Virginia rules that Christian baptism does not free an enslaved person

Eleven Black residents petitioned for freedom for themselves and their families, citing decades of service and asking for land. The Dutch authorities granted conditional freedom while keeping their...

The assembly passed a law that purported to limit service to ten years or age twenty-four. The law was weakly enforced and the colony continued slave trading and slaveholding. The gap between...

The English conquest brought Jamaica into an expanding plantation empire. Enslaved Africans and Indigenous people were forced into labor under changing imperial rulers, while Spanish-speaking and...

Barbados enacted a law for the “better ordering and governing” of enslaved Africans. It made racialized hereditary slavery a state-enforced institution, restricted movement and testimony, and...

The statute made children’s legal status follow that of their mother, securing hereditary slavery for children born to enslaved women. It converted sexual violence and family separation into an...

Charles II chartered the Royal African Company, giving it a privileged role in English trade with West Africa. The company transported captive Africans and traded commodities, while royal and elite...

The ordinance regulated slavery and racial hierarchy in French colonies, including the Caribbean. It mandated Catholicism and set rules governing enslaved people while affirming slaveholders’...

Four Germantown Quakers submitted a petition questioning the morality of buying and selling people. Written amid Quaker participation in slaveholding, the protest challenged the practice through...

Parliament ended the Royal African Company’s exclusive privilege and opened English trafficking to independent merchants. Competition increased the scale of forced transportation, while state policy...

The statute defined enslaved Africans and their descendants as property and restricted movement, testimony, and legal recourse. It entrenched racialized status in colonial law and helped make...