The Chavis family has been documented as originating in the 17th century, from free African-Americans in colonial
Tidewater Virginia. Alternate spellings of the surname are "Chavous" and "Chavers".
Colonial era In 1672, Elizabeth Chavis successfully
won the freedom of her son, Gibby Gibson, under the doctrine of
partus sequitur ventrem. She was a free Black woman residing near
historic Jamestown. Her other son, Hubbard, was the progenitor of the Gibson family of free African-Americans. By the 1750s, free members of the Chavis family resided in multiple counties of Virginia and
the Carolinas. Another group of Chavises migrated with other free Black families to
Lost Creek Township, Indiana, after sending a man to locate an area to settle in that was free from
racial persecution. They established a schoolhouse for free Black people and an
African Methodist Episcopal church in the area. Locust Grove, a free Black community in
south Illinois, was also known to have members of the Chavis family residing there. Group intermarriage was common among families like the Chavises, due to a lack of prospects within the upper-class free colored community as they could not marry whites or slaves. The contributions of the Antebellum-era Chavis family were lauded by
Daniel Murray, an African-American
bibliographer. Before the
Civil War, networks of kinship formed between the Chavis family and other free Black families in the counties of
Robeson and
Granville. Each new generation inherited property and trade skills. Chavis family migrants from the counties of Granville,
Person, and
Wake settled in
Durham County. There they formed similar networks of kinship, some possessing trade skills such as
blacksmithing and
milling. Some members of the family participated in the Robeson County
Lowry War against the Confederates.
John Chavis Since the Chavis family was legally free,
John Chavis, born 1763 in Granville County, was able to attend college and became the first African-American to do so in the United States. He graduated from
Washington and Lee University with
high honors in 1801, later returning to North Carolina in 1808 to found a school. His school taught the children of slaveowners, as well as Black people, both free and enslaved. He later became a dedicated opponent of slavery and civil rights leader in the
American South. In some cases, these groups would simply be referred to as "Chavises", rather than by a specific name. The surname was also reported as belonging to unspecified mixed-race people in
Orangeburg County. In the 20th century, the Chavis family moved into northern states like Ohio, occupying positions of prominence in the 20th century. ==Modern descendants==