bought without any modification of the right to hold them for life. From this time, no discrimination was made in Virginia as to whether imported Africans had been baptized or not. If it happened that a negro who had been in the enjoyment of his freedom in a Christian country was brought into the Colony and sold for life, the person who was guilty of the act was compelled to forfeit double the amount which he had received in disposing of him. The adoption of this provision as a part of the fundamental law indicated that within the lines in which the institution of slavery operated, the General Assembly was determined that no injustice should be done to the negroes who could justly claim their freedom. This regulation was established by the revised code of 1705, but it reflected public sentiment in the latter part of the seventeenth century.[1]
The first dispute as to ownership in an individual negro seems to have arisen in 1625, when an African who had been captured by an English ship from the Spaniards was brought into the Chesapeake. The captain of the vessel died and the question arose as to the ownership of the negro. Did he belong to the heirs of the captain, to the sailors who manned the ship, or to the colonial authorities? The General Court, passing upon the merits of the case, decided that he should become the property of the Governor without regard to any expressed wish by the captain before his death, or any challenge on the part of the ship’s company. The reason for this decision was quite probably that the negro had been seized while the vessel was navigating in a public capacity, and being a prize of war, he belonged to the State and not to the individual.[2]
In the seventeenth century, the slave was classed as personal property and stood upon the same footing as
