Elizabeth Key Wins Freedom in Virginia Court

Elizabeth Key, the daughter of an enslaved African mother and a white English father, successfully sued for her freedom in a Virginia court in 1656, arguing that as a baptized Christian and the daughter of a free Englishman she could not be held in bondage. She won her case and married her attorney William Greensted, becoming one of the first people of African descent to win freedom through the colonial court system. Her victory prompted Virginia legislators to pass laws in 1662 explicitly making the status of a child follow the mother's status — directly codifying hereditary racial slavery in response to cases like hers.