Source:
[March 1661]
For restraint of the
filthy sin of fornication. Be it enacted that what man or woman soever shall commit fornication, he and she so offending, upon
proof thereof by confession or evidence shall pay each of them five hundred
pounds of tobacco fine, (a) to the use of the parish or parishes they dwell in,
and be bound to their good behavior, and be imprisoned until they find security
to be bound with them, and if they or either of them committing fornication as
aforesaid be servants then the masters of such servants so offending shall pay
the five hundred pounds of tobacco as aforesaid to the parish aforesaid, for
which the said servant shall serve half a year after
the time by indenture or custom is expired; and if the master shall refuse to
pay the fine then the servant shall be whipped; and if it happen a bastard
child to be gotten in such fornication then the woman if a servant in regard of
the loss and trouble to her master does sustain by her having a bastard shall
serve two years after her time by indenture is expired or pay two thousand
pounds of tobacco to her master besides the fine and punishment for committing
the offense and the reputed father to put in security to keep the child and
save the parish harmless.
[October 1661]
Women Servants got with
Child by Their Masters . . .
Whereas by act of
Assembly every women servant having a bastard is to serve two years, and later
experience show that some dissolute masters have gotten their maids with child,
and yet claim the benefit of their service, and on the contrary if a woman got
with child by her master should be freed from that service it might probably
induce such loose persons to lay all their bastards to their masters; it is
therefore thought fit and accordingly enacted, and be it enacted henceforward
that each women servant got with child by her master shall after her time by
indenture or custom is expired be by the churchwardens of the parish where she
lived when she was brought to bed of such bastard, sold for two years, and the
tobacco to be employed by the vestry for the use of the parish.
Negro Women's Children .
. .
Whereas some doubts have
arisen whether children got by any Englishman upon a negro women 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, And that if any Christian shall
commit fornication with a negro man or women, he or she so offending shall pay
double the fines imposed by the former act.
[April 1691]
. . . For prevention of
that abominable mixer and spurious issue which hereafter may increase in this
dominion, as well by negroes, mulattoes, and Indians intermarrying with
English, or other white women, as by their unlawful accompanying with one
another, Be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, and it is hereby enacted,
that for the time to come, what soever English or
other white man or woman being free shall intermarry with a negro, mulatto, or
Indian man or woman bond or free, shall within three months after such marriage
be banished and removed from this dominion forever, and that the justices of
each respective county within this dominion make their particular care, that
this act be put in effectual execution. And be it further enacted by the
authority aforesaid, and it is hereby by enacted, That if any English women
being free shall have a bastard child by any negro or mulatto, she pay the sum
of fifteen pounds sterling, within one month after such bastard child shall be
born, to the Church wardens of the parish where she shall be delivered of such
child, and in default of such payment she shall be taken into the possession of
the said Church wardens and disposed of for five years . . .