Free Negro Registers Published in the Magazine of Virginia Genealogy

While extant Registers of Free Negroes provide chronological and sustained information on the Free Negro population of Virginia after 1793, when such registers were first required to be kept by the individual counties by act of the Virginia legislature, lists of Free Negroes in the various counties do not always survive. They often exist only for individual years and are generally scattered throughout the records housed within the Old Dominion’s courthouses. Where full registers do exist, the related surviving lists should be regarded as important sources of supplemental information. Where county registers have not survived, the lists should be regarded as absolutely invaluable sources of information for all researchers. [1]

On 10 December 1793, the Virginia legislature passed “An Act … to restrain the practice of negroes going at large.” The provisions of the act included the stipulation that “every free negro or mulatto, who resides in, or is employed to labour within the limits of any city, borough or town, shall be registered and numbered in a book to be kept for that purpose by the clerk of the said city, borough or town, which register shall specify his or her age, name, colour and stature, by whom and in what court the said negro or mulatto was emancipated; or that such negro or mulatto was born free . .. . a Copy . .. [was] to be annually delivered to the said negro or mulatto.” Although county regulations do not mention a register, “no free negro or mulatto … [was] to go at large or hire himself or herself to labour in any county, without having his or her certificate registered in the clerk’s office of the county wherein he or she resides.” [2]

Registration renewal was required yearly in the cities and every three years in the counties. Although the enforcement of this requirement varies dramatically by locality, the surviving Free Negro Registers provide valuable information of a genealogical and social nature about the people therein. The same is true for lists of free negroes and mulattoes that exist as a single item or as part of a larger manuscript collection. [3]

Published in the Magazine of Virginia Genealogy

Additional Published and Online Sources

Additional resources for African American research in Virginia

[1] Joanne Lovelace Nance, Magazine of Virginia Genealogy, vol. 33, issue no. 4, fall 1995, 265.
[2] Barbara Vines Little, editor, Magazine of Virginia Genealogy, vol. 39, issue no. 4, November 2001, 271. For the 1793 act see Samuel Shepherd, The Statutes at Large of Virginia, from October Session 1792 to December Session 1806 Inclusive, vol. 1 (1835, reprinted New York: AMS Press, Inc., 1970), 238.
[3] Barbara Vines Little, editor, Magazine of Virginia Genealogy, vol. 44, issue no. 4, November 2006, 328.