Partus sequitur ventrum
Encyclopedia
Partus sequitur ventrem, often abbreviated to partus, in the British North America
n colonies and later in the United States
, was a legal doctrine
which the English colonists incorporated in legislation
related to definitions of slavery
. It was derived from the Roman civil law
; it held that the status of a child followed that of his or her mother. It was widely adopted into the laws of slavery in the colonies
and the following United States. The Latin
phrase literally means "that which is brought forth follows the womb".
had held that among English subjects, a child's status was inherited from its father, based on the concept that a married couple were a unit headed by the father. The community could require the father to acknowledge illegitimate children and support them, and to arrange for apprenticeship
s so the children were assured of learning a means of self-support. Courts wanted the fathers to take responsibility so the community did not have to support the children.
In 1658 Elizabeth Key
was the first woman of African descent to bring a freedom suit in the Virginia colony, seeking recognition as a free woman of color
, rather than being classified as a Negro (African) and slave. Her natural father was an Englishman
(and member of the House of Burgesses). He had acknowledged her, had had her baptized as a Christian
in the Church of England
, and had arranged for her guardianship under an indenture before his death. Her guardian returned to England and sold the indenture to another man, who held Key beyond its term. When he died, the estate classified Key and her child (also the son of an English subject) as Negro slaves. Aided by a young English lawyer working as an indentured servant
on the plantation, Key sued for her freedom and that of her infant son. She won her case. The legal scholar Taunya Lovell-Banks suggests the early cases in the colonies dealing with mixed-race children of ethnic Africans had more to do with determining "subjecthood" than modern ideas about race or citizenship. English colonists were considered subjects of the Crown, but Africans and others, in England and the colonies at the time, were considered foreigners and not eligible for the rights of subjects. The colonies had no process for naturalizing them as subjects, and citizenship had not been fully defined. The courts struggled to define the status of children born to couples of whom one was an English subject and the other a foreigner.
The demands of labor led to more importation of African slaves as the number of indentured servants declined in the late seventeenth century, related to conditions both in England and the colonies. The legal doctrine of partus was part of colonial law passed in 1662 by the Virginia House of Burgesses, and by other colonies soon after. It held that "all children borne in this country shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother..." As at the time most bond women were African and considered foreigners, their children likewise were considered foreigners and removed from consideration as English subjects. The racial distinction made it easier to identify them as other. The principle became incorporated into state laws when the colonies achieved independence from Great Britain.
Some historians suggest the partus doctrine was based in the economic needs of a colony with perpetual labor shortages. Conditions were difficult, mortality was high, and the government was having difficulty attracting sufficient numbers of indentured servants.. The change also gave cover to the power relationships by which white planters, their sons and/or overseers took advantage of enslaved women. Their illegitimate mixed-race children were "confined" to slave quarters unless fathers took specific legal actions on their behalf. The new law in 1662 meant that white fathers were no longer required to legally acknowledge, support, or emancipate their illegitimate children by slave women. Men could sell their issue or put them to work.
Given the prevalence of white males' taking advantage of women slaves, the law resulted in numerous slaves of mixed-race and primarily European ancestry, as European visitors noted in Virginia by the eighteenth century. Such was the case in the household of Thomas Jefferson
's Monticello
. Among the more than 100 slaves his wife inherited after the death of her father John Wayles
in 1773 were the eleven mixed-race members of the Hemings family: Betty Hemings
was the daughter of an enslaved African woman and an English sea captain. Her six children from a 12-year relationship with the widower Wayles were three-quarters white, and half-siblings to Jefferson's wife Martha Wayles.
Most historians now believe that the young widower Jefferson, still only in his 40s, repeated this pattern, taking his mixed-race slave Sally Hemings
as his concubine. Half-sister to his late wife, she was the youngest of Betty's children by Wayles. They were believed to have a 38-year, monogamous, stable relationship; and Jefferson fathered her six children, four of whom survived to adulthood. With seven-eighths European ancestry, they were legally white under Virginia law of the time, although born into slavery. Three of the four entered white society as adults, and some of them and their descendants disappeared into history.
