tate. So, while this law of 1638 did not say that
Negroes _should_ be slaves, in designating those who were to enjoy the
rights of freemen, it excludes the Negro, and thereby fixes his
condition as a slave by implication. If he were not named as a
freeman, it was the intention of the law-makers that he should remain
a bondman,--the exception to an established rule of law.[418]

In subsequent Acts reference was made to "servants," "fugitives,"
"runaways," etc.; but the first statute in this colony establishing
slavery was passed in 1663. It was "_An Act concerning negroes and
other slaves_." It enacts section one:--

"All negroes or other slaves within the province, and all
negroes and other slaves to be hereafter imported into the
province, shall serve _durante vita_; and all children born
of any negro or other slave, shall be slaves as their
fathers were for the term of their lives."

Section two:--

"And forasmuch as divers freeborn _English_ women, forgetful
of their free condition, and to the disgrace of our nation,
do intermarry with negro slaves, by which also divers suits
may arise, touching the issue of such women, and a great
damage doth befall the master of such negroes, for
preservation whereof for deterring such free-born women from
such shameful matches, _be it enacted_, &c.: That whatsoever
free-born woman shall intermarry with any slave, from and
after the last day of the present assembly, shall serve the
master of such slave during the life of her husband; and
that all the issue of such free-born women, so married,
shall be slaves as their fathers were."

Section three:--

"And be it further enacted, that all the issues of
_English_, or other free-born women, that have already
married negroes, shall serve the master of their parents,
till they be thirty years of age and no longer."[419]

Section one is the most positive and sweeping statute we have ever
seen on slavery. It fixes the term of servitude for the longest time
man can claim,--the period of his earthly existence,--and dooms the
children to a service from which they were to find discharge only in
death. Section two was called into being on account of the
intermarriage of white women with slaves. Many of these women had been
indentured as servants to pay their passage to this country, some had
been sent as convicts, while still other