Just Beyond the River: A Black Public Humanities Initiative

with the African American Heritage Foundation of Southeastern North Carolina and the Cedar Hill Heritage Park

Project Credits

Funded by the African American Heritage Foundation of Southeastern NC and ACLS

Black Histories of Brunswick County is a place-based, community engaged research project directed by Sherwin K. Bryant, PhD beginning during his time as an Associate Professor of Black Studies at Northwestern and an ACLS-Mellon Scholar and Society Fellow in conjunction with the African American Heritage Foundation of Southeastern North Carolina ( https://www.aahfsnc.org/ ). 

Emily Schwalbe, PhD has served as the Cartographic Director and on-site underwater archaeologist for this project since her time as a PhD candidate at Northwestern when it began in the fall of 2021. 

Kelsey Rydland, PhD has served as technical support. He is the Department Head of Digital Scholarship at Northwestern University Libraries supporting students and faculty with their research projects.

Welcome to Brunswick Co., North Carolina

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Welcome to "Just Beyond the River: A Black Public Humanities Initiative"! This project, funded as part of an ACLS/Mellon grant, was designed alongside collaborators in the African American Heritage Foundation of Southeastern North Carolina and the Cedar Hill Heritage Park to document the Black History of Brunswick County, North Carolina.

Brunswick County is the southernmost county in North Carolina and was founded in 1764 from parts of New Hanover and Bladen Counties. Black history has been an integral part of the region's story for the last three centuries, and the goal of this project is to use interdisciplinary sources to highlight these histories.

Use the arrows to the right to begin learning about some of the themes of the project, and then keep scrolling down to find out some of the results and access further resources and projects about this important topic.

Brunswick County was home to numerous Indigenous groups prior to and following European incursion, including the Waccamaw, Catawba, and Lumbee people. The region served as a site of exchange and community for Indigenous people for thousands of years. Today, North Carolina is the home of members of the Coharie, Lumbee, Haliwa-Saponi, Waccamaw Siouan, and Sappony Tribes, the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, the Meherrin Indian Nation, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

To learn more about the Indigenous groups that historically inhabited and continue to live in Southeastern North Carolina, click on the hyperlinks included in the map and visit  https://native-land.ca/ .

Data in this map provided through  https://native-land.ca/ .

While many primary sources record where significant events occurred, one of the goals of this project was to identify places where people gathered, lived, and worked during the day-to-day activities of the county's history.

Click on the dots to find out the historical locations of churches, schools, landings, and other sites, and navigate with the arrow to the right to explore historical maps from Brunswick County.

Plantations were a major reason for the economic success of colonial and antebellum Brunswick County, and were driven by the labor of enslaved Africans, making them important sites of Black history in the region. This map displays the names of colonial plantations along the Cape Fear River.

You can zoom in to further investigate the names and locations of the plantations.

Some historical maps provide detailed information. This map from 1864, for example, includes information about landowner names, locations of industries, roads, river crossings, and other important places for the people of Brunswick County.

Zoom in to see the these locations overlayed with a modern map of Brunswick County.

Southeastern North Carolina has historically had a highly diversified economy, ranging from forestry to rice to guano, thanks in large part to the local environment.

Zoom in to see the wide-range of soil types in the Brunswick County recorded in the 1930's, and keep scrolling down to view the next section of the website.

Colonizing the Cape Fear

In 1664, 200 settlers established a settlement at the confluence of the Cape Fear River and Town Creek called Charlestown. Although Charlestown only lasted two years before being abandoned, it ultimately reached a population of 800 and extended 60 miles along the river (Watts Jr. 2012:14). White colonists did not attempt to move into the Lower Cape Fear for decades after the failed attempt at settling Charles Town. Initially all part of the “Carolina” colony, North Carolina was officially separated from South Carolina when North Carolinian colonists received their own governor in 1712 (Edelson 2006:13). Until this point, though, the Lower Cape Fear region of the colony had remained uninhabited by permanent colonial settlement. In the 1720’s, however, brothers Maurice, Roger, and Nathaniel Moore, along with extended family and other South Carolina planters, moved from South Carolina to what are now New Hanover and Brunswick counties with plans for what would become Brunswick Town as well as large land plots for private development (Sherman 2014:9). You can use the link below to learn more about Brunswick Town.