Along the Gulf Coast in Latin colonies, there arose an elite class of free people of color
who were light-skinned, especially in New Orleans, Savannah
and Charleston
. Many became educated and owned property; some held slaves.
In the two decades after the Revolution, numerous slaveholders in the Upper South were moved by its ideals to free their slaves, so that the percentage of free blacks
rose from less than one percent in 1780 to more than 10 percent by 1810. In Virginia 7.2 percent of the population were free blacks by 1810. In Delaware three-quarters of the blacks were free by 1810. Soon the demand for slave labor increased as cotton cultivation expanded, and manumission
s dropped markedly. Virginia and other state legislatures in the early nineteenth century made manumissions more difficult to obtain.
The author Mary Chesnut notably wrote of her South Carolina society at the time of the Civil War,
, an English actress married to an American planter
in the antebellum era, wrote about the disgrace of elite white fathers' abandoning their mixed-race children in her Journal of a Residence on a Georgia Plantation in 1838-1839. She did not publish the book until 1863.
In the antebellum years, not all white fathers abandoned their children by slave or free black mistresses. Some lived in common-law relationships with slave women, protecting them and their children by manumission when possible, by passing on property to them, or by arranging apprenticeships or education for the children, and sometimes settlement in the North. Some wealthy planters paid to have their mixed-race children educated in the North, in colleges such as Oberlin
, which was open to all races. By 1860, most of the 200 subscription students at Wilberforce College
in southern Ohio, established in 1855 by the Methodist and African Methodist Episcopal churches for the education of black youths, were mixed-race, "natural" sons, whose education was paid for by their wealthy Southern planter fathers. These were exceptions to the many mixed-race children who were abandoned, but educated free people of color often became leaders of the abolition
ist movement, such as Robert Purvis
in Philadelphia, and of post-Civil War communities.
British North America
British North America is a historical term. It consisted of the colonies and territories of the British Empire in continental North America after the end of the American Revolutionary War and the recognition of American independence in 1783.At the start of the Revolutionary War in 1775 the British...
n colonies and later in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, was a legal doctrine
Legal doctrine
A legal doctrine is a framework, set of rules, procedural steps, or test, often established through precedent in the common law, through which judgments can be determined in a given legal case. A doctrine comes about when a judge makes a ruling where a process is outlined and applied, and allows...
which the English colonists incorporated in legislation
Legislation
Legislation is law which has been promulgated by a legislature or other governing body, or the process of making it...
related to definitions of slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
. It was derived from the Roman civil law
Civil law (legal system)
Civil law is a legal system inspired by Roman law and whose primary feature is that laws are codified into collections, as compared to common law systems that gives great precedential weight to common law on the principle that it is unfair to treat similar facts differently on different...
; it held that the status of a child followed that of his or her mother. It was widely adopted into the laws of slavery in the colonies
History of slavery in the United States
Slavery in the United States was a form of slave labor which existed as a legal institution in North America for more than a century before the founding of the United States in 1776, and continued mostly in the South until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in...
and the following United States. The Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
phrase literally means "that which is brought forth follows the womb".
History
Prior to the adoption of this doctrine in the English colonies in 1662, beginning in Virginia, English common lawCommon law
Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
had held that among English subjects, a child's status was inherited from its father, based on the concept that a married couple were a unit headed by the father. The community could require the father to acknowledge illegitimate children and support them, and to arrange for apprenticeship
Apprenticeship
Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships...
s so the children were assured of learning a means of self-support. Courts wanted the fathers to take responsibility so the community did not have to support the children.
In 1658 Elizabeth Key
Elizabeth Key Grinstead
Elizabeth Key Grinstead was the first woman of African ancestry in the North American colonies to sue for her freedom from slavery and win. Elizabeth Key won her freedom and that of her infant son John Grinstead on July 21, 1656 in the colony of Virginia. She sued based on the fact that her...
was the first woman of African descent to bring a freedom suit in the Virginia colony, seeking recognition as a free woman of color
Free people of color
A free person of color in the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, is a person of full or partial African descent who was not enslaved...
