PAST & PRESENT
THE CREATION OF “BLACK” AMERICANS Benevolent practices in the Black community in Hampton Roads were hindered by restrictive laws and policies as the numbers of enslaved and free people grew. In the decades following 1619, Virginia cemented Africans’ inferior status, restricted their freedom and designated them and their children as enslaved for life.
THE CREATION OF “BLACK” AMERICANS From the 1660s to 1700 Virginia enacted a succession of racist laws. The Virginia colony was the first to legally designate African inhabitants as slaves for life. In 1662 the citizenship of children shifted from the father to the mother. By 1667, Virginia voted that not even a Christian baptism could save one’s soul from a lifetime of enslavement. Gloucester County witnessed its first slave revolt in 1663. After Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676, laws oppressing Blacks grew at alarming
speed. In 1680 Virginia prohibited all Blacks, free or enslaved, from bearing arms; in 1682 all “imported Blacks” were declared slaves for life; in 1691 Virginia passed the first antimiscegenation law and prohibited manumission of enslaved people within its borders (manumitted slaves were forced to leave the colony). This continued disenfranchisement culminated in the 1705 Virginia Slave Codes. Following the American Revolution, Blacks freed after 1805 were required to leave Virginia. Policies that limited Black freedom were tightened after Black rebellions in 1800 in Richmond and the 1831 Nat Turner’s Rebellion in Southampton County. Blacks were prohibited from congregating unless under White supervision. Even with laws that were inconsistently enforced, Blacks who gathered risked arrest, physical punishment, forced emigration from Virginia and/or revocation of their free status. Blacks in Hampton Roads resisted their unequal status by meeting in secret, filing court cases, running away and engaging in acts of rebellion. Despite these barriers and limited resources, both free and enslaved Blacks found opportunities for community
ANTHONY & ISABELLA– HAMPTON ROADS’ FIRST BLACK FAMILY A couple, Anthony and Isabella, arrived with the first wave of Africans, leaving a family legacy for current-day residents of Hampton Roads. Anthony and Isabella were servants of Captain William Tucker. In 1625, they gave birth to one of the first two Black children born in the North American colonies including a son, William Tucker, who was baptized. The fate of the first African couple and their son William is unclear. By one account, William was later employed as an indentured servant who purchased land. Today, the Tucker family of Hampton Roads claims to be William Tucker’s direct descendants, based mostly upon their family’s oral traditions.7
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Hampton’s Tucker family at Carol Tucker’s 88th birthday Source: Berry and Hampson, 2019
