Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Open for research.

Use Restrictions

No physical characteristics affect use of this material.

Preferred Citation

Preliminary Research of Free Blacks in Loudoun County, Virginia 1850-1860 (SC 0033), Thomas Balch Library, Leesburg, VA.

Acquisition Information

Janine Duncan, GA.

Alternative Form Available

None

Accruals

2005.0186

Processing Information

Processed by Matthew Exline, 5 Feb 2008

Historical Information

Researcher Janine Duncan completed Preliminary Research of Free Blacks in Loudoun County, Virginia 1850-1860 as one of the requirements of the Historic Preservation Certificate Program at Northern Virginia Community College. The study draws on the 1850 and 1860 censuses and corresponding Slave Schedules for Loudoun County, the Loudoun County Registry of Free Negroes 1844-1861, Loudoun county Land Tax Records, and Loudoun County Deed Books to gather as much general information as possible about the 2-6% of the county's population during the 1850s who were free Blacks. The study summarizes the legal status of free Blacks at the state and local levels. Free Blacks were required to leave the state not later than one year after obtaining their freedom, yet were also required to register at the county level every three years. This "Catch-22" was partly mitigated by a lack of enforcement and, apparently, some amount of tolerance at the local level. The study also includes information on the family lives, occupations, and social and economic status of free Blacks, drawn from the data recorded in or deduced from the sources listed above, and also refers to public petitions made to the Virginia General Assembly in the 1830s and 1840s. The main text is supplemented by tables, lists, and maps containing the data used to support the study's conclusions.

Scope and Content

This collection was an Independent Study Project carried out as part of the Historic Preservation Certificate Program at Northern Virginia Community College in Sterling, Virginia. The Program is an eight-course program designed, according to the program's website, "to meet the needs of those seeking to develop or refine research, analytical, and field skills in historic preservation, archaeology, and museum studies" and is offered at NOVA's Loudoun Campus.

This collection consists of a 36-page typescript explaining the scope, method, and sources for the project and discussing the findings of the research, including numerous tables of supporting data; a list of prosecutions against Free Blacks; tables of data for Loudoun County from the 1850 and 1860 censuses, copies of original census returns, a deed, and a Plantation Property Inventory, and an index of the names mentioned; a copy of the 1853 Yardley Taylor Loudoun County Survey Map and a copy of the 1863 U.S. Army Map of Loudoun County, with indices.

Related Material

Black Laws of Virginia: a summary of the legislative acts of Virginia concerning Negroes from earliest times to the present , by June Purcell Guild, compiled by Karen Hughes White and Joan Peters, REF 348.755 GUI; I Do Hereby Certify...a Register of free negroes of Loudoun County, Virginia from 1793-1861, transcribed and compiled by Victoria J. Robinson, REF 973.0496 ROB; Abstracts of Loudoun County, Virginia: register of free negroes, 1844-1861 , by Patricia B. Duncan, REF 929.375528 DUN; Loudoun County, Virginia lists of free negroes: 1851, 1855, 1856, 1857, 1858, 1859 , copied by Townsend M. Lucas, REF 301.451 LUC; Loudoun County, Virginia numbered certificates of Free Negroes , copied by Townsend M. Lucas, REF 301.451 LUC; Free Negroes in Northern Virginia: an investigation of the growth and status of free Negroes in the counties of Alexandria, Fairfax and Loudoun, 1770-1860 , by Donald M. Sweig, REF 975.5 SWE.

Adjunct Descriptive Data

Bibliography

Other Finding Aid

None