Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Nottoway County (Va.) Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands Records, 1866-1867, are digitized and available through Virginia Untold: The African American Narrative Digital Collection on the Library of Virginia website. Please use digital images.

Use Restrictions

There are no restrictions

Preferred Citation

Nottoway County (Va.) Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands Records, 1866-1867. Local government records collection, Nottoway County Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia 23219.

Acquisition Information

These Records came to the Library of Virginia in a transfer of Court records in 2006 under accession 42852.

Processing Information

Apprenticeship Indentures, 1866-1867 were previous housed and described with the Lunenburg County (Va.) Apprenticeship Bonds and Indentures, 1865-1867 now described in Nottoway County (Va) Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands Records. For unknown reasons, these records, were filed in Lunenburg County and mistakenly identified as orphan bonds because most of the African American children indentured were orphans. Lunenburg County and Nottoway County were in the same military district following the Civil War. The military authority was headquartered in Lunenburg County courthouse.

These records have been scanned and indexed by LVA staff for the purposes of digitizing them for the digital project Virginia Untold: The African American Narrative.

Encoded by G. Crawford, 2006; Updated by M. Mason, February 2024

Historical Information

Context for Record Type:

Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands

On March 3, 1865, the federal government created The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands using the Freedmen's Bureau Bill. Also known as the "Freedmen's Bureau," this agency was responsible for aiding refugees of the Civil War, especially formerly enslaved people in the areas of education, employment, and health care. Meant to last for only one year after the war, the Bureau was largely operational from June 1865 to December 1868, and officially abolished in 1872.

Freedmen's Apprenticeship Indentures

In the fall of 1865, the Freedmen's Bureau assumed responsibility as the governing body for apprenticeship indentures and oversaw the binding out of children of formerly enslaved people to indenture holders. Although these contracts were generated by the federal government, a few localities retained possession and they were filed in the courthouse as Freedmen's Bureau records. They typically contain the name of the person or institution binding out, the person to whom bound, the name of the person being indentured, the length of the apprenticeship, and the responsibilities of the person taking on the indenture.

Locality History: Nottoway County was named for the Nottoway River or for the Nottoway Indian tribe. The county was formed from Amelia County by a statue adopted on 22 December 1788 to take effect 1 May 1789.

Scope and Content

Nottoway (Va.) Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands Records, 1866-1867, consists of Apprenticeship Indentures.

Apprenticeship Indentures, 1866-1867, record the binding of Black and multiracial children to individuals for the purpose of learning a trade. Both are contractual agreements between the apprentice's master and agents of the Freedmen's Bureau. They stipulate the amount the master agreed to pay to the Freedmen's Bureau in exchange for an African American child to be bound to him or her by the Freedmen's Bureau; length of apprenticeship; and a statement of the obligations and responsibilities of each party. Information found in the apprenticeship bonds and indentures include names of masters and Freedmen's Bureau agents, bond amount, date of indenture, names and age of African American apprentice, and name of trade.

For unknown reasons, these records, were filed in Lunenburg County and mistakenly identified as orphan bonds because most of the African American children indentured were orphans.

Arrangement

This collection is arranged into

Related Material

See also: Lunenburg County (Va.) Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands Records, 1865-1869

Records related to free and enslaved people of Nottoway County (Va.) and other localities are available through the Virginia Untold: The African American Narrative Digital Collection on the Library of Virginia website.

Additional Nottoway County Records can be found on microfilm at the Library of Virginia. Consult "A Guide to Virginia County and City Records on Microfilm" found on the Library of Virginia's web site.

Adjunct Descriptive Data