People & Places
Profiles of enslaved persons, faculty, and Law buildings.
Teaching Slavery
An essay explaining the materiality and scope of antebellum student notebooks at UVA Law.
Project Overview
An allied project of our forthcoming multi-author volume on the history of the University of Virginia School of Law.
Daybook of "Brookhill," Albemarle County, VA
[Text taken from Virgo catalog entry] The volume contains records of "Brookhill," the Albemarle County, VA farm of the Minor family. Entries are in the hands of Charles Minor and John B. Minor.
Charles Minor's entries (Mar. 5, 1860 through Nov. 15, 1861) include notations on the weather; activities associated with the cultivation of tobacco, wheat, corn and other minor crops; the raising of cattle, hogs and sheep; horse breeding; drainage ditches, the use of farm machinery and the application of various fertilizers (guano, Ruffin's mixture, plaster, etc.)
Prosecution vs. Progress: Slave Courts in the 19th-century
This essay focuses on a letter from UVA student L.J. Bell addressed to John B. Minor with a question about the legality of slave abuse. Three landmark judicial opinions establish the legal context for this issue in Virginia which effectively privileged the economic interests of enslavers over the safety and humanity of the enslaved.
A Bond Created in Bondage
This essay details the disjuncture between John Minor’s public stance toward slavery as a moral abomination and his personal participation in enslaving dozens of individuals on his personal estate.
Professor Bonnycastle's Slave is Beaten by Students (1839)
This essay contains a violent account in the faculty chairman journals of two UVA Law students beating an enslaved man named Fielding held in bondage by UVA professor Charles Bonnycastle. Bonnycastle intervened to protect Fielding before the case was brought before the Faculty, ultimately resulting in a ruling in favor of the two Law student assailants.