Page:A dissertation on slavery - with a proposal for the gradual abolition of it, in the state of Virginia. (IA dissertationonsl00tuckrich).pdf/36

 labour was not long peculiar to the Spaniards, being afterwards adopted by other European colonies: and though some attempts have been made to stop its progress in most of the United States, and several of them have the fairest prospects of success in attempting the extirpation of it, yet in others, it hath taken such deep root, as to require the most strenuous exertions to eradicate it.

The first introduction of Negroes into Virginia happened, as we have already mentioned, in the year 1620; from that period to the year 1662 there is no compilation of our laws, in print, now to be met with. In the revision made in that year, we find an act declaring that no Englishman, trader, or other, who shall bring in any Indians as servants and assign them over to any other, shall sell them for slaves, nor for any other time than English of like age should serve by act of assembly. The succeeding session all children born in this country were declared to be bond, or free, according to the condition of the mother. In 1667 it was declared, “That the conferring of baptism doth not alter the condition of the person baptized, as to his bondage or freedom.” This was