Almost Free: A Story about Family and Race in Antebellum Virginia

Notes

143 notes abbreviations aahafc Afro-American Historical Association of Fauquier County Census U.S. Census population schedules, National Archives and Records Administration, microfilm cv 184 The Code of Virginia . . . (Richmond: William F. Ritchie, 184) Deeds Deed Book, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va., 2321, microfilm fc Fauquier County fcmb Fauquier County Court Minute Books, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va., 2321, microfilm FN/Sl Free Negro/Slave Hening William Waller Hening, The Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia from the First Session of the Legislature, in the Year 1619. 13 vols. (Richmond: Samuel Pleasants, 180–1823) lp Virginia General Assembly, Legislative Petitions of the General Assembly, State Government Records Collection, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va., 2321 lva Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va., 2321 144 notes rcv 181 The Revised Code of the Laws of Virginia: Being a Collection of All Such Acts of the General Assembly . . . as Are Now in Force (Richmond: Thomas Ritchie, 181) rcv 1833 Supplement to the Revised Code of the Laws of Virginia: Being a Collection of All the Acts of the General Assembly, . . . Passed since the Year 1819 . . . (Richmond: Samuel Shepherd, 1833) rfn Fauquier County, Virginia, Register of Free Negros, 1817–1865, abstracted and indexed by Karen King Ibrahim, Karen Hughes White, and Courtney Gaskins (Lovettesville, Va.: Willow Bend, 16) Shepherd Samuel Shepherd, The Statutes at Large of Virginia: From October Session 1792, to December Session 1806, Inclusive, in Three Volumes (New Series), Being a Continuation of Hening. 3 vols. (Richmond: Samuel Shepherd, 1835–1836; rpt., New York: ams, 170) sjp 1811 Virginia General Assembly, Legislative Petitions of the General Assembly, Sam’s Petition, 13 Dec. 1811, Fauquier County, State Government Records Collection, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va., 2321 sjp 1815 Virginia General Assembly, Legislative Petitions of the General Assembly, Samuel Johnson’s Petition, 16 Dec. 1815, Fauquier County, State Government Records Collection, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va., 2321 sjp 1820 Virginia General Assembly, Legislative Petitions of the General Assembly, Samuel Johnston Petition, 14 Dec. 1820, Fauquier County, State Government Records Collection, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va., 2321 sjp 1822 Virginia General Assembly, Legislative Petitions of the General Assembly, Sam Johnson’s Petition, 17 Dec. 1822, Fauquier County, State Government Records Collection, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va., 2321 sjp 1823 Virginia General Assembly, Legislative Petitions of the notes to chapter one 145 General Assembly, Sam Johnson’s Petition, 4 Dec. 1823, Fauquier County, State Government Records Collection, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va., 2321 sjp 1824 Virginia General Assembly, Legislative Petitions of the General Assembly, Samuel Johnson’s Petition, 4 Dec. 1824, Fauquier County, State Government Records Collection, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va., 2321 sjp 1826 Virginia General Assembly, Legislative Petitions of the General Assembly, Samuel Johnston Petition, 7 Dec. 1826, Fauquier County, State Government Records Collection, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va., 2321 sjp 1828 Virginia General Assembly, Legislative Petitions of the General Assembly, Petition of Sam’l Johnston, 5 Dec. 1828, Fauquier County, State Government Records Collection, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va., 2321 sjp 1835 Virginia General Assembly, Legislative Petitions of the General Assembly, Sam Johnson’s Petition, 1 Jan. 1835, Fauquier County, State Government Records Collection, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va., 2321 sjp 1837 Virginia General Assembly, Legislative Petitions of the General Assembly, Petition of Sam Johnson, 25 Jan. 1837, Fauquier County, State Government Records Collection, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va., 2321 chapter one. A New Birth of Freedom 1. Notation of Richard Brent deed of manumission to Samuel Johnson, 25 Aug. 1812, fcmb; Richard Brent deed of manumission to Samuel Johnson, 2 Aug. 1812, fc Deeds 18:474. 2. The 1810 U.S. Census summary gives a total Virginia population of 74,622, with 32,518 slaves and 30,570 nonwhite free persons. 3.The classic account of the free black experience in the United States is Ira Berlin’s Slaves without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum 146 notes to chapter one South (New York: New Press, 174). Melvin Patrick Ely has challenged Berlin’s characterization of free blacks as masterless slaves in Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s through the Civil War (New York: Knopf, 2004), which like this book relies on local records. Ely argues that masters’ sense of dominance and their confidence in the slave system allowed them to grant free blacks a surprising amount of latitude...