http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/img/EV_Logo_sm.gif This is the url http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org The first and ultimate online reference work about the Commonwealth /Dyer_Carrie_Victoria_1839-1921 Fri, 17 May 2013 09:28:11 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Dyer_Carrie_Victoria_1839-1921 Fri, 17 May 2013 09:28:11 EST]]> /Dean_Jennie_Serepta_1848-1913 Fri, 17 May 2013 09:21:13 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Dean_Jennie_Serepta_1848-1913 Fri, 17 May 2013 09:21:13 EST]]> /Colonial_Virginia Thu, 16 May 2013 14:50:38 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Colonial_Virginia Thu, 16 May 2013 14:50:38 EST]]> /Jamestown_Settlement_Early Thu, 16 May 2013 14:24:23 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Jamestown_Settlement_Early Thu, 16 May 2013 14:24:23 EST]]> /Barrett_James_D_1833-1903 Wed, 15 May 2013 14:38:34 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Barrett_James_D_1833-1903 Wed, 15 May 2013 14:38:34 EST]]> /Negro_Organization_Society Wed, 15 May 2013 14:30:50 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Negro_Organization_Society Wed, 15 May 2013 14:30:50 EST]]> /Bowser_Rosa_L_Dixon_1855-1931 Tue, 14 May 2013 10:48:12 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Bowser_Rosa_L_Dixon_1855-1931 Tue, 14 May 2013 10:48:12 EST]]> /Brooks_Albert_Royal_c_1817-1881 Fri, 10 May 2013 17:30:11 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Brooks_Albert_Royal_c_1817-1881 Fri, 10 May 2013 17:30:11 EST]]> /Daniels_Edward_Dwight_1828-1916 Fri, 10 May 2013 11:23:32 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Daniels_Edward_Dwight_1828-1916 Fri, 10 May 2013 11:23:32 EST]]> /Cromwell_John_Wesley_1846-1927 Fri, 10 May 2013 11:14:06 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Cromwell_John_Wesley_1846-1927 Fri, 10 May 2013 11:14:06 EST]]> /Charity_Ruth_LaCountess_Harvey_Wood_1924-1996 Fri, 10 May 2013 10:16:47 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Charity_Ruth_LaCountess_Harvey_Wood_1924-1996 Fri, 10 May 2013 10:16:47 EST]]> /Atwell_Joseph_Sandiford_1831-1881 Thu, 09 May 2013 16:36:50 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Atwell_Joseph_Sandiford_1831-1881 Thu, 09 May 2013 16:36:50 EST]]> /Blackwell_James_Heyward_ca_1864-1931 Thu, 09 May 2013 16:33:47 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Blackwell_James_Heyward_ca_1864-1931 Thu, 09 May 2013 16:33:47 EST]]> /Brooks_Robert_Peel_1853-1882 Thu, 09 May 2013 13:08:07 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Brooks_Robert_Peel_1853-1882 Thu, 09 May 2013 13:08:07 EST]]> /Banks_William_Lester_1911-1986 Wed, 08 May 2013 14:06:54 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Banks_William_Lester_1911-1986 Wed, 08 May 2013 14:06:54 EST]]> /Commodore_Aaron_1819_or_1820-1892 Wed, 08 May 2013 13:18:10 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Commodore_Aaron_1819_or_1820-1892 Wed, 08 May 2013 13:18:10 EST]]> /Coleman_Asa_d_after_February_24_1893 Wed, 08 May 2013 13:07:41 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Coleman_Asa_d_after_February_24_1893 Wed, 08 May 2013 13:07:41 EST]]> /Allan_Edgar_1842-1904 Wed, 08 May 2013 11:51:41 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Allan_Edgar_1842-1904 Wed, 08 May 2013 11:51:41 EST]]> /Cottrell_Sally_d_1875 Wed, 08 May 2013 11:31:05 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Cottrell_Sally_d_1875 Wed, 08 May 2013 11:31:05 EST]]> /Branch_Tazewell_1828-1925 Wed, 08 May 2013 11:15:29 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Branch_Tazewell_1828-1925 Wed, 08 May 2013 11:15:29 EST]]> /Boland_Robert_J_1850-1918 Tue, 07 May 2013 16:53:23 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Boland_Robert_J_1850-1918 Tue, 07 May 2013 16:53:23 EST]]> /_Life_of_Isaac_Jefferson_of_Petersburg_Virginia_Blacksmith_by_Isaac_Jefferson_1847 Fri, 03 May 2013 09:49:59 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Life_of_Isaac_Jefferson_of_Petersburg_Virginia_Blacksmith_by_Isaac_Jefferson_1847 Fri, 03 May 2013 09:49:59 EST]]> /Browne_William_Washington_1849-1897 Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:40:47 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Browne_William_Washington_1849-1897 Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:40:47 EST]]> /Carter_James_B_ca_1816-1870 Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:21:06 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Carter_James_B_ca_1816-1870 Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:21:06 EST]]> /Canada_David_fl_1867-1868 Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:08:30 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Canada_David_fl_1867-1868 Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:08:30 EST]]> /Brown_George_O_1852-1910 Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:04:06 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Brown_George_O_1852-1910 Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:04:06 EST]]> /Brown_Edward_Wellington_d_1929 Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:00:40 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Brown_Edward_Wellington_d_1929 Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:00:40 EST]]> /Slave_Trade_Eyre_Crowe_s_Images_of_the Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:10:03 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Slave_Trade_Eyre_Crowe_s_Images_of_the Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:10:03 EST]]> /Cox_Earnest_Sevier_1880-1966 Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:10:34 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Cox_Earnest_Sevier_1880-1966 Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:10:34 EST]]> /Andros_Sir_Edmund_1637-ca_1714 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:36:53 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Andros_Sir_Edmund_1637-ca_1714 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:36:53 EST]]> /Dabney_John_ca_1824-1900 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:43:17 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Dabney_John_ca_1824-1900 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:43:17 EST]]> /Aiken_Archibald_Murphey_1888-1971 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:35:19 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Aiken_Archibald_Murphey_1888-1971 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:35:19 EST]]> /Copeland_Walter_Scott_1856-1928 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:30:58 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Copeland_Walter_Scott_1856-1928 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:30:58 EST]]> /Negro_in_Virginia_The_1940 Thu, 11 Apr 2013 14:32:01 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Negro_in_Virginia_The_1940 Thu, 11 Apr 2013 14:32:01 EST]]> /Query_XVIII_an_excerpt_from_Notes_on_the_State_of_Virginia_by_Thomas_Jefferson_1784 Thu, 11 Apr 2013 09:58:57 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Query_XVIII_an_excerpt_from_Notes_on_the_State_of_Virginia_by_Thomas_Jefferson_1784 Thu, 11 Apr 2013 09:58:57 EST]]> /Mahone_William_1826-1895 Mon, 08 Apr 2013 11:57:08 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Mahone_William_1826-1895 Mon, 08 Apr 2013 11:57:08 EST]]> /_The_most_promising_work_an_excerpt_from_Exhibition_of_the_Royal_Academy_June_1_1861 Mon, 08 Apr 2013 10:48:43 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_The_most_promising_work_an_excerpt_from_Exhibition_of_the_Royal_Academy_June_1_1861 Mon, 08 Apr 2013 10:48:43 EST]]> /_Sketches_in_the_Free_and_Slave_States_of_America_by_Eyre_Crowe_September_27_1856 Mon, 08 Apr 2013 10:44:45 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Sketches_in_the_Free_and_Slave_States_of_America_by_Eyre_Crowe_September_27_1856 Mon, 08 Apr 2013 10:44:45 EST]]> /Chapter_IV_an_excerpt_from_With_Thackeray_in_America_by_Eyre_Crowe_1893 Mon, 08 Apr 2013 10:25:48 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Chapter_IV_an_excerpt_from_With_Thackeray_in_America_by_Eyre_Crowe_1893 Mon, 08 Apr 2013 10:25:48 EST]]> /Constitutional_Convention_Virginia_1901-1902 Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:36:53 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Constitutional_Convention_Virginia_1901-1902 Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:36:53 EST]]> /Disfranchisement Thu, 04 Apr 2013 15:57:43 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Disfranchisement Thu, 04 Apr 2013 15:57:43 EST]]> /Slavery_at_the_University_of_Virginia Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:02:07 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Slavery_at_the_University_of_Virginia Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:02:07 EST]]> /University_of_Virginia_Board_of_Visitors_Minutes_October_4-5_1824 Wed, 27 Feb 2013 11:08:19 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/University_of_Virginia_Board_of_Visitors_Minutes_October_4-5_1824 Wed, 27 Feb 2013 11:08:19 EST]]> /_Sambo_and_the_Ass_by_Basil_L_Gildersleeve_April_5_1864 Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:25:48 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Sambo_and_the_Ass_by_Basil_L_Gildersleeve_April_5_1864 Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:25:48 EST]]> /Charlottesville_During_the_Civil_War Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:17:07 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Charlottesville_During_the_Civil_War Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:17:07 EST]]> /_Miscegenation_by_Basil_L_Gildersleeve_April_18_1864 Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:12:03 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Miscegenation_by_Basil_L_Gildersleeve_April_18_1864 Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:12:03 EST]]> /Dorm_Life_an_excerpt_fromHistory_of_the_University_of_Virginia_1819-1919by_Philip_Alexander_Bruce_1920-1922 Wed, 27 Feb 2013 09:56:27 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Dorm_Life_an_excerpt_fromHistory_of_the_University_of_Virginia_1819-1919by_Philip_Alexander_Bruce_1920-1922 Wed, 27 Feb 2013 09:56:27 EST]]> /Maggie_Lena_Walker_1864-1934 Fri, 15 Feb 2013 09:13:07 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Maggie_Lena_Walker_1864-1934 Fri, 15 Feb 2013 09:13:07 EST]]> /Runaway_Slaves_and_Servants_in_Colonial_Virginia Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:53:29 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Runaway_Slaves_and_Servants_in_Colonial_Virginia Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:53:29 EST]]> /Slave_Ships_and_the_Middle_Passage Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:48:55 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Slave_Ships_and_the_Middle_Passage Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:48:55 EST]]> /Burns_Anthony_The_Trial_of_1854 Thu, 24 Jan 2013 15:41:13 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Burns_Anthony_The_Trial_of_1854 Thu, 24 Jan 2013 15:41:13 EST]]> /Burns_Anthony_1834-1862 Thu, 17 Jan 2013 09:26:39 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Burns_Anthony_1834-1862 Thu, 17 Jan 2013 09:26:39 EST]]> /Delany_Martin_R_1812-1885 Thu, 17 Jan 2013 09:15:14 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Delany_Martin_R_1812-1885 Thu, 17 Jan 2013 09:15:14 EST]]> /University_of_Virginia_Board_of_Visitors_Minutes_July_4-7_1840 Wed, 16 Jan 2013 14:09:10 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/University_of_Virginia_Board_of_Visitors_Minutes_July_4-7_1840 Wed, 16 Jan 2013 14:09:10 EST]]> /Known_World_The_2003 Tue, 15 Jan 2013 16:10:28 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Known_World_The_2003 Tue, 15 Jan 2013 16:10:28 EST]]> /Gabriel_s_Conspiracy_1800 Tue, 15 Jan 2013 16:07:28 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Gabriel_s_Conspiracy_1800 Tue, 15 Jan 2013 16:07:28 EST]]> /Minkins_Shadrach_d_1875 Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:44:00 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Minkins_Shadrach_d_1875 Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:44:00 EST]]> /General_Court_Responds_to_Runaway_Servants_and_Slaves_1640 Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:21:46 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/General_Court_Responds_to_Runaway_Servants_and_Slaves_1640 Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:21:46 EST]]> /_A_Report_of_a_Comittee_from_an_Assembly_Concerning_the_freedome_of_Elizabeth_Key_1656 Fri, 11 Jan 2013 09:34:02 