BLACKFORD FAMILY PAPERS, #1912, 1742-1953
The Blackford collection consists of correspondence and other papers of three generations
of the Blackfords of Fredericksburg, Lynchburg, and Alexandria, Virginia. Much of the
correspondence relates to the activities of the American Colonization Society and its
counterpart in Great Britain, and documents the Blackford family's antislavery sentiments and
their attempts to organize a colonization society in Fredericksburg. The collection includes
discussion of fears of a large-scale slave insurrection in the slave states (1831); difficulties in educating black women to be teachers; the life of
missionaries in Liberia (1836, 1843,
1845, 1852, 1855); freeing slaves to send to Liberia (1841);
observations of South American slavery (1842-1843); antislavery views in Richmond, Virginia; and opposition to the
annexation of Texas as a proslavery plot to enable the South to secede (1844); the outfitting with tools of a slave manumitted by the Blackfords (1844); letters written by the slave Maria West for her blind owner and
occasional personal notes from West herself (1846-1847); news of Abraham, a manumitted Blackford slave who joined a colony in
Liberia (1845); opposition faced by abolitionists in
Fredericksburg, Virginia, and nationally (1849); views on slavery and colonization (1850); response to a plan to send slaves to the Amazon Valley (1851); Charles Blackford's opinion of the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853); a proslavery argument and description of the treatment of slaves
written by V. M. Randolph of Forkland, Alabama (1859); an account
of the life, death, and philosophies of Richard Randolph, a Virginian who freed his slaves
and moved to Ohio (1859); reaction to John Brown's raid at Harper's
Ferry (1860); the Northern working-class view of the war and
slavery (1862); the secession crisis and Confederate army life
(1861-1865); problems with freed slaves (1865); news of Liberia and the hope that emancipated slaves would join
the African colony (1865); the idleness of freedmen and thievery
among blacks and whites (1866); experiences of the white M. Payne
in teaching black children (n.d.); and a description of a Danville, Virginia, race riot
(1883).
