Answer :
The most likely reason why the law stipulated how masters must file claims regarding runaways was because of masters inability to write enforceable contracts.
Runaway slaves and indentured servants was a persistent problem for the landowners in colonial Vir-ginia. As they wanted to flee from their ab-usive masters, to take a break from their work, or in search of family members from whom they had been separated.
So here, the masters inability in order to write enforceable contracts, where the argument goes which thus sparked the decline of traditional apprenticeships.
Hence, the enslavers were given the right to seize enslaved people who escaped to free states.
To learn more about enforceable contracts here:
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