We should also remember that, although enforcement varied in the extreme,
throughout most of the antebellum period Virginia's law provided that
newly manumitted persons were supposed to leave the state within a year -
and (at least after Gabriel's conspiracy) the law also required free
people of color to register annually with the county courts.
   On the latter, long ago I remember a conversation at Chicken's in the
capitol during which Mick Nochols observed that, in the southside
records he was examining at the time, compliance with the registration
provision seemed to increase in times of societal anxiety over race,
such as Gabriel, Turner, etc.
Jon Kukla

> Re: Why would free persons of color born in Virginia be in Hannibal,
> Missouri in 1850?  And when would they have come there?
>
> Not so unusual: think of the freed Hemingses who went to Ohio in the
> 1830s.
>
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Dr. Jon Kukla, Executive Vice-President
Red Hill - The Patrick Henry National Memorial
1250 Red Hill Road
Brookneal, Virginia 24528
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Phone 434-376-2044 or 800-514-7463

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