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 giving birth to a bastard whose father was a negro or a mulatto was stern and emphatic. As has been previously stated, if she were free she was required to pay fifteen pounds sterling, and if unable to do this, she was delivered into the hands of the church wardens of the parish and sold for a period of five years. If, however, she was not in the enjoyment of her freedom, but was a servant whose term had not expired, as soon as it came to an end she was disposed of by the wardens for the same length of time. Her child was appropriated by the parish until he or she was thirty years of age. In addition, the white mothers of negro bastards were frequently taken to the county seat and there publicly whipped by the sheriff. In some cases, the court directed that if such a woman after securing her freedom remained in the county, she was to be banished to the West Indies.

It is no ground for surprise that in the seventeenth century there were instances of criminal intimacy between white women and negroes. Many of the former had only recently arrived from England, and were, therefore, comparatively free from the race prejudice that was so likely