# data[].attributes.body
growth there that sent the number of Englishmen from perhaps three million in 1500 to four-and-one-half million by 1650. The increase did not occur in response to any corresponding growth in the capacity of the island's economy to support its people.

# data[].attributes.body
1608 winter where the settlers were facing near-death conditions. the people are not laboring in agriculture and are therefore facing starving times.

# data[].attributes.headline
importance of labor (Proclamation of Edicts) 

# data[].attributes.subject
importance of labor (Proclamation of Edicts) 

# data[].attributes.body
1618 Law stating that men must grow crops among other things. Punishment was servitude.

# data[].attributes.body
the arrival of the first Africans in Virginia.

# data[].attributes.body
(1630) Things were getting better in the colony as Impoverished Englishmen were arriving every year in large numbers, engaged to serve the existing planters for a term of years, with the prospect of setting up their own households a few years later.

# data[].attributes.body
In 1630, the Virginia court decided that Hugh Davis was "to be soundly whipped before an aSsembly of negroes and others for abusing himself to the dishonor of God and the shame of Christianity by defiling his body in lying with a negro."

# data[].attributes.body
1640, conditions began to get better in the colony and people lived longer. It became harder for people to make a living. Laborers sought to extend contracts due to life expectancy. Many freemen finished their contract land and jobless.

# data[].attributes.body
In 1640, for example, the Virginia
legislature passed a law stating that masters should furnish arms to all men, "excepting negros."

# data[].attributes.body
By the 1650s, according to Alden T. Vaughan's count, 70 percent of the blacks in Virginia were serving as slaves.17

# data[].attributes.body
1656 Elizabeth Key argued that because her father was white she held the rights of a white woman and should therefore no longer be subject to slavery. She also argued that she was Christian and it was immoral to keep her a slave. She won her case.

# data[].attributes.body
In 1661, the Virginia Assembly began to institutionalize slavery, to
make it de jure. A law regarding the punishment of servants referred to
"those Negroes who are incapable of making satisfaction by addition
of time."

# data[].attributes.body
1661 a law concerning whites running away with Africans was passed. It stated that such practice was not tolerated and the punishment was more time served.

# data[].attributes.body
what: in the case of a child one of whose parents was free and one slave, the status of the offspring followed that of the mother.

# data[].attributes.body
(1660's) Again, in 1663, a Gloucester court accused nine "Laborers" of conspiring to overthrow the Virginia government and sentenced several of them to be executed.

# data[].attributes.body
In 1664, the Council of Foreign Plantations reported that the colony's population had been "increased principally by sending of Servants."

# data[].attributes.body
In 1667, Virginia declared that "the conferring of baptism does not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or freedom."

# data[].attributes.body
(1669) Eight years later, the Virginia legislature defined a slave as property, a part of the
owner's "estate.

# data[].attributes.body
But unruliness and discontent continued to grow. Fearing this landless class, the Virginia legislature restricted the suffrage to landowners in 1670.

# data[].attributes.body
(1675) Twenty-five years later, of the colony's approximately 32,000 inhabitants, they (Africans) totaled only 1,600, or 5 percent

# data[].attributes.body
1/4 of Virginia's freemen population were landless (1676)

# data[].attributes.body
"But Bacon's

call for the removal of all Indians from the colony, a

reduction of taxes at a time of economic recession, and

an end to rule by "grandees" rapidly gained support from

small farmers, landless men, indentured servants, and

even some Africans. The bulk of his army consisted of

discontented men who had recently been servants." - Foner

# data[].attributes.body
The Virginia government limited the liberties of their citizens as revolts became more frequent. They also started corporal punishment for servants who ran away, burned crops etc.

# data[].attributes.body
First, as historian Russell Menard noted, there was a decrease in the number of indentured servants migrating to Virginia after the 1670s.

# data[].attributes.body
Four years after Bacon's Rebellion, the Virginia Assembly repealed all penalties imposed on white servants for plundering during the revolt,

# data[].attributes.body
After 1680, they enacted laws that denied slaves freedom of assembly and movement.

# data[].attributes.body
In 1691, the Virginia Assembly passed a law that prohibited the "abominable mixture and spurious issue" of interracial unions and that provided for the banishment of white violators. The assembly took special aim at white women.

# data[].attributes.body
enslaved people made up the majority of the labor force in 1700

# data[].attributes.body
enacted a new slave code. Slaves were property, completely subject to the will of their masters and, more generally, of the white community.

# data[].attributes.body
In 1723, the assembly enacted a poor law that empowered county courts to punish "vagrants" by giving them thirty-nine lashes or by binding them out as servants.

# data[].attributes.body
the black population
of Virginia increased steeply to 9,000 and possibly even to 20,000 out of 63 ,ooo for the entire colony. Their proportion was around 25 percent in 1715 and over 40 percent by 1750.

# data[].attributes.body
the rise of slavery led to the rise of freedom for freemen. there were less indentured servants coming in, a more steady labor force, less class-clashing between freemen and landowners, and the freemen found their place in society.