-Americans recognized slavery as part of an emerging network of trade and law that governed their access to labor. Africans and African Americans found themselves in the unenviable position of being subject to the law without having had any voice in its passage or implementation.