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native Americans had been repealed.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
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-----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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