Between 1725-1740 there was a “land rush” in the lower Cape Fear, when South Carolinians and residents from the Albemarle region of North Carolina relocated to the area (Sherman 2014:258). A handful of families controlled most of the land in the region, with 35 residents receiving 115,000 acres. When the earliest permanent colonists moved from South Carolina to southeastern North Carolina, they brought with them colonial practices that were transferred and adapted to the new environment, including a reliance on enslaved labor. The most affluent of these colonists aimed to participate to some extent in the socially prestigious economy of rice, which had made South Carolina planters so wealthy (Willis 1993; Sherman 2014). This endeavor was never as successful as it was in other parts of the Lowcountry (Sherman 2014). It occurred on a much smaller scale, both in terms of acreage and output, than South Carolina, and was part of a broader economy that included naval stores, lumber mills, salt works, and, later, guano (Willis 1993).

Expand the map below and click on any of the dots to find out the names of 18th-19th century landowners in Southeastern North Carolina.

Plantations and Landowners

Slavery in Brunswick County

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Black history has been central to the history of Brunswick County since the outset of colonialism in the region. When white colonists moved from South Carolina into Southeastern North Carolina, they immediately implemented practices of slavery developed elsewhere in the Lowcountry.

The system of slavery in the Lower Cape Fear is a critical aspect of its links with the broader Lowcountry. Southeastern North Carolina was socially and economically enmeshed with the Atlantic World through the slave trade. Slave traders worked between the Caribbean, Charleston, and up to Wilmington and Brunswick Town in southeastern North Carolina, often accepting agricultural cargoes as payment for enslaved Africans before moving between the markets of Providence, New York, and Bristol.  The demand for enslaved labor, then, was a critical way that North Carolina maintained economic relationships with domestic and international ports.

Use the arrow to the right to find out more about some of the resources publicly available for learning about enslaved Africans in Southeastern North Carolina.

Tax lists available through the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources record the number of enslaved Africans living in Brunswick County during different years. Click on the image to follow the link and learn more about these archival records.

Projects like the Digital Library of American Slavery have created databases of documents associated with slavery, including in Brunswick County.

Click on the image to visit the People Not Property part of the project, with deeds from Brunswick County.

Deeds, indentures, and surveys are another way to learn the names, ages, and skills of enslaved Africans in Brunswick County. You can follow this link to research these documents on the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources website.

This map illustrates the census records from 1860 recording the reported number of enslaved Africans living in the Carolinas and Virginia. These records are one way of estimating how many unfree people were living in Southeastern North Carolina, as well as researching slavery alongside other parts of the state and region.

The Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, a federal initiative to preserve, document, and celebrate the unique culture of the descendants of Africans enslaved on lower Southeastern plantations, extends into Brunswick County.

Follow the embedded link to learn more about the project, as well as sites to visit and upcoming events to attend. Keep scrolling down to view the next section of the website.

Industry

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Southeastern North Carolina was permanently colonized in the first half of the 18 th  century in large part by colonists who moved from South Carolina (Willis 1993; Sherman 2014). These colonists brought with them economic and labor practices from the South Carolina Lowcountry, which were further developed on the similar but new waterscape.

Southeastern North Carolina’s economy has traditionally been characterized by its mass export of naval stores. Like in the early years of colonization in South Carolina, naval stores production and preparing marsh landscapes for rice agriculture went hand in hand. The low-lying areas best suited for rice fields were most often located around pine barrens, which were well suited for the manufacture of tar, pitch, and timber for ships (Sherman 2014:13).

