Virginia 1668 Act: Free Black Women Remain Taxable as Laborers

Virginia's 1668 Act declared that free Black women, even if freed from slavery, remained subject to taxation as laborers, unlike free white women who were exempt. The law stated that 'negroe women, though permitted to enjoy their freedome' should still 'ought not in all respects to be admitted to a full fruition of the exemptions and impunities of the English.' This codified the principle that even freedom did not grant Black people the full legal status of white colonists, creating a permanent legal second-class status for free Black people.