Indigenous Wombs to Shackles to Courtrooms, How a 1662 Slave‑Breeding Statute is at the heart of President Donald Trump’s Immigration policies

"Belly of the Beast: How a 1662 Slave Law Was Used to Destroy the System That Created It"

From Bondage to Courtroom—How Marguerite Scypion Used Colonial Law to Dismantle Indian Slavery in Missouri

Hening’s Statutes at Large, Volume 2, Page 170

📜 1. The Womb Becomes Property: 1662 Virginia Law

In 1662, the Virginia General Assembly passed one of the most pivotal laws in the history of American slavery:

“Whereas some doubts have arisen whether children got by any Englishman upon a negro woman should be slave or free, Be it therefore enacted… that all children borne in this country shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother.” — Virginia Statutes at Large, Vol. 2, December 1662 [1]

This reversed centuries of English common law, which had followed pater familias—status through the father. The colonial elite rewrote this rule to serve the slave economy:

• Sanctioning Rape: White enslavers could impregnate enslaved women without legal or financial consequence.

• Creating Generational Wealth: Enslaved mothers guaranteed more slaves.

Suppressing Mixed Identity Claims: Even baptized or part-white children were now permanently enslaved.

President Trump's opinion of the 14th Amendment citizenship remarks:  “Meant for babies of slaves”

The law helped birth what scholars call "slave-breeding capitalism", where women’s reproductive power was monetized, surveilled, and weaponized. [2] The 1662 “baby follows the belly” law

⚖️ 2. Elizabeth Key vs. the Birth of “Partus”

The 1662 law was a reaction to resistance. In 1656, Elizabeth Key, the mixed-race daughter of a white Englishman and African mother, sued for her freedom—and won. She claimed rightful status through her father, a Christian who had acknowledged her.

This victory terrified colonial elites, who quickly closed the loophole with the 1662 legislation. [3]

🇪🇸 3. Spanish Louisiana and the 1769 Anti-Indian Slavery Edict

When Spain took control of Louisiana in 1763, Governor Alejandro O’Reilly declared in 1769 that the enslavement of Indigenous people—specifically the Natchez, Yazoo, and other tribes—was illegal:

“All Indian slaves are to be set at liberty… and those who detain them shall be punished.” — Archives of the Indies, O’Reilly Decree, December 7, 1769 [4]

Despite the law, French, Spanish, and American settlers continued to illegally enslave Native women—and their mixed children—well into the 19th century.

👩🏾‍⚖️ 4. Marguerite Scypion’s Legal Rebellion (1805–1836)

Enter Marguerite Scypion, a woman of Black Man and Natchez Indian descent enslaved in St. Louis by the powerful Chouteau family (founders of the St. Louis fur empire).

Scypion used the system against itself, launching a series of lawsuits beginning in 1805 arguing:

• Her grandmother, Marie Jean Scypion, was Natchez, and enslaved after O’Reilly’s 1769 decree.

• If slavery of Indians was illegal, and “the baby follows the belly,” then Marguerite and her descendants were born illegally enslaved.

• Thus, they should be legally free.

Her case became one of the longest-lasting family legal battles in early U.S. history, culminating in a unanimous Missouri jury decision in 1836 that freed more than 300 Black-Indian people and formally abolished Indian slavery in Missouri. [5]

📚 5. Not Alone: Women Flipping the “Partus” Doctrine

Other freedom suits followed similar logic, using partus sequitur ventrem against enslavers:

Case	Year	Argument	Outcome
Hudgins v. Wright (Virginia)	1806	Wright traced her maternal line to free Indian women	Virginia Court of Appeals granted freedom [6]
Winny v. Whitesides (Missouri)	1824	Winny had lived in free Illinois territory with owner	Established “once free, always free” doctrine [7]
Marguerite Scypion v. Chouteau	1836	Descendant of Natchez woman enslaved post-1769	Jury ruled Scypion and family free [5]

These cases show how Black and Indigenous women used the belly clause to blow holes in the legal logic of slavery.

6. The Afterlife of the 1662 Law: Identity, Citizenship, and Restoration

This forgotten statute has modern implications:

• Urban Indians & Black-Indigenous people still fight misclassification from colonial policies that erased Indigenous ancestry.

• U.S. courts and tribes still base status on matrilineal descent (blood quantum, Dawes rolls), echoing partus logic.

It challenges the myth that “all Black people descend only from Africa”, while highlighting Indigenous kinship systems forcibly replaced with European racial capitalism.

🧾 Sources 

1. Hening, William Waller, The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, Vol. II, 1823. Law passed Dec. 1662. Full text digitized by the Library of Virginia and UVA Law School. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.31210003710157

2. Morgan, Jennifer L., Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.

3. Tarter, Brent, “Elizabeth Key: Freedom Suit,” in Encyclopedia Virginia, Virginia Humanities, drawn from Virginia State Library archives.

