In November of 1860, executor William F. Smith was in a pickle.  Charged with settling the estate of Elizabeth P. Via of Augusta County, he had recently been a defendant in both a chancery and a judgment suit from seven of Via’s heirs that challenged the validity of her will.  The heirs objected to the provisions that Via made for her slaves, namely that they all be emancipated.  Additionally, she left $4,000 to transport them to a free state and set them up in homes there.  The remainder of her estate was to be distributed amongst Via’s heirs who were not pleased by this and thought it in their best interest to have the will invalidated so that they could get everything, including the slaves that were left at Via’s death.  The will was upheld, however, and then it was time for executor Smith to get on with the business of carrying out Via’s wishes.  But there were some questions that he struggled to answer about his job as executor.

At issue were several points.  Did children born since Via’s death have an interest in the money left to the slaves?  What should happen to the residue of the $4,000 after the will’s provisions were carried out?  How should title to any house or land purchased for the emancipated slaves be done?  The slaves had been hired out since 1859 due to the dispute over the will, so did the money earned by their hire belong now to them or to the estate?  Smith sought the court’s guidance on how to answer these thorny questions and fulfill his duties as executor.  He then filed accounts with the chancery suit to prove that he had properly carried out his tasks.

Included in the accounts is a two-page document written by Smith titled “Account for removing and settling slaves in a free state.”  Beginning 28 January 1861, and ending 7 February of the same year, this master account reads like a travel journal of Smith’s trip to Columbus, Ohio, with his assistant, Mr. Larew, and Via’s 18 newly emancipated slaves.  Line by line, one can follow the party as they get train tickets and meals in Staunton, look at land in Franklin County, Ohio, buy the land and have it surveyed, purchase livestock and household goods, and finally return home to Staunton via train and omnibus.  Accompanying this master account are individual vouchers for goods or services provided that reveal more details about the items purchased to set up the farm and housekeeping in Ohio.  Included in other accounts are receipts for registering Via’s former slaves as free negroes in Augusta County prior to their departure for Ohio.  One of the final items on the master account is $14.00 for “cash paid negroes,” Via’s final bequest for their new life of freedom.

Through the lens of estate accounts, this chancery suit offers a rare glimpse of what followed emancipation.  It is common enough to find evidence of slaves freed in deeds and wills, but what happened after that is usually a mystery, especially if the freed persons then left the state.  The Franklin County, Ohio, Recorder’s Office has digitized their early deeds, and the deed for the sale of 110 4/10 acres of land from Edwin W. Warren to Elizabeth Jane and others (Elizabeth P. Via’s negroes) can be uncovered easily enough.  What happened to these eighteen people after 1861?  Did they stay together on their new land in Ohio?  Did they drift apart to other parts of Ohio or the country?  Did any of them return to Virginia after the Civil War?  This the records do not show.

Read the entire chancery suits that are filed together on the Chancery Records Index as Augusta County 1860-016, James W. Bishop, etc. vs. Administrator of Elizabeth P. Via, etc. and Executor of Elizabeth P. Via vs. James W. Bishop.  The judgment that decided Via’s will, James W. Bishop, etc. vs. William F. Smith, Exr. of Elizabeth P. Via, ended June 1860, is at the Augusta County courthouse; although a copy of the final order was used as evidence in the chancery suit.

-Sarah Nerney, Senior Local Records Archivist

During the 1820s and 1830s, northern antislavery groups that demanded the immediate abolition of slavery began to emerge. Led by abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison, Arthur Tappan, and Theodore Weld, they instituted an aggressive print campaign against slavery. Abolitionist societies published newspapers and pamphlets that bitterly condemned slavery and called for its extinction. Needless to say, abolitionist literature was not well-received in slaveholding states, including Virginia.

In 1835, a Frederick County, Virginia, grand jury issued a criminal presentment against the Abolition Society of New York. In a lengthy and strongly worded indictment, the grand jury referred to the antislavery organization as an “evil of great magnitude” and accused it of disturbing the peace of the commonwealth and threatening the lives of its citizens by inciting slaves to rebel. The grand jury encouraged local law enforcement agencies throughout Virginia to adopt “increasing vigilance … in the detection of all fanatical emissaries, and in the suppression of their nefarious schemes and publications.” Furthermore, it called on the General Assembly to enforce present laws and enact stricter legislation against written or printed material that encouraged slave insurrection. The presentment also named Arthur Tappan, whom the grand jury considered to be the “prime mover” in the society. Tappan helped found the Abolition Society of New York in 1831, which two years later evolved into the American Anti-Slavery Society.

