Slavery at the University of Virginia
In 1996, local historian Gayle Schulman came across a series of letters written in 1866 by Isabella Gibbons, a newly freed slave who taught in the Charlottesville's Freedman's School. Ms. Schulman's project to research the life of Gibbons and her family (part of which was published in the Magazine of Albemarle County History, Vol. 55) led her to other studies of local African American history.
During her research into the Gibbons family she learned that both Isabella and her husband, William Gibbons, had been owned for part of their lives by University of Virginia Professors. In 2003, Ms. Schulman began a systematic review of archives, manuscripts, census data, church membership lists, and birth and death records searching for clues to their lives as individuals and as members of a community. A portion of this research is illustrated in her manuscript titled "Slaves at the University of Virginia." To download a copyrighted version of this 33-page article (pdf file), click here.
Topics covered in the article:
Slave workers, slave housing, students and slaves, early UVa professors, slave population and vital statistics, slave community, American Colonization Society, religious instruction of slaves, slave health and treatment, punishment, family disruption, Deportation Act of 1806, manumissions, literacy, Civil War, emancipation.
People discussed in the article:
Isabella Gibbons, Prof. Francis H. Smith, William Gibbons, Prof. Henry Howard, Prof. George Tucker, Sally Cottrell Coles, Lewis Commodore, Prof. Robley Dunglison, Prof. Charles Bonnycastle, Fielding, Charles Perry, Prof. Gessner Harrison, Eliza Tucker Harrison, Maria Harrison Broadus, Flora, Thornton, Henry, Prof. James Barbee Minor, Mrs. Edwin Conway, Lawrence Vines, Betty Vines, Prof. William Barton Rogers, Rachel, Thomas Hewitt Key, Dolly Cottrell, Lucy Cottrell, Becca Perry, Jack Sellers, Prof. William Holmes McGuffey, Benjamin Wood, Mary Harrison Smith, Mary L. Minor, Nannie C. Minor, Franklin Minor.
Other Local History Research by Gayle M. Schulman:
“Shall We Become A City?” The Story of Charlottesville’s Incorporation as a City in 1888 Magazine of Albemarle County History Vol. 46.
Transcription of The Recollections of Judge R.T.W. Duke
Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia. Extracts published in Magazine of Albemarle County History Vol. 52, and Vol. 59.
Transcription of the Reminiscences of Philena Carkin, Charlottesville Freedmen’s School teacher 1866-1875 Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia.
Research projects done as a member of the African American Genealogy Group of Charlottesville Albemarle list on the AAGGC Resources Page.
"Site of Slave Block?" Magazine of Albemarle County History Vol. 58.
"Learning in the Charlottesville Freedmen’s School: the First Jefferson School" Magazine of Albemarle County History Vol. 64
