Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Pittsylvania County (Va.) Apprenticeship Indentures, involving Black and multiracial individuals 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

Pittsylvania County (Va.) Apprenticeship Indentures, 1860. Local government records collection, Pittsylvania County Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

Acquisition Information

These records came to the Library of Virginia in a transfer of court papers from Pittsylvania County in an undated accession.

Processing Information

Apprenticeship indenture, 1806 was originally described as part of the Pittsylvania County (Va.) Free and Enslaved Records, 1860-1864 but were removed to the present Pittsylvania County (Va.) Apprenticeship Indentures, 1806 to enhance the context between the record types.

Pittsylvania County Apprenticeship indentures of Black and multiracial individuals were located and removed from an unknown set of court records. Chris Smith later indexed the indentures pertaining to Black and multiracial individuals for the purposes of digitizing them for the digital project Virginia Untold: The African American Narrative.

Encoded by M. Mason, January 2024

Historical Information

Context for Record Type: In 1765, the General Assembly established that illegitimate children of "woman servants, Negroes, white women by Negroes were to be bound out" until the age of 21 for males and 18 for females. In the late eighteenth century, the General Assembly established the Overseers of the Poor, an appointed body that provided food, clothing, shelter, and medical treatment for people who were too poor to support themselves or too ill to provide for their basic needs. They also bound out children whose parents could not support them and those who were orphaned through apprenticeship contracts. These agreements arranged for white children to be taught a trade or domestic skills as well as educated in reading, writing, and arithmetic. In 1805, the General Assembly amended the previous act to no longer require the master of "black or mulatto orphans" to teach reading, writing, or arithmetic, with the intent that this would prevent Black children from learning these skills.

Locality History: Pittsylvania County was named in honor of William Pitt, first earl of Chatham, the English statesman. It was formed from Halifax County in 1766. The county court first met on 26 June 1767. The county seat is Chatham.

Scope and Content

Pittsylvania (Va.) Apprenticeship Indentures, 1806, consists of contracts or agreements binding out white, Black, or multiracial children, sometimes those who were orphaned, to learn a particular trade or craft. These indentures may be written agreements between the family of the apprentice and those responsible for the indentured. In many cases this includes the direct involvement of the Overseers of the Poor. 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.

This record set includes only one item which consists of an affidavit, 1860, made by Lureaza Day, a free person, stating under oath that she desires for her son Albert Day (4 or 5 year old) to be bond out to A. H. Rogers as she has no means of financial support.

Arrangement

This collection is arranged

Related Material

See also: Pittsylvania County (Va.) Free and Enslaved Records, 1860-1864

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

Additional Pittsylvania County (Va.) court records can be found on microfilm at the Library of Virginia. Consult "A Guide to Virginia County and City Records on Microfilm."

Adjunct Descriptive Data