freeman, it was the intention of the law-makers that he should remain a bondman,--the exception to an established rule of law.[418] In subsequent Acts reference was made to "servants," "fugitives," "runaways," etc.; but the first statute in this colony establishing slavery was passed in 1663. It was "_An Act concerning negroes and other slaves_." It enacts section one:-- "All negroes or other slaves within the province, and all negroes and other slaves to be hereafter imported into the province, shall serve _durante vita_; and all children born of any negro or other slave, shall be slaves as their fathers were for the term of their lives." Section two:-- "And forasmuch as divers freeborn _English_ women, forgetful of their free condition, and to the disgrace of our nation, do intermarry with negro slaves, by which also divers suits may arise, touching the issue of such women, and a great damage doth befall the master of such negroes, for preservation whereof for deterring such free-born women from such shameful matches, _be it enacted_, &c.: That whatsoever free-born woman shall intermarry with any slave, from and after the last day of the present assembly, shall serve the master of such slave during the life of her husband; and that all the issue of such free-born women, so married, shall be slaves as their fathers were." Section three:-- "And be it further enacted, that all the issues of _English_, or other free-born women, that have already married negroes, shall serve the master of their parents, till they be thirty years of age and no longer."[419] Section one is the most positive and sweeping statute we have ever seen on slavery. It fixes the term of servitude for the longest time man can claim,--the period of his earthly existence,--and dooms the children to a service from which they were to find discharge only in death. Section two was called into being on account of the intermarriage of white women with slaves. Many of these women had been indentured as servants to pay their passage to this country, some had been sent as convicts, while still others had been apprenticed for a term of years. Some of them, however, were very worthy persons. No little confusion attended the fixing of the legal status of the issue of such marriages; and it was to deter Englishwomen from such alliances, and to determine the status of the children before the courts, that this section was passed. Section three was clearly an _ex post facto_ law: but the public sentiment of the colony was reflected in it; and it stood, and was re-enacted in 1676.