I've been studying free blacks in the Valley & closely examined all the registers I can find for that region. The monthly pattern you describe prompts me to think that the trigger was the Christmas 1856 fear of a slave uprising experienced in many parts of the South.
The registers I've looked at suggest that only about 1/3 of those free blacks who were required to register did so. But at times of crisis--after Nat Turner or John Brown, there was usually a temporary surge. Whether this was the result of greater vigilence by the authorities or black fear is unclear.
Ellen Eslinger
DePaul University
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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 ne 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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