Virginia

         Even the offspring of slaves also were born into a lifetime of slavery, as in 1661, Virginia passed a law that made the status of the mother determine slave or free status of the child.Increasingly toward the end of the 17th century, large numbers of slaves from Africa were brought by English ships to the colony of Virginia. On the large tobacco plantations,property), they replaced indentured servants (who were only obligated to work for an agreed period of time) as field labor, as well as serving as household and skilled workers. As slaves, they were not working by mutual agreement, nor for a limited period of time. In time the practice of slavery became an economic factor for the labor-intensive tobacco and cotton plantations of the South.