PRIMARY DOCUMENT

Law Regulating Indentured Servants (1643)

CONTEXT

In this law, passed in its session of March 1643 (New Style), the General Assembly addressed the problem of men and women arriving to Virginia without negotiated contracts, or indentures, for their labor. 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), 1:257.

FULL TEXT

WHEREAS divers controversies have risen between masters and servants being brought into the colony without indentures or covenants to testifie their agreements whereby both masters and servants have been often prejudiced, Be it therefore enacted and confirmed for prevention of future controversies of the like nature, that such servants as shall be imported haveing no indentures or convenants either men or women if they be above twenty year old to serve fowre year, if they shall be above twelve and under twenty to serve five years, And if under twelve to serve seaven years.

FURTHER READING

“An Acte towching dyvers Orders for Artificers Laborers Servantes of Husbandrye and Apprentises” (1563) Laws Concerning Indentured Servants (1619) 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) “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. Law Regulating Indentured Servants (1643). (2020, December 07). In Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/law-regulating-indentured-servants-1643.
MLA Citation:
General Assembly. "Law Regulating Indentured Servants (1643)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. 05 Jun. 2023
Last updated: 2020, December 07
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