Self-Emancipation in Virginia

Slavery and Self-Emancipation

Traversing the history of slavery in Virginia, beginning with John Punch and through the Fugitive Slave Acts.

Slave Rebellions

A statistical overview of planned and executed slave uprisings in Virginia.

Marronage

A look at the history of petit marronage and permanent maroon communities in Virginia.

Fugitive Slave Infrastructure and Surveillance

A look at the surveillance infrastructure employed to confine, pursue, and punish enslaved people's attempts for freedom. This section will link to other digital projects like Freedom on the Move's repository of fugitive slave ads. I will also include visualizations of data compiled by Dr. Lathan Algerna Windley in his text A Profile of Runaway Slaves in Virginia and South Carolina from 1730 through 1787.

Domestic Slave Trade Economy

Notes on a Criminal Conspiracy

William Still recorded the accounts of nearly three hundred freedom seekers from Virginia who escaped on the Underground Railroad through Philadelphia.

Contraband of War

A look into the contrband policy concerning fugitives who escaped to the Union during the Civil War. Browse a series of data visualizations created from the Library of Virginia’s collection “The Runaway and Escaped Slaves Records, 1794, 1806-1863.”.