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PRIMARY DOCUMENT

“What tyme Indians serve” (1670)

ORIGINAL IMAGES
Hening's Statutes at Large
CONTEXT

In this act, “What tyme Indians serve,” passed by the General Assembly in the session of October 1670, Virginia’s colonial government attempts to clarify the definitions of indentured servants and slaves.

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), 2:283.

FULL TEXT

— page 283 —
Hening's Statutes at Large

Hening’s Statutes at Large, Volume 2, Page 283

WHEREAS some dispute have arisen whither Indians taken in warr by any other nation, and by that nation that taketh them sold to the English, are servants for life or terme of yeares, It is resolved and enacted that all servants not being Christians imported into this colony by shipping shalbe slaves for their lives; but what shall come by land shall serve, if boyes or girls, untill thirty yeares of age, if men or women twelve years and no longer.

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October 1670
The General Assembly passes the act, "What tyme Indians serve," in an attempt to clarify the definitions of indentured servants and slaves.
CITE THIS ENTRY
APA Citation:
General Assembly. “What tyme Indians serve” (1670). (2020, December 07). In Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/what-tyme-indians-serve-1670.
MLA Citation:
General Assembly. "“What tyme Indians serve” (1670)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. 23 Sep. 2023
Last updated: 2020, December 07
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