PRIMARY DOCUMENT

“An act prohibiting servants to goe abroad without a lycence” (1663)

ORIGINAL IMAGES
Hening's Statutes at Large
CONTEXT

In “An act prohibiting servants to goe abroad without a lycense,” passed by the General Assembly in the session of September 1663, Virginia’s colonial government responds to the problem of runaway indentured servants and slaves.

FULL TEXT

— page 195 —
Hening's Statutes at Large

FOR better suppressing the unlawful meetings of servants, it is thought fitt and enacted by this present grand assembly and the authority thereof that all masters of ffamilies be enjoyned and take especiall care that their servants doe not depart from their houses on Sundayes or any other dayes without perticuler lycence from them, and that the severall respective counties (as they find cause) to take espetiall care to make such laws within themselves, as by the act dated the third of December 1662, they are impowred as may cause a further restraint of all unlawfull meetings of servants and punish the offenders.

MAP
TIMELINE
September 1663
The General Assembly passes "An act prohibiting servants to goe abroad without a lycense," responding to the problem of runaway indentured servants and slaves.
CITE THIS ENTRY
APA Citation:
General Assembly. “An act prohibiting servants to goe abroad without a lycence” (1663). (2020, December 07). In Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/an-act-prohibiting-servants-to-goe-abroad-without-a-lycence-1663.
MLA Citation:
General Assembly. "“An act prohibiting servants to goe abroad without a lycence” (1663)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. 30 May. 2023
Last updated: 2020, December 07
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