It has become increasingly obvious the more that historians research
about slavery and the exeriences of enslaved people and of free blacks
in the slave south that a great variety of personal experiences existed
within the ostensibly strick laws of the slave system.

Permit me to recommend Melvin Patrick Ely's recent award-winning ISRAEL
ON THE APPOMATTOX, an extraordinarily subtle study of free blacks in a
slave county. The ways in which white people and black people, free
people and enslaved people, interacted is very instructive and shows,
among other things, that in some places and times and circumstances the
rigid laws were ruthlessly enforced but at others they were not. It is
not safe to generalize too far from a specific example. Even though the
laws required manumitted slaves to leave Virginia after 1806, local
community opinion often allowed them to remain.

PS: We ought to change the subject line on this discussion, which no
longer has much to do with Jefferson or conservatism or principles, even
though so far pretty good common sense has prevailed.

Brent Tarter
The Library of Virginia
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Visit the Library of Virginia's web site at http://www.lva.lib.va.us

-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Anita Wills
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 1:11 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: "common-sense Jeffersonian conservative principles"

I know that several of my ancestors were freed by the Will of Charles
Yates in 1811. Yates was a friend of George Washingtons, and a
businessman in Fredericksburg. He left one of the freedmen $500 in his
Will, which was used to purchase property. My ancestors remained in
Fredericksburg until prior to the Civil War. I did not find any
documents requiring them to leave the area after manumission. 

Anita 


-- Paul Finkelman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
The fact is that thousands of Virignians did what Jefferson refused to
do; they freed their slaves; moreover the 1806 law did not require
"exile" but only made manumssion in state more difficult.  Thousands of
slaves gained their freedom in VA after 1806; indeed Jefferson freed 5
slvaes in his will and they were allowed to stay in the state.
 Jefferson did not believe blacks ought to be free. They are "pests on
society" he told Edward Coles, his neighbor.  He opposed any efforts to
end slavery in Virginia.  But, as Henry so wisely notes, facts are
facts.

Paul Finkelman

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