, rather than being classified as a Negro (African) and slave. Her natural father was an Englishman
Englishman
Englishman may refer to:*English people*Grey Partridge*Jason Englishman, Canadian rock music singer and guitarist*Jenny-Bea Englishman, real name of the Canadien singer Esthero*Erald Briscoe, reggae musician who records under the name Englishman...
(and member of the House of Burgesses). He had acknowledged her, had had her baptized as a Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
in the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
, and had arranged for her guardianship under an indenture before his death. Her guardian returned to England and sold the indenture to another man, who held Key beyond its term. When he died, the estate classified Key and her child (also the son of an English subject) as Negro slaves. Aided by a young English lawyer working as an indentured servant
Indentured servant
Indentured servitude refers to the historical practice of contracting to work for a fixed period of time, typically three to seven years, in exchange for transportation, food, clothing, lodging and other necessities during the term of indenture. Usually the father made the arrangements and signed...
on the plantation, Key sued for her freedom and that of her infant son. She won her case. The legal scholar Taunya Lovell-Banks suggests the early cases in the colonies dealing with mixed-race children of ethnic Africans had more to do with determining "subjecthood" than modern ideas about race or citizenship. English colonists were considered subjects of the Crown, but Africans and others, in England and the colonies at the time, were considered foreigners and not eligible for the rights of subjects. The colonies had no process for naturalizing them as subjects, and citizenship had not been fully defined. The courts struggled to define the status of children born to couples of whom one was an English subject and the other a foreigner.
The demands of labor led to more importation of African slaves as the number of indentured servants declined in the late seventeenth century, related to conditions both in England and the colonies. The legal doctrine of partus was part of colonial law passed in 1662 by the Virginia House of Burgesses, and by other colonies soon after. It held that "all children borne in this country shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother..." As at the time most bond women were African and considered foreigners, their children likewise were considered foreigners and removed from consideration as English subjects. The racial distinction made it easier to identify them as other. The principle became incorporated into state laws when the colonies achieved independence from Great Britain.
Some historians suggest the partus doctrine was based in the economic needs of a colony with perpetual labor shortages. Conditions were difficult, mortality was high, and the government was having difficulty attracting sufficient numbers of indentured servants.. The change also gave cover to the power relationships by which white planters, their sons and/or overseers took advantage of enslaved women. Their illegitimate mixed-race children were "confined" to slave quarters unless fathers took specific legal actions on their behalf. The new law in 1662 meant that white fathers were no longer required to legally acknowledge, support, or emancipate their illegitimate children by slave women. Men could sell their issue or put them to work.
Given the prevalence of white males' taking advantage of women slaves, the law resulted in numerous slaves of mixed-race and primarily European ancestry, as European visitors noted in Virginia by the eighteenth century. Such was the case in the household of Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
's Monticello
Monticello
Monticello is a National Historic Landmark just outside Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was the estate of Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence, third President of the United States, and founder of the University of Virginia; it is...
. Among the more than 100 slaves his wife inherited after the death of her father John Wayles
John Wayles
John Wayles was a planter, slave trader and lawyer in the Virginia Colony. He is historically best known as the father-in-law of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States....
in 1773 were the eleven mixed-race members of the Hemings family: Betty Hemings
Betty Hemings
Elizabeth "Betty" Hemings was an American enslaved woman of mixed race, who in 1761 became the concubine of the planter John Wayles of Virginia. He had become a widower for the third time. He had six children with her over a 12-year period...
was the daughter of an enslaved African woman and an English sea captain. Her six children from a 12-year relationship with the widower Wayles were three-quarters white, and half-siblings to Jefferson's wife Martha Wayles.
Most historians now believe that the young widower Jefferson, still only in his 40s, repeated this pattern, taking his mixed-race slave Sally Hemings
Sally Hemings
Sarah "Sally" Hemings was a mixed-race slave owned by President Thomas Jefferson through inheritance from his wife. She was the half-sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson by their father John Wayles...
as his concubine. Half-sister to his late wife, she was the youngest of Betty's children by Wayles. They were believed to have a 38-year, monogamous, stable relationship; and Jefferson fathered her six children, four of whom survived to adulthood. With seven-eighths European ancestry, they were legally white under Virginia law of the time, although born into slavery. Three of the four entered white society as adults, and some of them and their descendants disappeared into history.
