Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Preferred Citation

Powhatan County (Va.) Circular Concerning Instructions to Receive United States Registers of Marriages of Colored Persons, 1868. Local government records collection, Powhatan County Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

Acquisition Information

These items came to the Library of Virginia in shipments of court papers from Powhatan County.

Digital images were created by the Library of Virginia's Photographic and Digital Imaging Services. Photolab number 11_0922_002-004.

Historical Information

The Virginia legislature passed an act on 27 February 1866 to legalize the marriages of former slaves who had been cohabiting as of that date. See Virginia Acts of Assembly, 1866-1867, Chapter 18, An act to amend and re-enact the 14th section of chapter 108 of the Code of Virginia for 1860, in regard to registers of marriage; and to legalize the marriages of colored persons now cohabiting as husband and wife.

The federal Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands directed the Assistant Superintendents of the states to order the county clerks to make a registry of such cohabiting couples. See Circular No. 11, dated 19 March 1866, in Orders, Circulars, Circular Letters, and Letters of Instruction, vol. 2 (1866). Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Virginia, 1865-1869. Miscellaneous reel 3880, Library of Virginia. National Archives microfilm M1048 (reel 41), Record Group 105.

An act of the General Assembly passed 1867 April 29 instructed the clerks of the county courts of Virginia to receive United States Registers of Marriages of Colored Persons and safely keep the same for future reference.

Powhatan County was named for the paramount chief of the Powhatan Indians in the tidewater of Virginia in the late sixteenth and early years of the seventeenth century. It was formed from Cumberland County in 1777, and part of Chesterfield County was added in 1850. The county seat is Powhatan.

Scope and Content

Powhatan County (Va.) Circular Concerning Instructions to Receive United States Registers of Marriages of Colored Persons, 1868, instructed the clerks of the county courts of Virginia to receive United States Registers of Marriages of Colored Persons and safely keep the same for future reference.

Arrangement

Chronological.

Index Terms

Corporate Names:

• Powhatan County (Va.) Circuit Court

Subjects:

• African Americans -- History

Geographical Names:

• Powhatan County -- History -- 19th century.

Genre and Form Terms:

• Correspondence -- Virginia -- Powhatan County
• Local government records -- Virginia -- Powhatan County