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Question

Difficulty: EasyDevelopment of Chattel Slavery

"Whereas some doubts have arisen whether children got by any Englishman upon a Negro woman should be slave or free; Be it therefore enacted and declared by this present Grand Assembly, that all children born in this country shall be bond or free only according to the condition of the mother..."

— Virginia General Assembly, 1662

The legal change described in the excerpt contributed most directly to which of the following developments in the British North American colonies?

  1. The establishment of a hereditary system of chattel slaveryAnswer
  2. B
    The replacement of African labor with contract-bound European indentured servants
  3. C
    The uniform adoption of plantation-style slave labor across both Chesapeake and New England colonies
  4. D
    The enforcement of British mercantile policies designed to limit colonial agricultural production

Answer

The establishment of a hereditary system of chattel slavery
The correct answer is correct because the 1662 Virginia statute legally defined a child's legal status by the status of the mother. This legally secured a self-perpetuating labor force for plantation owners, formalizing hereditary chattel slavery where children born to enslaved women were born into slavery for life.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the primary source document excerpt.
The excerpt shows a 1662 Virginia law declaring that the status of children (whether free or enslaved) is determined by the status of their mother ('according to the condition of the mother').
Understanding the core legal mechanism introduced by the law is necessary to determine its long-term historical impact.
2
Connect the legal mechanism to colonial labor systems.
By linking enslaved status to the mother, the law ensured that slavery became a self-reproducing, generational institution.
Evaluating how this mechanism changed the nature of labor from temporary servitude to lifelong, hereditary bondage is key to identifying the correct development.
3
Match the analyzed impact to the correct historical term.
A system where enslaved status is permanent and passed down to children is defined as hereditary chattel slavery.
Matching the historical development to the correct conceptual definition identifies the correct answer.

Key Concept

The legal codification of hereditary chattel slavery in the British colonies
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Topics

Development of Chattel Slavery

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