Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/115

 African women were frequently bequeathed to daughters to serve as their maids. It may be inferred from these facts that if the comparative rarity of female domestic slaves in the beginning was one of the causes leading to the inclusion of all negresses in the list of tithables, that cause ceased to operate by the time the last decade of the century had been reached, but the reasons prompting a desire to promote an increase in the number of the white female servants would still remain in force. It is not improbable, however, that the exemption of white women employed in household service from taxation, was due in the greatest measure to a wish on the part of the Assembly to encourage the withdrawal of all members of that sex and race from the field. By removing the tax from them when thus occupied and at the same time allowing it to remain on the negresses, engaged in the performance of household duties, it was made plainly to the interest of the planter to confine his choice of female domestic servants to individuals of his own color, and this was a consideration which only citizens of fortune could afford to overlook.

The testimony is contradictory as to whether the owner