4. Archives of the Indies (Archivo General de Indias), “Bando de Alejandro O’Reilly,” 1769. Also referenced in:

   • Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo, Africans in Colonial Louisiana, LSU Press, 1992.

   • McCandless, Amy, “Native Slavery in Spanish Louisiana,” Louisiana History, Vol. 27, No. 2 (1986).

5. Foley, William E., The Genesis of Missouri: From Wilderness Outpost to Statehood, University of Missouri Press, 1989.

   • Also see: Missouri State Archives, Freedom Suits Case Files, St. Louis Circuit Court. Scypion cases digitized: https://mohistory.org/freedom-suits

6. Hudgins v. Wright, 11 Va. 134 (1806). Virginia Supreme Court case; full opinion available at Library of Virginia archives.

7. Winny v. Whitesides, 1824, Missouri Supreme Court Reports. See:

   • Ely, Melvin Patrick, Israel on the Appomattox, Vintage Books, 2005.

   • Missouri Digital Heritage Project: https://www.sos.mo.gov/archives

   
   

   ✊🏽 Final Thought:

   The 1662 “baby follows the belly” law wasn’t just a tool of bondage—it became a secret weapon of rebellion. Women like Marguerite Scypion, born into double jeopardy as Black and Indigenous, turned that law inside-out. Their legal resistance is not just history. It’s a roadmap.

   Let the system's own words be your weapon. Study the belly. Break the chain.

   
   
   
   
   
   

Why this story still matters to Black Urban Indians — and why it has nothing to do with Donald Trump’s 21st‑century immigration fights

1. The Scypion precedent = documentary proof that “Urban Indians” exist

What the Scypion case shows	Why it matters in 2025
Indian slavery was real and illegal after 1769. Marguerite proved her Natchez grandmother was enslaved after Governor O’Reilly’s ban and forced a Missouri jury to admit it in 1836. stlamerican.com	Urban Black‑Indigenous families can point to the same paper trail (Spanish edicts, parish records, freedom‐suit dockets) to rebut the idea that “there were no Indians in the city” or that all people called “colored” were exclusively African.
Maternal lineage wins court cases. The jury accepted partus sequitur ventrem in reverse: if the belly is Natchez‑and‑therefore‑free, every descendant is free. jamestown.vcdh.virginia.edustlamerican.com	DNA + matrilineal records remain the strongest tools for Urban Indians who were erased from tribal rolls by Jim‑Crow “one‑drop” regimes.
Misclassification is structural, not personal. Scypion’s family had been recorded as “Black” property for 67 years, yet the court overturned the label once the documentation surfaced.	Today’s health, education, and census systems still undercount Native people in cities; scholars flag racial miscoding as a public‑health crisis. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Bottom line: Scypion arms Black Urban Indians with hard evidence that (a) Afro‑Indigenous identities pre‑date federally defined “Indian” categories, and (b) correcting the paper record is legally possible—even against the most powerful families in the state.

2. 1662 partus vs. Trump’s 14th‑Amendment fight: apples and moon rocks

	1662‑1836 line of cases	Trump‑era immigration orders
Legal question	Are people inside the colony/state enslaved or free?	Are people crossing the U.S. border entitled to birth‑right citizenship?
Key text	Colonial statute: “children follow the condition of the mother.” jamestown.vcdh.virginia.edu	14th Amendment Citizenship Clause (1868) & 8 U.S.C. § 1401. Trump’s 2025 EO tries to narrow that clause. reuters.com
Time‑stamp	1662 law → Scypion verdict 1836 — decades before the 13th (1865) & 14th (1868) Amendments even existed.	EO (2025) comes 157 years after the 14th Amendment and expressly seeks to reshape its modern interpretation.
People affected	Enslaved Afro‑Indigenous families already on U.S. soil, fighting for freedom.	Children born today to non‑citizen parents, facing denial of citizenship.
Border status	No national border crossing is at issue; Louisiana was already U.S. territory.	Entire dispute is about the legal effect of crossing (or overstaying) a border.

Why the mismatch matters:

 Using Scypion to defend or attack Trump’s policy is like quoting Hamlet in a zoning dispute—the source predates the constitutional framework and addresses a different legal universe (property vs. citizenship).

3. Source of authority Colonial assemblies and territorial courts crafted the Scypion logic. Trump’s EO pits executive power against a post‑Civil‑War constitutional amendment that explicitly overrode slave‑era statutes.

4. Why Black Urban Indians can ignore the immigration noise

• Genealogical leverage: Scypion’s paper trail sits in state archives, not federal immigration files; it speaks to tribal recognition, reparations, and land claims—not to ICE detainers or visa quotas.

