Horses, Whiskey, and the Poor List: Free People of Color in Scott County
What tax lists, census records, and court minutes tell us about a community that wasn’t supposed to exist.
The Rescue at Osborne’s Ford
When Isaac Richmond came for Barbara Day, three men stopped him — and two of them were free men of color.
Betsy and Adam: Freedom, Labor, and the Price of Land
A bound-out girl and a self-emancipated man build a life on the Virginia-Tennessee border.
Lisha Grant’s Children: A Free Black Family Between Two States
A mother, a stepfather, and seven children navigating freedom in Virginia and Tennessee.
The Handkerchief, the Sifter, and the Family They Revealed
How a petty lawsuit over a few dollars cracked open the story of a free Black family network in antebellum Virginia.
A New Series “Bound, Free, and In Between: Free People of Color in Scott County, Virginia”
The records are out there. Sometimes you just have to look sideways to find them.