In the year 1667, a law was passed providing that negro slaves converted and baptized should not thereby become free. The motive for the adoption of this law, was to secure to slaves religious instruction, as an idea prevailed among some that it was not lawful to hold a Christian in slavery, and it was apprehended that masters might be indisposed, under such impressions, to encourage their slaves to become converted. In the same year it was provided by law that "all servants, not being Christians, imported by shipping shall be slaves for life." * * * * * In 1671, there were in Virginia, according to a statement furnished by Governor Berkeley, 40,000 inhabitants, including in that number 2,000 "black slaves" and 6,000 Christian servants. The latter consisted of English servants brought into the colony as indented servants for a term of years, and sold--as was the practice in all of the colonies at that day--to pay the expenses of their passage. * * * * * During what was known as Bacon's rebellion in 1676, the Virginia Assembly, acting under the coercion of Bacon's followers, passed an act for the prosecution of a war against the Indians, and one of its provisions was that all Indians taken prisoners in war should be held and accounted slaves for life. This was the first and only provision of the laws of that colony authorizing the reduction of Indians to slavery, though Indian slaves, not being Christians, brought in by shipping might be held, under the law of 1667; but there were no slaves made under this forced enactment of Bacon's, as the war was not prosecuted, the rebellion having come to an end, by the death of its leader, the same year. A law was enacted in the year 1682, by which negroes, Moors, mulattoes or Indians, brought into the colony as servants, by sea or land, were recognized as slaves "whether converted to Christianity or not, provided they were not of Christian parentage or country, or Turks or Moors in amity with his majesty." In the year 1692, an act was passed providing for "a free and open trade for all persons, at all times and at all places with all Indians whatsoever," under which the Virginia courts decided that no Indian could be reduced to slavery, or brought into Virginia as a slave, after the passage of the act.