Image information: Lookout Tower Views, Brunswick County, 1940,  https://lib.digitalnc.org/record/18830?ln=en#?xywh=-366%2C-601%2C7316%2C5055 

The naval stores industry was very lucrative, in large part because excellent ship-timbers are hard to come by. Ships require very specific types of wood in order to be successful. Shipbuilders typically look for timber that is durable, uniform, has straight fibers, and is simultaneously strong and elastic. Less suitable rice lands combined with a shorter growing season in the Lower Cape Fear meant that landowners were able to capitalize on the extensive forest resources and continued to maintain a diversified economy.

Image Description: 2nd year Turpentine operation on the Gore Estate, 1930,  https://lib.digitalnc.org/record/17551?ln=en#?xywh=-1131%2C-1%2C3574%2C1851 

Rice agriculture in colonial and antebellum America occurred between the Cape Fear as the northernmost extent and the St Johns River as the southernmost. There is a geographical reason for the Cape Fear region being the only area of North Carolina with rice plantations; the Cape Fear River is the only river along the North Carolina coast that empties directly into the Atlantic Ocean. This hydrography creates tidal dynamics producing a freshwater environment able to support rice agriculture (Porcher Jr. and Judd 2014:58). North Carolina never had the same volume of rice plantations as the rest of the Lowcounty, however. It is estimated that there were between 500-600 tidal rice plantations in the Lowcountry, with over 400 located in South Carolina, 100 in Georgia, and approximately 25 in North Carolina (Porcher and Judd 2014:58). While rice agriculture had a profound impact on the physical and cultural environment of the Cape Fear, other products, particularly naval stores, overshadowed the crop in terms of exports (Sherman 2014:206).  

Image Description: Rice fields on the Lower Cape Fear, 1933,  https://lib.digitalnc.org/record/17606?ln=en#?xywh=-507%2C-132%2C2834%2C1467 

Naval industries and rice agriculture were two industries among many that have shaped Southeastern North Carolina's economy. Others include mills, salt works, and maritime trades. Click on the dots on this map to find out the locations of some other recorded sites associated with Brunswick County's historic economy.

Today, community members in Brunswick County research, present, and celebrate rice culture in Southeastern North Carolina. Click on the embedded link to learn more about the North Carolina Rice Festival, which takes place annually.

Keep scrolling down to view the next section of the website.

Uncovering Mount Misery Road

There are several theories to the origins of the menacing sounding name Mt. Misery. While the historian Claude V. Jackson ( The big book of the Cape Fear River : Jackson, Claude V., III : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive ) proposes that it refers to the fact that the land was difficult to cultivate, a prevailing story among locals interested the region’s history is that the road has a connection with the slave trade in North Carolina. According to this narrative, enslaved Africans were forcibly marched 90 miles from the port city of Wilmington inland to markets in Fayetteville via this road.

While a modern Mt. Misery Road does exist, locals interested in the subject have long thought that its current route was not its original location. Most recently, Mr. George Beatty proposed that the road ran closer to Reaves Chapel based on his own research, which would illustrate the connections between eastern North Carolina and inland cities through the slave trade. If this is correct, Mt. Misery Road is historically significant as a possible slave trading artery from the coast to Fayetteville, making it an important point of information about Black history, community networks, and regional systems in the Carolinas.

There has been an increasing public interest in the history of Mt. Misery Road. Researchers have undertaken multiple initiatives to identify the original Mt. Misery Road. Navassa mayor Eulis Willis and David Covington were two such interested parties who sought the truth behind the stories, setting out on foot in the early 2000’s to locate the road’s path. Traveling on foot, they were able to identify a cut on the Northwest side of the Cape Fear River where there was likely a river crossing, but were unable to firmly discern where it connected on the east side of the river.

In 2009 Ken Little published an article about Eulis Willis and David Covington’s efforts to unearth the origins of Mt. Misery Road, the research by Wilson Angley, as well as a summary of the road’s history. A more recent article was published in 2022 in the Wilmington Star News and quickly picked up by national press outlets about the possible origins of Mt. Misery’s name ( Where did Brunswick County's Mount Misery Road get its name? (starnewsonline.com) .

