Free Blacks as a Percentage of Total Population, 1860

The free black population in Augusta declined in the 1850s as a percentage of the total population, just as it did in the Upper South and Virginia.

U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census [1860]. Population of the United States in 1860, Compiled from the Original Returns of the Eighth Census. Washington, D.C., 1864

Edward L. Ayers and William G. Thomas, III
Free Blacks as a Percentage of Total Population, 1860

"Free blacks of Augusta County lived in tenuous circumstances surrounded by slavery, but they managed to find work, and some acquired significant property in the community."

"In Franklin black residents lived clustered in towns and segregated from whites, their position in the county secure only in their tightly defined communities."