Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Southampton County (Va.) Apprenticeship Indentures, 1813-1881, involving Black and multiracial individuals 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

Southampton County (Va.) Apprenticeship Indentures, 1813-1904. Local government records collection, Southampton County Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va. 23219.

Acquisition Information

These items came to the Library of Virginia in a transfer of court records from Southampton County.

Processing Information

Apprenticeship indentures relating to Black and multiracial children pre-1866 were originally described as part of the Southampton County (Va.) Free and Enslaved Records, but were removed to the present Southampton County (Va.) Apprenticeship Indentures to enhance the context between the record types.

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

Encoded by G. Crawford, 2018; updated by M. Mason June 2024

Historical Information

Context for Record Type: In 1765, the General Assembly established that illegitimate children of "woman servants, Negroes, white women by Negroes were to be bound out" until the age of 21 for males and 18 for females. In the late eighteenth century, the General Assembly established the Overseers of the Poor, an appointed body that provided food, clothing, shelter, and medical treatment for people who were too poor to support themselves or too ill to provide for their basic needs. They also bound out children whose parents could not support them and those who were orphaned through apprenticeship contracts. These agreements arranged for white children to be taught a trade or domestic skills as well as educated in reading, writing, and arithmetic. In 1805, the General Assembly amended the previous act to no longer require the master of "black or mulatto orphans" to teach reading, writing, or arithmetic, with the intent that this would prevent Black children from learning these skills.

Locality History: Southampton County was named, in the opinion of many authorities, for Henry Wriothesley, third earl of Southampton and treasurer of the Virginia Company of London from 1620 to 1624. It is more likely, however, that the county was named for the borough of Southampton in England. Southampton County was formed in 1749 from Isle of Wight County, and part of Nansemond County was added in 1786. The county seat is Courtland.

Scope and Content

Southampton County (Va.) Apprenticeship Indentures, 1813-1904, consists of contracts or agreements binding out white, Black, or multiracial children, sometimes those who were orphaned, to learn a particular trade or craft. These indentures may be written agreements between the family of the apprentice and those responsible for the indentured. In many cases this includes the direct involvement of the Overseers of the Poor. They typically contain the name of the person or institution binding out, the person to whom bound, the name of the person being indentured, the length of the apprenticeship, and the responsibilities of the person taking on the indenture.

Arrangement

This collection is arranged

Related Material

See also: Southampton County (Va.) Free and Enslaved Records, 1754-1860

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

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

Adjunct Descriptive Data