If free Colored persons in the colony ever had the right of franchise, there is certainly no record of it.  We infer, however, from the act of 1723, that previous to that time they had exercised the voting privilege.  For that act declares “that no free negro shall hereafter have any vote at the election."[203] Perhaps they had had a vote previous to this time; but it is mere conjecture, unsupported by historical proof.  Being denied the right of suffrage did not shield them from taxation.  All free Negroes, male and female, were compelled to pay taxes.[204] They contributed to the support of the colonial government, and yet they had no voice in the government.  They contributed to the building of schoolhouses, but were denied the blessings of education.

Free Negroes were enlisted in the militia service, but were not permitted to bear arms.  They had to attend the trainings, but were assigned the most servile duties.[205] They built fortifications, pitched and struck tents, cooked, drove teams, and in some instances were employed as musicians.  Where free Negroes were acting as housekeepers, they were allowed to have fire-arms in their possession;[206] and if they lived on frontier plantations, as we have made mention already, they were permitted to use arms under the direction of their employers.

In a moral and religious sense, the slaves of the colony of Virginia received little or no attention from the Christian Church.  All intercourse was cut off between the races.  Intermarrying of whites and blacks was prohibited by severe laws.[207] And the most common civilities and amenities of life were frowned down when intended for a Negro.  The plantation was as religious as the Church, and the Church was as secular as the plantation.  The “white christians” hated the Negro, and the Church bestowed upon him a most bountiful amount of neglect.[208] Instead of receiving religious instruction from the clergy, slaves were given to them in part pay for their ministrations to the whites,—­for their “use and encouragement."[209] It was as late as 1756 before any white minister had the piety and courage to demand instruction for the slaves.[210] The prohibition against instruction for these poor degraded vassals is not so much a marvel after all.  For in 1670, when the white population was forty thousand, servants six thousand, and slaves two thousand, Sir William Berkeley, when inquired of by the home government as to the condition of education in the colony, replied:—­

“The same course that is taken in England out of towns,—­every man according to his ability instructing his children.  We have forty-eight parishes, and our ministers are well paid, and by my consent should be better if they would pray oftener and preach less.  But of all other commodities, so of this, the worst are sent us, and we had few that we could boast of, since the persecution of Cromwell’s tyranny drove divers worthy men hither.  But I