• Misclassification repair: Health systems, school districts, and tribal enrollment offices still rely on outdated race codes. Scypion shows that courts can—and have—forced agencies to rewrite those codes when the evidence is solid. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

• Sovereignty debates, not border walls: Urban Indians are asserting nation‑to‑nation rights (federal recognition, trust funding, cultural resource protection), which stem from treaties and freedom suits, not the 14th Amendment.

5. Take‑away for activists, researchers, and policymakers

Dig where you stand. Court dockets, baptismal ledgers, and Spanish edicts buried in local archives can flip the narrative on who “belongs” in Indian Country—even in the middle of a metropolis.

Stay on target. Contemporary birthright‑citizenship battles are important, but they do not alter the historical and legal foundations of Afro‑Indigenous freedom claims that arose before the Civil War.

Understanding that distinction keeps the fight for recognition laser‑focused on the real obstacle—colonial misclassification—rather than on today’s partisan border skirmishes.

🔍 How the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act Benefits Urban Indians Today

✅ 1. Federal Recognition of Birthright Native Identity

Before 1924, many American Indian people—especially those not enrolled in federally recognized tribes—were not legally considered U.S. citizens, despite being Indigenous to the land. The 1924 law forced the U.S. to say:

“Yes, you belong here—not as property, not as wards, but as people with civil and political rights.”

For Urban Indians, particularly Black-Indigenous descendants erased from tribal rolls, this law can be used to argue:

• That their ancestors were recognized as Indigenous under U.S. law by 1924.

• That even if removed from tribal rolls or denied enrollment, they still had federal status as Indigenous citizens.

• That their descendants today have a right to reclaim and document that Indigenous ancestry, even if they live in cities or were misclassified as “Black,” “Colored,” or “Negro.”

✅ 2. Proof That American Indian Identity ≠ Tribal Enrollment Alone

Tribes and the federal government often conflate Native identity with BIA tribal enrollment numbers, but:

• The 1924 law applied to all Indigenous people, not just those on the Dawes Rolls or recognized tribes.

• It opened the door to civic citizenship separate from tribal politics—which helps Urban Indians who were excluded from tribal status but still have provable Indigenous ancestry (like the Scypion descendants).

For example: Marguerite Scypion and her family, who were legally recognized as descendants of the Natchez tribe in their 1836 freedom suit, were still not enrolled in any federally recognized tribe because the Natchez had been scattered or wiped from formal tribal existence. Yet the legal lineage exists, and after 1924, that family would still be considered  American Indian citizens under federal law.

✅ 3. Legal and Policy Leverage for Rights & Restoration

Because the 1924 Act made all Native-born individuals U.S. citizens:

• Misclassified Urban Indians can push back against racial erasure by pointing to the law as a federal mandate that didn't depend on where one lived (urban vs. reservation).

• It strengthens demands for:

  • Census correction

  • Reparative enrollment policies

  • Access to Indian Health Services (IHS)

  • Inclusion in Native education, cultural protection, and reparations funding

📌 Modern Legal Strategy: Lawyers and advocates can use the 1924 act to demand that federal agencies stop requiring tribal enrollment as the only proof of Indigeneity for Black Indigenous and urban populations—especially those with freedom suits or Spanish/colonial-era documentation.

⚠️ But Here’s the Catch: How the 1924 Law Also Erased

❌ 1. No Land, No Treaty, No Tribal Power

The 1924 Act granted citizenship but did NOT protect treaty rights, land, or tribal sovereignty. In fact, it was used in many cases to:

• Force assimilation into American settler society

• Undermine tribal governance

• Encourage termination policies and boarding schools

📌 In short: It made American Indian people citizens of the colonizer nation—without honoring their original nationhood.

❌ 2. Used to Discredit Urban Indians Later

After 1924, the federal government said:

“You’re citizens now—so we don’t owe you land, recognition, or any special rights.”

This logic especially harmed Urban Indians, many of whom:

• Lived outside reservations

• Were relocated via the Indian Relocation Act (1956)

• Were Black-Indigenous and excluded from tribal rolls due to racist blood quantum laws

So while the law granted “citizenship,” it helped justify cutting off resources from Black-Indigenous families in cities who no longer fit the image of the “reservation Indian.”

🪶 How This Connects to the Scypion Case and Urban Indians Today

Legal Moment	Relevance to Urban Indians
1836 – Scypion wins freedom through Indigenous matrilineage	Proof that Black-Indigenous families had legal recognition before federal enrollment systems
1924 – Citizenship Act	Gave federal acknowledgment to ALL Indigenous descendants—whether or not they were enrolled or on tribal lands
2025 and Modern – Urban Indian identity battles	Urban Indians use these legal milestones to challenge erasure, seek documentation correction, and demand reparations and services

FIRST TRIBE