How a seventeenth-century woman used English common law to win her freedom from slavery
In short: Elizabeth Key was born to an enslaved mother and a white planter father in colonial Virginia. Despite being held in servitude long past her contract, she leveraged her father's status and her own Christian baptism to challenge the legal foundations of slavery in a landmark 1665 court victory.
Born around 1630 or 1632, Elizabeth Key was the daughter of Thomas Key, a white planter and former burgess. Although her mother was of African descent, Elizabeth’s status was complicated by her father’s acknowledgment and a 1636 indenture agreement. Thomas Key had transferred her to Humphrey Higginson for nine years, stipulating that she should be treated as a child and eventually freed. However, following her father's death, Key remained in service for decades beyond the agreed term, eventually ending up in the household of John Mottrom in Northumberland County.
When Mottrom died in 1655, his estate inventory classified Key as a 'Negro' servant, implying lifelong enslavement. With the help of William Grinsted, who acted as her attorney in fact, Key sued for her freedom in 1656. Her legal argument rested on two pillars of English common law: the doctrine of partus sequitur partem, which held that a child’s status followed the father, and the principle that Christians could not be held in slavery. Because her father was free and she had been baptized into the Church of England, she argued her enslavement was unlawful.
The legal battle was arduous. While a local jury initially granted her freedom in January 1656, the estate administrators appealed to the General Court, which ruled against her. Key then took her case to the General Assembly. Although the original records of the final decision are lost, historical accounts confirm that she successfully secured her freedom by 1665. This case remains a significant example of how individuals navigated the evolving, often contradictory legal landscape of early Virginia to challenge the emerging system of chattel slavery.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Elizabeth Key: Crash Course Black American History #3
- Also: Key, Elizabeth | Library of Virginia
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