No criminal trial was held. It was more of a symbolic response, a release of pent-up anger and fear by the citizens of Frederick County. They were angry at these “outsiders” interfering with their institutions. They were fearful that the abolitionist publications would incite more slave revolts similar to the one led by Nat Turner in Southampton County only a few years earlier.  

In response to the threat posed by the abolitionist societies, the General Assembly enacted stricter legislation in 1836 to suppress the circulation of abolitionist publications. Anyone speaking, writing, printing, and/or circulating “incendiary doctrines” that denied the right of people to own slaves or encouraged slaves to rebel would be fined and imprisoned. Postmasters were required to give notice to local authorities if they received abolitionist publications. The local authorities were to burn the publications immediately and arrest the individual who was to receive them.

Recently, I discovered two Grayson County criminal cases in which local pro-slavery citizens attempted to use the 1836 act to silence an antislavery minister named Jarvis C. Bacon. A Wesleyan Methodist minister who moved to Grayson County in 1848 to start a church, Reverend Bacon regularly found himself in hot water with the local citizenry because of his opposition to slavery. In 1849, a grand jury issued indictments against Reverend Bacon for circulating two abolitionist publications: Frederick Douglass’ autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, and an antislavery sermon delivered at the Sixth Presbyterian Church of Cincinnati, Ohio. Both trials were held in September. A jury quickly found him not guilty regarding the Douglass autobiography, but the other jury had a more difficult time reaching an agreement of not guilty regarding the sermon pamphlet. Reverend Bacon’s abolitionist reputation made it difficult for him to remain in Grayson County. He left the county and the commonwealth in 1851.

Commonwealth of Virginia versus Abolition Society of New York, 1835 and Commonwealth of Virginia versus Jarvis C. Bacon, 1849 are open for research and available at the Library of Virginia.

See the Abolitionist Map of America for a digital exploration of the anti-slavery movement in America.  For more on the Library of Virginia’s involvement with the Abolitionist Map and HistoryPin, see these earlier blog posts.

-Greg Crawford, Local Records Coordinator

The most recent episode of The Abolitionists on PBS focused heavily on Frederick Douglass.  Reading his 1845 memoir, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, in school years ago was my first encounter with the realities of slavery, as I imagine it may be for many people. Somehow, seeing the scene in which William Lloyd Garrison, a prominent abolitionist, and Frederick Douglass first meet brought to mind again how wonderful it is to see these events and documents geographically located on the Abolitionist Map of America.  Zoom in on Nantucket, Massachusetts, and you can view the video clip from the series as well as contemporary photographs and documents. Somehow, plotting things on a map makes them more concrete, more believable, not just backstory.

As we continue this project, we are still uncovering relevant abolitionist materials at the Library of Virginia. Just yesterday, a colleague brought to my attention a collection of anti-slavery newspapers saved by Virginia Governor John Floyd (1830-1834).  At times, Floyd advocated gradual abolition since he viewed slavery as an economically flawed system. However, following the Nat Turner Rebellion in 1831, all Gov. Floyd’s official actions supported a state’s right to choose slavery. He believed that abolitionists in neighboring states were planning murder and insurrection in Virginia.

Watching The Abolitionists, I learned that Frederick Douglass eventually came to run his own abolitionist newspaper named The North Star.  The documentary points out that, if slaves knew little else about how to obtain their freedom, they knew to follow the North Star.

One obscure item I selected for the Abolitionist Map is The Nubian Slave by Charles C. Green, published in Boston in the 1840s.  Housed in the Library of Virginia Special Collections, this book pairs pages of an epic poem with full page illustrations. To tell the story of a slave in such grand style indicates that the author felt it a worthy subject; many would not have at the time. “The Escape” illustration even closely imitates the iconographic Flight into Egypt scene in Christian art, right down to the Classical treatment of the figures.  The father points towards the North Star, as though their flight into freedom was guided by divine inspiration as well as practical navigation. An owl watches over the family where an angel would typically be seen.  Drawing parallels between the enslavement of African Americans and the historic oppression of Christians would have created additional sympathy for the anti-slavery movement, especially the spiritual and moral arguments against holding slaves.

Gems like The Nubian Slave and finding copies of The Liberator in the Library of Virginia collection have made the Abolitionist Map a very interesting exploration.  I hope we can continue to use new technologies such as HistoryPin to reframe and rethink historic materials. Tune in for the final installment of The Abolitionists tonight on PBS, and enjoy get lost in the map!

-Sonya Coleman, Digital Collections Assistant

Editor’s Note:

To learn more about the Library’s involvement with the Abolitionist Map of America, see Sonya’s previous blog posts.

