Commonwealth causes are criminal court cases filed by the state government that consist primarily of warrants, summons, subpoenas, indictments, recognizances, and verdicts handed down by juries and other legal authorities in order to prosecute individuals who violated the penal code. Some commonwealth causes commonly found in Virginia Untold include cases against enslavers who permitted their enslaved people to travel as free people without permission or permitting a gathering of enslaved people on their property. White Virginians and legislators feared insurrection and passed laws restricting the number of Black and multiracial people allowed to gather in groups. Other cases found in this collection might include crimes committed by both enslaved and free Black people such as breaking and entering, stealing, assault, murder, arson, and aiding enslaved people to self-emancipate. Formerly enslaved men and women could also be tried for remaining in the commonwealth more than one year following emancipation. In 1806, the General Assembly passed a law stating that all formerly enslaved people freed after May 1, 1806, were required to leave the commonwealth. Those who remained in the commonwealth more than twelve months could be put on trial by the state, and if found guilty, would be re-enslaved and sold. The proceeds from the sale went to the state treasury, and often, records of those sales can be found in the Public Claims records from the Auditor of Public Accounts.
The commonwealth causes reveal an inconsistency in forms of conviction and punishment for white versus Black and multiracial individuals. Throughout the early nineteenth century, Virginia legislators revised the laws in ways that reduced the legal status of free Black and multiracial people to that of enslaved, thereby creating a legal system based on race. In 1831, Nat Turner led a revolt in Southampton County that prompted more legal restrictions on Virginia’s Black population including prohibiting Black people to learn to read and write, practice certain trades, and sell goods. After 1832, Virginia law required free Blacks to stand trial in the same courts as enslaved people, known as Oyer and Terminer. In various years, free Black men and women were sold into slavery as punishment for certain crimes. While public whipping originated as a form of punishment for all those convicted, in Virginia, it was retained for those who were Black, free or enslaved, and officially outlawed as a punishment for white criminals in 1848. Often, Black individuals served much longer penitentiary sentences while the cases of white men, who had committed the same or similar crimes, were dismissed.
In the eighteenth century, many enslaved people convicted of capital crimes were hanged. To curb the spectacle of so many public executions, an 1801 law allowed the governor to sell condemned enslaved people to those who agreed to transport them out of Virginia. The state hoped that by exiling these individuals, they would not commit a second offense in the commonwealth. In 1858, another change occurred when the state realized that they were losing money on convicted felons. Additionally, territories such as the West Indies and states in the Deep South such as Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana were no longer interested in receiving enslaved felons. The new act allowed the governor to commute sentences of transportation to labor on the public works for life. Commuting sentences meant that the state assigned enslaved people a value, and their enslavers received payment from the state for their human property. Enslavers submitted public claims to the Auditor of Public Accounts, the chief auditor and accountant of the Virginia General Assembly and the records of those sales can be found in Public Claims.
