Colonial laws decreed baptism did not free enslaved converts

Evidence

The colonies moved quickly to legalize the proselytizing demands of missionaries like Richard Baxter, and to hush the freedom cries from Christian slaves. In 1667, Virginia decreed that “the conferring of baptisme doth not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage.” New York did the same in 1664, as did Maryland in 1671. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 116

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Kendi’s core causal inversion: policy (the 1667 decree) is produced to neutralize the subversive potential of an idea (Christian equality), directly supplying evidence for policy-before-ideas. — connects to: Seventeenth-century Virginia law decoupled Christian conversion from slave emancipation
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The…, 116