Building on this interest, as well as archival research done by Mr. Beatty, Mr. Beatty asked us to possibly locate Mt. Misery Road’s historical route.

We were able to find a Mt. Misery ford and road on a map from 1864 that follows what is now Cedar Hill Road as well as the modern Mt. Misery Road. The presence of a ford, which is a shallow water crossing, suggests that the road began on the north east side of the Brunswick River.

We overlaid the historic data on the modern map, retracing the original road. The road partially follows the modern Mt. Misery Road, but also intersects with what is now Cedar Hill Road.

These findings support the interpretation that the road ran closer to Reave's Chapel and further inland.

You and use the sliding arrows on the map to change between the historic map overlay and where the road was located on a modern map.

Underwater Archaeology

Between Spring 2022 and Fall 2023, archaeologists with the North Carolina Underwater Archaeology Branch, Northwestern University, and East Carolina University conducted an investigation of underwater features associated with rice plantations on Town Creek in Brunswick County. The goal of this project was to identify underwater archaeological sites that can help document African American history in Brunswick County. There are currently many projects in Brunswick and New Hanover counties highlighting these histories, including the NC Rice Festival and the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor (see: Further Resources).

Continue scrolling for more information about this project!

 

There are significantly fewer primary sources about rice cultivation and plantations from North Carolina than South Carolina or Georgia, meaning that archaeological research is a promising avenue of research to better understand this part of North Carolina’s history. The historical documents available do demonstrate, however, that there were large scale plantations on Town Creek beginning in the first half of the 18 th  century and continuing through the Civil War. This area, therefore, is a promising survey area for further information about plantation and rice agriculture in the North Carolina Lowcountry.

The first stage of survey involved using side scan sonar (SSS) remote sensing equipment to identify potential sites. SSS is an acoustic surveying system that displays images of the creek bed. Many recreational boats also employ SSS systems in the form of “fish finders,” and similar systems are often times used by underwater archaeologists to identify submerged sites during survey. 

The next stage was revisiting targets identified during survey to confirm if they really were archaeological sites. Once sites were positively identified, project members worked in pairs to create detailed annotated surface maps where it was safe to exit the work platform (based on environmental conditions). Archaeologists worked in “zero visibility conditions” using snorkeling and SCUBA equipment, where the water was so dark there was <1 ft visibility. Team members mapped only what was visible on the creek bed, meaning that no excavation took place.

The project was very successful, and eight archaeological sites were recorded. They include landings, rice trunks and gates, and locally built boats. They represent a wide range of plantation activity and have the potential to better understand rice agriculture and Black history in Southeastern North Carolina. 

For more information about the activities of the North Carolina Underwater Archaeology Branch, visit their website at this link:  https://archaeology.ncdcr.gov/uab/education-research/submerged-nc 

Contributors

The research presented here is the result of the work of numerous contributors, including:

  • Jim McKee (Brunswick Town/ Fort Anderson)
  • Kimberly Sherman (Cape Fear Community College)
  • Glen Harris (UNC Wilmington)
  • Tara White (UNC Wilmington)
  • Eulis Willis (Navassa, NC)
  • George Beatty (AAHFSNC)
  • Zelphia Grissett (AAHFSNC)
  • Joe Bryant (AAFSNC)
  • Maddie Brown (Northwestern University, Leopold Fellow)
  • Henry Conover (Northwestern University, Leopold Fellow)
  • Pavan Acharya (Northwestern University, Leopold Fellow)
  • Myles Bowen (Northwestern University, Weinberg Virtual Research Assistant 2021/2022)
  • Christopher Montague (Northwestern University, Ph.D. Candidate)
  • Stephanie Sterling (East Carolina University, M.A. Candidate)
  • Stephen Atkinson (NC UAB)
  • Chris Southerly (NC UAB)
  • Elise Carroll (NC Office of State Archaeology)
  • David Cranford (NC Office of State Archaeology)
  • Mary Beth Fitts (NC Office of State Archaeology)
  • Kelsey Rydland (Northwestern University Libraries, Digital Scholarship Services)

As well as institutional partners and collaborators, including:

  • African American Heritage Foundation of Southeastern North Carolina
  • ACLS/ Mellon Foundation
  • Department of Black Studies, Northwestern University
  • Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University
  • Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University
  • Chabraja Center for Historical Studies, Northwestern University
  • North Carolina Underwater Archaeology Branch

Historic United States Census Data from: IPUMS NHGIS, University of Minnesota, www.nhgis.org.

