January 1662

Virginia statute declares that the status of a child follows the condition of the mother (partus sequitur ventrem), reversing English common law. Any child born of an enslaved woman is enslaved regardless of the father's status. This single law made slavery self-reproducing and made the rape of enslaved women economically profitable for enslavers.

The 1662 Virginia law establishing that children followed the condition of their mother (partus sequitur ventrem) created a direct economic incentive for the sexual violation of enslaved women: children born of such assaults became enslaved property of the slaveholder. Colonial records, court cases, and plantation inventories document the resulting pattern of sexual exploitation. Enslaved women had no legal recourse — rape by slaveholders was not recognized as a crime when committed against enslaved people. The law thus institutionalized rape as a mechanism of property accumulation, with enslaved women's reproductive capacity treated as an economic asset.