I was out of town yesterday when the subject of slavery came up again, but had I been here, I would have pointed out, as Margie Young-Taylor finally did, that the color of a person's skin was irrelevant to his or her status as slave or free. If his or her mother had been held in slavery, he or she was born into slavery. The 1806 law that required freed slaves to leave the state unless permission was obtained from the legislature to remain (later amended to allow county courts to grant such permissions) was simply to rid the state of freed slaves, who were not deemed on the whole to be a wholesome presence in a slave society. 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 <http://www.lva.lib.va.us> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html