Paul,
Thank you for clarifying that for me.
Anita
>From: Paul Heinegg <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
> <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Indian servants & the Courts
>Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 17:47:13 -0500
>
>Both white and mixed-race children were bound out by the Virginia courts.
>White boys til twenty-one and white girls in some colonies to 16 and in
>others to 18 years. If the mother was a servant, she had to serve extra
>time for "the trouble of her master's house" and receive lashes or pay a
>fine for the offense. Sometimes her master would agree to an additional
>year of service in return for payment of the fine.
>
>A special law of 1691 ordered the mixed-race children of white women bound
>out for thirty years (later thirty-one if I remember correctly) and the
>woman was to pay 15 pounds currency or be sold for 5 years. Servant women
>could not pay 15 pounds currency, so they were sold, often to their former
>master. It was clearly a punishment.
>
>In Maryland white women were sold for 7 years, but it did not deter
>hundreds of them from having mixed-race children. At least one woman was
>sold for 28 years.
>Paul
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