The penalty for omitting a slave tithable was the loss of the slave.[1]
It is a striking fact that all negresses born in Virginia, when above sixteen years of age, were rated as tithable whether their labors were confined to the house or to the fields, differing very widely in this respect from the white female servants, who were not listed if the work they were called upon to perform was exclusively domestic.[2] There was an indisposition, as we have already seen, on the part of the planters to employ white women in agriculture, however great might be the demand for their assistance in the cultivation of tobacco at certain seasons, and it was only those individuals of the sex who were tarnished in reputation or slatternly in habits who were found engaged in this way. This discrimination between female servants and female slaves has been attributed to various causes. By some, it is thought to have been due to a desire in the colonial authorities to discourage the importation of negroes.[3] This reason seems to be untenable. It would appear to be more probable that the exemption of the white female domestic servants from taxation was at least partly designed to promote the introduction of white women without any reference to female slaves. The number of the former who were brought into Virginia under articles of indenture was necessarily smaller than the number of white men imported who were bound by
- ↑ Hartwell, Chilton, and Blair’s Present State of Virginia, 1697, p. 53.
- ↑ Hening’s Statutes, Vol. II, p. 296.
- ↑ This was the view of Mr. Bancroft, the historian.
remaining in their possession undisposed of: It is the opinion of the Court that the said Kennon and Pleasants ought not to pay levy for them this year, because the said negroes being goods belonging to merchants in England, ought not in any reasonable time to put them to more charge by taxes than other of their commodities imported hither.” Records of Henrico County, vol. 1682-1701, p. 81, Va. State Library.
