Elizabeth Key Grinstead - Aftermath

Aftermath

As a result of the Elizabeth Key freedom suit (and similar challenges), in December 1662 the Virginia House of Burgesses passed a colonial law to clarify the status of the children of women of African descent. It required Negro women’s children to take the status of the mother, whether bond or free, using the principle of partus sequitur ventrum. The statute was a departure from the English tradition in which a child received his or her social status from his or her father. Some historians believe the law was based mostly in the economic demands of a colony that was short on labor; the law enabled slaveholders to control the children of women slaves as laborers. It also freed the fathers from acknowledging the children as theirs, providing support or arranging for apprenticeships, or emancipating them. Some white fathers did take an interest in their mixed-race children and passed on social capital, such as education or land; many others abandoned them.

Other English colonies (and later American states) passed similar laws, which defined all children born to slave mothers as slaves. If they had free white fathers, as many did under the power conditions of the time, the fathers had to take separate legal action to free their children. In the 19th century, the legislatures of the South made such manumissions more difficult and imposed legal restrictions on the rights of free blacks. While northern states began to abolish slavery in the early 19th century, only in 1865 did the 13th Amendment to the Constitution end slavery in the South and across the United States.