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_A_Report_of_a_Comittee_from_an_Assembly_Concerning_the_freedome_of_Elizabeth_Key_1656 Fri, 11 Jan 2013 09:34:02 EST]]> /_Description_of_the_Slave_Ship_Brookes_chapter_6_of_Liverpool_and_Slavery_by_a_Genuine_Dicky_Sam_1884 Thu, 10 Jan 2013 13:21:25 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Description_of_the_Slave_Ship_Brookes_chapter_6_of_Liverpool_and_Slavery_by_a_Genuine_Dicky_Sam_1884 Thu, 10 Jan 2013 13:21:25 EST]]> /Poll_Tax Thu, 03 Jan 2013 16:53:00 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Poll_Tax Thu, 03 Jan 2013 16:53:00 EST]]> /The_Ship_Thomas_chapter_7_of_Liverpool_and_Slavery_by_a_Genuine_Dicky_Sam_1884 Fri, 21 Dec 2012 12:20:49 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/The_Ship_Thomas_chapter_7_of_Liverpool_and_Slavery_by_a_Genuine_Dicky_Sam_1884 Fri, 21 Dec 2012 12:20:49 EST]]> /Fugitive_Slave_Laws Thu, 20 Dec 2012 12:52:00 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Fugitive_Slave_Laws Thu, 20 Dec 2012 12:52:00 EST]]> /Letter_from_Edward_Coles_to_Thomas_Jefferson_September_26_1814 Fri, 14 Dec 2012 14:49:46 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Letter_from_Edward_Coles_to_Thomas_Jefferson_September_26_1814 Fri, 14 Dec 2012 14:49:46 EST]]> /Letter_from_Thomas_Jefferson_to_Edward_Coles_August_25_1814 Fri, 14 Dec 2012 14:31:24 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Letter_from_Thomas_Jefferson_to_Edward_Coles_August_25_1814 Fri, 14 Dec 2012 14:31:24 EST]]> /Letter_from_James_Monroe_to_Thomas_Jefferson_September_15_1800 Fri, 14 Dec 2012 13:30:36 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Letter_from_James_Monroe_to_Thomas_Jefferson_September_15_1800 Fri, 14 Dec 2012 13:30:36 EST]]> /Plecker_Walter_Ashby_1861-1947 Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:32:40 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Plecker_Walter_Ashby_1861-1947 Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:32:40 EST]]> /Moton_School_Strike_and_Prince_Edward_County_School_Closings Wed, 12 Dec 2012 10:23:53 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Moton_School_Strike_and_Prince_Edward_County_School_Closings Wed, 12 Dec 2012 10:23:53 EST]]> /Hemings_Sally_1773-1835 Thu, 06 Dec 2012 14:44:47 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Hemings_Sally_1773-1835 Thu, 06 Dec 2012 14:44:47 EST]]> /Indentured_Servants_in_Colonial_Virginia Thu, 06 Dec 2012 01:37:42 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Indentured_Servants_in_Colonial_Virginia Indentured servants were men and women who signed a contract (also known as an indenture or a covenant) by which they agreed to work for a certain number of years in exchange for transportation to Virginia and, once they arrived, food, clothing, and shelter. Adults usually served for four to seven years and children sometimes for much longer, with most working in the colony's tobacco fields. With a long history in England, indentured servitude became, during most of the seventeenth century, the primary means by which Virginia planters filled their nearly inexhaustible need for labor. At first, the Virginia Company of London paid to transport servants across the Atlantic, but with the institution of the headright system in 1618, the company enticed planters and merchants to incur the cost with the promise of land. As a result, servants flooded into the colony, where they were greeted by deadly diseases and often-harsh conditions that killed a majority of newcomers and left the rest to the mercy of sometimes-cruel masters. The General Assembly passed laws regulating contract terms, as well as the behavior and treatment of servants. Besides benefiting masters with long indentures, these laws limited servant rights while still allowing servants to present any complaints in court. By the end of the seventeenth century, the number of new servants in Virginia had dwindled, and the colony's labor needs were largely met by enslaved Africans.
Thu, 06 Dec 2012 01:37:42 EST]]> /Grand_Fountain_of_the_United_Order_of_True_Reformers Tue, 04 Dec 2012 08:22:23 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Grand_Fountain_of_the_United_Order_of_True_Reformers Tue, 04 Dec 2012 08:22:23 EST]]> /Benga_Ota_ca_1883-1916 Tue, 04 Dec 2012 08:20:42 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Benga_Ota_ca_1883-1916 Tue, 04 Dec 2012 08:20:42 EST]]> /_Mr_Jefferson_s_Servants_an_excerpt_from_The_Private_Life_of_Thomas_Jefferson_by_Hamilton_W_Pierson_1862 Wed, 28 Nov 2012 10:21:20 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Mr_Jefferson_s_Servants_an_excerpt_from_The_Private_Life_of_Thomas_Jefferson_by_Hamilton_W_Pierson_1862 Wed, 28 Nov 2012 10:21:20 EST]]> /Letter_from_Ellen_Wayles_Randolph_Coolidge_to_Joseph_Coolidge_October_24_1858 Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:49:05 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Letter_from_Ellen_Wayles_Randolph_Coolidge_to_Joseph_Coolidge_October_24_1858 Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:49:05 EST]]> /Letter_from_Abigail_Adams_to_Thomas_Jefferson_June_27_1787 Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:36:01 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Letter_from_Abigail_Adams_to_Thomas_Jefferson_June_27_1787 Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:36:01 EST]]> /Letter_from_Abigail_Adams_to_Thomas_Jefferson_June_26_1787 Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:34:21 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Letter_from_Abigail_Adams_to_Thomas_Jefferson_June_26_1787 Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:34:21 EST]]> /Letter_from_Thomas_Jefferson_to_Nicholas_Lewis_April_12_1792 Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:28:35 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Letter_from_Thomas_Jefferson_to_Nicholas_Lewis_April_12_1792 Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:28:35 EST]]> /Clark_Matt_ca_1844-after_1892 Mon, 19 Nov 2012 09:43:25 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Clark_Matt_ca_1844-after_1892 Mon, 19 Nov 2012 09:43:25 EST]]> /Lewis_Miller_s_Virginia_Slavery_Drawings Thu, 15 Nov 2012 17:29:17 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Lewis_Miller_s_Virginia_Slavery_Drawings Thu, 15 Nov 2012 17:29:17 EST]]> /_Our_massa_Jefferson_he_say_by_Anonymous_September_1_1802 Fri, 09 Nov 2012 11:39:50 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Our_massa_Jefferson_he_say_by_Anonymous_September_1_1802 Fri, 09 Nov 2012 11:39:50 EST]]> /Hemings-Jefferson_DNA_an_excerpt_from_Jefferson_Fathered_Slave_s_Last_Child_by_Eugene_A_Foster_et_al_November_5_1998 Wed, 07 Nov 2012 15:03:58 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Hemings-Jefferson_DNA_an_excerpt_from_Jefferson_Fathered_Slave_s_Last_Child_by_Eugene_A_Foster_et_al_November_5_1998 Wed, 07 Nov 2012 15:03:58 EST]]> /_Life_Among_the_Lowly_No_3_by_Israel_Jefferson_December_25_1873 Wed, 07 Nov 2012 10:23:17 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Life_Among_the_Lowly_No_3_by_Israel_Jefferson_December_25_1873 Wed, 07 Nov 2012 10:23:17 EST]]> /American_Civil_War_and_Virginia_The Tue, 06 Nov 2012 16:52:10 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/American_Civil_War_and_Virginia_The Tue, 06 Nov 2012 16:52:10 EST]]> /Editorial_in_the_Waverly_Watchman_March_18_1873 Tue, 06 Nov 2012 13:33:53 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Editorial_in_the_Waverly_Watchman_March_18_1873 Tue, 06 Nov 2012 13:33:53 EST]]> /_Life_Among_the_Lowly_No_1_by_Madison_Hemings_March_13_1873 Thu, 01 Nov 2012 15:27:44 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Life_Among_the_Lowly_No_1_by_Madison_Hemings_March_13_1873 Thu, 01 Nov 2012 15:27:44 EST]]> /Jennings_Paul_1799-1874 Wed, 31 Oct 2012 11:31:43 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Jennings_Paul_1799-1874 Wed, 31 Oct 2012 11:31:43 EST]]> /Letter_from_Thomas_Jefferson_Randolph_to_the_Pike_County_Republican_ca_1874 Mon, 22 Oct 2012 14:58:34 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Letter_from_Thomas_Jefferson_Randolph_to_the_Pike_County_Republican_ca_1874 Mon, 22 Oct 2012 14:58:34 EST]]> /Racial_Integrity_Laws_of_the_1920s Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:18:10 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Racial_Integrity_Laws_of_the_1920s Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:18:10 EST]]> /Testimony_in_the_Trial_of_Gabriel_October_6_1800 Wed, 03 Oct 2012 11:57:26 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Testimony_in_the_Trial_of_Gabriel_October_6_1800 Wed, 03 Oct 2012 11:57:26 EST]]> /_To_the_New_York_Committee_for_the_Celebration_of_the_Birthday_of_Washington_by_Daniel_Webster_February_20_1851 Wed, 03 Oct 2012 09:21:25 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_To_the_New_York_Committee_for_the_Celebration_of_the_Birthday_of_Washington_by_Daniel_Webster_February_20_1851 Wed, 03 Oct 2012 09:21:25 EST]]> /Blake_or_the_Huts_of_America_1859-1861 Fri, 28 Sep 2012 13:25:08 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Blake_or_the_Huts_of_America_1859-1861 Fri, 28 Sep 2012 13:25:08 EST]]> /Great_Migration_The Thu, 20 Sep 2012 08:32:21 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Great_Migration_The Thu, 20 Sep 2012 08:32:21 EST]]> /Lee_Robert_E_in_Memory Wed, 19 Sep 2012 16:16:07 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Lee_Robert_E_in_Memory Robert E. Lee, a Confederate general during the American Civil War (1861–1865) and president of Washington College in Lexington until his death in 1870, is one of the most revered figures in American history. Lee's place in history is complicated, however, and the way that he has been remembered has changed over time. During his own life, Lee modeled himself after the courtly and self-controlled George Washington and cultivated a sense of himself as a character in a drama and a prisoner of fate. After his death, Lee was less likely to be branded a traitor; instead, he became a symbol of the Lost Cause interpretation of the war, transformed into a crucial agent of sectional reconciliation. The Civil War, according to the Lost Cause, was not about slavery but about states' rights and, ultimately, the honor and bravery of white soldiers on both sides. In this regard, Lee served the needs of not just the Confederacy or of the South, but of all America. The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s encouraged historians to engage a broader social and political canvas when writing about Lee, and this has led some scholars to challenge traditional conclusions about Lee's significance and meaning. Like Washington, Lee is the seminal figure in a transformational moment, but of a different sort. He is the symbol of a vision that failed, and yet also the redeemer of a cause that has lived a long and often tragic afterlife.
Wed, 19 Sep 2012 16:16:07 EST]]> /Confederate_Morale_during_the_Civil_War Wed, 19 Sep 2012 16:12:47 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Confederate_Morale_during_the_Civil_War Because the American Civil War (1861–1865) was fought between two popular democracies, the attitudes of the citizens of each country or region toward the war significantly shaped the course of the conflict. When citizens expressed enthusiasm for their cause it boosted the morale of their soldiers and assured the government that the public supported their policies. For a variety of reasons, historians have studied the morale of Southerners more closely than their Northern foes. First, of the South's nine million people, four million were African Americans, who expressed little voluntary support for the Confederacy and instead sided strongly with the Union. Second, the pressures of war created great hardship for Southern civilians and this hardship depressed the morale of many. Even if it did not lead people to support reunion, it embittered them against the Confederate leadership, which they viewed as often incompetent or unsympathetic. Part of the attention focused on Southern morale is by virtue of Confederate defeat—since the Confederacy lost, perhaps the problem was a lack of support among its citizens. Although it is clear that Union military successes and the hardships generated by the war debilitated Southerners, historians are divided over the relationship of this trend to the war's outcome. At many points during the conflict, Northern morale was as low or lower than that of the Confederates, yet the Union achieved victory nonetheless. For Virginians, tracking the changes in soldier and civilian morale are particularly challenging because the state contained such a broad spectrum of residents.