For further reading:

HistoryPin blogged about their software being used on the Abolitionist Map:  http://blog.historypin.com/2013/01/07/historypin-and-american-experience-on-the-upcoming-abolitionists-series/

Our PBS contact, Casey Davis, wrote about her experience on the project and app creation: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/blog/2013/01/13/abolitionist-map-america-project/

To view just the LVA pins on the Abolitionist Map: http://www.historypin.americanexperience.org/channels/view/275029/#/home

Unlike most white, well-educated, religiously-motivated abolitionists, Brown did not believe in solely non-violent means to end slavery.  After the Fugitive Slave Act passed in 1850, Brown founded a militant anti-slavery brigade with the Biblically-inspired name “League of Gileadites.”  Their mission was to prevent the recapture of escaped slaves by any means necessary.  Rising tensions in Kansas compelled Brown to go to the aid of the anti-slavery settlers there, including five of his adult sons.  Pro-slavery forces known as “Border Ruffians” interfered with voting, imprisoned abolitionists, harassed free settlers, and eventually seized the town of Lawrence.  On 24 May 1856, Brown led a small group of armed men against their pro-slavery neighbors at Pottawatomie Creek, killing five.  This catalyzed a civil war in Kansas, and created the public image of “Osawatomie Brown”—a nickname awarded for Brown’s heroic, if unsuccessful, defense of an anti-slavery settlement—as a recipient of both admiration and hatred.

Brown raised funds based on his new-found notoriety, trained his men, and planned their next move—the Raid of Harpers Ferry, Virginia.  On 16 October 1859, John Brown led 18-men—13 whites and five blacks—into Harpers Ferry.  The plan was to seize the 100,000 rifles in the federal armory, arm local slaves, and march south, fighting only in self-defense.  Brown’s men seized the armory with little trouble.  However, things went awry when a free black man working as baggage master attempted to warn an incoming train of the danger at hand.  Sadly, he was shot by Brown’s men.  After the death of the baggage master, Brown allowed an eastbound to leave Harpers Ferry and spread word of the raid.  Rather than the army of freed slaves for which they hoped, the pro-slavery forces began to gather.  When the town’s militia surrounded John Brown’s force, they made their last stand at the railroad engine house, afterwards known as John Brown’s Fort.  On 18 October, United States Marines under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee stormed the engine house.  Ten of Brown’s men were killed, including two of his sons, and seven were captured and tried with Brown.

Media coverage of the failed raid showed the idyllic town of Harpers Ferry, where order was swiftly restored by federal troops, and portrayed John Brown as a fiery-eyed idealist, sympathetic in his advanced age and unshakable faith.  Severely wounded and taken to the jail in Charles Town, Virginia, John Brown stood trial for treason against the commonwealth of Virginia, for murder, and for conspiring with slaves to rebel.  On 2 November, in a mere 45 minutes, a jury convicted him and sentenced him to death.  Brown readily accepted the sentence and declared that he had acted in accordance with God’s commandments.  Responding to persistent rumors and written threats, Henry A. Wise, governor of Virginia, called out state militia companies to guard against a possible rescue of Brown and his followers. On 2 December 1859, Brown was hanged in Charles Town.

After the execution, Brown became a divisive figure in national politics.  Southerners rejoiced in putting down a violent rebellion while Northerners tolled church bells for a martyr and won more converts to the abolitionist cause.  Governor Wise, whose records are housed at the Library of Virginia,  received multiple threats from enraged, anonymous citizens which can be viewed on the Abolitionist Map of America as well as the Library of Virginia’s Death or Liberty exhibit.  Publications such as Harper’s Weekly and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly replayed the drama in American households. Broadsides for vigils or community organizing demonstrate the far-reaching effects of John Brown, better seen through the use of mapping technologies on the Abolitionist Map of America.  These events polarized the nation, making John Brown’s campaign a success in the long view.

The moral conflict between freeing slaves and the shocking violence Brown committed continues to make him a compelling historical figure. How would we react to this type of principled violence today? Freedom fighter or terrorist?

-Sonya Coleman, Digital Collections Assistant

Editor’s Note:

To learn more about the Library’s involvement with the Abolitionist Map of America, see Sonya’s previous blog post.

To learn more about records related to John Brown’s raid at the Library, see John Brown’s Raid:  Records and Resources at the Library of Virginia.

This unique challenge arose through the LVA’s early involvement in HistoryPin, an interactive website to which we upload geotagged photographs and other archival materials.  Each image is accompanied by descriptive metadata, but users can also add their own “stories,” allowing for multiple and personal interpretations of history.  Audio and video clips can also be pinned. Click here to see the Library’s  HistoryPin collections.

