Anyone among us who is looking for an "invisible" ancestor, or for one who might have been a slave, freedman, mulatto or Indian, would do well to begin looking in this book. I found both Bowles and Jeffries listed here, with excellent sources given to continue the search. This URL is where you begin: http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/Virginia_NC.htm This one gives you the title page and acknowledgements: http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/Acknowledge.htm FREE AFRICAN AMERICANS OF NORTH CAROLINA AND VIRGINIA Including the family histories of more than 80% of those counted as "all other free persons" in the 1790 and 1800 census Winner: North Carolina Genealogical Society Award of Excellence in Publishing and The American Society of Genealogists' Donald Lines Jacobus Award Fourth Edition Paul Heinegg A hard copy of this book can be purchased from the publisher: Genealogical Publishing 1-800-296-6687 Copyright by Paul Heinegg 1999 All Rights Reserved This one will broaden your horizons about researching our ancestors in colonial times: http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/introduction.htm Introduction These genealogies, comprising the colonial history of the majority of the free African American families of Virginia and North Carolina, reveal several facets of American colonial history previously overlooked by historians: * Most families were the descendants of white servant women who had children by slaves or free African Americans. * Many descended from slaves who were freed before the 1723 Virginia law which required legislative approval for manumissions. Families like Gowen, Cumbo, and Driggers who were free in the mid-seventeenth century had several hundred members before the end of the colonial period. * Very few families descended from white slave owners who had children by their slaves, perhaps as low as 1% of the total. * Many free African American families in colonial North Carolina and Virginia were landowners who were generally accepted by their white neighbors. * Free Indians blended into the free African American communities. They did not form their own separate communities. * Some of the light-skinned descendants of free African Americans formed the tri-racial isolates of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Louisiana. Virginia Origins Most of the free African Americans of Virginia and North Carolina originated in Virginia where they became free in the seventeenth and eighteenth century before chattel slavery and racism fully developed in the United States. When they arrived in Virginia, Africans joined a society which was divided between master and white servant - a society with such contempt for white servants that masters were not punished for beating them to death [McIlwaine, Minutes of the Council, 22-24]. They joined the same households with white servants - working, eating, sleeping, getting drunk, and running away together [Northampton Orders 1664-74, fol.25, p.31 - fol.31; McIlwaine, Minutes of the Council, 466-7; Hening, Statutes at Large, II:26, 117; Charles City County Orders 1687-95, 468; Westmoreland County Orders 1752-5, 41a]. (snip)