Joan meets a mariner (1:29)

Mariner is played by Deity Dionysus Joan Sullivan is played by Arielle Yoder

In the late 17th century, and onward toward the American Revolution, due to changes in the English colonies, and differing labor demands, the system of indentured servitude declined. This increased the demand for enslaved African labor, thus creating a new system of laws needed to uphold a system of involuntary servitude. In 1662, a European law was adopted in the Virginia House of Burgesses, that quickly spread into use throughout the colonies. Partus sequitur ventrem, often abbreviated as partus, was a legal doctrine that dictated that the status of the mother would fall to the child. In short, children born to enslaved mothers would themselves be enslaved at birth. Partus was the beginning of what would become the system institutionalized chattel slavery that lasted centuries in the Americas. On February 28, 1638, governor John Winthrop wrote about a ship coming in from Bermuda that had enslaved Africans on board. According to the letter, “Mr. Pierce, in the Salem ship, the Desire, returned from the West Indies after 7 months. He … brought some cotton, and tobacco, and Negroes.” While this was probably not the first ship to bring enslaved Africans to Massachusetts Bay Colony, this is the first documented case. While the system of partus was passed in 1662, Massachusetts Bay Colony itself became the first English mainland colony to make slavery legal in 1641. For more on the impact of the African slave trade on Massachusetts, please visit: https://www.massmoments.org/moment-details/first-slaves-arrive-in-massachusetts.html