Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Amelia County "Free Negro" Tax records, 1801-1859, and portions of the Requisitions for Public Use, 1860-1865, are digitized and available through Virginia Untold: The African American Narrative Digital Collection on the Library of Virginia website. Please use digital images.

Use Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Preferred Citation

Amelia County (Va.) Free and Enslaved Records, 1801-1866. Local government records collection, Amelia County Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

Acquisition Information

These records came to the Library of Virginia in a transfer of court papers from Amelia County (Va.) in 2001 under accession numbers 37990, 37993, and 37995; in 2003 under accession number 40724; and in 2004 under accession number 41507.

Processing Information

Starting in 2023, Library of Virginia archival staff in partnership with the Virginia Untold Project Manager began efforts to describe records related to free and enslaved Black and Multiracial people in a manner that improved the historical context of the records. In doing so, in some cases material once described within the "Free and Enslaved" record group for a locality may no longer be described within this record. When this has occurred, please see the Processing Information and Related Materials section for records that have been described separately.

Certificates of Importation were removed from this record in January 2025 and are now described in Amelia County (Va.) Certificates of Importation, 1781.

"Free Negro" Registrations were removed from this record in January 2025 and are now described in Amelia County (Va.) Records related to the Registration of Free Persons, 1794-1866.

Petitions to Remain were removed from this record in January 2025 and are now described in Amelia County (Va.) Petitions to Remain in the Commonwealth, 1816.

These records are believed to have been removed from Amelia County (Va.) Judgments, among other Amelia County records, by C. Freed circa 2005.

These records have been processed and indexed by C. Freed, L. Neuroth, and other LVA staff for the purposes of digitizing them for the digital project Virginia Untold: The African American Narrative.

Encoded by S. Nerney: November 2005; updated by C. Collins: January 2025.

Historical Information

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 Amelia 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.

See: the Virginia Untold Record Types on the Library of Virginia website for additional context concerning "Free Negro" Tax Records and Requisitions for Public Use.

Locality History: Amelia County was named for Amelia Sophia Eleanora, daughter of King George II. It was formed from Prince George and Brunswick Counties by an act passed in 1734 to take effect on 25 March 1735. The county court first met on 9 May 1735. The county seat is Amelia.

Scope and Content

Amelia County (Va.) Free and Enslaved Records, 1801-1866, consist of “Free Negro” Tax Records, 1801-1803, 1851-1859; Requisitions for Public Use, 1860-1865; and additional records of various types, 1805, 1850, 1866.

“Free Negro” Tax Records, 1801-1803, 1851-1859, are comprised of 10 lists of “Free Negroes” compiled by the commissioner of the revenue for tax purposes. These lists record the names of free Black and Multiracial individuals within a certain district, as well as their age, place of abode or the name of the individual on whose land the free person resided, trade or occupation, and sometimes the names of children.

Requisitions for Public Use, 1860-1865, undated, include requisition lists filed in the local court and payroll records of the Virginia Engineer. These records contain such information as the names of both free Black and Multiracial persons and enslaved individuals, locality of origin, the name of enslavers, occupation, location of fortification, and the ascribed monetary value of enslaved individuals. Other records include orders; correspondence involving the Confederate Engineering Department and other individuals, like the Secretary of the Commonwealth, concerning the requisition of enslaved individuals; and reports by the committee appointed to apportion enslaved individuals to work on the Richmond City fortifications.

Additional single items relating to the documentation of free and enslaved Black and Multiracial individuals in and around Amelia County, Va., include:

A certificate, 1866, signed by R. H. Tatum, M.D., affirming that Stephen Bland “is in his thirty ninth year.”

A list, 1805, recording the names of over 100 individuals enslaved by Frances Tabb in 1804.

A "slave schedule", 1850, containing two pages from the 1850 Amelia County census of enslaved inhabitants. This is not a complete copy. It records the name of the enslaver and enumerates, but does not name, individual enslaved persons. A column exists to document the number of enslaved persons manumitted, if any. Information collected about the unnamed enslaved persons includes age, sex, color, whether a fugitive from the state, and whether "deaf, dumb, blind, insane or idiotic."

Arrangement

This collection is arranged

Related Material

See also: Amelia County (Va.) Apprenticeship Indentures, 1736-1890

See also: Amelia County (Va.) Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands Records, 1868

See also: Amelia County (Va.) Certificates of Importation, 1781

See also: Amelia County (Va.) Deeds of Emancipation, 1767-1859

See also: Amelia County (Va.) Petitions to Remain in the Commonwealth, 1816

See also: Amelia County (Va.) Records related to the Registration of Free Persons, 1794-1866

Records related to free and enslaved people of Amelia County (Va.) and other localities are available through the Virginia Untold: The African American Narrative Digital Collection on the Library of Virginia website.

Additional Amelia County (Va.) court records can be found on microfilm at The Library of Virginia web site. Consult "A Guide to Virginia County and City Records on Microfilm."

Adjunct Descriptive Data