Wed, 19 Sep 2012 16:12:47 EST]]> /Washington_Booker_T_1856-1915 Wed, 19 Sep 2012 15:58:52 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Washington_Booker_T_1856-1915 Booker T. Washington was an author, educator, orator, philanthropist, and, from 1895 until his death in 1915, the United States' most famous African American. The tiny school he founded in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1881 is now Tuskegee University, an institution that currently enrolls more than 3,000 students. The most famous of the several books he authored, coauthored, or edited during his lifetime, Up from Slavery (1901), has become a classic of American autobiography, drawing comparisons not only to earlier slave narratives but also to such texts as The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.In the eyes of many of his contemporaries, Washington was an exemplary American citizen, "a public man second to no other American in importance," as the novelist William Dean Howells called him in 1901. When Washington became the first African American to receive an honorary degree from Harvard University in 1896, a Boston newspaper ranked him among "our national benefactors." When he became the first to dine at the White House in 1901, he did so at the invitation of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt, who would later call Washington "one of the most useful citizens of our land." Even his foremost critic, the African American writer and intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois, acknowledged Washington's status as both a racial and national leader, referring to him in 1903 as "the one recognized spokesman of his ten million fellows, and one of the most notable figures in a nation of seventy millions." Yet Washington also continues to inspire ambivalent and sometimes hostile reactions for having been an "accommodationist": one who, in order to gain a measure of economic success for African Americans in the former slave states, accepted segregation and refused to speak out loudly in favor of other forms of advancement, namely the pursuit of full legal, political, and social equality.
Wed, 19 Sep 2012 15:58:52 EST]]> /Brown_John_1800-1859 Thu, 13 Sep 2012 14:05:04 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Brown_John_1800-1859 John Brown was a fervent abolitionist who was accused of massacring pro-slavery settlers in Kansas in 1856 and who, in 1859, led an unsuccessful raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia (in what is now West Virginia), in an attempt to start a slave insurrection. On October 16, 1859, Brown and his men occupied the federal arsenal in the northern Shenandoah Valley and were quickly surrounded by the combined forces of local militias and a detachment of United States marines led by Robert E. Lee and J. E. B. Stuart. After a thirty-six-hour shoot-out, Brown and his surviving men surrendered. At the insistence of Virginia governor Henry Wise, Brown was tried in state, not federal, court. At the end of a gripping trial held in Charles Town, he was found guilty of conspiracy, of inciting servile insurrection, and of treason against the state. He was hanged on December 2, 1859. Brown's raid (and the fact that five of his "soldiers" were African Americans) touched off a frenzy among Southern slave-owners and, in the estimation of many historians, set the nation on an irreversible course toward the American Civil War (1861–1865).
Thu, 13 Sep 2012 14:05:04 EST]]> /_A_Proclamation_by_the_President_of_the_United_States_February_18_1851 Tue, 28 Aug 2012 13:09:50 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_A_Proclamation_by_the_President_of_the_United_States_February_18_1851 Tue, 28 Aug 2012 13:09:50 EST]]> /Letter_from_A_Private_Citizen_to_James_Monroe_December_10-11_1800 Fri, 24 Aug 2012 10:38:32 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Letter_from_A_Private_Citizen_to_James_Monroe_December_10-11_1800 In this letter to James Monroe, dated December 10, 1800, and printed in the Virginia Gazette and General Advertiser the next day, "A Private Citizen" praises the governor's handling of Gabriel's Conspiracy. The writer goes on to claim that the potential for violence remains and that Virginia must address the problem, arguing against a gradual emancipation plan presented by St. George Tucker and instead providing his own blueprint for long-term white supremacy. Some spelling has been modernized.
Fri, 24 Aug 2012 10:38:32 EST]]> /_Uncle_Gabriel Thu, 23 Aug 2012 11:38:29 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Uncle_Gabriel Thu, 23 Aug 2012 11:38:29 EST]]> /Corprew_E_G_ca_1830-1881 Thu, 09 Aug 2012 14:07:31 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Corprew_E_G_ca_1830-1881 E. G. Corprew was an African American pastor who, during the American Civil War (1861–1865), lobbied for emancipation in Virginia. He was a missionary for the American Baptist Home Mission Society and may also have served in the 1st United States Colored Cavalry, although the historical evidence is ambiguous. Following the war, Corprew became pastor of the Zion Baptist Church in Portsmouth, Virginia, and moderated the Colored Shiloh Baptist Association, the state's largest and most important black Baptist association.
Thu, 09 Aug 2012 14:07:31 EST]]> /Colored_Shiloh_Baptist_Association Thu, 09 Aug 2012 14:05:19 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Colored_Shiloh_Baptist_Association The Colored Shiloh Baptist Association was a union of individual black congregations in central Virginia formed on August 11, 1865, just after the end of the American Civil War (1861–1865). A similar association had been formed in Norfolk the year before, but the Richmond-based Colored Shiloh Baptist Association was soon larger and more influential, with both groups helping to provide blacks the opportunity to worship on their own terms.
Thu, 09 Aug 2012 14:05:19 EST]]> /The_General_Assembly_Convenes_1619 Wed, 08 Aug 2012 12:47:35 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/The_General_Assembly_Convenes_1619 In this excerpt from the Journals of the House of Burgesses, the assembly's's first meeting on July 30, 1619, is described, with Governor Sir George Yeardley, the governor's Council, and the burgesses meeting in unicameral session in the church at Jamestown. After the Reverend Richard Bucke said a prayer to open the session, the assembly ruled on two of its new members' standing. Some spelling has been updated and contractions expanded.
Wed, 08 Aug 2012 12:47:35 EST]]> /Nickson_John_fl_1687 Fri, 03 Aug 2012 11:06:37 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Nickson_John_fl_1687 Fri, 03 Aug 2012 11:06:37 EST]]> /John_Nickson_Runs_Away_1687 Fri, 03 Aug 2012 09:31:03 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/John_Nickson_Runs_Away_1687 Fri, 03 Aug 2012 09:31:03 EST]]> /_Act_directing_the_trial_of_Slaves_committing_capital_crimes_and_for_the_more_effectual_punishing_conspiracies_and_insurrections_of_them_and_for_the_better_government_of_Negros_Mulattos_and_Indians_bond_or_free_1723 Wed, 01 Aug 2012 12:54:19 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Act_directing_the_trial_of_Slaves_committing_capital_crimes_and_for_the_more_effectual_punishing_conspiracies_and_insurrections_of_them_and_for_the_better_government_of_Negros_Mulattos_and_Indians_bond_or_free_1723 In "An Act directing the trial of Slaves, committing capital crimes; and for the more effectual punishing conspiracies and insurrections of them; and for the better government of Negros, Mulattos, and Indians, bond or free," passed by the General Assembly in the session of May 1723, Virginia's colonial government establishes laws with regards to the punishment of slaves and the overall government of slaves, free blacks, and Indians.
Wed, 01 Aug 2012 12:54:19 EST]]> /Letter_from_Edward_Coles_to_Thomas_Jefferson_July_31_1814 Wed, 01 Aug 2012 09:14:12 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Letter_from_Edward_Coles_to_Thomas_Jefferson_July_31_1814 Wed, 01 Aug 2012 09:14:12 EST]]> /_An_ACT_to_amend_the_act_intituled_An_act_to_reduce_into_one_the_several_acts_concerning_slaves_free_negroes_and_mulattoes_1801 Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:36:47 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_An_ACT_to_amend_the_act_intituled_An_act_to_reduce_into_one_the_several_acts_concerning_slaves_free_negroes_and_mulattoes_1801 Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:36:47 EST]]> /_An_ACT_concerning_patroles_1801 Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:32:11 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_An_ACT_concerning_patroles_1801 Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:32:11 EST]]> /_An_ACT_to_establish_a_guard_in_the_city_of_Richmond_1801 Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:26:52 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_An_ACT_to_establish_a_guard_in_the_city_of_Richmond_1801 Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:26:52 EST]]> /_An_ACT_to_empower_the_governor_to_transport_slaves_condemned_when_it_shall_be_deemed_expedient_1801 Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:20:42 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_An_ACT_to_empower_the_governor_to_transport_slaves_condemned_when_it_shall_be_deemed_expedient_1801 Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:20:42 EST]]> /_An_ACT_to_arm_the_militia_of_certain_towns_1801 Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:16:26 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_An_ACT_to_arm_the_militia_of_certain_towns_1801 Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:16:26 EST]]> /_An_ACT_to_purchase_Pharoah_and_Tom_1801 Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:11:20 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_An_ACT_to_purchase_Pharoah_and_Tom_1801 Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:11:20 EST]]> /_An_ACT_to_amend_the_several_laws_concerning_slaves_1806 Tue, 31 Jul 2012 12:38:21 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_An_ACT_to_amend_the_several_laws_concerning_slaves_1806 The following legislation, "An ACT to amend the several laws concerning slaves," was passed by the General Assembly on January 25, 1806, and prohibits the importation of slaves to Virginia and requires that any freed slaves leave the state within twelve months.
Tue, 31 Jul 2012 12:38:21 EST]]> /Letter_from_Mosby_Sheppard_to_James_Monroe_August_30_1800 Tue, 17 Jul 2012 15:59:08 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Letter_from_Mosby_Sheppard_to_James_Monroe_August_30_1800 In this letter to James Monroe, Mosby Sheppard warns the governor of a planned insurrection that came to be known as Gabriel's Conspiracy. Two enslaved men owned by the Mosby family, Pharoah and Tom, had betrayed the conspiracy to Sheppard earlier in the day.
Tue, 17 Jul 2012 15:59:08 EST]]> /Letter_from_Thomas_Jefferson_to_James_Monroe_September_20_1800 Tue, 17 Jul 2012 15:53:51 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Letter_from_Thomas_Jefferson_to_James_Monroe_September_20_1800 In this letter to Governor James Monroe, Thomas Jefferson offers his advice on how best to punish those slaves arrested in connection with Gabriel's Conspiracy.
Tue, 17 Jul 2012 15:53:51 EST]]> /_An_act_concerning_Servants_and_Slaves_1705 Tue, 17 Jul 2012 10:28:39 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_An_act_concerning_Servants_and_Slaves_1705 In "An act concerning Servants and Slaves," passed by the General Assembly in the session of October 1705, Virginia's colonial government collects old and establishes new laws with regards to indentured servants and slaves.
Tue, 17 Jul 2012 10:28:39 EST]]> /_Gabriel_s_Defeat_September_17_1831 Mon, 16 Jul 2012 15:38:39 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Gabriel_s_Defeat_September_17_1831 In "Gabriel's Defeat," published on September 17, 1831, the editors of the Liberator reprint a romanticized and inaccurate account of Gabriel's Conspiracy (1800) that first appeared in the Albany Evening Journal. The context of its publication was the more recent, more successful uprising led by Nat Turner in Southampton County earlier in the year.
Mon, 16 Jul 2012 15:38:39 EST]]> /_Gabriel_s_Defeat_October_21_1831 Mon, 16 Jul 2012 14:49:02 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Gabriel_s_Defeat_October_21_1831 In "Gabriel's Defeat," published on October 21, 1831, the editors of the Richmond Enquirer seek to correct the facts in an article of the same name published in the Albany Evening Journal. The subject is Gabriel's Conspiracy (1800), although the context was the more recent, more successful uprising led by Nat Turner in Southampton County earlier in the year.
