Loudoun County, Virginia African Americans

United States   Virginia    Loudoun County    African Americans

The Archives of the Clerk of the Loudoun County Circuit Court has made two African American collections available online, based on records in their collection:


 * Slave Issues, 1757-1861. Available online. ["Collection of Commonwealth (Criminal), Fiduciary, Deeds, Court Judgments and Bill of Sales papers that include the names of slaves and their owners." ] Compare Slave Information from Various Loudoun County, Virginia Documents (1809-1861) by Sue Beach, courtesy: USGenWeb.
 * Free Black Papers, 1757-1861. Available online.

Paul Heinegg's Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware [free online book] is a very helpful guide to free blacks in Loudoun County, Virginia before 1820. [Identifies following free African American surnames in Loudoun County: Ball, Banninger (see Welch), Burke, Burnett, Butler, Copeland, Davis, Driver, Fox, Gowen, Graham, Grant, Grimes, Harvey, Hill, Hubbard, Lawson, Lett, Lucas, Mackey, Manley, Matthews, Melvin, Palmer, Pierce, Proctor, Reeves, Robinson, Russell, Veney, Welsh, Winters.] Sources Heinegg used to identify these individuals in Loudoun County include: (1) U.S. Federal Census Records, (2) MS Court Orders 1765-1800; General Index to Deeds 1757-1833; Will Books A-C, 1757-1788. Library of Virginia microfilm reel nos. 49, 53, 71-76. PPTL 1782-1825. LVA microfilm reels 207-210, (3) Sparacio, Sam &amp; Ruth. 1997. Loudoun County, Virginia Order Book, 1757-1764. The Antient Press. McLean, Virginia, and (4) Sparacio, Sam &amp; Ruth. 1998. Loudoun County, Virginia Tithable Lists, 1770-1774. The Antient Press. McLean, Virginia.] Other items found on Heinegg's website include:


 * "Virginia Slaves Freed After 1782." [Identifies some Loudoun county slaves freed between 1780 and 1800.]
 * "Loudoun County Personal Property Tax List 1782-1821." [Identifies free blacks listed in these records.]
 * "'Other Free' Heads of Household in the 1810 Virginia Census, by County," [Identifies many Loudoun County free African American residents.]

Colonial Williamsburghas made images of theVirginia Gazette(1736-1800) available for free online. They include runaway slave advertisements and slave sales.

Professor Tom Costa and The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia have created a database of all runaway advertisements for slaves, indentured servants, transported convicts, and ship deserters listed in this source and other Virginia newspapers (1736-1803), see: The Geography of Slavery in Virginia.

The Friends of the Thomas Balch Library, Leesburg, Va., have made the following African American database available online:


 * Runaway Slave Advertisements from the Genius of Liberty (Newspaper), Leesburg, Virginia, 1817-1842.

African-American Genealogical Research Pathfinder identifies many Loudoun area resources available at the Thomas Balch Library in Leesburg, Va.

Additional African American resources for Loudoun County include:


 * 1850 U.S. Federal Census - Slave Schedules. Digital version at Ancestry ($). [Includes Loudon [sic] County.]
 * 1860 U.S. Federal Census - Slave Schedules. Digital version at Ancestry ($). [Includes Loudoun County.]
 * Bishop, G. Thomas. "Brown - Steere Bible," Northern Virginia Genealogy, Vol. 5 (2000):515-523. Available at FHL. [Includes slave births from 1820s to 1850s.]
 * Duncan, Patricia B. Abstracts of Loudoun County, Virginia, Register of Free Negroes, 1844-1861. Westminster, Maryland: Willow Bend Books, 2000. Available at FHL. The original records, held at the Loudoun County Courthouse in Leesburg, Va. are also available on microfilm at FHL. Free Lookups Available!
 * Duncan, Patricia B. 1850 Fairfax County &amp; Loudoun County, Virginia, Slave Schedule. Westminster, Maryland: Willow Bend Books: Heritage Books, c2003. Available at FHL.
 * Duncan, Patricia B. 1860 Loudoun County, Virginia, Slave Schedule. Bowie, Maryland: Heritage Books, c2003. Available at FHL.
 * Hall, George R. "Economics of Slavery and the Coming of the Civil War," The Bulletin of the Historical Society of Loudoun County, Virginia, 1957-1976. Leesburg, Va.: Goose Creek Productions, 1998, pp. 131-142. Available at FHL. Free Lookups Available!
 * Hopkins, Margaret Lail. Index to the Tithables of Loudoun County, Virginia and to Slaveholders and Slaves, 1758-1786. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1991. Available at FHL; digital version at Ancestry ($).
 * "Phillips Freedom - Culpeper to Loudoun," Northern Virginia Genealogy, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Summer 1999):328. Available at FHL.
 * "Thomas Fouch's Book," Loudoun: The 1757 Legacy, Newsletter of the Loudoun Genealogy Club, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Jun. 1997):1. Available at FHL. [Identifies slaves owned by Thomas Fouch between 1794 and 1826.]
 * Tyler-McGraw, Marie. "'The Prize I Mean Is the Prize of Liberty': A Loudoun County Family in Liberia," The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 97, No. 3, "A Sense of Their Own Power": Black Virginians, 1619-1989 (Jul. 1989):355-374. Available at JSTOR ($).
 * U.S. Freedmen Bank Records, 1865-1874. Digital version at Ancestry ($). [Includes five natives of Loudoun County.]