Slaveowners benefited from hiring out their slaves. By renting out Sally, a widow such as Mrs. Carrington, for example, could maintain a smaller household than when her husband was alive and her children were at home. A young female slave would appreciate in value throughout her twenties, especially if placed in a position where she could acquire skill as a servant, seamstress, or cook. Since John McCue, one of the leading politicians of Augusta and a wealthy farmer with twelve slaves of his own, found Sally an appealing cook or housekeeper, she must have been skilled. If she were young enough to bear children, all the better for Mrs. Carrington, since children became the property of the mother's owner (though the hirer might not be pleased at the pregnancy). A slaveowner such as Mary Carrington, therefore, had good economic reasons to hire out a slave for which she had no immediate purpose. Such an arrangement gave a slaveholder welcome flexibility.

Those who hired slaves devoted considerable energy to acquiring them. W. W. Gibbs looked for a female slave for John McCue: "I went to every place I thought I could procure you a cook or nurse but could find none all having been disposed of. I hear Tho Bowan near Greenwood Tunnel has a good cook for hire if you are not supplied you had best write to him or come over and see him such as you want is hard to find." Networks of hiring stretched from city to city, city to town, and farm to farm.

From the slave's point of view, being hired out could be either a boon or a curse. Anyone who belonged to a stingy, violent, lecherous, drunk, or unstable master might well look forward to the opportunity to escape to another farm, house, or shop. A young slave might welcome the chance to live in town, where he or she could find friends or a mate. A slave confronted with two masters might be able to find some space to navigate between the two, leveraging some leniency from one into a leniency from the other or threatening to report ill treatment to a master who had the money to sue. Some slaves talked owners into letting them keep some of the money they earned. Through such means, they might eventually purchase a family member, or themselves, from slavery. The Vindicator considered "the policy of permitting slaves to hire their own time, or get persons to stand as their masters" a "source of great annoyance to our town. The habit induces idleness among slaves, and is the cause of all kinds of trafficking among them, which is more or less connected with petty thefts. These evils should be radically corrected without delay. The quicker the better."

Some slaves dreaded the prospect of being hired out. They did not want to be separated from a beloved spouse or children. They did not want to be shipped to strangers, away from friends. Slavery was unpredictable enough; a slave's life could be overturned in the moment an old master died or a young mistress was married. They did not need yet another element of disruption and risk. Who knew what kind of master or mistress awaited at the end of the trip? A young slave woman had to worry about sexual advances from the men whose house she shared; a young man might worry about where this first step away from parents and siblings might lead.

The trade in slaves could implicate any propertied white man in the county. Even those who shunned trading themselves might not be able to avoid such dealings themselves when a friend or relative died. Upon Archibald Trotter's death, the administrator of his estate, John Newton, who himself owned two slaves, put an ad in the Spectator. The largest words leaped out: "FIVE SLAVES." On the left appeared the familiar sign of the male slave with a bundle on a stick--the universal symbol for a "negro," whether a runaway or for sale. On the right, a woodcut of a woman in a skirt. The five included "one woman, one man, two girls and a boy." They bore no names and the relationships among them went unspecified. Only a semicolon separated them from the rest of the estate on sale: "about 30 head of Horses and Colts, amongst them a fine STALLION, 20 head of Cattle, including some good Milch Cows; 15 or 20 head of Hogs; 3 Buggy and Harness; 7 Wagons and Gear, 1 Reaping Machine, Ploughs, Harrows, and various Farming Implements." Newton wanted cash for anything less than $5 but would provide credit for the more valuable property. The buying and selling of slaves could not be avoided in a slave society.

One slaveholder, Jonathan Coleman, wrote to his brother about a slave resentful of his treatment after an estate division. "Old York has come to me this morning as a runaway and asks for my intercession in some way in his behalf. He complains of having recd much ill treatment at the hands of Mr. Sneed, and appears greatly distressed and dissatisfyed. Among other things he says, he is not regarded at your house as one of your negroes but as belonging to my Fathers estate. Whether there is any truth in what he says I am entirely unable to tell." In what had to be a delicate situation, Coleman gave credence to York's complaints. "Permit me to say however as a matter of feeling, that he is an old man, that he was a favorite negro of his old Master, on which account I think as much laxity ought to be extended to him as the nature of the case will admit barring the question entirely as to whom he may belong, if it is agreeable to you, I am willing that he may stay here upon any terms that may hereafter be considered right and equitable. If you do not approve of this, the negro is here and you can take such steps as you think right in the matter." Coleman treaded lightly, but made it clear that he thought the elderly man had been treated unfairly. "I have advised York to return home, He point[ed]ly refuses to do so. I have written the above very reluctantly because it was a case in which I was really at a loss what to do. I hope you will not think it an offensive interference in your affairs as nothing is farther from my intention. Let me assure you that all I have said in this matter is in a spirit of friendship and in accordance with what I believe would be the wishes of our Father on this subject." York successfully played on his masters' sense of obligation and family responsibility, but such virtues were not universal.

