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

Questions for Further Study

• 1.: In colonial Virginia, the need for labor was persistently more pressing than the need for land. Discuss this proposition.
• 2.: Using this document in conjunction with John Rolfe’s Letter to Sir Edwin Sandys and Virginia’s Act III: Baptism Does Not Exempt Slaves from Bondage, prepare a time line of the most significant events in Virginia’s colonial history, particularly as they affected slaves.
• 3.: This document was one of the earliest in Virginia establishing the position of slaves. Among the last was the Virginia Slave Code of 1860. Comparing the two documents and their historical contexts, explain what, if anything, changed in Virginia over the course of two-plus centuries.
• 4.: What specific circumstances led to the passage of Virginia’s Act XII?
• 5.: Given that Virginia was a colony of Great Britain and thus subject to Britain’s laws, why do you believe Britain tolerated, or ignored, the codification of slavery in its colony?