Final answer:
The statement that in the Spanish colonial Caribbean, once a woman was a slave, she was automatically a slave for life is false. Spanish colonial laws regarding the status of children born to enslaved women differed from those in English colonies like Virginia, where slavery was indeed a condition inherited from the mother.
Step-by-step explanation:
It is false that in the Spanish colonial Caribbean, once a woman was a slave, she was automatically a slave for life. While slavery laws were harsh and brutal, enabling the enslavement of people predominantly of African descent, there were exceptions to this generality. One significant aspect of Spanish colonial law, as opposed to some English colonies' laws, was that children born to enslaved women did not automatically inherit their mother's status. In fact, the legal frameworks of slavery varied across different European colonies in the Americas.
In the English colonies, such as Virginia, laws did stipulate that the children of enslaved women would inherit their enslaved status, effectively making them slaves for life. This rule helped to reinforce a self-perpetuating slave labor force. Thus, while slavery in the Spanish colonial Caribbean was extremely oppressive, the notion of perpetual inherited status was not as absolute as in other colonial contexts, and there were occasional prospects for manumission.