Texas - Free Persons of Color Research

Many thanks to Dick Eastman for another fascinating article! This would make a wonderful, intensive study, and one we can learn much from!

August 09, 2008

Free People of Color of Texas Project

Mic Barnette is conducting a project for possible future publication. The project attempts to identify all Free People of Color who lived in Texas prior to the Civil War and any Free Person of Color born in Texas who lived outside Texas prior to the Civil War. To date there are approximately 250 families in and outside Texas with about 150 different surnames identified.The project is not a study of slaves emancipated as a result of the Civil War in 1865.
In many cases those identified as Free People of Color were born free and their families may have been free stretching back into the Colonial United States. In other cases they may have been slaves recently (prior to the Civil War) manumitted by their owners for faithful service or because they were the offspring or family member of the owner. Also of interest is the number of Free People of Color who owned slaves, themselves. In some cases those slaves were family members, while in other cases they were slaves inherited or purchased.

While the project is not intended to be an intensive genealogical study of each Free Person of Color or family of Free People of Color it does collect as much genealogical and biographical information as may conveniently be found without extensive research. The keyword being "identify" and the intent is to identify more than just the names of the people.

Genealogists and historians descended from or who know about a Texas Free Person of Color identified or not identified in the project, thus far, are invited to contact Barnette at mic@micbarnette.com. The Free People of Color of Texas project has a website containing a list of the surnames and residences of most of those Fee People of Color identified to date. The website may be accessed at http://micbarnette.bravepages.com/fpc_texas.html.

Happy Sunday to all!

cbh