The 1681 Act achieved its purpose of providing an economic discouragement to the practice
of masters who had induced female servants to marry slaves in order to increase the woman's term
of service and enslave her children under the 1664 Act. Its repeal of the 1664 Act, however, left the
statutes silent on a variety of issues. The preamble to the 1681 Act repeated the condemnation of
white women marrying "Negroes & Slaves," stating it was "always to the Satisfaction of theire
Lascivious & Lustful desires, & to the disgrace not only of the English but also of many other
Christian nations," yet it imposed no sanction on such behavior. It freed the servant who married
a slave with her master's permission, but said nothing about the servant who acted against her
master's will. Perhaps it was assumed that servants could not avoid their master's control - a dubious
factual assumption, but possibly a legally accurate one if a servant was unable to enter a binding
contract without permission of the master. In any event, the free woman who married a slave was
no longer covered by statute and her issue would likely then be free also. The statute thus operated
to encourage interracial marriages, providing a real incentive for the white woman servant to marry
a slave.

During the decade of the 1680s slavery finally replaced bound servitude as the primary form
of bound labor.120 The expiration of the terms of existing servants coupled with a sharp decline in
servant immigration sharply reduced the number of indentured servants. The composition of the
white workforce that came also changed. Instead of young adult males from England, the English
agents now provided increasing numbers of women, youths, convicts and Irishmen.121 The slaves
who had come in previous decades of course remained in bound servitude while still larger numbers
arrived in the Chesapeake. The white population, including householders, tenants, and hired hands
as well as indentured servants, still outnumbered the black population by ten to one, but slavery was
growing in economic importance.122 White women were no longer quite as precious a matrimonial
resource, yet interracial marriage to avoid servitude combined with growing racial consciousness to
stir the legislature to action.

Shortly after the Glorious Revolution of 1689 placed William and Mary on the throne of
England, protestants in Maryland staged their own coup. The Maryland Revolution led to a period
of royal rather than proprietary rule which lasted until 1715. The change in government did not
result in marked changes in the law, but it took several years before the legislature resumed its
normal functions.123 The 1692 session found the legislature faced with a number of matters
involving negroes or mulattoes. Thomas Courtney was hailed before the upper house on a complaint
brought by his female mulatto servant. The girl was the child of an English woman and a Christian
slave, bound to serve Courtney under the law of 1664 until she reached the age of 31. Courtney
confessed that he had cut off her ears close to her head, arguing that she had engaged in thieving and
running away and had not responded to milder measures. He added that he acted "thinking that as
his Slave, he might do with her as he pleased."124 He was wrong. The Governor and Council were
outraged by his treatment of the girl. They demanded legislation not only to protect mulatto servants,
but to protect all slaves from such behavior.125 The response was a section in "An Act relating to
servants and slaves" which stated that if any master or mistress or overseer with their permission
dismembered or cauterized a slave, the Justices of the County Court could free the slave. The Act
specifically freed Courtney's mulatto servant. It further stated that, if a master denied "any English

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