Context for Record Type:

Free and Enslaved Records

The Free and Enslaved Records collection is comprised of miscellaneous records related to the regulation and policing of both enslaved and free Black and Multiracial people in Pittsylvania County. The localities/local government authorities were largely responsible for enforcing laws that restricted the movement of enslaved and free Black and multiracial people and the resulting documentation was often filed in the circuit courts. The ways in which local authorities enacted legal measures against or on behalf of enslaved and free Black and multiracial people varied from locality to locality; therefore records were not necessarily standardized or filed and retained in a consistent manner. This collection is topical and a means by which to compile miscellaneous documents related to free and enslaved people that are not established local government record types.

"Free Negro Tax" Records

In 1801, the Virginia Legislature passed an act requiring commissioners of the revenue to annually return a complete list of all free Black Virginians within their districts, with their names, sex, place of abode, and trades. Delinquent tax lists include names of free Black individuals returned delinquent and sometimes why they were returned, such as "no property," "removed," or "not found." In 1853, the General Assembly passed a law allowing the taxes raised on free Black men and women to be collected in a fund to be applied to the removal of these individuals as a part of the recolonization effort.

Requisitions for Public Use

These records include requisition lists filed in local courts and payroll records of the Virginia Engineer Department. Information found in these records include names of enslaved and free Black people, locality of origin, occupation, location of fortification, names of enslavers, and monetary value of enslaved people. Virginia enacted legislation as early as July 1, 1861 during the Civil War to requisition enslaved and free Black people to work on military fortifications and other defensive works around the commonwealth. From 1862 to 1863, at the request of the president of the Confederate States, the General Assembly passed three more laws that requisitioned enslaved laborers to work on fortifications and other works of the defense. Each county and city were given a certain number of enslaved laborers that had to be provided to the government under the requisition act. Enslaved people requisitioned for service did not have a choice. In many cases, the alternative was severe punishment or to be hanged.

Payroll records of the Engineer Department include payrolls of enslaved people that worked on fortifications and other defenses as the result of an 1861 Act of Assembly calling for defense of the Commonwealth. The "slave rolls" provide the enslaved person's name, the hirer's name, time employed as well as rates of pay, and other amounts received. Enslaved people were employed to work on the defenses at Fort Boykin, Fort Huger, Fort Lowry, Gloucester Point, Hardy's Bluff, Jamestown Island, Lowry's Point, Mulberry Island, Williamsburg, and Yorktown. Note that the payroll registers in this collection do not relate directly to the lists of people requisitioned for public use by the Federal Government. Those payrolls are available digitally via the National Archives catalog.

Locality History: Pittsylvania County was named in honor of William Pitt, first earl of Chatham, the English statesman. It was formed from Halifax County in 1766. The county court first met on 26 June 1767. The county seat is Chatham.