Read the following excerpt from a 1662 Virginia colonial statute:
"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 held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother..."
Which of the following legal concepts was established by this statute?
- The doctrine of partus sequitur ventrem, which legally defined a child's status by the status of the motherCevap
- BThe legal rule that status was inherited from the father, protecting children of English settlers from enslavement
- CThe immediate establishment of a fully developed system of racialized chattel slavery upon initial settlement in 1619
- DThe statutory distinction between temporary flight and the creation of independent maroon communities
Cevap
The doctrine of partus sequitur ventrem, which legally defined a child's status by the status of the mother
The correct option is correct because the 1662 Virginia law established the doctrine of partus sequitur ventrem ('that which is born follows the womb'), which legally declared that a child's status (enslaved or free) was determined by the status of their mother. This statutory change departed from English common law, which traditionally tracked status through the father, and systematically institutionalized hereditary chattel slavery, directly targeting enslaved Black women by making their reproductive labor a source of property for enslavers.
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Anahtar Kavram
Partus sequitur ventrem and the gendered legal construction of hereditary slavery
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