In 1806, the Supreme Court of the state decided that Indians had always been considered free persons in fact and in right, and that the presumption was that all Indians introduced into the state at any time, were _prima facie_ presumed to be free, or that, if the date of their introduction did not appear, the _prima facie_ presumption was that they were American Indians, or brought in after the act of 1705, and therefore free.[1250] In 1808, came the judicial recognition of the law of 1691. A Supreme Court decision of that year declared “that no native American Indian brought into Virginia since the year 1691 could under any circumstances lawfully be made a slave.” It was also held by the court that if a female ancestor of a person asserting a right to freedom, whose genealogy could be traced back to such ancestor by females only, be proved to have been an Indian, “it seems incumbent on those who claim such person as a slave to show that such ancestor, or some female from which she descended, was brought into Virginia between the years 1679 and 1691, and under circumstances which, according to the laws then in force, created a right to hold her in slavery.”[1251] In the case of Butt _v._ Rachel _et al._, 1814, the plaintiffs claimed their freedom as descendants of a native female Indian who was brought into Virginia about the year 1747. The court instructed the jury that no native American Indian brought into Virginia since the year 1691, could, under any circumstances, be made a slave. The defendant claimed to hold the slaves on the ground that they were the descendants of a native American Indian woman who was held as a slave on the island of Jamaica, and brought to Virginia as a slave about the year 1747. The defendant moved the court to instruct the jury that a native American Indian held as a slave on the island of Jamaica by the laws of that island, might be held as a slave when imported into Virginia. The court refused so to do, and judgment was awarded the plaintiff. The case was appealed, but the court sustained the judgment.[1252] Considering the possibility already mentioned that the act of 1691 may have been intended to apply only to Indians outside the colony and that it did not apply to those in the colony, either free or enslaved, and the fact that the later legislative action of 1777 and the cases in law already mentioned show that the law was either misconstrued or ignored, the acts of 1691 and 1705, so far as putting an end to Indian slavery in Virginia in colonial times is concerned, might as well have never existed.[1253]