...Between 1619, when the first Africans arrived in Virginia, and the close of the seventeenth century, blacks and Native Americans steadily were divested of their rights under the law. They also paid a terrible price in human terms. Unlike the indentured servant, whose term could be extended for wrongdoing, the African in service for life was subjected to brutal corporal punishment, or worse.
...It is estimated that by 1649 there were approximately 300 blacks in Virginia, who comprised two percent of the colony’s total population of 15,000. In 1671 there were approximately 2,000 blacks in Virginia out of a total population of 48,000. Around 1690, Africans or their descendants comprised approximately 7 percent of the total population of Virginia and Maryland, which together had nearly 75,000 residents. By 1720, blacks made up approximately 20 percent of Virginia and Maryland’s total population of ca. 158,000 .
Racial prejudice played a major role in relegating blacks to an inferior status. English ethnocentrism is evident in many of the early documents produced by colonial officials. Historical documents suggest that the first English colonists were somewhat suspicious of anyone who was "different". In 1691 inter-racial sexual liaisons became illegal.
...Thanks to the passage of increasingly restrictive legislation, blacks (like livestock) were relegated to the status of personal property that could be bought, sold, and conveyed by bequest. Native Americans, whose population dwindled as the seventeenth century wore on, suffered a similar fate. By the 1680s, Africans had replaced European bound servants and slavery had become commonplace. In time, it became the underpinning of Virginia’s plantation economy.
Slavery was the route many Virginia planters took in their drive to accumulate wealth and power At first, white indentured servants comprised the majority of workers in Virginia. However, as that labor supply dried up and the influx of European servants slowed to a trickle, planters became increasingly dependent upon Africans.
... As much of the legislation that was passed was race-specific, it repetitiously linked African ancestry with the concept of lifetime enslavement"