Mon, 16 Jul 2012 14:49:02 EST]]> /_Gabriel_s_Defeat_by_Thomas_Wentworth_Higginson_September_1862 Mon, 16 Jul 2012 14:39:30 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Gabriel_s_Defeat_by_Thomas_Wentworth_Higginson_September_1862 In "Gabriel's Defeat," published in the Atlantic Monthly in September 1862, the abolitionist minister Thomas Wentworth Higginson relates a history of Gabriel's Conspiracy (1800) drawn mostly from newspaper accounts. Writing in the midst of the American Civil War (1861–1865), he places the planned insurrection in the context of Nat Turner's Rebellion (1831) and John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry (1859).
Mon, 16 Jul 2012 14:39:30 EST]]> /Virginia_s_First_Africans Thu, 12 Jul 2012 14:31:27 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Virginia_s_First_Africans Virginia's first Africans arrived at Point Comfort, on the James River, late in August 1619. There, "20. and odd Negroes" from the English ship White Lion were sold in exchange for food and some were transported to Jamestown, where they were sold again, likely into slavery. Historians have long believed these Africans to have come to Virginia from the Caribbean, but Spanish records suggest they had been captured in the Portuguese colony of Angola, in West Central Africa. They probably were Kimbundu-speaking people from the kingdom of Ndongo, and many of them may have been urban dwellers with some knowledge of Christianity. While aboard the São João Bautista bound for Mexico, they were stolen by the White Lion and another English ship, the Treasurer. Once in Virginia, they were dispersed throughout the colony. The number of Virginia's Africans increased to thirty-two by 1620, but then dropped sharply by 1624, likely because of the effects of disease and the Second Anglo-Powhatan War (1622–1632). Evidence suggests that many were baptized and took Christian names, and some, like Anthony and Mary Johnson, won their freedom and bought land. By 1628, after a shipload of about 100 Angolans was sold in Virginia, the Africans' population jumped dramatically. Meanwhile, their experience in West Central Africa cultivating tobacco contributed greatly to the crop's success in the colony.
Thu, 12 Jul 2012 14:31:27 EST]]> /_20_and_odd_Negroes_an_excerpt_from_a_letter_from_John_Rolfe_to_Sir_Edwin_Sandys_1619_1620 Thu, 12 Jul 2012 14:19:22 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_20_and_odd_Negroes_an_excerpt_from_a_letter_from_John_Rolfe_to_Sir_Edwin_Sandys_1619_1620 In this excerpt from a letter to Sir Edwin Sandys, treasurer of the Virginia Company of London, the Jamestown colonist John Rolfe describes events in the Virginia colony. These include the first meeting of the General Assembly, a murder trial, and a controversy involving the Indian-language interpreter Captain Henry Spelman. He also notes the arrival of "20. and odd Negroes," the first Africans in Virginia. In greater detail he recounts a visit to Jamestown by a Patawomeck elder Iopassus (Japazaws), who in 1613 had been responsible for delivering Rolfe's since-deceased wife Pocahontas into the hands of Captain Samuel Argall. Now Iopassus appeared to be engaging in diplomacy independent of Powhatan, Opechancanough, and the Indians of Tsenacomoco. The letter is dated "January 1619/1620," the two years reflecting both the Old (Julian) Calendar and the New (Gregorian) Calendar. Some spelling has been updated and contractions expanded.
Thu, 12 Jul 2012 14:19:22 EST]]> /Crater_Battle_of_the Tue, 26 Jun 2012 09:52:15 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Crater_Battle_of_the The Battle of the Crater, part of the Petersburg Campaign, was the result of an unusual attempt, on the part of Union forces, to break through the Confederate defenses just south of the critical railroad hub of Petersburg, Virginia, during the American Civil War (1861–1865). For several weeks, Pennsylvania miners in Union general Ambrose E. Burnside's Ninth Corps worked at digging a long tunnel, packed the terminus with explosives, and then on the morning of July 30, 1864, blew it up. In the words of a Maine soldier, the sky was filled with "Earth, stones, timbers, arms, legs, guns unlimbered and bodies unlimbed." Burnside had initially planned to send a fresh division of black troops into the breach, but his superiors, Ulysses S. Grant and George G. Meade, ruled against it. That role—literally via a short straw—went to James H. Ledlie, a hard-drinking political general who spent the day well behind the lines as his white soldiers piled into the explosion's deep crater rather than go around it. Unable to escape, and followed by Burnside's other three divisions, they turned into what one New Hampshire soldier described as "a mass of worms crawling over each other"—easy targets for Confederates. The battle was a Union disaster and marked by particularly cruel treatment of the black troops who participated, many of whom were captured and murdered. Although Congress later blamed Meade for the loss, it was Ledlie and Burnside who lost their commands.
Tue, 26 Jun 2012 09:52:15 EST]]> /Antilynching_Law_of_1928 Tue, 12 Jun 2012 14:32:24 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Antilynching_Law_of_1928 The Virginia Anti-Lynching Law of 1928, signed by Virginia governor Harry Flood Byrd Sr. on March 14, 1928, was the first measure in the nation that defined lynching specifically as a state crime. The bill's enactment marked the culmination of a campaign waged by Louis Isaac Jaffé, the editor of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, who responded more forcefully than any other white Virginian to an increase in mob violence in the mid-1920s. Jaffé's efforts, however, which earned him a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 1929, came to fruition only after the state's political and business leadership recognized that mob violence was a threat to their efforts to attract business and industry. Ironically, no white person was ever convicted of lynching an African American under the law.
Tue, 12 Jun 2012 14:32:24 EST]]> /Twenty-Slave_Law Thu, 31 May 2012 16:37:11 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Twenty-Slave_Law The Twenty-Slave Law, passed by the Confederate Congress on October 11, 1862, during the American Civil War (1861–1865), created an exemption to military conscription for the owners of twenty or more slaves. The law was controversial in much of the South, where it served to exacerbate certain social rifts and led to claims by drafted soldiers that they were fighting a "rich man's war." The law did not generate as much opposition in Virginia, home to the Confederacy's largest population of slaves. Supporters viewed the law as essential in guarding against slave rebellion and in maintaining agriculture and industry and, therefore, the nation's ability to carry on the war effort. The Confederate Congress later amended the law to alleviate concerns, limiting the ability of plantation owners to evade military service.
Thu, 31 May 2012 16:37:11 EST]]> /Rosenwald_Schools Thu, 31 May 2012 16:32:06 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Rosenwald_Schools Rosenwald schools were educational facilities built with the assistance of the Rosenwald rural school building program, an initiative to narrow racial schooling gaps in the South by constructing better, more-accessible schools for African Americans. They are called Rosenwald schools because they were partially funded by grants from the Rosenwald Fund, a foundation established by Julius Rosenwald, an Illinois businessman and philanthropist. Between 1912 and 1932, the program helped produce 5,357 new educational facilities for African Americans across fifteen southern states, providing almost 700,000 African American children in rural, isolated communities with state-of-the-art facilities at a time when little to no public money was put toward black education. In Virginia, the initiative helped fund 382 schools and support buildings in seventy-nine counties. Most of these buildings remained in operation until Virginia was forced to comply with the United States Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which outlawed racial segregation in public schools. In 2002, the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed all surviving Rosenwald schools on its list of America's most endangered historic sites.
Thu, 31 May 2012 16:32:06 EST]]> /Refugees_During_the_Civil_War Wed, 23 May 2012 16:40:44 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Refugees_During_the_Civil_War Virginia possessed the largest number of the estimated 200,000 Southerners who fled their homes during the American Civil War (1861–1865). There were three broad classes of refugees in Virginia during the war—slaves, white Unionists and other dissidents, and Confederates—although historians have tended to focus only on Confederates. These three groups shared some of the same dislocations, but their experiences of the war differed dramatically. White and black Unionists and dissidents who fled to Union lines contributed to the Northern war effort. Confederates, in contrast, bitterly resented the Union invaders, but the hardships of refugee life exacerbated feelings of war weariness. This, combined with social divisions inside Virginia, factored into Confederate defeat.
Wed, 23 May 2012 16:40:44 EST]]> /Letter_from_John_Pory_to_Sir_Dudley_Carleton_1619 Fri, 18 May 2012 16:51:13 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Letter_from_John_Pory_to_Sir_Dudley_Carleton_1619 In this letter to the English aristocrat Sir Dudley Carleton, John Pory describes events in the Virginia colony, including the arrival of two ships containing the colony's first Africans and the introduction of a saleable grade of tobacco. Some spelling has been updated.
Fri, 18 May 2012 16:51:13 EST]]> /Free_Blacks_During_the_Civil_War Thu, 17 May 2012 15:04:44 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Free_Blacks_During_the_Civil_War Free blacks in Virginia numbered 58,042 on the eve of the American Civil War (1861–1865), or about 44 percent of the future Confederacy's free black population. Of the slave states, only Maryland had a larger population, with 83,942. Free blacks were concentrated in Virginia's cities. According to the 1860 census, the greatest number, 3,244, resided in Petersburg, followed by Richmond with 2,576, Alexandria with 1,415, and Norfolk with 1,046. Free blacks included men and women of African descent who were born free or who gained their freedom before the war through manumission. Virginia officially required freed slaves to leave the state after 1806, but many remained in violation of the law. Of course, many more African Americans became free during the war, escaping the fighting as refugees or claiming legal freedom through the Emancipation Proclamation (1863). Although Confederate propagandists insisted that free blacks would support the Confederate cause, their service was often rendered only by the threat of violence. In the meantime, concerns about their loyalty combined with their disproportionate wartime suffering contributed to Virginia's internal divisions and exposed the weaknesses of Confederate ideology.
Thu, 17 May 2012 15:04:44 EST]]> /Parishes_and_Tithes_1643 Thu, 17 May 2012 13:26:28 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Parishes_and_Tithes_1643 In its March 1643 session, the General Assembly repealed all former laws and passes a series of new laws that helped to clarify the intentions of its previous legislation. In this first act, the assembly explains the powers and obligations of the parish vestry and dictates taxes to be paid and the people—including enslaved African women—considered tithable, or eligible to be taxed. Some spelling has been modernized.
Thu, 17 May 2012 13:26:28 EST]]> /_Of_Servants_and_Slaves_in_Virginia_an_excerpt_from_The_History_of_Virginia_by_Robert_Beverley_1722 Tue, 15 May 2012 15:54:18 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Of_Servants_and_Slaves_in_Virginia_an_excerpt_from_The_History_of_Virginia_by_Robert_Beverley_1722 This excerpt from The History of Virginia by Robert Beverley Jr. encompasses all of Book Four, Chapter 10, in which the author describes the institutions of slavery and indentured servitude in Virginia. He defends the institutions from naysayers, paying special attention to the legal rights of servants. (He does not mention any such rights for slaves.) Beverley's History and Present State of Virginia was first published in 1705, but written earlier, before the institution of Virginia's slave code. This excerpt comes from Beverley's second, revised edition, published in 1722.
Tue, 15 May 2012 15:54:18 EST]]> /_An_act_for_keeping_holy_the_13th_of_September_1663 Mon, 14 May 2012 14:41:44 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_An_act_for_keeping_holy_the_13th_of_September_1663 In "An act for keeping holy the 13th of September," the General Assembly declares an annual holiday after a foiled attempt by servants in Gloucester County to rebel.
Mon, 14 May 2012 14:41:44 EST]]> /A_Black_Indentured_Servant_Sues_for_His_Freedom_1675 Mon, 14 May 2012 11:13:19 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/A_Black_Indentured_Servant_Sues_for_His_Freedom_1675 This letter serves as a petition to Virginia governor Sir William Berkeley and members of the General Court on behalf of Phillip Corven, a black indentured servant who claims to have had his rights violated by his master. Following the petition is an excerpt from the proceedings of the General Court, dated June 16, 1675, in which the judges order that the servant be freed. From the first document to the second, the servant's name changes from Corven to Gowen, and his master's from Charles Lucas to Jonathan Lucas. Some spelling has been modernized and contractions expanded.