PBS’s trademark documentary series, American Experience, has partnered with HistoryPin to use this digital platform to tell the story of abolitionists.  The Library of Virginia was selected to contribute to this exploration of the anti-slavery movement in America—the Abolitionist Map of America.  Dozens of museums, libraries, and archives have contributed to populating the map.  PBS will also upload several video clips from their upcoming documentary series The Abolitionists, which will air on Tuesdays, January 8-22, 2013.  A mobile app and walking tours of Boston, Charleston, Cincinnati and Philadelphia allow users to explore the Abolitionist Map in multiple ways.

The abolitionist materials assembled by the LVA include broadsides, personal letters, state correspondence, illustrations, book excerpts, legal documents, and more. Most have been pinned to the location of publication, recipient’s address, or the library itself.  The LVA pins range from those in Richmond, Virginia to Boston, Massachusetts to Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia.  Approximately 600 pins populated the Abolitionist Map of America at last count, and it is still growing.  Explore the pinned content, add your comments, and more here.

Let the selections from our collection inspire you to watch The Abolitionists tonight on PBS!  It focuses on Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Brown and Angelina Grimké.  We’ll be watching and highlighting some of our “pins” on the next two Tuesdays.  Stay tuned!

-Sonya Coleman, Digital Collections Assistant

“It was a hot summer day on August 5, 1865, when George Kiner and Diana Bumgardner arrived at the courthouse in Augusta County, Virginia, to apply for a marriage license. They brought with them an order from Capt. John Collins, Provost Marshall, directing the court to issue the license as ‘they being in all respects entitled to such license.’ While there were other couples that day applying for marriage licenses, George and Diana were the only couple with such an order. This was indeed a historical event as they were the first African American couple to be issued a marriage license in Augusta County.”

-African American Marriage Index 1865-1899, Augusta County, Virginia

At first glance the story of George Kiner and Diana Bumgardner is one of love triumphing over the tragedies of slavery and war. But documents found in the Augusta County Chancery Causes reveal not a lovely wedding born of true love, but a shotgun affair with a groom forced to the altar at gunpoint. In his bill for divorce filed in the Augusta County courts in February 1866, George Coiner (the predominant spelling in court documents was Coiner, but Kiner and Koiner were also used) painted a less than idealistic picture of his wedding day. George Coiner, a former slave, was working in a field when two armed soldiers, one white and the other black, came to arrest him and forcibly carry him off to Staunton. Without giving him time to protest or argue, George Coiner was arraigned before General Isaac Duval’s forces on the complaint of Dinah Bumgardner, a former slave of Frank Strouse.

In her own bill for divorce filed in 1868, Dinah, or Diana Kiner as she is named in her divorce suit, claimed that George seduced her with the promise of marriage and had “carnal intercourse” with her that resulted in a pregnancy. When he was deposed, Dinah’s former owner backed up her allegations stating that George admitted to sleeping with Dinah in March of that year, but George argued that he only knew of Dinah because of frequent visits to see his nephew, another member of the Strouse household. George repeatedly affirmed that “he never had carnal knowledge of her person… nor did he ever use any language toward her tending to express any passion or partiality for her.”

Coiner was not afforded an investigation or an opportunity to disprove Dinah’s claims but “was condemned unheard and informed that unless he married her forthwith, he would be sent off to Richmond the next morning.” Not wanting to risk being arrested and carried off by strangers, George “was obliged to yield to the superior power of those who had possession of him, and a license was obtained, and he was compelled, at the point of the bayonet, to submit to the marriage, though it was in opposition to all his wishes.” One of the officers told George “not to be uneasy, for as soon as the ceremony was over, he could leave her.” Which was exactly what George did, claiming that Dinah was a “woman of loose morals” and “little better than a common strumpet.”

In 1868 the marriage was dissolved and both parties were granted full liberty to marry again, so ended the first African American marriage on record after the Civil War in Augusta County. The chancery causes George Coiner vs. Dinah Coiner (1868-010) and Diana Kiner vs. George Kiner (1868-015) are open for research and available digitally as part of the Augusta County Chancery Causes, 1747-1912, a scanning project funded by the Circuit Court Records Preservation Program and a $150,000 grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).

