[28] Ibid., p. 125.
[29] The Richmond Enquirer, Jan. 7, 1832.
[30] Drewry, The Southampton Insurrection, p. 165.
[31] The Richmond Enquirer, Dec. 17, 1831.
[32] Ibid., Nov. 18, 1831.
[33] The Journal of the House of Delegates, 1831, p. 110.
[34] Before the insurrection free men of color voted in North Carolina and at least one well-authenticated case exists of a colored voter in Virginia prior to 1830. A native of Virginia long a resident of Massachusetts is an authority for the statement that the facilities for higher education of the Negro were quite as good in Richmond as in Boston at that time. There was published in a paper of the time an account of the celebration of the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1827, by the free people of color of the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia. The orator of the day was Isaac N. Carey.
In North Carolina John Chavis, a Negro, rose to such excellence as a teacher of white youth that he is pronounced in a biographical sketch, contained in a history of education in that State, published by the United States Bureau of Education, as one of the most eminent men produced by that State. Though an unmistakable Negro, as a preacher he acceptably filled many a white pulpit and was welcomed as a social guest at many a fireside. Such was the bitterness against the race growing out of Nat Turner's Insurrection, however, that even such a man fell under the ban of proscription.
One of the preachers to whom Governor Floyd had reference quietly ignored the suggestion in the message of his Excellency and kept up his work. He was a Baptist preacher, William Carney, the grandfather of the famous Sergeant William H. Carney, of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. At the same time a daughter of his and a Methodist in a neighboring town "bearded the lion in his den" by actually collaring and driving out the leader of a party of white men who broke into a Negro religious meeting.
[35] The Richmond Enquirer, Jan. 11, 1839.