In the slavery of the upper South in the 1850s, a slave's friends and loved ones often lived in several neighborhoods where he or she had lived before. John McCue's mother-in-law wrote to say that "Wilson has run off, and may possibly be about Staunton or somewhere in Augusta. There has been depradations committed here from time to time, and the overseer found out to day that several fine fat shoats had just been taken and wanted to know something about he disposition of them, and at dinner time told all the servants to go to the stable and he would have an examination; all went but Wilson, and we did not know what had become of him until we found he had broken open the cabin where his clothes were and taken them off." Wilson's mistress commented on the complex psychology and geography of slavery: " You know he is such a sly negro that he may have more in his head than we know of. You can have an eye to it, as he may attempt to go farther than this neighborhood. You know he was once taken up in Augusta and has so many acquaintances that he may be harbored without its being known that he has run away, or perhaps may aim for a free state. It is late and I must send this off to night. All are well and send love to you all. Write often."

Augusta County was home to 586 African Americans who were not enslaved. The census taker considered 208 of those people "black" and 378 "mulatto." The black portion divided almost evenly between men and women, while the mulattoes showed a preponderance of women, 202 to 176. The free blacks of Augusta gathered in the North Subdivision of the county: 276 mulattoes and 120 blacks lived there. Only 62 mulattoes and 19 blacks settled in the First District, while 40 mulattoes and 66 blacks had homes in Staunton.

Like their counterparts throughout the United States, the free blacks of Augusta County held the jobs of lowest status and lowest pay. The men mostly worked as day laborers, the women as washerwomen and domestics. But some women became seamstresses and some men became coopers, carpenters, shoe makers, and blacksmiths. Despite their hard work, only 14 of the 586 free black people in Augusta owned a house or land worth at least one hundred dollars. The personal possessions of the great majority were measured in tens of dollars. Many owned nothing.

In defiance of every obstacle, however, some free blacks in Augusta managed to gain both property and respect. In the countryside, William Kenney, a mulatto blacksmith, amassed real estate worth $1,500, while Peter Engleman, a mulatto farmer, owned a homestead valued at $4,000. In Staunton lived the most obvious exception of all: Robert Campbell. Campbell, a "black" man of 67, five feet and three inches tall, had worked for decades as a barber. He had acquired five buildings near the heart of Staunton worth over $6,000, including his shop near the corner of Beverly Street and New Street, next to Eskridge's apothecary shop and temperance hall.

As with other free black barbers across the South, Campbell established relationships with prosperous white men. Customers might talk among themselves of business opportunities; some might even let a barber in on small business deals or loan him money so that he could pursue opportunities himself. As "nigger" work, barbering threatened few white men and yet offered steady income in good times and bad.

Robert Campbell died soon after the census taker had recorded his wealth. As a rare indication of white respect for a free black man, the Vindicator published an obituary. The single paragraph described the sources and strategies of Campbell's success. "Robert Campbell (Colored) one of the oldest inhabitants of Staunton--the pioneer barber, by which he acquired considerable property, dropped dead at his residence on Wednesday last," the article at the bottom of the page briefly noted. The capitalization of "Colored" stood as a subtle if meaningful tribute, as did the acknowledgement of Campbell's property holding. The final sentence, too, was significant: "'Uncle Bob' was much respected and beliked by all of our citizens." Cultured white Augusta residents prided themselves on their tolerance and affection for such a man, who somehow managed to build a secure life in the most insecure of places.

Robert Campbell did all he could to pass on a measure of security to his family. Campbell's 32 year-old son Thomas worked as a barber and so did his 23 year-old son Lewis. At the time of Robert Campbell's death, Thomas had already acquired $1,500 worth of property on his own, making him the third most prosperous free black man in the county. Robert left a widow, Maria, and Thomas had married Lara, both women listed as mulatto. Robert Campbell also left three granddaughters: Susan, Margaret, and an infant, Emm.

Even the Campbells, owning more property than nine of ten white Augusta citizens, could not relax. Debates over the place of free blacks swirled in every decade and all across the country. Virginia vacillated on the issue, periodically clamping down. The state contained over 58,000 free blacks in 1860, second only to Maryland and about the same as Pennsylvania, the free state with the largest number of African Americans. The numbers were not growing rapidly in either Augusta or Virginia in the 1850s--a few dozen more free black residents lived in the county in 1860 than in 1850, and about 4,000 more in the state--but free black people troubled the minds of whites.