-Bari Helms, Local Records Archivist

The colonial era Northampton County court records tell a fascinating story of a woman named Jane Webb. Born of a white mother, she was a free mulatto, formerly called Jane Williams. In 1704, Jane Webb had “a strong desire to intermarry with a certain negro slave … commonly called and known by the name of Left.” Webb informed Left’s owner Thomas Savage, a gentleman of Northampton County, of her desire to marry Left and made an offer to Savage. She would be a servant of Savage’s for seven years and would let Savage “have all the children that should be bornd [sic] upon her body during the time of [Jane’s] servitude,” but for how long the children were to be bound is not clear. In return, Savage would allow Jane Webb to marry his slave, and after Jane’s period of servitude ended, Savage would free Left. Also, neither Savage nor his heirs could claim any child born to Jane Webb and Left after her period of servitude. Savage agreed to Jane Webb’s offer, and an agreement was written and signed by both parties.

Jane Webb fulfilled her part of the agreement and served Savage for seven years. During that time, she had three children by her husband Left—Diana or Dinah Webb, Daniel Webb, and Francis Webb. After she completed her term of service in 1711, Jane Webb “in a kindly manner” demanded her husband from Savage as well as her children. Apparently, Jane Webb and Savage were at odds on how long the children she bore during her servitude were supposed to be bound to him, and Savage refused to free Left and the children. In April 1711, Savage submitted a letter to the county court of Northampton requesting that Jane Webb’s children be bound to him and his heirs, to which the court agreed.

Eleven years later, Jane Webb filed a petition with the court pleading to the justices to free her children. Webb pointed out to the court her agreement with Savage and beseeched the court that the “children being born in lawful wedlock may not be judged to servitude.” She prayed that the court would not “enslave your petitioner’s children born as aforesaid.” Thomas Savage was unable to, or refused to, appear in court to answer Webb’s petition. On one occasion, he informed the court that he was too sick to attend, and so, the case was continued until the next term, and the next term, and the next term, until it was finally dismissed by the court. Reason given? “Plaintiff’s argument dismissed as frivolous.”

In February 1725, Thomas Savage petitioned the court to have two of Jane’s children, born after Jane completed her term of service, to be bound to him. When you read the petition you will notice that part of it has been marked out. Fortunately, one can make out the words: “…the said Jane hath two children named Lisha & Abimelech the former of which hath long lived with your Petitioner but hath lately been decoyd [sic] away from your Petitioner’s house & is detaind [sic] by her said mother from your Petitioner.” Since Jane had no means to support the children, “they may be induced to take ill courses,” and for that reason, Savage argued that he, and not their mother, had the best right to the children. Savage’s action was in violation of their 1701 agreement as understood by Jane Webb; however, Savage claimed that 1701 agreement permitted him to bind any child born to Jane Webb and Left, even children born after Jane’s seven years of servitude. Savage never produced the agreement as evidence in the case, but he did provide two witnesses who informed the court that they had seen an indenture between Savage and Jane Webb in which “it was agreed that the said Jane was to serve seven years & all her children born in the lifetime of her husband Left should serve the said Savage.”

At the same time the court was hearing Savage’s petition, Jane Webb tried to win freedom for her husband and children in the chancery court. In March 1725, Webb filed her bill of complaint against Thomas Savage in which she recounted the agreement the two made and accused Savage of holding in bondage children born to her and her husband after 1711. She accused Savage of concealing the written agreement which made it difficult for her to prove her case in the previous suit. She asked the chancery court to issue a writ of subpoena to Savage “commanding him” to personally appear before the court to answer her complaint and produce the written agreement.

By July 1726, Savage had yet to respond to Jane’s complaint in the chancery court. On 12 July, the justices made their decision on Savage’s petition regarding Lisha and Abimilech. Both were bound to Savage. On that same day, Jane Webb was arrested on the charge of uttering dangerous words “tending to the breach of the peace” which was heard by several individuals. They swore “that the said Jane had declared that if all Virginia Negroes had as a good as heart as she had they would all be free.” The court ordered that she receive ten lashes “well laid” on her bare back at the whipping post and that it was to be done immediately.

Savage finally responded to Jane Webb’s bill of complaint in November 1726. He informed the court that he never consented to freeing Left and that the children born during and after Webb’s time of servitude were to be bound to him but he could not recall for how long. Once again, Savage did not produce the 1701 agreement. The court put the burden on Jane to produce the evidence on how long her children were to serve Savage. If she could not, the court would dismiss her bill. Jane appeared at the next court held in December 1726 with witnesses to give evidence on her behalf—African-American witnesses. None of the testimony exists because there was some confusion on the part of the court concerning whether the testimony of African-Americans should be admissible. The order book entry reads, “the court being divided about Negro evidence offered ordered the same to be referred to the next court.” In April 1727, the court ruled “that none such [Negro evidence] ought to be allowed.” With no evidence to support her complaint, Jane Webb realized she had no chance of winning her suit. She failed to appear in court the next time the case was heard in July 1727, and the court dismissed the case from the docket. Her husband Left remained a slave and all her children and, by now, grandchildren remained bound to Savage and his heirs.

