nation of her indentures.[1] By delivering five hundred pounds of the same commodity to the parish, her master could relieve her of the chastisement, and, in return, he had a right to claim of her a service of six months,[2] in addition to the two years prescribed by law. Katharine Higgins, of York, having borne a child out of wedlock, was ordered to receive thirty-nine lashes. To secure remission of this part of her punishment, John Page, her master, gave the vestrymen assurance that he would deliver to the parish the required amount of tobacco as a guarantee against loss in providing food and clothing for the bastard.[3] The punishment of whipping seems to have been also remitted in case the mother and the father appeared together in church at the time the congregation was assembled, both clothed in white sheets.[4] A bastard child remained in the service of the parish until his twenty-fourth year, being apprenticed under strict indentures.[5]
- ↑ Hening’s Statutes, vol. II, p. 115; Records of York County, vol. 1690-1694, p. 427, Va. State Library. See also Records of Accomac County, original vol. 1666-1670, f. p. 79.
- ↑ Hening’s Statutes, vol. II, p. 115; vol. III, p. 139.
- ↑ Records of York County, vol. 1684-1687, p. 7, Va. State Library.
- ↑ Records of Lower Norfolk County, original vol. 1644-1655, Feb. 16, 1645.
- ↑ Records of the General Court, p. 47. Records of Rappahannock County, vol. 1668-1672, pp. 60, 61; Va. State Library, contains an example of these indentures: “This indenture witnesseth that we the subscribers, Col. John Catlett and Capt. Thomas Hawkins, two of his majesty’s Justices of the Peace for Rappahannock County, do hereby covenant, promise and agree to and with William Hodgson of the same county, planter, that Nicholas Willard, a bastard child, begotten on the body of Katharine Jones by Nicholas Willard, late of aforesaid county, decd, shall from henceforth become a servant to the above said Hodgson, his heirs and assigns, until the said Nicholas attains to the age of 20 years fully to be completed and ended, and, as soon as God shall enable him, the said Hodgson, to serve his heirs or assigns in such service and employment as
