Existing comment:
Indentured or Enslaved?
Confusion exists about the status of Africans in early colonial Virginia. British culture had not yet institutionalized slavery, but it did have a system of indentured servitude -- contract labor for a set number of years. Rarely, servants of African descent gained their freedom.
Virginia society differentiated its bound laborers by race from the start. The first census in 1620 listed 885 English inhabitants (including white servants) and -- "in the service of the English" -- 32 "Negroes" and four "Indians." By the mid-1600s, racialized discrimination and lifetime bondage for black servants were codified into colonial law and daily practice. |