PRIMARY DOCUMENT

“How long Servants without Indentures shall Serve” (1658)

ORIGINAL IMAGES
Hening's Statutes at LargeHening's Statutes at Large
CONTEXT

In the act “How long Servants without Indentures shall Serve,” passed in its 1658 session, the General Assembly addressed the problem of men and women arriving to Virginia without negotiated contracts, or indentures, for their labor. This law revised a similar one passed in the 1643 session. Some spelling has been modernized.

Author: General AssemblyTranscription Source: William Waller Hening, ed., The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia from the First Session of the Legislature in the Year 1619 (New York: R. & W. & G. Bartow, 1823), 1:441–442.

FULL TEXT

Hening's Statutes at Large

Hening’s Statutes at Large, Volume 1, Page 441

WHEREAS divers controversies have risen between masters and servants being brought into the collonie without indentures or covennants to testifie their agreements, whereby masters and servants have been often prejudiced, Be it therefore enacted and confirmed for prevention of future controversies of the like nature, That such persons as shall be

— page 442 —
Hening's Statutes at Large

Hening’s Statutes at Large, Volume 1, Page 442

imported, haveing no indentures or convenant, either men or women, if they be above sixteen years old shall serve four yeers, If under fifteen to serve till hee or shee shall be one and twenty yeers of age, and the courts to be judges of their ages.

FURTHER READING

“An Acte towching dyvers Orders for Artificers Laborers Servantes of Husbandrye and Apprentises” (1563) Laws Concerning Indentured Servants (1619) Law Regulating Indentured Servants (1642–1643) Law Regulating Marriage of Indentured Servants (1642–1643) Law Prohibiting Indentured Servants from Hiring Themselves Out (1642–1643) Irish Servants (1654) “Concerning Hireing of Servants” (1657–1658) “Concerning secret Marriages” (1657–1658) “An Act for repealing an Act for Irish Servants” (1659) “Against ffornication” (1661–1662) “Women servants gott with child by their masters after their time expired to be sold by the Churchwardens for two yeares for the good of the parish” (1662) “Man Servants getting any bastard child to make satisfaction to the parish after their service ended” (1662) “Women servants whose common imployment is working in the ground to be accompted tythable” (1662) “An act for the more effectuall suppressing the severall sins and offences of swaring, cursing, profaineing Gods holy name, Sabbath abuseing, drunkenness, ffornication, and adultery” (1691) “An act for punishment of ffornication and seaverall other sins and offences” (1696)

CITE THIS ENTRY
APA Citation:
General Assembly. “How long Servants without Indentures shall Serve” (1658). (2020, December 07). In Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/how-long-servants-without-indentures-shall-serve-1658.
MLA Citation:
General Assembly. "“How long Servants without Indentures shall Serve” (1658)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. 27 Mar. 2023
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