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Article
What Lies Beneath: Examining Cranstone's Slave Auction, Virginia
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![What Lies Beneath: Examining Cranstone's Slave Auction, Virginia A painting titled "Slave Auction, Virginia" by Lefevre J. Cranstone.](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/WhatLiesBeneath_SlaveAuction.1991.70_sm.jpeg.webp?itok=XLumnW0x)
The museum world is brimming with tales of curators sleuthing to discover intriguing stories that lay beneath the...
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Who Freed the Enslaved People?
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![Who Freed the Enslaved People? Painting of President Lincoln writing the Proclamation of Freedom by David Gilmore Blythe](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/WhoFreedTheEnslavedPeople_VHE_ATP_LC-DIG-ppmsca-18444.jpeg.webp?itok=zYcrzehk)
Two years of fighting changed what the war was about. Beginning in 1863, the North no longer fought only to save the...
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Who Was American?
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![Who Was American? JEB Stuart's Revolver](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/WhoWasAmerican_VHE_ATP_JEBStuartRevolverRtSide.1983.jpeg.webp?itok=CfpLeEvC)
By 1861, the United States population was steadily growing more diverse. Most nineteenth-century immigrants settled in...
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Who was Oliver Hill?
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![](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/OliverHill_oliverhill_authorization.jpeg.webp?itok=KCgWDR4c)
The VMHC has a group of items that belonged to Oliver W. Hill, Sr., a prominent Richmond civil rights attorney, donated...
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Who Was the Traitor and Who the Patriot?
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![Who Was the Traitor and Who the Patriot? A painting of Jubal Anderson Early.](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/WhoWasTheTraitor_VHE_ATP_JubalEarly.1974.jpeg.webp?itok=em479WpY)
In 1776, George Washington rebelled against the established government of his day. We remember him as a patriot, but to...
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Why is there a West Virginia?
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![Why is there a West Virginia? A drawing of Confederates gathering in the Shenandoah Valley.](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/WhyIsThereAWestVirginia_VHE_ATP_IrregularTroops.2000.165.3.jpeg.webp?itok=9uWgE1j1)
Secession from Virginia was the hope of some western Virginians as early as 1829. Many western Virginians felt...
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Why We Need to Talk About James Armistead Lafayette
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![James Armistead Lafayette An 1824 engraving of James Armistead Lafayette, after a painting by John B. Martin. The print reproduces the handwritten text of a 1784 testimonial by the Marquis de Lafayette.](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/JamesLafayette_jamesalafayette-1993-215_crop.jpg.webp?itok=1yhFWQLq)
James Armistead Lafayette was an enslaved man who, during the American Revolution, volunteered to join the Continental...
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Writing the Declaration of Independence, 1776
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![VHE_WritingDecofIndependence_Teaser.jpg VHE_WritingDecofIndependence_Teaser.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_WritingDecofIndependence_Teaser.jpg.webp?itok=LpjuRAZT)
Learn about Thomas Jefferson and his role in writing the Declaration of Independence.