Brase’s Case

Abstract

This chapter reconsiders the foundations of slave law in Virginia in the years immediately following 1619. In contrast to prevailing trends in English law, the colonial experience in Virginia granted justices extensive discretion in the application of English legal traditions, and they used this discretion to craft a customary law of slavery long before the articulation of formal statutes regulating the treatment of enslaved people. This chapter offers a detailed case study of how this process worked by examining the case of Brase, an African man captured from a Spanish ship and brought to Virginia in 1625. It recovers the legal innovations that the justices developed to ensure that Brase would be held in bondage despite the lack of a formal law of slavery in Virginia.