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In 1867 a former enslaved man named Peter Wiggins petitioned the Westmoreland County Court to gain custody of the two sons and two daughters he and Malinda Thompson had before the Civil War; but because Wiggins had been married to a woman named Ann…

P. C. Morgan's contract identifies the people he hired as he would have identified them back in slavery times, as belonging to his neighbors ("Irby's Henry, Hudson's Albert, Thomas's Ned, Peggie and Eley"). It also indicates that the hired people…

Virginia's General Assembly passed legislation in 1866 to legalize the "Marriages of Colored Persons now cohabiting as Husband and Wife." Freedmen's Bureau agents were authorized to compile registers of cohabiting couples who considered themselves…

In November 1865, the Norfolk County Court petitioned the officer of the Freedmen's Bureau in Norfolk to take away the firearms belonging to African Americans. Local white residents had complained complained about African Americans "in the habit of…

Before the Civil War, churches often had black and white members, although they were segregated within the congregation. African American churches were required by Virginia law to have white ministers, and after the Civil War, many African Americans…

Willis J. Madden was born in 1862 and was the son of a mixed-race woman and a white man. He discusses his childhood, education, and work as a teacher and Baptist preacher.

For several months after the end of the war, the army stationed soldiers, including African Americans, throughout Virginia to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation and protect the freedpeople. White Lunenburg County residents petitioned Governor…

After the United States Army captured Petersburg, Confederate and Virginia officials fled Richmond during the night of April 2

African Americans cheered as Abraham Lincoln toured the city of Richmond a day after it had been liberated by the United States Army in April 1865.

The Seabrook Warehouse did not burn in Richmond's evacuation fire and reopened in June 1865. About two-dozen freedmen were employed at the warehouse at the time.