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

The defining feature of this work is the collection of official registrations, records of emancipations, orders of apprenticeship, tax lists and other local cou

The free Negro in Virginia before the Civil War was a by-product of slavery. During one period he was granted certain civil rights and had many economic opportu

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 Procla