Resources and Further Reading

Assembled by Christopher Montague, PhD Candidate in Department of Black Studies, Northwestern University

This bibliography examines the formation and evolution of slavery and slave life in the Southeastern or Lower Cape Fear region of North Carolina during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It lists archival records and scholarly literature, giving us insight into the governance, economies, cultures, and networks practiced and produced by slaves, slaveowners, and others living in the region. The archival record contains a huge amount of public documentation, such as county court minutes, civil suits, slave bills of sale, wills, real estate conveyances, land patents, maps, port records, tax lists, lists of officeholders, church records, Wilmington town records, militia lists, sheriff bonds, and safety committee minutes. The archival record also includes a significant number of private records from wealthy, slaveholding families in the region, such as wills, slave inventories, slave bills of sale, deeds of trust, powers of guardianship of slaves, accounts of slave hiring, deeds of emancipation, lists of slave births, financial records, and land records. Lastly, the archival record includes published material from a white traveler and three slave narratives. In the secondary literature, scholars have debated the origins of slavery in the region, its economies and cultures, and the autonomy or violence of slave life under different labor systems and in different geographies. Scholars have argued for the significance of the Lower Cape Fear as the preeminent site of slavery in North Carolina. Scholars have also asserted the importance of the overland slave trade and the intra-American slave trade due to the difficulty slaveowners had in establishing a direct trade from Africa to the region. It has been argued that plantations in the region had significant slave populations, potentially as large as slave plantations in the South Carolina Lowcountry. There is some debate concerning the major slave economies of the region, with different scholars arguing for the importance of rice cultivation or naval stores. This has impacted the way scholars have discussed the autonomy or violence of slave life; some scholars suggest that laboring in the forests for naval store production allowed slaves autonomy and time away from their masters but also situated them alongside potentially more violent white overseers. Lastly, there has been discussion of the relative autonomy of slave life in Wilmington, where some slaves are known to have had their own residences and participated in the market trade. Despite this, Wilmington was a space of public punishment and displays of violence. White authorities also tried to curtail the practices of slaves and free people of color in Wilmington through regulations designed to prevent slaves from holding accommodation, trading items such as gunpowder, making noise, or simply being idle. Altogether then, this collection is a window into the evolving economies, cultures, and social lives of those living in the slaveholding region of Southeastern North Carolina during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Archival Records

 The following is a working bibliography of archival records potentially useful for any project on slavery and slave life in Southeastern North Carolina during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These archival materials were found either through independent searches using the findings aids and online catalogues of the named archives, or via the footnotes of scholarly literature. Each section is titled to acknowledge where the archive can be found. There is some repetition, but this has been maintained where one description of an archive is more detailed than another. These online materials were last accessed in April 2021 so any changes since then will not be reflected.

 Finding Aids, North Carolina State Archives

For the entirety of the NC County Records Lists, see:  https://archives.ncdcr.gov/researchers/finding-aids/county-records-box-lists . Below are miscellaneous county documents and private collections. It should be noted that most NC counties have a miscellaneous finding aid, but below I have listed four that I specifically consulted. For the rest, consult the NCSA website using the link above.

