Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Orange County (Va.) Apprenticeship Indentures, 1817-1859, 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

Orange County (Va.) Apprenticeship Indentures,1817-1859. Local government records collection, Orange County Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va. 23219.

Acquisition Information

These records came to the Library of Virginia in a transfer of court papers from Orange County in an undated accession.

Processing Information

Orange County (Va.) Apprenticeship Indentures,1817-1859 were originally described as part of the Orange County (Va.) Free and Enslaved Records, but were moved in their own Orange County (Va.) Apprenticeship Indentures record to enhance discoverability.

It is believed the apprenticeship indentures currently in this collection were removed from the Orange County (Va.) Judgments and processed by Jim Watkins around 2009.

Encoded by M. Mason: March 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 Note: Orange County, according to most accounts, was named for William of Orange, the Dutch prince who became King William III of England in 1688. It is more probable, however, that it was named for William IV, prince of Orange-Nassau, who married Anne, eldest daughter of King George II, in 1734-the year that Orange County was formed from Spotsylvania County.

Scope and Content

Orange County (Va.) Apprenticeship Indentures, 1817-1859, 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.

Currently, identified material only included indentures of Black and multiracial children, additional apprenticeship indentures concerning white children may remain in unprocessed records. This record set includes only three indentures: 1817, of Anderson Bounce (bound to James Lee); 1851, of Margaret Bouncer (bound to George Cullen to learn housekeeping, documents include appeal and order documenting error and correction to original indenture); and 1859, of Mary Campbell, Robert Campbell, Thomas Campbell (bound to William Kendall to learn housekeeping and farming) and James Campbel (bound to George Campbell to learn farming).

Arrangement

This collection is arranged

Related Material

See also: Orange County (Va.) Free and Enslaved Records, 1738-1865

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

Additional Orange 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