PRIMARY DOCUMENT

Irish Servants (1655)

ORIGINAL IMAGES
Hening's Statutes at Large
CONTEXT

This law, passed by the General Assembly in its March 1655 (New Style) session, establishes the terms of service specifically for immigrants from Ireland who arrive in Virginia without indentures. During the March 1658 session, the assembly revised the law so “that at the end of the act these words are added, ‘and all aliens to be included in this act.’” The law was repealed five years later, with special mention made of this final clause. 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), 1:411.

FULL TEXT

Hening's Statutes at Large

Hening’s Statutes at Large, Volume 1, Page 411

BE it enacted by this Grand Assembly That all Irish servants that from the first of September, 1653, have bin brought into this collony without indenture (notwithstanding the act for servants without indentures it being only the benefitt of our own nation) shall serve as followeth, (vizt.) all above sixteen yeares old to serve six years, and all under to serve till they be twenty-four years old and in case of dispute in that behalfe the court shall be judge of their age.

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) “Concerning Hireing of Servants” (1657–1658) “Concerning secret Marriages” (1657–1658) “How long Servants without Indentures shall Serve” (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. Irish Servants (1655). (2020, December 07). In Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/irish-servants-1655.
MLA Citation:
General Assembly. "Irish Servants (1655)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. 30 May. 2023
Last updated: 2020, December 07
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