To learn more stories like Jane Webb’s, visit the Library of Virginia’s latest exhibition You Have No Right: Law and Justice in Virginia, running 24 September 2012-18 May 2013

Information for this story was gathered from the following Northampton County Court Records found at the Library of Virginia:

Northampton County (Va.) Judgments, 1655-1816. Jane Webb versus Thomas Savage, 1723 January, Barcode number 1154682. Local Government Records Collection, Northampton Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

Northampton County Chancery Causes, 1721-1816. Jane Webb versus Thomas Savage, Northampton County Chancery Cause, 1727-001. Local Government Records Collection, Northampton Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

Northampton County (Va.) Criminal Causes, 1722-1799. Warrant for Jane Webb, 1726 July, Barcode number 1168307. Local Government Records Collection, Northampton Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

Northampton County (Va.) Judgments, 1655-1816. Petition of  Thomas Savage, 1726, Barcode number 1154685. Local Government Records Collection, Northampton Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

Northampton County Order Book No. 18, 1722-1729 (copy), Barcode number 1123591. Local Government Records Collection, Northampton Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

-Greg Crawford, Local Records Coordinator

On 13 November 1860, J.S. Moore of Indiana wrote a letter to his Virginia relative Doctor Thomas Moore. Much of the letter has to do with health matters and the vibrant Indiana economy. The “Indiana Moore” then turned his attention to the recent 1860 presidential election. He provides “Virginia Moore” his thoughts on Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, and who was responsible for the secession crisis pervading the nation at the time.

“I suppose Lincoln is elected President and report says the result has created a consternation in the South and an effort is being made to adopt a plan for secession. It does appear to me that it is folly and madness on their part to attempt resistance at all events until Lincoln or his party is guilty of an overt act that would justify such a procedure if justifiable it could be. I know that Mr. Lincoln holds today principles that you and I use to battle for under the leadership of Henry Clay.

And I do say when the Republican Party is assailed the assault is not made on their principles but a misrepresentation of those principles and I hold the Democratic Party responsible for the ill feeling engendered both North and South. They persist in saying here at home that the Republican Party proposes to make war on the Institutions of the South. In a word that it is the fixed purpose of Lincoln to abolish slavery in the States when they know he stands pledged against any thing of the kind and would frown down such a movement let it come from whatever source it may. The Democratic Party has depended for success on lieing [sic] and misrepresentation for the last Twenty years and their lies and slanders have recoiled on their own heads. And they can now have the melancholy pleasure of reviewing their past course and see the ‘Rock upon which they Split.’

If the Negroes of the South looked for assistance from the North simultaneously with the election of Lincoln they gathered it from the speeches and movements of such men as Keit, Rhett, Gist, Yancy, Wigfall, and your own citizen Henry A. Wise. And those men will live to see that they by given credence and utterance to slanders started in the North have done more to excite servile insurrection among the Slaves than any other set of published articles purporting to have been copied from the New York tribune & Cincinnati Gazette that were pronounced by these papers base slanders and forgeries and I knew them to be such as I am a somewhat careful reader of those papers.

I think the conservative men both North & South should counsel moderation and thereby allay the bitter strife that has convulsd [sic] the country the last six years. I will go ‘Old Abes’ security that he will do right  and I hope he will make those corrupt officials ‘scamper’ like the money changers of old for they have almost perverted the Government. Enough on this subject.”

The letter continued as J.S. Moore proceeded to get Dr. Moore up to date on various Moore family members and his upcoming marriage.

The J.S. Moore to Dr. Thomas Moore letter, along with other Civil War era correspondence found in the Rockbridge County court records, is available at the Library of Virginia.

-Greg Crawford, Local Records Coordinator

A small slip of paper on display in the Library of Virginia’s latest exhibition You Have No Right: Law and Justice in Virginia, running 24 September 2012-18 May 2013, was of immense importance to twelve people. It discloses, even though it does not state the fact in so many words, that on 2 May 1772 they gained their freedom after being held in slavery since each of them was born. The piece of paper and the fates of those Virginians illuminates a disturbing and little-known part of Virginia’s history, the enslavement of American Indians.

