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Landowners in Virginia owned more enslaved Africans than those in any other state, and the Eastern Shore was no exception. Around 1860, Accomack County, which includes Onancock, had the highest percentage of free black people in Virginia, said Dennis Custis, a former history teacher at Onancock High School. Neighboring Northampton County, the other county on the Eastern Shore, had the highest percentage of enslaved African-Americans, he said.

Mr. Northam’s great-great grandfather, James Northam, was among the Eastern Shore’s slave owners. Mr. Northam’s father, Wescott Northam, learned this several years ago during a search for land records, but he considered the information simply “a matter of history,” the elder Mr. Northam, now 94, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Despite the family’s long Virginia history and the presence of African-Americans with the last name Northam in the area, Ralph Northam told the Richmond paper that he didn’t learn that his ancestors had been slaveholders until 2017, during his campaign for governor.

“My family’s complicated story is similar to Virginia’s complex history,” he said. “I have led my life,” he said, “to help others, and really not see color as an issue.”

Generations after slavery ended, Ralph Northam entered a world still shaped by it.

He grew up in a red brick house at the end of a long driveway shaded by a canopy of towering pine trees. His family’s farm, about 10 minutes outside of Onancock’s tiny downtown, was in an area with mostly white residents. In 1970, Accomack County, population 29,000, was 37 percent black and 62 percent white.