FREE AFRICAN AMERICANS
FREE AFRICAN AMERICANS
OF VIRGINIA, NORTH CAROLINA
SOUTH CAROLINA, MARYLAND AND DELAWARE
The history of the free African American community as told through the family history of most African Americans who were free in the Southeast during the colonial period
Winner:
The American Society of Genealogists' Donald Lines Jacobus Award
and
The North Carolina Genealogical Society Award of Excellence in Publishing
Two books you can read on-line containing about 2,000 pages of family histories based on all colonial court order and minute books on microfilm at the state archives of Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and Delaware (over 1000 volumes), 1790-1810 census records, tax lists, wills, deeds, free Negro registers, marriage bonds, parish registers, Revolutionary War pension files, etc. There are also another 5,000 pages of abstracted colonial tax lists, Virginia personal property tax lists, census records, etc., under "Colonial Tax Lists..."
Paul Heinegg
Send questions and comments to pheinegg1@verizon.net
Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina
Foreword by historian Ira Berlin
Maryland and Delaware
Colonial Tax Lists, Virginia personal property tax lists, Census, and Court Records for Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennesse and Virginia
19th century photos of free African American and Indian families
List of Indian Slaves, Free Indians, and Free African Americans identified in Colonial Records Without Last Names
Service in the Revolutionary War
Recent updates:
April 2012: Norfolk County Register of Free Negroes & Mulattoes 1809-1852
December 2011: Nelson County Personal Property Tax http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/nelson... Arnold family
October 2011: List of Free Negroes & Mulattoes in the lower district of Lunenburg County, 1802-1803 (Library of Virginia) http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/Lunenb...
Illinois
Free and American, A study of Eleven Illinois Families of Colour, by Darrel Dexter (Updated November 2004)
Tennessee & Indiana
The Lyles Family by Arlene B. Polk
Virginia Slaves Freed After 1782
East Indians in Colonial Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina
Slaves named in colonial Halifax County, North Carolina, and King George County, Virginia wills
Hard copies of Free African Americans of Maryland and Delaware and Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina can be purchased from the publisher:
Link to order book on North Carolina and Virginia from Genealogical Publishing
book on Maryland and Delaware
or call 1-800-296-6687
http://www.freeafricanamericans.com
OF VIRGINIA, NORTH CAROLINA
SOUTH CAROLINA, MARYLAND AND DELAWARE
The history of the free African American community as told through the family history of most African Americans who were free in the Southeast during the colonial period
Winner:
The American Society of Genealogists' Donald Lines Jacobus Award
and
The North Carolina Genealogical Society Award of Excellence in Publishing
Two books you can read on-line containing about 2,000 pages of family histories based on all colonial court order and minute books on microfilm at the state archives of Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and Delaware (over 1000 volumes), 1790-1810 census records, tax lists, wills, deeds, free Negro registers, marriage bonds, parish registers, Revolutionary War pension files, etc. There are also another 5,000 pages of abstracted colonial tax lists, Virginia personal property tax lists, census records, etc., under "Colonial Tax Lists..."
Paul Heinegg
Send questions and comments to pheinegg1@verizon.net
Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina
Foreword by historian Ira Berlin
Maryland and Delaware
Colonial Tax Lists, Virginia personal property tax lists, Census, and Court Records for Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennesse and Virginia
19th century photos of free African American and Indian families
List of Indian Slaves, Free Indians, and Free African Americans identified in Colonial Records Without Last Names
Service in the Revolutionary War
Recent updates:
April 2012: Norfolk County Register of Free Negroes & Mulattoes 1809-1852
December 2011: Nelson County Personal Property Tax http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/nelson... Arnold family
October 2011: List of Free Negroes & Mulattoes in the lower district of Lunenburg County, 1802-1803 (Library of Virginia) http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/Lunenb...
Illinois
Free and American, A study of Eleven Illinois Families of Colour, by Darrel Dexter (Updated November 2004)
Tennessee & Indiana
The Lyles Family by Arlene B. Polk
Virginia Slaves Freed After 1782
East Indians in Colonial Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina
Slaves named in colonial Halifax County, North Carolina, and King George County, Virginia wills
Hard copies of Free African Americans of Maryland and Delaware and Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina can be purchased from the publisher:
Link to order book on North Carolina and Virginia from Genealogical Publishing
book on Maryland and Delaware
or call 1-800-296-6687
http://www.freeafricanamericans.com
Irma, I have you to thank for giving me the subjects to research.
To get to the links for the books go to http://www.freeafricanamericans.com I found the site from another one here - the following is an extract.
http://www.common-place.org/vol-05/no-01/h...
While some North Carolina residents were complaining about the immigration of free African Americans, their white neighbors in Granville, Halifax, Bertie, Craven, Granville, Robeson, and Hertford counties welcomed them. In 1762 many of the leading residents of Halifax County petitioned the assembly to repeal the discriminatory tax against free African Americans, and in 1763 fifty-four of the leading citizens of Granville, Northampton, and Edgecombe counties made a similar petition. They described their "Free Negro & Mulatto" neighbors as "persons of Probity & good Demeanor [who] chearfully contribute towards the Discharge of every public Duty injoined them by Law." About ten years later a similar petition by seventy-five residents of Granville County included those of a few of the free African Americans of the county.
During the colonial and early national periods at least one member of most African American families in North Carolina owned land. Land ownership made for closer relations with the white community than with slaves. The McKinnie family, originally from Isle of Wight County, Virginia, was one of the leading white families in the area around the Roanoke River. Barnaby McKinnie, member of the general assembly from Edgecombe County in 1735, was witness to many of the early deeds of African American families. John McKinnie called Cannon Cumbo his friend when he mentioned him in his 1753 Edgecombe County will. Other leading white settlers who sold them land adjoining theirs and witnessed their deeds were Richard Washington, William and Thomas Bryant, Richard Pace, and William Whitehead. Arthur Williams, member of the general assembly for Bertie County in 1735, and John Castellaw, perhaps a brother of James Castellaw, a member of the assembly from Bertie County, had mixed-race common-law wives, Elizabeth and Martha Butler.
By 1790 free African Americans represented 1.7 percent of the free population of North Carolina, concentrated in the counties of Northampton, Halifax, Bertie, Craven, Granville, Robeson, and Hertford where they were about 5 percent of the free population. In these counties most African American families were landowners, and several did exceptionally well. The Bunch, Chavis, and Gibson families owned slaves and acquired over a thousand acres of land on both sides of the Roanoke River in present-day Northampton and Halifax counties, and the Chavis and Gowen families acquired over a thousand acres in Granville County. William Chavis, a "Negro" listed in the 1754 muster roll of Colonel William Eaton’s Granville County Regiment, owned over a thousand acres of land, a lodging house frequented by whites, and eight taxable slaves. His son Philip Chavis also owned over a thousand acres of land. Edward Carter was the fourth largest Dobbs County landowner with 23,292 acres in 1780. He was head of a Dobbs County household of eight "other free," one white woman, and twenty slaves in 1790. In a most extraordinary move, in 1773 the Dobbs County court recommended to the general assembly that Edward Carter's daughters be exempted from the discriminatory tax against female children of African Americans.