An examination of a few of the great number of deeds and wills which
are to be found on record throughout Virginia will serve to illustrate
the motives of her emancipators and the many difficulties which
confronted them. These emancipations may be grouped in three
periods,—from 1782 to 1806, from 1806 to 1833, and from 1833 to the
outbreak of the Civil War. Each of these periods had its peculiar
characteristics with reference to the problem of emancipation in
Virginia. From 1782 to 1806 the law permitted emancipation without
qualification, and public opinion, in the state, while deploring the
existence of slavery was willing to permit the slaveholders to
control, in large measure, the times and methods of its abolition. The
period from 1806 to 1833 marked the years when anti-slavery sentiment
showed increasing strength. The antipathy, however, to the presence of
the free negro was equally pronounced and resulted in the laws which
required his removal from the state within a year after his
emancipation. This requirement invested emancipation with new,
practical, as well as ethical difficulties. This period opened with
the act which denied to slaveholders the unqualified right of
emancipation—and it ended with the Nat Turner Insurrection and the
futile attempts of the General Assembly to successfully meet the
difficulties of the situation. The years from 1833 to 1860 were
burdened with all the difficulties of the previous periods, as well as
with the embarrassments growing out of the efforts of the
Abolitionists beyond the state and of the pro-slavery advocates within
her borders.
An examination of the following extracts from the deeds and wills of
emancipators will serve to illustrate the truth of these views.