Brent, but I do not believe this would be true for the child of an
African Slave woman and an Indian father. There were enslaved people
who proved their ancestry was Indian, not black, who gained their
freedom. See the Va. case of Hudgins v. Wrights (1806).
Paul Finkelman
Brent Tarter wrote:
> Except for a short time in the 17th century, Virginia law exempted most
> Native Americans and their descendants from being held in slavery. Suits got
> filed in Virginia courts from time to time throughout the eighteenth century
> and well into the nineteenth by persons who had been held in slavery but
> alleging that they should be freed because of Native American ancestry.
> Those who could demonstrate that ancestry got set free. Runaway ads
> sometimes state that a person who had left a slave owner might attempt to
> pass for an Indian and therefore free.
>
> The complexities of the law were argued in the General Court in April 1772.
> Attorney Thomas Jefferson abstracted the arguments, which can be read in
> Thomas Jefferson, Reports of Cases Determined in the General Court of
> Virginia from 1730, to 1740; and from 1768, to 1772 (Charlottesville, 1829),
> 109-123.
>
> In that case, several persons were set free, having satisfactorily
> demonstrated their line of descent, and the court having settled the
> question of when a 1682 law that appeared to permit the enslavement of some
> native Americans had been repealed.
>
> Wytheville historian Mary B. Kegley recently published a novel, Free in
> Chains (Wytheville, Va.: Kegley Books of Wytheville, 2002) based on two such
> cases. Her article on the facts of the cases was to have been published this
> year in Virginia Cavalcade, but as a result of the state's budget cuts and
> the discontinuance of that excellent journal, it will, I hope, some day
> appear in some other journal for the very purpose of assisting in such
> research quetions as Henry has asked.
>
> Brent Tarter
> The Library of Virginia
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Visit the Library of Virginia's web site at http://www.lva.lib.va.us
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 07 January, 2003 6:02 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Free or slave?
>
>
> I have a very puzzling African-American family history, dating to the late
> 1860s, which states that in 1780 a free white man had a child with a
> mixed-race slave (black, white, and Cherokee) in Virginia. The history
> states that even though the mother was a slave the child was free because
> of the mother's Indian blood. The text states: "His mother being of
> Indian descent, made him, under the laws of Virginia, a free born man."
> Was there such a law? In fact, the child in question was always regarded
> as free as far as I can tell.
>
> I would appreciate any help.
>
> Henry Wiencek
> Charlottesville
>
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--
Paul Finkelman
Chapman Distinguished Professor
University of Tulsa College of Law
3120 East 4th Place
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104-2499
918-631-3706 (office)
918-631-2194 (fax)
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