As touching the business of planting come this present Assembly doth ordaine that yeare by yeare all & every householder and householders have in store for every servant he or they shall keep, and also for his or their owne persons, whether they have any Servants or no, one spare barrell of come, to be delivered out yearly, either upon sale or exchange as need shall require.  For the neglecte of w^ch duty he shalbe subject to the censure of the Governr and Counsell of Estate.  Provided always that the first yeare of every newe man this lawe shall not be of force....

All ministers shall duely read divine service, and exercise their ministerial function according to the Ecclesiastical lawes and orders of the churche of Englande, and every Sunday in the afternoon shall Catechize suche as are not yet ripe to come to the Com.  And whosoever shalbe found negligent or faulty in this kinde shalbe subject to the censure of the Governor and Counsell.

All persons whatsoever upon the Sabaoth daye shall frequente divine service and sermons both forenoon and afternoon, and all suche as beare arms shall bring their pieces, swordes, poulder and shotte.  And every one that shall transgresse this lawe shall forfaicte three shillings a time to the ues of the churche, all lawful and necessary impediments excepted.  But if a servant in this case shall wilfully neglecte his M^r’s he shall suffer bodily punishmente.

No maide or woman servant, either now resident in the Colonie or hereafter to come, shall contract herselfe in marriage w^th_out either the consente of her parents, or of her M^r or M^ris, or of the magistrat and minister of the place both together.  And whatsoever minister shall marry or contracte any suche persons w^th_out some of the foresaid consentes shalbe subjecte to the severe censure of the Governr and Counsell of Estate...

In sume Sir George Yeardley, the Governor prorogued the said General Assembly till the firste of Marche, which is to fall out this present yeare of 1619, and in the mean season dissolved the same.

    [1] This account is taken from the official report of the assembly,
    of which Twine was clerk.  It is printed in the “Colonial Records of
    Virginia,” and in Hart’s “American History Told by Contemporaries.”

THE ORIGIN OF NEGRO SLAVERY IN AMERICA

I

IN THE WEST INDIES

(1518)

BY SIR ARTHUR HELPS[1]

The outline of Las Casas’[2] scheme was as follows:  The King was to give to every laborer willing to emigrate to Espanola his living during the journey from his place of abode to Seville, at the rate of half a real a day throughout the journey, for great and small, child and parent.  At Seville the emigrants were to be lodged in the Casa de la Contratacion (the India House), and were to have from eleven to thirteen maravedis