Virginia Establishes Special Courts to Try Enslaved People (1692)

Virginia's 1692 act established special county courts to try enslaved people accused of capital crimes, without juries and with expedited procedures. Enslaved defendants were denied the procedural protections available to free persons. The courts could condemn enslaved people to death, with the colony compensating slaveholders for the 'loss of property.' This legal infrastructure institutionalized the treatment of enslaved people as property in criminal proceedings while creating mechanisms for violent suppression of resistance.