Mon, 14 May 2012 11:13:19 EST]]> /_Their_devilish_plot_an_excerpt_from_The_History_of_Virginia_by_Robert_Beverley_1722 Mon, 14 May 2012 10:21:34 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Their_devilish_plot_an_excerpt_from_The_History_of_Virginia_by_Robert_Beverley_1722 In this excerpt from The History of Virginia (1722)—an expansion of The History and Present State of Virginia (1705)—Robert Beverley Jr. describes the Gloucester County Conspiracy (1663), also known as the Servants' Plot and Birkenhead's Rebellion, in which a group of indentured servants planned a revolt in Gloucester County.
Mon, 14 May 2012 10:21:34 EST]]> /Testimony_about_the_Gloucester_County_Conspiracy_1663 Mon, 14 May 2012 08:24:49 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Testimony_about_the_Gloucester_County_Conspiracy_1663 In these depositions, several indentured servants, captured in an attempt to rebel in Gloucester County, explain what their plan was and how it should have been executed. Some spelling has been modernized.
Mon, 14 May 2012 08:24:49 EST]]> /Jackson_Giles_B_1853-1924 Fri, 04 May 2012 13:44:07 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Jackson_Giles_B_1853-1924 Giles B. Jackson, although born enslaved, became an attorney, entrepreneur, real estate developer, newspaper publisher, and civil rights activist in the conservative mold of his mentor, Booker T. Washington. During the American Civil War (1861–1865), he served as a body servant to his master, a Confederate cavalry colonel. After the war, Jackson worked for the Stewart family in Richmond, where he learned to read and write. Subsequently, he was employed in the law offices of William H. Beveridge, who tutored Jackson in the law. In 1887, Jackson became the first African American attorney certified to argue before the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. The next year, he helped found a bank associated with the United Order of True Reformers, and in 1900 became an aide to Washington, who had just founded the National Negro Business League in Boston. Jackson organized and promoted the Jamestown Negro Exhibit at the Jamestown Ter-Centennial Exposition of 1907 in the face of criticism from some black intellectuals that his attempt to highlight black achievement was itself an accommodation of Jim Crow segregation. He published a newspaper designed to publicize the exhibition and, in 1908, a book detailing its history. His efforts at the end of his life on behalf of a congressional bill aimed at addressing interracial labor problems failed. Jackson died in 1924.
Fri, 04 May 2012 13:44:07 EST]]> /Letter_the_Third_an_excerpt_from_Observations_on_a_Guinea_voyage_In_a_series_of_letters_addressed_to_the_Rev_Thomas_Clarkson_by_James_Field_Stanfield_1788 Mon, 23 Apr 2012 08:34:54 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Letter_the_Third_an_excerpt_from_Observations_on_a_Guinea_voyage_In_a_series_of_letters_addressed_to_the_Rev_Thomas_Clarkson_by_James_Field_Stanfield_1788 In this excerpt from Observations on a Guinea voyage. In a series of letters addressed to the Rev. Thomas Clarkson (1788), published in London by the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, the former slave-ship sailor James Field Stanfield explains why the trade was so difficult and deadly for men like him. Some spelling has been modernized.
Mon, 23 Apr 2012 08:34:54 EST]]> /Slave_Ship_The_1924 Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:58:17 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Slave_Ship_The_1924 The Slave Ship (1924) is the eighteenth novel by the Virginia-born writer Mary Johnston. Set in Scotland, Virginia, Africa, and Jamaica, the novel follows twelve years in the life of David Scott, who is captured at the Battle of Culloden in 1746 and then transported to Virginia as a convict laborer. After a daring escape, Scott finds refuge on the slave ship Janet. There he works his way up from clerk to captain, making numerous voyages to the Slave Coast of West Africa and participating in the infamous Middle Passage, during which millions of enslaved Africans were transported to the Americas. Johnston's novel reflects her own extensive research on the Atlantic slave trade and, at times, an impressive attention to detail. Nevertheless, Johnston consistently understates the horrors of the Middle Passage and especially of the captains and crews who violently oversaw their human cargoes. Reviews of The Slave Ship upon its release were generally positive. The New York Times, for instance, praised its evocative descriptions while worrying that Johnston's theme—that master and servant are both slaves—distracted from the brutal reality of African enslavement.
Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:58:17 EST]]> /_At_each_bite_an_Arm_an_excerpt_from_A_New_and_Accurate_Description_of_the_Coast_of_Guinea_by_William_Bosman_1705 Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:05:05 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_At_each_bite_an_Arm_an_excerpt_from_A_New_and_Accurate_Description_of_the_Coast_of_Guinea_by_William_Bosman_1705 In this excerpt from A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea (1705), the Dutch merchant William Bosman describes various species to be found in the waters off the Gold Coast of Africa, or what is present-day Ghana. Bosman's "noordkapers" are right whales, and the "hayes" are sharks (from the Dutch haai for shark). Some spelling has been modernized.
Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:05:05 EST]]> /Mutiny_on_the_Ferrers_Galley_an_excerpt_from_A_new_account_of_some_parts_of_Guinea_and_the_slave-trade_by_William_Snelgrave_1734 Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:57:43 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Mutiny_on_the_Ferrers_Galley_an_excerpt_from_A_new_account_of_some_parts_of_Guinea_and_the_slave-trade_by_William_Snelgrave_1734 In this excerpt from A new account of some parts of Guinea, and the slave-trade, published in London in 1734, the former slave-ship captain William Snelgrave tells of an insurrection by enslaved Africans aboard a slave ship in 1722. Unlike many accounts of the so-called Middle Passage, Snelgrave's book was not critical of the slave trade, and this account in particular suggests that a captain's kindness might precipitate rebellion. It also recalls one of the dubious justifications for slavery: that it saved African prisoners from certain death. Some spelling has been modernized.
Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:57:43 EST]]> /Letter_the_Fifth_an_excerpt_from_Observations_on_a_Guinea_voyage_In_a_series_of_letters_addressed_to_the_Rev_Thomas_Clarkson_by_James_Field_Stanfield_1788 Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:47:52 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Letter_the_Fifth_an_excerpt_from_Observations_on_a_Guinea_voyage_In_a_series_of_letters_addressed_to_the_Rev_Thomas_Clarkson_by_James_Field_Stanfield_1788 In this excerpt from Observations on a Guinea voyage. In a series of letters addressed to the Rev. Thomas Clarkson (1788), published in London by the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, the former slave-ship sailor James Field Stanfield graphically describes his own disease-ridden ship as it sails on the Middle Passage. Stanfield references Alexander Falconbridge, who worked as a surgeon on several slave voyages before joining Clarkson's anti-slavery society. Some spelling has been modernized.
Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:47:52 EST]]> /Women_During_the_Civil_War Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:03:08 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Women_During_the_Civil_War Although women were not permitted to bear arms on the battlefront, they made invaluable contributions to and were deeply affected by the American Civil War (1861–1865). This was particularly true of women living in Virginia, since they witnessed more battles than did the women of any other state engaged in the conflict. The removal of hundreds of thousands of men from their homes, farms, and businesses necessitated the vastly increased participation of women, both black and white, in areas that they had been previously discouraged, if not forbidden, from pursuing. Differences of race and class, however, sometimes sharply divided their views and experiences. Some devoted everything they had to the service of the Confederacy, while others openly rebelled against it. The end of the war brought the collapse of both the Confederate government and slave society, and while freedom created a new commonality between the races and between women and men, it challenged them to redefine themselves and their society. In the words of diarist Lucy Buck from Front Royal, "We shall never any of us be the same as we have been."
Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:03:08 EST]]> /_An_act_to_repeale_a_former_law_makeing_Indians_and_others_ffree_1682 Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:28:16 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_An_act_to_repeale_a_former_law_makeing_Indians_and_others_ffree_1682 In "An act to repeale a former law makeing Indians and others ffree," passed by the General Assembly in the session of November 1682, Virginia's colonial government attempts to clarify the definitions of indentured servants and slaves.
Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:28:16 EST]]> /_English_running_away_with_negroes_1660-1661 Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:28:33 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_English_running_away_with_negroes_1660-1661 In this act, "English running away with negroes," passed by the General Assembly in the session of March 1660/61 (Old Style), colonial Virginia's government responds to the problem of runaway indentured servants and slaves.
Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:28:33 EST]]> /_Negro_women_not_exempted_from_tax_1668 Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:57:53 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Negro_women_not_exempted_from_tax_1668 In the act "Negro women not exempted from tax," passed by the General Assembly in the session of September 1668, colonial Virginia's government attempted to better define the conditions by which free and enslaved African Americans were taxed.
Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:57:53 EST]]> /Runaway_Slaves_1642-1643 Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:38:20 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Runaway_Slaves_1642-1643 In this act, passed by the General Assembly in the session of March 2, 1642/43 (Old Style), Virginia's colonial government responds to the problem of runaway indentured servants and slaves. Some spelling has been modernized and contractions expanded.
Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:38:20 EST]]> /_Women_servants_whose_common_imployment_is_working_in_the_ground_to_be_accompted_tythable_1662 Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:49:25 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Women_servants_whose_common_imployment_is_working_in_the_ground_to_be_accompted_tythable_1662 In the act "Women servants whose common imployment is working in the ground to be accompted tythable," passed by the General Assembly in the session of December 1662, Virginia's colonial government attempted to better define the conditions by which free and enslaved African Americans were taxed.
Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:49:25 EST]]> /_What_tyme_Indians_serve_1670 Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:25:55 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_What_tyme_Indians_serve_1670 In this act, "What tyme Indians serve," passed by the General Assembly in the session of October 1670, Virginia's colonial government attempts to clarify the definitions of indentured servants and slaves.
Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:25:55 EST]]> /_An_act_declaring_that_baptisme_of_slaves_doth_not_exempt_them_from_bondage_1667 Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:22:27 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_An_act_declaring_that_baptisme_of_slaves_doth_not_exempt_them_from_bondage_1667 In "An act declaring that baptisme of slaves doth not exempt them from bondage," passed by the General Assembly in the session of September 1667, Virginia's colonial government attempted to better define the conditions by which people were enslaved or free.
Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:22:27 EST]]> /Loving_v_Virginia_1967 Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:32:57 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Loving_v_Virginia_1967 In the 1967 case of Loving v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws banning interracial marriages in the United States. At one time, as many as forty-one states had such prohibitions. Virginia's law had been passed in 1691 and, after being amended several times, reached its final version in the Racial Integrity Act, passed by the Virginia General Assembly on March 20, 1924. Although every state with such a law banned marriage between a white person and an African American, some laws, including Virginia's, went further and prohibited marriage between whites and other non-white ethnic groups such as Asians and Native Americans. Loving v. Virginia was a landmark case, both in the history of race relations in the United States and in the ongoing political and cultural dispute over the proper definition of marriage.
Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:32:57 EST]]> /Westmoreland_Slave_Plot_1687 Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:11:38 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Westmoreland_Slave_Plot_1687 The Westmoreland slave plot of 1687 involved an alleged conspiracy uncovered by Nicholas Spencer, who claimed that the participants intended to kill whites and destroy property in the county and throughout Virginia. Preceded by the Gloucester County Conspiracy (1663) and Bacon's Rebellion (1676–1677), the Westmoreland plot was the first conspiracy in British North America not involving white supporters or participants. As such, it heightened planters' fear of their slaves, already expressed in a 1680 act that sought to prohibit slaves' ability to carry weapons, meet in public, or travel without permission. After Spencer's revelation, Virginia governor Francis Howard, baron Howard of Effingham, convened what perhaps was British America's first oyer and terminer court, a criminal panel subsequently used to try slave rebels. Effingham also issued a proclamation reiterating the language of the 1680 act, something his successor felt compelled to do again, in 1690. After another attempted rebellion in Westmoreland in 1688, the General Assembly, in 1691, passed legislation allowing colonists to kill any slave who resisted, ran away, or refused to surrender when so ordered. This and other laws suggest that in the time since the Servants' Plot, Virginians began to see the danger of servile revolt as coming primarily from enslaved African Americans.
Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:11:38 EST]]> /_An_act_for_suppressing_outlying_slaves_1691 Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:44:50 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_An_act_for_suppressing_outlying_slaves_1691 In April 1691, the General Assembly passed "An act for suppressing outlying slaves," designed to deal with the problem of runaway slaves. It came in the wake of alleged slave conspiracies in, among other places, Westmoreland County in 1687 and 1688.
Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:44:50 EST]]> /_An_act_for_preventing_Negroes_Insurrections_1680 Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:04:11 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_An_act_for_preventing_Negroes_Insurrections_1680 On June 8, 1680, the General Assembly passed "An act for preventing Negroes Insurrections" in response to planters' concerns about rebellious slaves.
Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:04:11 EST]]> /_A_strange_dream_this_day_an_excerpt_from_the_diary_of_Landon_Carter_1776A Thu, 29 Mar 2012 13:10:50 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_A_strange_dream_this_day_an_excerpt_from_the_diary_of_Landon_Carter_1776A Thu, 29 Mar 2012 13:10:50 EST]]> /Phillip_Mongom_Accused_of_Stealing_Hogs_1659-1660 Wed, 28 Mar 2012 15:25:02 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Phillip_Mongom_Accused_of_Stealing_Hogs_1659-1660 Wed, 28 Mar 2012 15:25:02 EST]]> /Court_Ruling_on_Anthony_Johnson_and_His_Servant_1655 Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:09:58 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Court_Ruling_on_Anthony_Johnson_and_His_Servant_1655 On March 8, 1655, the Northampton County Court ruled in favor of Anthony Johnson, a free man of African descent, when he was accused of keeping an indentured servant as a slave.
Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:09:58 EST]]> /Proclamation_from_Governor_Nicholson_1690 Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:38:21 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Proclamation_from_Governor_Nicholson_1690 Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:38:21 EST]]> /_Against_Runawayes_1669 Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:59:51 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Against_Runawayes_1669 In this act, "Against Runawayes," passed by the General Assembly in the session of October 1669, Virginia's colonial government responds to the problem of runaway indentured servants and slaves.
Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:59:51 EST]]> /Denying_Free_Blacks_the_Right_to_Vote_1724_1735 Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:56:21 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Denying_Free_Blacks_the_Right_to_Vote_1724_1735 In this exchange of letters, the Board of Trade questions the appropriateness of a 1723 law in Virginia denying free blacks the right to vote. The Board's legal counsel, Richard West, raised his question in 1724, but the Board's secretary, Alured Popple, did not ask for an explanation until 1735, when he wrote to Virginia lieutenant governor William Gooch.
Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:56:21 EST]]> /Governor_Effingham_Reveals_a_Planned_Slave_Insurrection_1687 Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:11:45 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Governor_Effingham_Reveals_a_Planned_Slave_Insurrection_1687 In the official record of the governor's Council for October 24, 1687, Virginia governor Francis Howard, baron Howard of Effingham, announces that Nicholas Spencer, the colony's secretary and a resident of Westmoreland County, had uncovered a conspiracy among the slaves there. Some spelling has been modernized and contractions expanded.
Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:11:45 EST]]> /York_County_Conspiracy_1661 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:13:01 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/York_County_Conspiracy_1661 The York County Conspiracy was a plan by indentured servants to rise up against authorities in York County in 1661. Led by Isaac Friend and William Clutton, the servants were angered by the lack of meat in their diet, but their conspiracy apparently was revealed before they could act. The county court warned Friend about his behavior and encouraged his overseer to watch him more carefully. Clutton was ordered arrested for delivering "seditious words & speeches," but the result of the county's legal action is not known.
Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:13:01 EST]]> /Saltville_During_the_Civil_War Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:13:11 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Saltville_During_the_Civil_War Saltville is a small town that lies mostly in Smyth County in southwestern Virginia, between the Holston River and the Tennessee and Virginia Railroad. During the American Civil War (1861–1865), Saltville was of strategic importance for two reasons: the railroad provided an important link between the eastern and western theaters of the war, and the town's salt mines were crucial in supplying provisions for the Confederate army. As such, Saltville was the target of numerous Union raids. It was also the site of a battle on October 2, 1864, when outnumbered Confederate cavalry troops repulsed the advance of Union troops, including members of the 5th U.S. Colored Cavalry, under the command of General Stephen G. Burbridge. The next day, according to some accounts, Confederate soldiers killed a number of the wounded black troopers, who were being held as prisoners of war at nearby Emory and Henry College. The notorious and still-disputed incident is known as the "Saltville Massacre."
Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:13:11 EST]]> /Family_Life_During_the_Civil_War Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:03:08 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Family_Life_During_the_Civil_War Family life in Virginia and across the South suffered devastating effects during the American Civil War (1861–1865). Few households, whether slave or free, or located in the Tidewater, Piedmont, or mountainous Southwest, could remain insulated from a war fought on their lands and in their towns. Many families were uprooted as they witnessed the destruction of their homes and landholdings. Most profoundly, all families dealt with the ordeal of separation. The war pulled white families apart in unprecedented ways, as a large proportion of men enlisted and fully one in five white men who fought for the Confederacy died. And while the chaos of war similarly dispersed the state's large population of African Americans, it also offered a chance for those families to overcome the longstanding separations wrought by slavery.
Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:03:08 EST]]> /Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:15:46 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of national legislation, not only for the civil rights movement but for the emerging women's movement of the 1960s. It officially outlawed discrimination in public accommodations and employment and established the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission to enforce those provisions. In contrast to earlier civil rights measures, it included a ban on employment discrimination on the basis of gender, as well as race, color, and religion, making it the most comprehensive civil rights bill in American history and giving the revived women's movement new legal—and moral—weight. Yet, in an ironic twist, the legislation banned gender discrimination only because of the efforts of Howard W. Smith, U.S. representative from Virginia, a leader of the Conservative Coalition in Congress, and an opponent of civil rights. His tireless attempts to defeat the bill—including adding "sex" as grounds for illegal discrimination, which he believed would guarantee the bill's failure—resulted in a more expansive bill passing.
Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:15:46 EST]]> /_Negro_womens_children_to_serve_according_to_the_condition_of_the_mother_1662 Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:12:43 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Negro_womens_children_to_serve_according_to_the_condition_of_the_mother_1662 In the act "Negro womens children to serve according to the condition of the mother," passed by the General Assembly in the session of December 1662, Virginia's colonial government attempted to better define the conditions by which people were enslaved or free.
Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:12:43 EST]]> /_An_act_prohibiting_servants_to_goe_abroad_without_a_lycense_1663 Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:10:53 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_An_act_prohibiting_servants_to_goe_abroad_without_a_lycense_1663 In "An act prohibiting servants to goe abroad without a lycense," passed by the General Assembly in the session of September 1663, Virginia's colonial government responds to the problem of runaway indentured servants and slaves.
Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:10:53 EST]]> /Punishment_for_the_Enslaved_Man_Sam_1688 Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:47:59 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Punishment_for_the_Enslaved_Man_Sam_1688 On April 26, 1688, the General Court found Sam, the slave of Richard Metcalfe of Westmoreland County, guilty in James City County of promoting a slave rebellion. His conviction came just six months or so after a suspected plot was discovered in Westmoreland County. Some spelling has been modernized and contractions expanded.
Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:47:59 EST]]> /Black_Confederates Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:50:37 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Black_Confederates Black Confederates is a term often used to describe both enslaved and free African Americans who filled a number of different positions in support of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War (1861–1865). Most often this assistance was coerced rather than offered voluntarily. Male slaves were either hired out by their owners or impressed to work in various departments of the Confederate army. Free black men were also routinely impressed or otherwise forced to perform manual labor for the army. The government's use of black labor, whether free or slave, followed patterns established during the antebellum period, when county governments routinely engaged the service of black men to help maintain local roads and other public property. While large numbers of black men thus accompanied every Confederate army on the march or in camp, those men would not have been considered soldiers. Only a few black men were ever accepted into Confederate service as soldiers, and none did any significant fighting. Through most of the war, the Confederate government's official policies toward black men maintained that those men were laborers, not soldiers; changes to that policy in March 1865 came too late to make any difference to Confederate prospects for victory. Those changes were also accompanied by widespread debate indicating that a significant minority of white Southerners opposed any change to the institution of slavery, even if that change might help bring about a Confederate victory.
Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:50:37 EST]]> /Aggie_Mary_fl_1728-1731 Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:02:12 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Aggie_Mary_fl_1728-1731 Mary Aggie was a slave who became a principal in a court case that changed Virginia's statute law. Although unsuccessful in suing for her freedom in 1728, she demonstrated her belief in Christianity to the satisfaction of the presiding judge, Lieutenant Governor William Gooch. In 1730 she was convicted by the York County court of oyer and terminer of stealing from her owner, which ordinarily would have doomed her to death or severe corporal punishment. In 1731, however, Gooch had her case sent to the General Court, where he hoped she could secure the benefit of clergy, a privilege in English law dating back centuries in which literate persons could escape death or the severest penalties for first convictions on most capital offenses. Before a final verdict could be rendered, on May 6, 1731, Gooch and the governor's Council pardoned Aggie on the condition that she would be sold out of the colony. The General Assembly referred to Aggie's cases in passing a law on July 1, 1732, that allowed virtually all Virginians to plead benefit of clergy except in certain cases, a privilege that continued for another sixty years.
Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:02:12 EST]]> /Jamestown_Ter-Centennial_Exposition_of_1907 Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:36:42 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Jamestown_Ter-Centennial_Exposition_of_1907 The Jamestown Ter-Centennial Exposition, marking the three hundredth anniversary of the founding of Jamestown and the Virginia colony by settlers from England, was held in Norfolk, Virginia, from April 26 to November 30, 1907. The event was one in a series of large fairs and expositions held across the United States, beginning with the 1893 World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, which commemorated the four hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus's landing in America. Such events were designed as international showcases for arts and technology and were often linked to important anniversaries in order to highlight the notion of historical "progress." More than its predecessors, the Jamestown exhibition emphasized athletics and military prowess, the latter drawing some protests. Among many dignitaries who visited the exposition were U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt, the author Mark Twain, the educator Booker T. Washington, representatives from more than twenty nations abroad, and a number of foreign naval ships. Although the exhibition on African Americans was considered to be particularly successful, the event in general was a financial fiasco, plagued by poor management, overly ambitious plans, insufficient resources, and tight deadlines. The naval display, however, was impressive enough that in 1917 the exposition's site became home to Naval Air Station Hampton Roads (later Naval Station Norfolk).
Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:36:42 EST]]> /Free_Blacks_in_Colonial_Virginia Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:08:40 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Free_Blacks_in_Colonial_Virginia Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:08:40 EST]]> /Brown_Henry_Box_ca_1815 Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:32:15 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Brown_Henry_Box_ca_1815 Henry Box Brown was an abolitionist lecturer and performer. Born a slave in Louisa County, he worked in a Richmond tobacco factory and lived in a rented house. Then, in 1848, his wife, who was owned by another master and who was pregnant with their fourth child, was sold away to North Carolina, along with their children. Brown resolved to escape from slavery and enlisted the help of a free black and a white slaveowner, who conspired to ship him in a box to Philadelphia. In March 1849 the package was accepted there by a leader of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. As a free man, Brown lectured across New England on the evils of slavery and participated in the publication of the Narrative of Henry Box Brown (1849). In 1850, a moving panorama, Henry Box Brown's Mirror of Slavery, opened in Boston. That same year, Brown, worried that he might be re-enslaved, moved to England, where he lectured, presented his panorama, and performed as a hypnotist. In 1875, he returned to the United States with his wife and daughter Annie and performed as a magician. Brown's date and place of death are unknown, but his legacy as a symbol of the Underground Railroad and enslaved African Americans' thirst for freedom is secure.
Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:32:15 EST]]> /Green_Charles_C_et_al_v_County_School_Board_of_New_Kent_County_Virginia Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:15:41 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Green_Charles_C_et_al_v_County_School_Board_of_New_Kent_County_Virginia Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:15:41 EST]]> /Cook_Fields_ca_1817-1897 Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:08:24 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Cook_Fields_ca_1817-1897 Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:08:24 EST]]> /Van_Lew_Elizabeth_L_1818-1900 Wed, 12 Oct 2011 13:34:14 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Van_Lew_Elizabeth_L_1818-1900 Elizabeth Van Lew was a Richmond Unionist and abolitionist who spied for the United States government during the American Civil War (1861–1865). Leading a network of a dozen or so white and African American women and men, she relayed information on Confederate operations to Union generals and assisted in the care and sometimes escape of Union prisoners of war being held in the Confederate capital. Van Lew, who worked with invisible ink and coded messages, has been called "the most skilled, innovative, and successful" of all Civil War–era spies. While some historians have claimed that she was open about her Unionist politics, deflecting suspicion by behaving as if she were mentally ill, others have argued that these "Crazy Bet" stories are a myth. After the war, Van Lew served as postmaster of Richmond during the administration of U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant, one of the generals to whom she had once fed information.
Wed, 12 Oct 2011 13:34:14 EST]]> /Great_Awakening_in_Virginia_The Thu, 06 Oct 2011 15:09:46 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Great_Awakening_in_Virginia_The The Great Awakening was the most significant cultural upheaval in colonial America. The term refers to a series of religious revivals that began early in the eighteenth century and led, eventually, to the disestablishment of the Church of England as the official church during the American Revolution (1775–1783). Triggered by the preaching of the Anglican itinerant George Whitefield, the Great Awakening began in New England and the Middle Colonies, where thousands converted to an evangelical faith centered on the experience of the "new birth" of salvation. It also featured intense, emotional scenes of penitential sinners and new converts being filled, as they saw it, with the Holy Spirit, with associated outcries, visions, dreams, and spirit journeys. The Great Awakening's effects in Virginia developed slowly, beginning early in the 1740s. By the 1760s, evangelical Presbyterians and Baptists were making major inroads among Virginians, and challenging the established church in the colony. Perhaps the most notable historical result of the Great Awakening in Virginia was the end of the state's establishment of religion, which was ultimately accomplished through the Act for Establishing Religious Freedom (1786). The cause of religious freedom was championed politically by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, but it depended on the popular support of legions of evangelicals, especially Baptists.
Thu, 06 Oct 2011 15:09:46 EST]]> /Spencer_Anne_1882-1975 Wed, 07 Sep 2011 16:42:52 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Spencer_Anne_1882-1975 Anne Spencer was a poet, a civil rights activist, a teacher, a librarian, and a gardener. While fewer than thirty of her poems were published in her lifetime, she was an important figure of the black literary movement of the 1920s—the Harlem Renaissance—and only the second African American poet to be included in the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry (1973). Noted for iambic verse preoccupied with biblical and mythological themes, Spencer found fans in such Harlem heavyweights as James Weldon Johnson, who commented on her "economy of phrase and compression of thought." In addition to her writing, Spencer helped to found the Lynchburg chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She was also an avid gardener and hosted a salon at her Lynchburg garden, which attracted prominent figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Her former residence is now a museum that is open to the public.
Wed, 07 Sep 2011 16:42:52 EST]]> /Massive_Resistance Wed, 29 Jun 2011 11:09:35 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Massive_Resistance Massive Resistance was a policy adopted in 1956 by Virginia's state government to block the desegregation of public schools mandated by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1954 ruling in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Advocated by U.S. senator Harry F. Byrd Sr., a conservative Democrat and former governor who coined the term, Massive Resistance reflected the racial views and fears of Byrd's power base in Southside Virginia as well as the senator's reflexive disdain for federal government intrusion into state affairs. When schools were shut down in Front Royal in Warren County , Charlottesville , and Norfolk to prevent desegregation, the courts stepped in and overturned the policy. In the end, Massive Resistance added more bitterness to race relations already strained by the resentments engendered by the caste system and delayed large-scale desegregation of Virginia's public schools for more than a decade. Meanwhile, Virginia's defiance served as an example for the states of the Lower South, and the legal vestiges of Massive Resistance lasted until early in the 1970s.
Wed, 29 Jun 2011 11:09:35 EST]]> /Billy_fl_1770s-1780s Thu, 23 Jun 2011 16:58:23 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Billy_fl_1770s-1780s Billy was an enslaved African American who became a principal in a court case during the American Revolution (1775–1783). In 1781, the Prince William County Court indicted him for waging war against the state from a British armed ship. Despite his testimony that he had been forced to board the vessel against his will and had never taken up arms on behalf of the British, the court convicted Billy of treason and sentenced him to be hanged. Two dissenting judges argued to Governor Thomas Jefferson that a slave, being a noncitizen, could not commit treason. Billy received a gubernatorial reprieve, and the General Assembly pardoned him on June 14, 1781. What happened to him after that is not known. Billy made his mark on history because his trial forced white leaders to confront the logic of slavery. Excluded from the protections conferred by citizenship, he was ultimately shielded from execution because Virginia's law of treason could not logically apply to him.
Thu, 23 Jun 2011 16:58:23 EST]]> /Fort_Monroe_During_the_Civil_War Thu, 26 May 2011 14:42:22 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Fort_Monroe_During_the_Civil_War Fort Monroe is a military installation located in Hampton Roads, Virginia, on the Peninsula overlooking the Chesapeake Bay. It was the only federal military installation in the Upper South to remain under United States control throughout the American Civil War (1861–1865). Early in the war, the fort became an outpost of freedom within the Confederacy when Union commanders used it to house refugee slaves. The fort also headquartered the Union Department of Virginia and North Carolina, and several significant military campaigns and combined operations were launched from the installation. Most notably, it served as the staging area for Union major general George B. McClellan's ill-fated Peninsula Campaign of 1862. After the war, the fort served as a destination for another brand of fugitive. Following his capture in May 1865 until his bail bond was accepted two years later, Confederate president Jefferson Davis was imprisoned at Fort Monroe.
Thu, 26 May 2011 14:42:22 EST]]> /Lost_Cause_The Mon, 09 May 2011 09:35:42 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Lost_Cause_The The Lost Cause is an interpretation of the American Civil War (1861–1865) that seeks to present the war, from the perspective of Confederates, in the best possible terms. Developed by white Southerners, many of them former Confederate generals, in a postwar climate of economic, racial, and gender uncertainty, the Lost Cause created and romanticized the "Old South" and the Confederate war effort, often distorting history in the process. For this reason, many historians have labeled the Lost Cause a myth or a legend. It is certainly an important example of public memory, one in which nostalgia for the Confederate past is accompanied by a collective forgetting of the horrors of slavery. Providing a sense of relief to white Southerners who feared being dishonored by defeat, the Lost Cause was largely accepted in the years following the war by white Americans who found it to be a useful tool in reconciling North and South. The Lost Cause has lost much of its academic support but continues to be an important part of how the Civil War is commemorated in the South and remembered in American popular culture.
Mon, 09 May 2011 09:35:42 EST]]> /Slavery_During_the_Civil_War Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:46:34 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Slavery_During_the_Civil_War Virginia had the largest population of enslaved African Americans of any state in the Confederacy, and those slaves responded to the American Civil War (1861–1865) in a variety of ways. Some volunteered to assist the Confederate war effort, while many others were forced to support the Confederacy, working on farms and in factories and households throughout Virginia. Thousands escaped to the Union army's lines, earning their freedom and forcing the United States to develop a uniform policy regarding emancipation. Others remained on their home plantations and farms but took advantage of the war to gain some measure of autonomy for their families. Slaves' wartime actions most often exhibited their strong desire for freedom, and even those who chose not to escape frequently welcomed the Union army as liberators.
Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:46:34 EST]]> /Virginia_Soldiers_Confederate_During_the_Civil_War Tue, 12 Apr 2011 10:35:31 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Virginia_Soldiers_Confederate_During_the_Civil_War Approximately 155,000 Virginia men served in Confederate forces during the American Civil War (1861–1865). Another 32,000 served in Union forces; most of these came from the counties that today comprise the state of West Virginia, while a number of West Virginia troops were recruited from the neighboring states of Ohio and Pennsylvania. The total number of men eligible for military service in the state was 224,000. When those areas of Union-controlled Virginia are subtracted, the total drops to 174,000, making the enlistment rate in Confederate Virginia 89 percent. This represents a remarkable mobilization of resources and demonstrates how the Civil War represented an all-consuming experience for those who lived through it. Virginia sent more men to fight for the Confederacy than did any other state. Though Virginia soldiers served in all branches and participated in all theaters of war, a significant majority of them fought within the boundaries of their own state.
Tue, 12 Apr 2011 10:35:31 EST]]> /Danville_Civil_Rights_Demonstrations_of_1963 Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:50:05 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Danville_Civil_Rights_Demonstrations_of_1963 The Danville civil rights demonstrations began peacefully late in May 1963 when local civil rights leaders organized demonstrations, sit-ins, and marches to protest segregation in all spheres, but especially in municipal government, employment, and public facilities. As protests accelerated, however, white authorities responded early in June with tough legal stratagems and violence, attacking demonstrators with clubs and fire hoses. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) all sent state and national leaders to Danville to assist the African American protesters, but to little avail. The legal resistance displayed by authorities—injunctions, ordinances, and court procedures condemned by the U.S. Justice Department—proved so effective and unyielding that protests were stymied, resulting in few immediate gains for African Americans.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:50:05 EST]]> /Wilder_Lawrence_Douglas_1931- Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:22:17 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Wilder_Lawrence_Douglas_1931- L. Douglas Wilder was governor of Virginia from 1990 until 1994. His was a political career of many firsts: the grandson of slaves, he was the first African American elected governor of any state in America. He was the first black member of the Virginia Senate in the twentieth century. And he was the first African American to win statewide office in Virginia when he was elected lieutenant governor in 1985. A Democrat, he ran briefly for United States president in 1991 and in 2004 was elected mayor of Richmond, serving until 2008.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:22:17 EST]]> /Ashe_Arthur_1943-1993 Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:20:09 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Ashe_Arthur_1943-1993 Arthur Ashe was a professional tennis player, broadcaster, author, and activist. Known for his on-court grace and low-key demeanor, he was the first black men's tennis champion at the U.S. Open and Wimbledon, the first African American to play for and captain the U.S. Davis Cup team, and the first black man inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Yet it was and remains Ashe's accomplishments outside of professional tennis for which he is most noted. He was the first and only African American to have a statue of his likeness erected on Richmond's historic Monument Avenue and one of the most prominent athletes of any race to die from AIDS.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:20:09 EST]]> /Woman_Suffrage_in_Virginia Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:01:54 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Woman_Suffrage_in_Virginia The woman suffrage movement, which sought voting rights for women, began in Virginia as early as 1870. In 1909, its most vocal supporters organized around the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia, which joined with national groups in an effort to change state and local laws and pass an amendment to the United States Constitution. The Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, was passed in Congress in 1919 and ratified by the states a year later. Virginia, however, delayed its ratification until 1952. By then, women had been voting and, slowly, winning elected office in the state for more than 30 years.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:01:54 EST]]> /Moton_Robert_Russa_1867-1940 Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:47:50 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Moton_Robert_Russa_1867-1940 Robert Russa Moton was one of the most prominent black educators in the United States in the first decades of the twentieth century. After graduating from the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (later Hampton Institute and now Hampton University) in Hampton, Virginia, in 1890, he served as the school's commandant of cadets from 1891 until 1915. He was a close friend of Booker T. Washington, the founding principal of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, and the two shared a conservative vision of race relations. They argued, sometimes controversially, that African Americans should not openly defy segregation, but instead cooperate with whites and better themselves through education. After Washington's death in 1915, Moton became the second principal of Tuskegee, where he made significant contributions to the quality of education, especially in teacher training. He served on various national boards and, during World War I (1914–1918), went to Europe on behalf of U.S. president Woodrow Wilson to investigate the conditions of black soldiers. Moton Field at Tuskegee was named for him, as was Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia, the site of a student walkout in 1951.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:47:50 EST]]> /Morgan_v_Virginia Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:45:42 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Morgan_v_Virginia Morgan v. Virginia is an often-overlooked landmark case of the civil rights movement. Decided on June 3, 1946, nearly a decade before Rosa Parks challenged segregated seating on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama, the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in this case struck down Virginia's law requiring racial segregation in interstate public transportation.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:45:42 EST]]> /Labor_in_Virginia_During_the_Twentieth_Century Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:37:15 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Labor_in_Virginia_During_the_Twentieth_Century Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:37:15 EST]]> /Hancock_Gordon_Blaine_1884-1970 Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:28:45 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Hancock_Gordon_Blaine_1884-1970 Gordon Blaine Hancock was a professor at Virginia Union University, pastor of Moore Street Baptist church in Richmond , and a leading spokesman for African American equality in the generation before the civil rights movement. Hancock co-founded the Richmond chapter of the Urban League and wrote newspaper columns for the Associated Negro Press, advising his mostly black audience on how to get by in tough times while still taking principled stands against segregation. His work with the Virginia Interracial Commission and the Southern Regional Council also suggested his willingness to be both outspoken and pragmatic in the midst of the fight against segregation—a fight, he wrote, that must be won "if the Negro is to survive."
