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At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

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15 November 1768

Blair, John, 1687-1771

Document signed

Title: [Announcement of amendment to law on slave trials for capital crimes]

Partially printed document signed by Blair as President of the Virginia Council and Commander in Chief of the colony to the justices of the peace of Buckingham County. Transmits amendments made to "An Act directing the Trial of Slaves committing Capital Crimes, and for the more effectual punishing Conspiracies and Insurrections of them, and for the better Government of Negroes, Mulattoes, and Indians, bound or free." Says the governor, and temporarily in Virginia the Commander in Chief, has the power to issue commissions of oyer and terminer to justices of each county empowering them "from…

GLC03970

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