The Free Negro in Virginia 1619-1865

It is one of the least commonly known facts about the Civil War there weremany many free negroes living in slaveholding states before the EmancipationProclamati... » 

It is one of the least commonly known facts about the Civil War there weremany many free negroes living in slaveholding states before the EmancipationProclamation. This monograph on that surprising reality originally publishedin 1913 draws on such firsthand documents as court records contemporaryliterature and newspaper accounts and other sources to create the first suchportrait of this nearly forgotten chapter of AfricanAmerican history. From thevarious origins of the free negro classes to their legal and social statusesregarding everything from their right of travel to their relationship withtheir enslaved fellowsthis should supply some of the facts upon which thehistory of the negro race in the United States must be based wrote authorJOHN HENDERSON RUSSELL b. 1884 in his preface. «