Laws on Indentured Servants -Virginia

First recorded case of master-servant dispute

August 3, 1619

 [Indentured servants were an important part of the labor force in seventeenth-century Virginia. While their role as the primary source of bound labor would become increasingly less significant as the numbers of African slaves grew, there were a num ber of laws enacted throughout the seventeenth century that restricted both masters and servants. One of the first recorded cases of a servant/master dispute was recorded in the first meeting of the elected assembly at Jamestown.]

Captaine William Powell presented a pettition to the generall Assembly against one Thomas Garnett, a servant of his, not onely for extreame neglect of his business to the great loss and prejudice of the said Captaine, and for openly and impudently abus ing his house, in sight both of Master and Mistress, through wantonnes with a woman servant of theirs, a widdowe, but also for falsely accusing him to the Governor both of Drunkennes and Thefte, and besides for bringing all his fellow servants to testifie on his side, wherein they justly failed him. It was thought fitt by the general assembly (the Governour himself giving sentence), that he should stand fower dayes with his eares nayled to the Pillory, viz: Wednesday, Aug. 4thm and so likewise Thursday, fryday, and Satturday next following, and every of those dayes should be publiquely whipped.

Source: Tyler, Narratives of Early Virginia, 268.- Virtual Jamestown