1661

England’s monarchy is reinstated, as well as Parliament and which is conferred supreme legislative power to enact positive law both provincial and over local governments. The eldest son of King Charles I… Charles II becomes King.

The newly restored King Charles II of England charters the ‘Royal Adventurers into Africa’, the first English state-sponsored slave trading company and orders the Council of Foreign Plantations to devise strategies for converting slaves and servants to Christianity.

Virginia’s House of Burgesses enacts a colonial statute legalizing slavery in Virginia. Virginia’s legislative assembly lacks plenary authority to legalize slavery or to create a class of colonists called slave by English law. Virginia’s colonial statute is void ab initio since neither England’s King or the Parliament gives assent or ratifies colonial statute.

Virginia is the first colony to take legal action against marriages between white women and black men. The first anti-miscegenation statute – prohibiting marriage between races – was written into law.

The Cavalier Parliament first met and sat until January 1679: The bishops sat again in the Lords and the Act of Uniformity enforced conformity to the English Church.