was the owner of an African apprentice whose indenture was to remain in force for twenty-eight years. Among the laborers of Mr. George Light was a negro who had come into Virginia a free man, and bound himself out for a period of five.2

Upon the close of the negro's term, he was entitled to the same quantity of clothing and corn as the white servant. Independent provision was often made for him in the indenture itself. In 1685, William, the son of a mulatto woman named Katharine Sewell, was apprenticed to William Booth of York for a period of thirty years, Booth agreeing not only to supply him with the usual quantity of food and raiment, and to provide him with the customary lodging, but also on his reaching his fourteenth year, to give him a heifer, whose increase was to be carefully preserved for his benefit until his term expired. In some cases, the negro servant was permitted to raise hogs on condition that he turn over to his master one-half of the amount obtained from their sale.4

There is no reason to think that the negro servant was appraised lower in inventories than the white. His labor was equally as valuable, and he was probably much more easily controlled, an element of special advantage in employing him.

There were found in Virginia in the seventeenth century a number of persons of Turkish blood, who had been imported like English laborers under the terms of ordinary indentures. One of the head rights which Francis Yeardley, in 1647, gave in to obtain a patent to land in Lower Norfolk was acquired by his importation of Simon, who was

1 Records of General Court, p. 119.

2 Ibid., p. 161.

3 Records of York County, vol. 1684-1687, p. 61, Va. State Library.

4 General Court Orders, March 31, 1641, Robinson Transcripts, p. 30.

of Turkish nationality.1 Jonathan Newell of York County owned four Turkish servants, whose value was placed at the very high figure of ninety-five pounds sterling. The inventory of the estate of George Jones of Rappahannock included a Turk whose term had still seven years to run. In the last decade of the century, a suit was entered in York by Mathew Catillah, probably an Algerian, for the recovery of his freedom, his mistress retaining him beyond his twenty-fourth year.3

The greater number of the Indian servants were children, many of whom were of a very tender age, the explanation of this circumstance lying in the fact that Indian parents were always at liberty to bind out their offspring as apprentices. Doubtless, too, it was recognized by the planters that the younger the Indian, the greater the probability that he might be educated to become tractable and useful. The grown persons of the race, when reduced to this condition, were in most cases unmanageable, and hardly worth the constant attention required to control them. In every agreement which an Indian parent in disposing of his son or daughter entered into, a covenant had to be inserted providing that the child should be instructed in the Christian religion. The contract, as a whole, was to be sworn to before two justices of the peace in order to exclude the possibility of collusion.* The regulation was established and strictly enforced that

1 Records of Lower Norfolk, original vol. 1646-1651, f. p. 50. A Turk was imported by George Menefie in 1635. See Va. Land Patents, vol. I, p. 200.

2 Records of York County, vol. 1675–1684, p. 142, Va. State Library.

8 Ibid., vol. 1694–1697, p. 135, Va. State Library. References to Portuguese servants will be found in Records of York County, vol. 1687-1691, p. 558, Va. State Library, and in Records of Northampton County, original vol. 1664-1674, f. p. 138.

* Hening's Statutes, vol. I, p. 410.

all Indian children who had been obtained by the planters with the assistance of Indian kidnappers, or who had been procured from their fathers directly by means of fraud, and then held, on the claim that they had been purchased for an adequate consideration, were to be returned to the place to which they belonged within ten days after it had been shown that they had been wrongfully acquired.1 The master of a young Indian was not permitted to carry him out of the country until the local court had received satisfactory evidence that the consent of his parents had been obtained.2 Youthful servants of this race were ordered to be brought before that body to have their age inquired into and adjudged, so that they might be included among the tithables, if they had reached the degree of maturity prescribed.

In his relation to his master, the Indian servant stood upon precisely the same footing as the white; he too was held strictly to the observance of his obligation to work, and he also could not be retained longer than the legal period. In some particulars, the law was more unbending in the case of an Indian than of a white person, since it was desirable to avoid all causes of conflict with the neighboring tribes. No servant of aboriginal blood could be owned without a special license from the Governor, and his master had to place himself under bonds to be responsible for all injuries and damages which he might

1 Hening's Statutes, vol. I, pp. 481, 482.

2 Ibid., p. 546.

* The master was required, as in the case of white and negro servants, to supply the Indian with proper clothing, food, and shelter. The provision in the matter of garments made for one of the Indian servants of William Randolph of Henrico County, in 1696, was one leather and one cotton waistcoat, one pair of leather breeches, one pair of shoes, and one pair of stockings. Original vol. 1677-1699, Orders, Oct. 1, 1696, p. 124.

inflict. Unlike members of the same sex among the whites, the women of the race whose ages exceeded sixteen years were held to be tithable whether they were employed in the field or not, and in this they occupied the same position as negresses. The value of the Indian servant, whether male or female, did not differ materially from that of the English or African.

1

1 Hening's Statutes, vol. II, p. 492.

CHAPTER XI

SYSTEM OF LABOR: THE SLAVE

THE introduction of the African into Virginia was an event that was certain to occur in time. The institution of slavery sprang up there under the operation of an irresistible economic law, and was to continue in undiminished vigor until it vanished in the conflagration of battle. A few negroes doubtless would have been brought into the Colony in the seventeenth century even if its soil had been incapable of producing tobacco. In this respect, the history of New England would have been repeated. The enlargement of the area under cultivation in that plant in Virginia signified an enormous increase in the number of imported slaves as soon as the proper facilities for their transportation had been established; it was not until the last quarter of the seventeenth century was reached that these facilities had been established on a scale fairly commensurate with the demand for labor in the Colony. The institution of slavery played there but an insignificant part in the course of the greater portion of this century, not because the African was looked on as an undesirable element in the local industrial system, but because the means of obtaining the individuals of this race were very limited. The value of the negro as an agricultural factor was clearly understood. The strongest competitors of Virginia in the production of its principal commodity were the Spanish Colonies in the South, where the plant was culti