Return to Comparison Statements:
Property
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.
Like their counterparts throughout the United States, the free blacks of Augusta County held the jobs of lowest status and
lowest pay. The men mostly worked as day laborers, the women as washerwomen and domestics. But some women became seamstresses
and some men became coopers, carpenters, shoe makers, and blacksmiths. Despite their hard work, only 14 of the 586 free black
people in Augusta owned a house or land worth at least one hundred dollars. The personal possessions of the great majority
were measured in tens of dollars. Of Augusta's total free black population, 25 percent worked either as an unskilled laborer
or domestic worker, 3 percent were artisans, and fewer than 1 percent were farmers. In Franklin the proportion was similar:
28 percent were unskilled and domestic workers, 2 percent artisans, and almost none were farmers. In Franklin three blacks
listed themselves in the census as professionals or merchants, while in Augusta no blacks rose to this class or occupation.
In Franklin County, black residents owned on average $493 in real estate and just $86 in personal property; in Augusta these
averages were nearly double: $1,189 in real and $230 in personal property. One Augusta free black man, Robert Campbell,
was the local barber and amassed over $10,000 in real estate and a stunning $9,000 in personal property. In Franklin Henry
Shoeman, a remarkable farmer, managed to obtain property worth $10,000 in real estate and $2,000 in personal property. On
the whole, free blacks in Augusta had as much or more real and personal wealth as their counterparts in Franklin.
To maintain "the state of inferiority" of free blacks in Augusta, they had been required since 1810 to register with the county
court clerk. Only about a third of the county's free blacks did so, leading The Vindicator to complain of "a number of free negroes about town, who are not registered, and consequently have no business here. It
is the duty of the proper authorities to forthwith commence the correction of the serious evil by notifying them to leave,
or suffer the penalty imposed by law of remaining." Those who did register tended to have money or children to shelter.
A document from the County Court Clerk might be the only protection they would have from those who would kidnap them or their
children and sell them into slavery. The clerk, for a twenty-five cents fee, replaced and updated these precious pieces of
paper, worn from much handling.
The registration was intended to provide a way for county officials to keep track of the free African Americans in their midst.
The law required all former slaves freed by their masters to leave Virginia within twelve months, though counties could determine
who could stay and who could leave. Fifty people emancipated in the 1850s came before the Augusta County Court. Thirty-six
had been freed at their masters' death by will, a practice especially common among female slaveholders. The emancipated divided
about equally between males and females. They ranged in age from infancy to seventy years old, from "black" to "bright mulatto."
Of the fifty who petitioned to stay in Virginia after their freedom, Augusta denied thirty-two the right to stay. The great
bulk of those denied came in two large groups of slaves freed at their owners' death. When John S. Black died in 1856, he
freed by will eleven adult slaves plus seven of their children. Betsy, a "light mulatto infant," and two other children were
told to leave, as were Judith Easter and her three children (one "bright mulatto") and Charlotte and her two children. John
Black was a prominent man and left his widow, Virginia, with eight other slaves; his sons remained well-to-do farmers after
his death. But apparently they were unable or unwilling to persuade the county court to permit this large number of former
slaves to stay in Augusta and Virginia. Similarly, when Elizabeth Via died the following year, the seventeen people she freed,
ranging in age from two to thirty, from bright to dark, in all liklihood were forced to leave.
Supporting Evidence
Free Blacks in Augusta County, 1860 (table)
Free Blacks as a Percentage of Total Population, 1860 (graph)
Real Estate and Personal Estate Valuation, 1860 (table)
Related Historiography
William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854, Volume 1 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).
Citation: Key = TAF08
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