"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?
- The establishment of a hereditary system of chattel slaveryCevap
- BThe replacement of African labor with contract-bound European indentured servants
- CThe uniform adoption of plantation-style slave labor across both Chesapeake and New England colonies
- DThe enforcement of British mercantile policies designed to limit colonial agricultural production
Cevap
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.
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Anahtar Kavram
The legal codification of hereditary chattel slavery in the British colonies