PRIMARY DOCUMENT

“Man Servants getting any bastard child to make satisfaction to the parish after their service ended” (1662)

ORIGINAL IMAGES

CONTEXT

In this law, “Man Servants getting any bastard child to make satisfaction to the parish after their service ended,” passed in its December 1662 session, the General Assembly addressed the problem of male indentured servants having children while under contract.

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), 2:168.

FULL TEXT

— page 168 —

Hening’s Statutes at Large, Volume 2, Page 168

WHEREAS by the present law of this country the punishment of a reputed father of a bastard child is the keeping the child and saving the parish harmlesse, and if it should happen the reputed father to be a servant who can noe way accomplish the penalty of that act, Be it enacted by the authority aforesaid that where any bastard child is gotten by a servant the parish shall take care to keepe the child during the time of the reputed fathers service by indenture or custome, and that after he is free the said reputed father shall make satisfaction to the parish.

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) “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) “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. “Man Servants getting any bastard child to make satisfaction to the parish after their service ended” (1662). (2020, December 07). In Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/man-servants-getting-any-bastard-child-to-make-satisfaction-to-the-parish-after-their-service-ended-1662.
MLA Citation:: General Assembly. "“Man Servants getting any bastard child to make satisfaction to the parish after their service ended” (1662)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. 29 Nov. 2023

Last updated: 2020, December 07

Feedback

“Man Servants getting any bastard child to make satisfaction to the parish after their service ended” (1662)

Sponsors

Partners & Affiliates

Indigenous Acknowledgment

Sponsors

Never Miss an Update

Follow Us

Partners & Affiliates

Indigenous Acknowledgment