Browse Items (69 total)
Distribution of Virginia's Slave Population, Map, 1861
Using the data from the 1860 census, this map was created in 1861. It shows the distribution of enslaved Virginians in each of the state's counties, with the darker shades showing the counties with the highest percentage of enslaved men, women, and…
Adolphus, Contract to Be Hired Out, 1865
Hiring out enslaved men, women, and children was a common business arrangement among Virginians during slavery. This practice, which occurred in rural and urban areas, enabled owners of slaves to profit from their labor when they could not employ all…
Roanoke County Cohabitation Register, 1866
Prior to the Civil War, enslaved men and women were not legally allowed to marry. However, during slavery many men and women did consider themselves to be married despite the lack of legal protection and recognition, which meant that husbands and…
Apprenticeship Contracts, Brunswick County, 1866
In March 1865, before the Civil War had ended, Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands (generally known as the Freedmen’s Bureau) to supervise matters related to freed people as well as to distribute land "abandoned" by…
The First Vote, Engraving published in Harper's Weekly, 1867
With the end of the Civil War came the end of slavery in the American South. When the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified on December 9, 1865, slavery was officially outlawed. Racial hostilities towards formerly…
Attendance Records of the state Constitutional Convention, 1867–1868
Black men in Virginia voted for the first time in October 1867, when they participated in the election on whether to hold a convention to rewrite the state's constitution as required by Congress after the Civil War. They also voted for delegates to…
Copy of the Fifteenth Amendment Sent to North Carolina Legislature, 1869
After the Civil War ended and slavery was abolished in 1865, Radical Republicans in Congress became frustrated with the opposition that many white southerners exhibited to extending full rights of citizenship to African Americans. Congress proposed…
Jefferson Township School District Map, 1870
Prior to the Civil War, Virginia did not have a comprehensive public school system. Some localities provided some "free schools" or "charity schools" for the children of indigent white families. African Americans, free and enslaved, were excluded…
Letter Notifying the Governor that Virginia Representatives were Readmitted to Congress, 1870
The American Civil War was fought between 1861 and 1865. The war began after eleven southern states, including Virginia, seceded from the United States in the months after Abraham Lincoln was elected president in November 1860. After four years of…
James S. Russell and St. Paul Normal and Industrial Institute, Broadside, 1895
This broadside advertises an excursion by train from Lawrenceville to Norfolk as a fundraiser for St. Paul Normal and Industrial Institute. James Solomon Russell (1857–1935) founded St. Paul Normal and Industrial School in Lawrenceville to serve the…