Along the Gulf Coast in Latin colonies, there arose an elite class of free people of color
Free people of color
A free person of color in the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, is a person of full or partial African descent who was not enslaved...
who were light-skinned, especially in New Orleans, Savannah
Savannah
Savannah or savanna is a type of grassland.It can also mean:-People:* Savannah King, a Canadian freestyle swimmer* Savannah Outen, a singer who gained popularity on You Tube...
and Charleston
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...
. Many became educated and owned property; some held slaves.
In the two decades after the Revolution, numerous slaveholders in the Upper South were moved by its ideals to free their slaves, so that the percentage of free blacks
Free people of color
A free person of color in the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, is a person of full or partial African descent who was not enslaved...
rose from less than one percent in 1780 to more than 10 percent by 1810. In Virginia 7.2 percent of the population were free blacks by 1810. In Delaware three-quarters of the blacks were free by 1810. Soon the demand for slave labor increased as cotton cultivation expanded, and manumission
Manumission
Manumission is the act of a slave owner freeing his or her slaves. In the United States before the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished most slavery, this often happened upon the death of the owner, under conditions in his will.-Motivations:The...
s dropped markedly. Virginia and other state legislatures in the early nineteenth century made manumissions more difficult to obtain.
The author Mary Chesnut notably wrote of her South Carolina society at the time of the Civil War,
"This only I see: like the patriarchs of old our men live all in one house with their wives and their concubines, the MulattoFanny KembleMulattoMulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...
es one sees in every family exactly resemble the white children—every lady tells you who is the father of all the Mulatto children in every body's household, but those in her own, she seems to think drop from the clouds or pretends so to think..."
Fanny Kemble
Frances Anne Kemble , was a famous British actress and author in the early and mid nineteenth century.-Youth and acting career:...
, an English actress married to an American planter
Plantations in the American South
Plantations were an important aspect of the history of the American South, particularly the antebellum .-Planter :The owner of a plantation was called a planter...
in the antebellum era, wrote about the disgrace of elite white fathers' abandoning their mixed-race children in her Journal of a Residence on a Georgia Plantation in 1838-1839. She did not publish the book until 1863.
In the antebellum years, not all white fathers abandoned their children by slave or free black mistresses. Some lived in common-law relationships with slave women, protecting them and their children by manumission when possible, by passing on property to them, or by arranging apprenticeships or education for the children, and sometimes settlement in the North. Some wealthy planters paid to have their mixed-race children educated in the North, in colleges such as Oberlin
Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...
, which was open to all races. By 1860, most of the 200 subscription students at Wilberforce College
Wilberforce College
Wilberforce College is a further education Sixth Form College in Hull, England.-External links:*...
in southern Ohio, established in 1855 by the Methodist and African Methodist Episcopal churches for the education of black youths, were mixed-race, "natural" sons, whose education was paid for by their wealthy Southern planter fathers. These were exceptions to the many mixed-race children who were abandoned, but educated free people of color often became leaders of the abolition
Abolition
Abolish means to put an end to something or to stop something.Abolition may refer to:*Abolitionism *Abolition of death penalty *Abolition of monarchy*Prison abolition movement...
ist movement, such as Robert Purvis
Robert Purvis
Robert Purvis was an African-American abolitionist in the United States. He was born in Charleston, South Carolina, educated at Amherst College, and lived most of his life in Philadelphia. Purvis and his brothers were three-quarters European by ancestry and inherited considerable wealth from...
in Philadelphia, and of post-Civil War communities.
See also
- Freedom of wombsFreedom of wombsFreedom of wombs was a judicial principle applied in several countries in South America in the 19th century which automatically freed slaves' children at their birth, rather than becoming the property of the parents' owners.-By country:A movement for American freedom from Spain grew in the...
- Law of the Free Womb
- Sally MillerSally Miller (American slave)Sally Miller, born Salomé Müller , was an American slave whose freedom suit in Louisiana was based on her claimed status as a free German immigrant and indentured servant. The case attracted wide attention and publicity because of the issue of "white" slavery. In Sally Miller v...