Free blacks in Augusta had been required since 1810 to register with the county court clerk. Only about a third of the county's free blacks did so, leading the Vindicator to complain of "a number of free negroes about town, who are not registered, and consequently have no business here. It is the duty of the proper authorities to forthwith commence the correction of the serious evil by notifying them to leave, or suffer the penalty imposed by law of remaining." Those who did register tended to have money or children to shelter. A document from the County Court Clerk might be the only protection they would have from those would kidnap them or their children and sell them into slavery. The clerk, for a twenty-five cents fee, replaced and updated these precious pieces of paper, worn from much handling.

The registration was intended to provide a way for county officials to keep track of the free African Americans in their midst. The law required all former slaves freed by their masters to leave Virginia within twelve months, though counties could determine who could stay and who could leave. Fifty people emancipated in the 1850s came before the Augusta County Court. Thirty-six had been freed at their masters' death by will, a practice especially common among female slaveholders. The emancipated divided about equally between males and females. They ranged in age from infancy to seventy years old, from "black" to "bright mulatto."

Of the fifty freed slaves who petitioned to stay in Virginia after their freedom, Augusta denied thirty-two the right to stay. The great bulk of those denied came in two large groups of slaves freed at their owners' death. When John S. Black died in 1856, he freed by will eleven adult slaves plus seven of their children. Betsy, with a "light mulatto infant" and two other children were told to leave, as were Judith Easter and her three children (one "bright mulatto") and Charlotte and her two children. John Black was a prominent man and left his widow, Virginia, with eight other slaves; his sons remained well-to-do farmers after his death. But apparently they were unable or unwilling to persuade the county court to permit this large number of former slaves to stay in Augusta and Virginia. Similarly, when Elizabeth Via died the following year, the seventeen people she freed, ranging in age from two to thirty, from bright to dark, were forced to leave.

Newspapers used the plight of such helpless people to defend slavery. They eagerly reprinted an article from Lynchburg entitled "Departure of Emancipated Negroes--Don't Want to Leave." The article told of "a crowd of not less than one thousand negroes assembled on the basin to take leave of the negroes belonging to the estate of the late Mrs. Frances B. Shackleford, of Amherst county, who, in accordance with the will of the deceased, were about to depart by way of the canal, for a free State. The whole number set free was forty-four men women and children, but only thirty-seven left, the balance preferring to remain in servitude in Old Virginia rather than enjoy their freedom elsewhere." Another way to put this, of course, was that they were being driven away from their families and loved ones and that, despite this, only seven stayed. But the article dwelt on what it wanted to emphasize: "Some of these who did leave, were thrown on the boat by main force, so much opposed were they to leaving, and many expressed their determination of returning to Virginia as soon as an opportunity offered. Many were the well wishes tendered the departing negroes by the crowd assembled, and when the boats started from their wharves, the freed negroes struck up 'Carry me back to Old Virginny,' which was joined in by one and all, and in a tone which indicated plainly that if left to their own free will, they would gladly spend the remainder of their days in servitude in the home of their birth."

To some whites' frustration, most of Augusta's free blacks had been born free and thus could not legally be driven out of the state. The clerk who registered Augusta's free blacks described each person as he or she came before him. The poverty of the free black people could be read in their very stature: poor nutrition meant that most reached no taller than five feet eight inches, and many, especially women, were barely over five feet tall. Their hands, legs, and feet frequently were crooked, maimed, and crippled. The range of skin shades testified to the complex history of interracial sexual relations that had characterized Virginia for many generations. The various white clerks of Augusta strained to find adequate language. While many free blacks seemed simply "dark" or a "bright mulatto," others elicited greater elaboration. They were very dark, dark mulatto, black, yellow, copper, high mulatto, dark brown, fair, freckled, bright, high bright, light, light brown, and not very black. Sometimes the reasons for such a range of colors was made explicit, as in the case of Lange Lambert, who was deemed "of bright mulatto complexion with Roman aqualine nose five feet nine and a half inches high aged about twenty seven years, no marks or scars perceivable and was born free of a white woman in the County of Augusta."

Stories of racial mixing or "amalgamation" fascinated and appalled the editors of the Augusta newspapers. While they seldom mentioned any slave by name unless he or she escaped or died, the papers devoted considerable ink to episodes when the racial divide was breached. The editors of the Spectator and the Vindicator searched for stories of such events in the North, and found them with some regularity and great glee ("MORE AMALGAMATION.--A negro at Hartford, Pennsylvania, named John Sophia, recently ran away with a white girl name Amelia Pinley, eighteen years of age, and married her. The girl belongs to a respectable family, and the elopement and marriage were brought about by an Abolitionist named Whiting, and his wife.").

White people took a great, unexamined, and deep sense of self from their skin shade. They viewed the African American people in their midst, a people of great diversity in appearance as well as every other human attribute, with a mixture of disdain, distrust, affection, resentment, and need. Augusta whites prided themselves on making distinctions among people of color--loving Old Frederick and respecting Uncle Bob Campbell while ignoring the nameless black people sold on the streets of Staunton.