Massachusetts and Virginia Anti-Miscegenation Laws of the 1660s

Several colonies enacted anti-miscegenation laws in the 1660s prohibiting marriage and sexual relations between white colonists and Black people. Virginia's 1662 law (which established partus sequitur ventrem) was accompanied by penalties for interracial unions; Maryland's 1664 law imposed servitude on English women who married Black men and enslaved their children. These laws served to enforce racial hierarchy, protect white male property rights in enslaved women's bodies, and prevent the formation of mixed-race free communities that might challenge the racial basis of slavery.