Justene Hill Edwards

slaves are sold to us we are not going out and pursuing slaves which was not true but it is in 1641 again in massachusetts not in a place like south carolina or virginia that slavery is is recognized within its laws

Now, this shifts to 1662 in Virginia.

We often think about slavery being inheritable, this idea that an enslaved child's status is based on the status of the father.

Well, this shifts from

fairly early on in American history, again, in 1662 in Virginia, there is an important law that essentially says that the status of the child follows the status not of the father, but of the mother.

And so if a child's mother was enslaved, then that child would be enslaved.

And if a child's father was not enslaved or free, then that child would be free.

And so what this means is that this makes slavery an inheritable status.

And increasingly, this recognizes the racialized status of the enslaved.

And so it means then, too, that slavery and the status of the enslaved is

is kind of made into an economic unit.

Slaves are made into a commodity.

And so it is really early on, again, in this process that we have these laws, both in Massachusetts and Virginia, that fundamentally structure how slavery evolves.

Yeah, I mean, it is.

I mean, this is a period of time.

And the question often comes up, well, there's Roman slavery, there was slavery in the ancient world.

Most civilizations had forms of slavery or kind of bonded labor.

But the kind of American or if we can call it Atlantic story has two main features that are really important.

One, the racialized aspect of slavery.

Slave status becomes affiliated with black skin or dark skin.