The paper came into the possession of the Library of Virginia in 1988 when it acquired a copy of volume two of John Tracy Atkyns, Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the High Court of Chancery in the Time of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke . . . (London, 1765–1768) that had once been in the library of the colonial government in Williamsburg. One of the librarians in the cataloguing section showed it to me, knowing of my interest in that library. When she lifted it from her desk to hand it to me, a piece of paper that had been slipped between leaves in the middle of the volume fell out and fluttered to the floor. We were surprised, and I was even more surprised when I saw what it was. It was a 1780s or 1790s copy of the judgment in Robyn v. Hardiway (or Robin, or Hardaway), an unusually important case decided in the General Court of Virginia. The librarian and I presented the judgment to the archivists who added it to the meager surviving records of the colonial General Court.

The court case had two parts. First, attorneys argued about whether a 1682 law that allowed for the lifetime enslavement of Indians imported from other colonies had been repealed in 1684, 1691, or 1705. For decades Virginia’s courts had assumed that the 1684 invalidated the 1682 law, and “under that persuasion,” one of the attorneys informed the court, “hundreds of the descendants of Indians have obtained their freedom, on actions brought in this court.” The court concluded the first part of the case by deciding that the 1682 law had remained in effect until 1705.  This decision enlarged the number of residents of Virginia who could not hope to gain their freedom by claiming to be descendants of Indian women illegally enslaved between 1684 and 1705.

A jury trial then established that the twelve people were descendants of an Indian woman who had been illegally enslaved. The jury awarded Robin, Hannah, Daniel, Cuffie, Isham, Moses, Peter, Judy, Autry, Silvia, Davy, and Ned, all of unstated age, one shilling in damages. Each received one penny, but each also received freedom.

Some excellent 21^st-century scholarship demonstrates that English-speaking Virginians enslaved many more Indian residents of Virginia in the 17^th century than earlier historians believed and that the enslavement may very well have taken place in spite of the laws or in the absence of laws governing the enslavement of Indians. Because almost all of the records of the colonial General Court burned in the fire that destroyed the state court house and much of the business district of Richmond in April 1865, the specific record of the outcome of the important 1772 freedom suit naming the persons freed is especially rare and valuable.

It was critically important that the twelve plaintiffs were descendants of “Indian women,” not of Indian men. In 1662 the Virginia General Assembly had passed a law that arose from a case that Elizabeth Key filed in the Northumberland County Court. She was the daughter of Thomas Key, a white man who had been a burgess in the 1630s, and one of his enslaved female laborers of African origin or descent. Elizabeth Key claimed her freedom as the daughter of a free man and won her case, but the assembly then changed the law. The act of 1662 explained that because “some doubts have arrisen whether children got by any Englishman upon a negro woman should be slave or ffree” it declared “that all children borne in this country shalbe held bound or free only according to the condition of the mother.”

Two other pieces of paper on exhibition in You Have No Right demonstrate that descendants of enslaved Indian women continued to file freedom suits in Virginia courts well into the 19^th century. In May 1820, after seven years of tedious and delayed proceedings in the courts of Wythe and Powhatan Counties, Rachel Findlay won her freedom for the second time. When she was a girl in 1773, one year after the General Court issued its judgment in Robyn v. Hardiway, the court ruled that she and her family, too, were entitled to their freedom as descendants of an illegally enslaved Indian woman. But her owner, who lived in the part of Cumberland County that in 1777 became Powhatan County, sold rather than freed her. She lived in slavery in far-away Wythe County for forty years until learning in 1813 that she should have been freed in 1773.

When the Powhatan County Court finally issued its ruling in the May 1820 judgment Rachel vs. John Draper, Sr. that Rachel Findlay was a free person, she was an old woman with thirty or forty descendants, all of whom had lived all of their lives in slavery and should have always lived free. It is not known whether any or all of her children and grandchildren and perhaps great grandchildren ever learned that they, too, should have been living in freedom and not in slavery since their births or whether any of them actually became free as a result of her persistent pursuit of her law suit. A court judgment was not self-enforcing, especially for a group of people like Rachel Findlay’s descendants who probably lived in wide dispersion, perhaps some of them outside of Virginia. Some of them may have lived the remainder of their lives in slavery, too, as she did for forty-seven years.

About the time that Rachel Findlay won her freedom for the second time, members of the Evans family lost a freedom suit in Lynchburg in Charles Evans, etc. vs. Lewis B. Allen, 1821-033. Their story is truly tragic. In preparation for their case, members of the family or perhaps their court-appointed attorney compiled and submitted to the court a genealogical chart that demonstrated how the family members were related to one another. That sheet of paper is also on display in the Library of Virginia’s exhibition and together with other evidence might have persuaded a court that they were entitled to their freedom. However, their attorney, former Congressman Christopher Henderson Clark, had a stroke sometime in 1820 and failed to appear in court on behalf of his clients. As a consequence of the case not being presented when scheduled, the court dismissed it in 1821, leaving all of the people and the descendants of the females stuck in slavery for the remainder of their lives.

