14 Walsh, “Till Death Us Do Part,” 144.
15 The mean number of servants and slaves per household declined a little in the late 17th century, and increased in the early 18th, fluctuating in the range of 4 to 7. The median number of slaves and servants per male household head was smaller, but most householders owned at least one. By the American War of Independence, the proportion of tidewater Virginia householders who owned servants or slaves had risen above two-thirds; in the Peninsula it was as high as 78%; Rutman and Rutman, A Place in Time, Explicatus (vol. 2), 123; Kulikoff, Tobacco and Slaves, 137.
16 Wilbraham Diary, 2 Jan. 680, Ms. DDX 210/2, CHESRO.
17 Field slaves were forbidden to enter the house; entering the house after dark was a capital offense. Col. Robert Carter announced that “if anyone be caught in the House, after the family are at rest, on any pretence what ever, that person he will cause to be hanged.” But house slaves slept in the same chamber with the Carters. Fithian, Journal and Letters, 242 (5 Sept. 1774).