Slave Markets, Virginia, ca 1830
singhals
I was asked my opinion of a family story. I remembered several of
you do AA research and wondered if you'd weigh in with your opinions
as well.
Story is: Our ancestor was a slave owned by this family, down on
the VA-NC border, around Lunenberg co. Sometime around 1830, the
owner took all but 6 of his slaves to the slave-market in Richmond;
a man from the county just west of Lunenberg bought most of them,
but some were bought by a man in the county just north of Lunenberg.
The new owners took the slaves back to their homes, where everyone
lived a few years, but by 1840, the original owner, the new owners,
and the slaves moved to the TX-ARK border region. From there forward
these people are trackable. End of family story.
I'll stipulate it's possible. The issue I have is -- is it probable
given the distances and the sheer numbers (looks like a couple
hundred, judging on the 1850 values)?
No, Bob, I didn't put in names, because far's I can see WHO may have
done it is far less important than DID they do it.
Cheryl
singhals <sing...@erols.com>
Huntersglenn
I'm not sure why the slave owner would have gone all the way to
Richmond when there were most likely slave-markets held closer -
most likely even in the county seat.
I do find it plausible that people from different counties could
have ended up migrating to the same areas. It's possible that those
families were related or knew one another prior to the sale of
slaves, and they traveled together. I did check the migration
pattern site for Lunenburg County, VA and found several families who
left VA in the 1840s and went to Arkansas, then into Texas (this is
a link off of the VA GenWeb site).
Didn't see any pages for Brunswick or other counties surrounding
Lunenburg.
You're going to need to look at the deed records for the counties
involved to see if the purchases did happen around 1830 - I'm just
not sure where the records would be. For land, deeds were
registered in the county where the land was located. Not sure where
deeds of sale would have to be registered, but it wouldn't hurt to
check all of the counties where you suspect they lived.
Good luck,
Cathy
Huntersglenn <hunter...@cox.net>