3 shall the issue hereafter to be borne of such marryage be bond or
free? yea or not105

The answer of the lower house made some effort to preserve existing rights from retrospective laws.

To the first whether free weomen marryed to Slaves shall be

Contrayned to serve during their husbands lives.   In the negative

To the 2.d issues already born of such marriages whether bond or free

To serve thirty years by the Major Vote.

To the last vizt the issues hereafter born &c. To serve likewise 30

years106

With this response, the upper house drafted and passed the first statute in the English colonies
providing for slavery by positive law.

"An Act Concerning Negroes & other Slaves"

Be it Enacted by the Right Honorable the Lord Proprietary by the advice and
Consent of the upper and lower house of this present General Assembly That all
Negroes or other slaves already within the Province shall serve Durante Vita And all
Children born of any Negro or other slave shall be Slaves as their fathers were for the
term of their lives And forasmuch as divers English women forgettful of their free
Condition and to the disgrace of our Nation do intermarry with Negro Slaves by
which also divers suits may arise touching the Issue of such women and a great
damage doth befall the Masters of such Negroes for prevention whereof for detering
such freebom women from such shameful Matches Be it further Enacted by the
Authority advice and Consent aforesaid That whatsoever free born woman shall inter
marry with any slave from and after the Last day of this present Assembly shall Serve
the master of such slave during the life of her husband And that all the Issue of such
freebom women so married shall be Slaves as their fathers were And Be it further
enacted that all the Issues of English or other freebom women that have already
married Negroes shall serve the Masters of their Parents till they be thirty years of
age and no longer.107

This statute did not create slavery, for the inhabitants of the Province clearly adopted that
institution long before 1664. hi view of the motives that prompted enactment, however, the statute
should be read as removing slavery from its ties to religion. Despite the references to the
shamefullness of intermarriage, it is not clear whether the shame is based on attitudes towards
negroes or towards marriage with a person having the status of slave. No punishment was decreed
for intermarriage with a free negro at this time, and the language applied to free born black women
who married slaves. There may have been so few free negroes that these issues were not considered.
The drafting is very imprecise, using negro and slave interchangeably at times although we know that
some negroes like Babtista had been free and later cases show that the statute did not operate to
enslave the rare black who came as an indentured servant.

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