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:28:45 EST]]> /Equal_Suffrage_League_of_Virginia_1909-1920 Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:21:59 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Equal_Suffrage_League_of_Virginia_1909-1920 The Equal Suffrage League of Virginia was an organization of white women dedicated to securing for women the right to vote. Aligned with the national woman suffrage movement, the league worked for more than ten years lobbying the public and the General Assembly alike, until its efforts paid off when three-fourths of the United States state legislatures ratified the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920. The league failed, however, to persuade the Virginia General Assembly, which did not vote to ratify until 1952.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:21:59 EST]]> /Desegregation_in_Public_Schools Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:15:19 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Desegregation_in_Public_Schools The desegregation of the public schools in Virginia began on February 2, 1959, and continued through early in the 1970s when the state government's attempts to resist desegregation ended. During this period, African Americans in Virginia pushed for desegregation primarily by filing lawsuits in federal courts throughout Virginia. This litigation was aimed at achieving court rulings forcing the state of Virginia and its local school districts to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, mandating the desegregation of public schools. State and local officials, however, generally resisted efforts to bring about desegregation and utilized their political power to avoid and then minimize public school desegregation. Virginia's Indians, meanwhile, went without the benefit of any state-funded public education until 1963, almost a decade after Brown.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:15:19 EST]]> /Desegregation_in_Higher_Education Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:14:13 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Desegregation_in_Higher_Education The desegregation of higher education in Virginia was the result of a long legal and social process that began after the American Civil War (1861–1865) and did not end before the 1970s. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that "separate but equal" public accommodations for blacks and whites were constitutional in the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson, the court established a sturdy legal basis for segregation. This ruling encouraged the Jim Crow era of legalized discrimination against blacks in the south. But the terminology of "separate but equal" eventually also created an opening for African Americans to demand educational opportunities and facilities equal to those available to whites. Educational opportunities for blacks were vastly inferior to whites, and segregation in higher education was entrenched in Virginia through World War II (1941–1945). But during the 1950s and 1960s, the first black students entered various graduate programs at the University of Virginia and the College of William and Mary, then undergraduate engineering programs at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and the University of Virginia, and finally general undergraduate programs at all historically white colleges and universities. In 1935 Alice Jackson failed to win admission to a graduate program at the University of Virginia, but Gregory Swanson, with the help of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and a ruling from a federal court, gained admission to the university's law school in 1950. Admittance into programs did not mean an immediate end to unfair and unequal treatment on campus, but by 1972 black students were able to enroll in Virginia in any curriculum and also live and eat in campus facilities.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:14:13 EST]]> /Defenders_of_State_Sovereignty_and_Individual_Liberties Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:12:49 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Defenders_of_State_Sovereignty_and_Individual_Liberties Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:12:49 EST]]> /The_Confessions_of_Nat_Turner_by_William_Styron_1967 Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:00:55 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/The_Confessions_of_Nat_Turner_by_William_Styron_1967 The Confessions of Nat Turner, a novel by William Styron, was published in 1967 and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1968. The title character is based on the historical Nat Turner, a slave preacher and self-styled prophet who, in August 1831, led the only successful slave revolt in Virginia's history, which in just twelve hours left fifty-five white people in Southampton County dead. (A slave named Gabriel conspired to revolt in 1800, but his plans were discovered before he could carry them out.) The historical Nat Turner, in turn, is largely the product of "The Confessions of Nat Turner, as fully and voluntarily made to Thomas R. Gray," a pamphlet published shortly after Turner's trial and execution in November 1831. Although it played a crucial role in shaping perceptions of the event around the central figure of Turner, the pamphlet itself only reached a small portion of the reading public. The story awaited the Virginia-born Styron, who translated the historical record into a popular medium that commanded the full attention of the reading public and the national media. Despite its awards, however, that attention was not always positive. Published at the height of the Black Power movement and after a long summer of race riots in the United States, Styron's novel was labeled by some civil rights activists as racist, especially because of the author's depiction of Turner lusting after white women, one of whom he eventually kills.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:00:55 EST]]> /Chambers_Joseph_Lenoir_Jr_1891-1970 Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:53:36 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Chambers_Joseph_Lenoir_Jr_1891-1970 Lenoir Chambers, newspaper editor and author, is best known for his opposition to the South's Massive Resistance to racial integration of the public schools, a position he maintained from early in 1954 to 1959. During his life and his career, he sought to educate readers about perceived injustices toward African Americans and workers throughout the South, and urged fairer treatment of them. When Virginia's political leaders closed the state's public schools in 1958 to avoid federally mandated school integration, Chambers wrote a series of articles in the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot that opposed the closings. His essays earned him a Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Editorial Writing in 1960.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:53:36 EST]]> /Limber_Jim Tue, 05 Apr 2011 13:15:22 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Limber_Jim "Jim Limber" or James Henry Brooks—his legal name and his life dates are uncertain—was a free, mixed-race child in the Confederate capital of Richmond during the American Civil War (1861–1865) who lived for slightly more than a year in the household of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Contemporary accounts suggest that he enjoyed an intimate relationship with the Davis family, leading some modern observers to make unverified claims that he was "adopted" and effectively became a member of the family. In the beginning of the twenty-first century, the child has become a symbol of the Confederate first family's supposed liberality on racial issues.
Tue, 05 Apr 2011 13:15:22 EST]]> /Jackson_Luther_Porter_1892-1950 Thu, 31 Mar 2011 11:33:43 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Jackson_Luther_Porter_1892-1950 Luther Porter Jackson was an African American historian and one of Virginia's most important civil rights activists of the 1930s and 1940s. He was a professor of history at Virginia State College in Petersburg for nearly thirty years and authored Free Negro Labor and Property Holding in Virginia, 1830–1860 (1942), research that challenged stereotypes of antebellum blacks. Jackson was perhaps most important, however, as a political and social activist. He helped found the Petersburg League of Negro Voters in 1935, wrote a weekly newspaper column titled "Rights and Duties in a Democracy," and worked to challenge segregation in Richmond's public transit system.
Thu, 31 Mar 2011 11:33:43 EST]]> /Walker_Wyatt_Tee_1929- Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:04:37 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Walker_Wyatt_Tee_1929- Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:04:37 EST]]> /Giovanni_Nikki_1943- Tue, 23 Nov 2010 10:48:21 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Giovanni_Nikki_1943- Nikki Giovanni is a poet, civil rights activist, and outspoken social critic—particularly on issues of gender and race—who uses her poetry as a vehicle for political commentary. Her self-published first volume of poems, Black Feeling, Black Talk (1968), declared an affinity to the Black Power of Malcolm X and dismissed the nonviolence of Martin Luther King Jr. "We ain't got to prove we can die," she wrote. "We got to prove we can kill." While her militancy has tempered with the years, her commitment to the importance of individual black voices in opposition to what she perceives to be the powerful and corrupting influence of the "white race" has not wavered. Giovanni's fame and influence, meanwhile, have grown. Currently, she is a University Distinguished Professor of English at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (or Virginia Tech), where she spoke prominently following the April 2007 shooting in which a Tech student murdered thirty-two people.
Tue, 23 Nov 2010 10:48:21 EST]]> /_Confessions_of_Nat_Turner_The_1831 Thu, 18 Nov 2010 13:25:53 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Confessions_of_Nat_Turner_The_1831 "The Confessions of Nat Turner, the leader of the late insurrection in Southampton, Va., as fully and voluntarily made to Thomas R. Gray" is a pamphlet published shortly after the trial and execution of Nat Turner in November 1831. The previous August, Turner, a slave preacher and self-styled prophet, had led the only successful slave revolt in Virginia's history, leaving fifty-five white people in Southampton County, Virginia, dead, the slaveholding South convulsed with panic, and the myth of the contented slave in tatters. His confessions, dictated from Turner's jail cell to a Southampton lawyer, have provided historians with a crucial perspective missing from an earlier planned uprising, by Gabriel (also sometimes known as Gabriel Prosser) in 1800, as well as fodder for debate over the veracity of Turner's account. Meanwhile, the book arguably is one of two American literary classics to come from the revolt, the other being The Confessions of Nat Turner, the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel by Virginia-native William Styron, published at the height of the Black Power movement in September 1967. Each of these texts has demonstrated the power of print media to shape popular perceptions of historical fact, even as each raised critical questions of accuracy, authenticity, and community control over historical interpretations of the past.
Thu, 18 Nov 2010 13:25:53 EST]]> /Scott_Robert_Cortez_Bobby_1947- Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:08:41 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Scott_Robert_Cortez_Bobby_1947- Congressman Robert C. "Bobby" Scott has represented Virginia's Third District for eight terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Elected to his first term in 1992, Scott was the first American of Filipino descent and only the second African American to represent Virginia in the U.S. Congress since John M. Langston left office in 1891. Before being elected to the House, he had served in both the Virginia House of Delegates (1978–1982) and the Virginia Senate (1982–1992). A moderate Democrat, Scott has chaired the Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee since 2006.
Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:08:41 EST]]> /Arlington_House Tue, 24 Aug 2010 13:58:39 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Arlington_House Arlington House, also known as the Lee-Custis Mansion, overlooks Washington, D.C., from a rise across the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia. Constructed between 1802 and 1818, it was one of the earliest and boldest expressions of the Greek Revival architectural style in America. Arlington House claims special historical significance through its association with the Washington and Custis families, and particularly with Robert E. Lee. After his family's departure in 1861 at the start of the American Civil War (1861–1865), Arlington House became a Union army facility. In 1863 the United States government established a Freedmen's Village on the property that was intended to serve as a model community for African Americans freed by the 1862 abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. Its location, meanwhile, was a striking reminder that Arlington had once been a slave labor–based plantation. In 1864 the federal government officially appropriated the grounds and there established Arlington National Cemetery, which continues to serve as a final resting place for members of the United States armed forces.
Tue, 24 Aug 2010 13:58:39 EST]]> /Woodson_Carter_G_1875-1950 Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:44:06 EST http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Woodson_Carter_G_1875-1950 Carter G. Woodson was a historian and founder of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, the Journal of Negro History, and "Negro History Week." Now known as the "Father of Black History" because of his efforts to promote African American history, Woodson wrote pioneering social histories chronicling the lives of black people at a time when mainstream white scholars denied that African Americans were worthy of historical study. Much of his work was based on public records, letters, speeches, folklore, and autobiographies, materials that were previously ignored. Woodson also used an interdisciplinary approach that combined anthropology, sociology, and history. From 1915 until 1947, he published four monographs, five textbooks, five edited collections of documents, five sociological studies, and thirteen articles. He pioneered in interpretations of slavery and Africa, which were adopted by mainstream historical scholars late in the 1950s. Among the works for which he is best known is The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933), which is still in print seventy-five years later.
Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:44:06 EST]]>