High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Partus sequitur ventrem, often abbreviated to partus, in the British North American colonies and later in the United States, was a legal doctrine which the English colonists incorporated in legislation related to definitions of slavery. It was derived from the Roman civil law; it held that the status of a child followed that of his or her mother. It was widely adopted into the laws of slavery in the colonies and the following United States. The Latin phrase literally means "that which is brought forth follows the womb".