Bkacks, Slave and Free, in Wythe County, Virginia, 1790-2021 PDF Download

Author: Mary B. Kegley
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Author: Carl Wilson Mosser
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Author: Tommy Bogger
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 9780813916903
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Very few studies of free blacks have attempted to interpret the actions and events affecting them from their own perspectives. At the same time. the search for understanding the antebellum black experience in the South usually has centered on slaves. In Free Blacks in Norfolk, Virginia, 1790-1860, Tommy L. Bogger portrays lives somewhere between slavery and freedom. A free black community of skilled artisans and semi-skilled laborers emerged in Norfolk around 1800. Some free blacks earned the respect of leading white businessmen, and many enjoyed easy access to credit and steady employment. They showed no hesitation in suing recalcitrant debtors -- black or white -- and until 1805 they could count on the cooperation of court officials in helping them to collect. But from then on. free blacks experienced a steady decline in status that continued throughout the antebellum period. Legal restraints were placed on them at the same time that Norfolk's economy stagnated. and white immigrants arriving in the 1830s entered fields once monopolized by blacks. By the 1850s the free black community was sunk in hopelessness and despair. Free Blacks in Norfolk, Virginia, 1790-1860 discusses the active roles that blacks played in creating their community, contradicting prevalent images of free blacks at the mercy of whites. While previous studies of Virginia's free blacks have focused on Richmond or Petersburg, developments in Norfolk's free black community also merit analysis. Norfolk also offers the advantage of a population large enough to provide a reliable data base yet small enough to preserve the stories of individual lives. Those interested in African-American history, Virginia history, orthe South in general will find this book a valuable new resource.

Author: John Henderson Russell
Publisher: Baltimore, Md. : Johns Hopkins Press
ISBN:
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Author: John H. Russell
Publisher: Cosimo, Inc.
ISBN: 1605206539
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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It is one of the least commonly known facts about the Civil War: there were many, many free negroes living in slaveholding states before the Emancipation Proclamation. This monograph on that surprising reality, originally published in 1913, draws on such firsthand documents as court records, contemporary literature and newspaper accounts, and other sources to create the first such portrait of this nearly forgotten chapter of African-American history. From the various origins of the "free negro" classes to their legal and social statuses-regarding everything from their right of travel to their relationship with their enslaved fellows-this "should supply some of the facts upon which the history of the negro race in the United States must be based," wrote author JOHN HENDERSON RUSSELL (b. 1884) in his preface.

Author: Rodney Barfield
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1483619648
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Free blacks in antebellum America lived in a twilight world of oppressive laws and customs designed to suppress their mobility and their integration into civil society. Free blacks were free only to the extent of white tolerance in their community or town. They were at the mercy of the lowest members of the dominant race who could punish them on a whim. They were, in the words of a 19th century European traveler to America, "masterless slaves." Nonetheless, many successful and even prominent blacks emerged from the mire of oppressive laws and general public disdain to realize major achievements. Though excluded from the political process, from education, and from most professions they became preachers, teachers, missionaries, contractors, artisans, boat captains, and wealthy entrepreneurs. Members of this twilight social and legal class, which numbered nearly a half million by 1860, made great accomplishments against strong opposition in the first half of the 19th century. The history of America and of American slavery is woefully incomplete without their story.

Author: John Henderson Russell
Publisher: Theclassics.Us
ISBN: 9781230446226
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 68

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913 edition. Excerpt: ...A 6812. "Ibid.. 1840, A6821. "Code (1849), P. 754; Code (1860), p. 816. 45 Acts, 1839, p. 24. "See a petition to the legislature which represents that both free negroes and dogs kill sheep as they prowl through the neighborhood (MS. Petitions, Chesterfield County, 1854, A4321). "Acts, 1847-1848; House Journal, 1847-1848, p. 436. "Acts, 1857-1858, p. 152. out the State passed the House of Delegates in 1848, hut failed to receive the approval of the Senate.52 The laws of Virginia extended their protection not only, as we have already seen, to the property of the free negro, but, as we shall now see, to his life and liberty. In any case in which the freedom' of a negro was disputed the burden of proof was upon the negro to show that he was free. Unlike the recognized principle of English law which demands that every man be regarded as innocent till his guilt is established by evidence, a free negro taken up and deprived of his liberty as being a slave had, in order to procure his release, to produce evidence that he was not a slave. In 1806 George Wythe, chancellor of the State of Virginia, gave as grounds for decreeing the freedom of three persons claimed as slaves that freedom is the birthright of every human being. He laid it down as a general proposition that whenever one person claims to hold another in slavery, the onus probandi lies on the claimant. This application of the Declaration of Independence was completely repudiated by the supreme court of appeals when the case came'up for final review.58 Judge Tucker, who spoke for a unanimous court, asserted that the burden of proof is not upoA the claimant, but upon the negro to show that he is free; whereas with a white man or an Indian held in slavery the burden...

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Actions and defenses
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: Nancy C. Frantel
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780788450457
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 158

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Richmond is located in the heartland of Virginia on the free flowing water of the James River. The James brought much pain, for it was by this river that the slave boats arrived and unloaded their imprisoned passengers in the 1700s and early 1800s. Many slaves purchased in Richmond were transported to other Southern states as demand for labor increased in those regions. History has not left a complete story of those who lived and died in the area. Many records were lost as a result of fires over the years, including during the Civil War. Fortunately information has survived to ensure that some of those who passed through this land are permanently documented. The Richmond City Sergeant Register is one of those precious records. The transcribed entries preserved on these pages portray the hardships experienced by the enslaved and free blacks in the area. Entries typically contain: name of the person committed, name of the person who apprehended the slave or free black, court information if applicable, date committed, date discharged, number of days maintained in the jail and the charge for that maintenance, charges for "turning the key," apprehending fee, total charge to the prisoner or slave owner, and arrangements for the payment of jail charges. If a free black (who was discharged after proving his freedom) was unable to pay his jail charges, he (or she) was sold at public auction to pay off this debt. The length of service required to repay this debt ranged from months to years. Lucy Briggs, an unfortunate free black woman who attained her release from jail after providing her freedom papers, was hired out for fifty-nine years! A sentencing chart follows the register entries; a full name index completes this work.

Author: Loren Schweninger
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780886926939
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 695

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Reproduces a collection of petitions assembled by the Race and Slavery Petitions Project, University of North Carolina at Greensboro from state archives in Virginia and Kentucky.