[Footnote 1:  Hening:  Statutes, II, 170.]

The slave had none of the ordinary rights of citizenship; in a criminal case he could be arrested, tried, and condemned with but one witness against him, and he could be sentenced without a jury.  In Virginia in 1630 one Hugh Davis was ordered to be “soundly whipped before an assembly of Negroes and others, for abusing himself to the dishonor of God and the shame of Christians, by defiling his body in lying with a Negro."[1] Just ten years afterwards, in 1640, one Robert Sweet was ordered “to do penance in church, according to the laws of England, for getting a Negro woman with child, and the woman to be whipped."[2] Thus from the very beginning the intermixture of the races was frowned upon and went on all the same.  By the time, moreover, that the important acts of 1661 and 1662 had formally sanctioned slavery, doubt had arisen in the minds of some Virginians as to whether one Christian could legitimately hold another in bondage; and in 1667 it was definitely stated that the conferring of baptism did not alter the condition of a person as to his bondage or freedom, so that masters, freed from this doubt, could now “more carefully endeavor the propagation of Christianity.”  In 1669 an “act about the casual killing of slaves” provided that if any slave resisted his master and under the extremity of punishment chanced to die, his death was not to be considered a felony and the master was to be acquitted.  In 1670 it was made clear that none but freeholders and housekeepers should vote in the election of burgesses, and in the same year provision was taken against the possible ownership of a white servant by a free Negro, who nevertheless “was not debarred from buying any of his own nation.”  In 1692 there was legislation “for the more speedy prosecution of slaves committing capital crimes”; and this was reenacted in 1705, when some provision was made for the compensation of owners and when it was further declared that Negro, mulatto, and Indian slaves within the dominion were “real estate” and “incapable in law to be witnesses in any cases whatsoever”; and in 1723 there was an elaborate and detailed act “directing the trial of slaves committing capital crimes, and for the more effectual punishing conspiracies and insurrections of them, and for the better government of Negroes, mulattoes, and Indians, bond or free.”  This last act specifically stated that no slave should be set free upon any pretense whatsoever “except for some meritorious services, to be adjudged and allowed by the governor and council.”  All this legislation was soon found to be too drastic and too difficult to enforce, and modification was inevitable.  This came in 1732, when it was made possible for a slave to be a witness when another slave was on trial for a capital offense, and in 1744 this provision was extended to civil cases as well.  In 1748 there was a general revision of all existing legislation, with special provision against attempted insurrections.