John,

Sorry to plague you with questions as there no likelihood that I'll be able
to throw light on your quest, but:

1)  Were the passes issued in rural areas?
2)  Is there any commonality in the locus of issue?
3)  Have you looked back in five year increments (or the period of
reregistry in the area of the passes) to ascertain if this is a cyclic
phenomenon perhaps associated with the rush of initial registration?

tom
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Hopewell" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2001 5:35 PM
Subject: Free Negro Registrations


> As an archivist in local records at The Library of Virginia, recently I
> have been sorting through the loose court records of Cumberland County. In
> the decade of the 1850s, Free Negro Registration "passes" routinely number
> one or two a month. Today while sorting through the records for 1857,
> suddenly there are 13 for January, 52 for February, 15 for March and 10
for
> April. Then it's back to 1 for May, none for June, 2 for July.
> I checked Acts of Assembly for 1856 to see if some new statute would
> explain the sudden, dramatic rise in registrations, but there was nothing
> that logically would provide a reason. Several colleagues consulted here
at
> LVA are just as baffled as I about the increase.
> (By way of explanation, the law of 1794 required all Free Negroes to
> register regularly (usually every five years in rural areas) with the
Clerk
> of the Court, be entered in the Register and be issued a pass describing
> the individual to be carried on his/her person. Usually when the person
> registered, the old pass was turned in and a new one issued. The clerk
> often put the old pass into the loose records where they were retained to
> the present day. These old passes are the ones that suddenly increase in
> numbers.)
>  So, I put it to the folks out there in Historyland: does anyone have an
> answer to the question why so many in such a short span of time? It may be

> a local thing that ever will defy explanation (e.g. mean sheriff, panicky
> rumors, etc.) or there may be some other cause I have overlooked. Many
> thanks.   John Hopewell, LVA
>
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