Slavery and the laws that created and protected it were cruel and unjust. Adding to the cruelty and injustice were the many unpredictable factors, like the illness of an attorney, that could prevent people from presenting their cases in court, or like the sale of Rachel before she could become free. It is now clear that colonial Virginians enslaved more Indians than historians once knew about, and it is evident that many more people had been illegally enslaved than historians once believed. Men, women, and children of African, American Indian, and also of European and mixed ancestry like Elizabeth Key fell victim to the system of slavery that sustained Virginia’s economy and society from the early years of the colonial period to the end of the American Civil War.

It is also now convenient for the first time to do thorough research on some of the freedom suits that people filed after the American Revolution. People who filed suits seeking freedom and alleging illegal enslavement often sought justice through local courts of chancery. The record of each surviving court case contains unique personal stories about the enslavement of one or more Virginians and the conditions under which they lived and how they attempted to gain their freedom. As part of the Library of Virginia’s project to preserve and make available to researchers the records of the commonwealth’s local chancery courts, archivists at the library have to date digitized thousands of case files containing several million pages of documents, including more than one hundred freedom suits. They are processing and digitizing more every day. The records of the cases that have been digitized can be viewed online in the Chancery Records Index.

Clerks of court did not know or use the surnames of the people who filed freedom suits, so to identify freedom suits it is necessary to search for chancery causes in which the style, or title, of the case does not include a surname. In the search field for the surname for the plaintiff(s), simply enter a tilde ~ which will return a list of cases in which the surname of the plaintiff is not part of the official name of the case.

-Brent Tarter, Founding Editor of the Dictionary of Virginia Biography

The Library of Virginia is pleased to announce the addition of Surry County to the cohabitation register digitization project.  This project, via the Virginia Memory website, aims to index, digitize, transcribe, and provide access to all known Virginia cohabitation registers and the related registers of children whose parents had ceased to cohabit.

The Surry County register contains some of the most delightful names that one may have had the opportunity to run across in a historical document.  Could one of these fine folks be an ancestor of yours? 

• Champion Blizzard
• Mike Blow and his wife Anarchy
• Champion Bird
• Squire Charity
• Nancy Drew
• Cherry Birdsong
• Jim Beets
• Queen Anne Gray
• Sharper Falcon
• Sam Wisdom
• Harry Honeycatt
• Sucky Blue
• Nancy Pooten
• Jupiter Cheeseman
• Indiana Charity
• Robin Wren and his wife Amy Falcon
• Cheeseman Smith
• Moses Twine
• Dolphin Morris
• Harry Falcon and his wife Susan Hasty

Cohabitation registers are among the most important genealogical resources for African-Americans attempting to connect their family lines back through the oftentimes murky past to their enslaved ancestors. The registers date from 1866 and provide a snapshot in time for the individuals recorded therein and a wealth of information that may otherwise be impossible, or at least very difficult, to uncover. Cohabitation registers were the legal vehicles by which former slaves legitimized both their marriages and their children. The information about an individual person contained in a cohabitation register is literally priceless as it is often the first time that a former slave appeared officially in the public record and because of the extensive kinds of information that the register recorded.

Prior to the close of the Civil War, Virginia law provided no legal recognition for slave marriages. On 27 February 1866, the General Assembly enacted a law that entitled formerly enslaved people who had married during slavery to all of the rights and privileges as if they had been duly married by law and declared all of their children legitimate, whether born before or after the passage of this act. The surviving Virginia cohabitation registers recorded the name of the husband, his age, place of birth, residence, occupation, last owner, last owner’s city or county of residence, the name of the wife, her age, place of birth, residence, last owner, last owner’s city or county of residence, name of children with the ages of each, and the date of commencement of cohabitation.

For more information on the cohabitation registers, see an earlier blog post “Solid Genealogical Gold,” about the Register of Colored Persons of Smyth County, Virginia, cohabiting together as Husband and Wife on 27^th February 1866.

The Surry County register, transcription, and searchable index are available online along with the other registers from Virginia localities in the Cohabitation Register Digital Collection in Virginia Memory. To find it use either the link provided or go to Virginia Memory, choose Digital Collections, then Collections A to Z, and finally Cohabitation Registers.

-Sarah Nerney, Senior Local Records Archivist