Private Collections: Waddell, James Iredell, Family Papers, 1762-1919

-       Slave Papers, 1771-1837

-       The slave papers included in this series include the first names of a number of African American persons, alive during the period of 1771 to 1831, and hopefully beyond. The counties where they were enslaved include Brunswick, New Hanover, Bladen, and Orange, with most in eastern North Carolina. The slaveholders were primarily members of the Moore and Waddell families. The document types include wills, estate lists of slaves on inventories, a slave bill of sale, deed of trust, and a power of guardianship of slaves

 Private Collections: Eleanor Troy Pippenger Collection, PC.2060

-       Slave Deeds and Bills of Sale, 1770-1830

-       Deeds of gift and bills of sales are for slaves in Bladen and Brunswick County. Two documents also include land or other property such as a house and boat

 Private Collections: Slave Receipts/Bills of Sale, Catey and Children, Cloey [Chloe], a Girl, and Frank, PC.209

-       Two receipts, one for sale of Catey, and her three children, Mary, Richard, and Sally (Wimington, N.C. 1853), and the other for sale of Cloey [Chloe], a girl of about 10, and exchange of Frank, age 40 (unknown place, 1862). The first was issued by Ansley Davis to Speir/Spier Walters, both possibly of Robeson County; the second issued by J.B. Hardee to J.A. Thompson, locale uncertain, but possibly, Columbus County, N.C.,and/or Brunswick County, N.C., Horry County, S.C. Though the receipts are from one donor, they are apparently not related. These receipts functioned as bills of sale, with the first transaction in the amount of $1,000, and the second transaction representing an exchange, with payment of an additional $58.75, for Frank

 Private Collections: Slave Collection, 1748-1922

-       This is a collection created over time by the State Archives’s staff, consisting of original and photocopied documents relating to slavery in North Carolina, as late as 1862. Consists of original items such as bills of sales, deeds of gift, account of hire of slaves, and also photocopied items (with some enclosures), including bills of sale, deed of emancipation, commitment, court papers, petitions, certification, claims, letters, depositions, and slave births. Includes a manuscript letter of 2 February 1843 written by a friend of John Brown, Augustus Wattles of Ohio (abolitionist and educator), to William Smith, Michigan, alias for David, a fugitive slave who had belonged to Presley Nelms of Anson County, North Carolina. Additionally, there are three copies of published accounts, each recollections of slavery days. (2 boxes)

Finding Aids, Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

 For the entirety of the Wilson Special Collections Library finding aids, see:  https://library.unc.edu/wilson/shc/findingaids/ . The below came from various searches of the finding aids, including “Slavery,” “Brunswick,” “Brunswick slavery,” “lower cape fear slavery,” and “Wilmington slavery.”

 Gillespie and Wright Family Papers, 1735-1990

-       The Gillespie and Wright families owned thousands of acres of land and significant numbers of slaves in the lower Cape Fear region of North Carolina, especially in Duplin County. The collection is chiefly legal and financial Papers, 1735-1845, of Gillespie and Wright family members, including land records, deeds, plants, and surveyor's notes; tax records; slave bills of sale and other items relating to slaves and slavery; accounts, bills, and receipts; papers relating to business dealings with various Duplin County tenants of Isaac Wright; wills and property inventories; and documents relating to the settlement of the estate of James Moorhead (d. 1808?), for which Isaac Wright and Hinton James (1776-1847) acted as executors. There are also some personal Papers, mostly 1790-1830, of family members. In addition, there are two acrostics by black poet George Moses Horton (circa 1797-circa 1883); a handwritten version of Jeb Stuart's "Ode to his Favorite War Horse 'Maryland'"; and a 1990 Gillespie family tree and short family history. The papers contain few references to political and national events; they are chiefly concerned with business and family matters

James Iredell Papers, 1771-1799

-       James Iredell was a lawyer, colonial customs collector, state official, and United States Supreme Court justice, of Edenton, N.C. The collection includes Port of Roanoke (N.C.) customs records, 1771-1776; legal fee books, 1774-1799, and case book, 1786-1790; case books, 1793-1799, of Federal circuit courts in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Virginia; and personal accounts, law notes, and legal writings, and an essay on the causes of the American Revolution (on microfilm)

John Hampden Hill Papers, circa 1875

-       The collection includes descriptions of events, places, families, legends, and plantations of the lower Cape Fear region of North Carolina from that area's first settlement by Europeans until about 1875. Among the families and plantations described are the Strudwick family at Stag Park, the Ashe family at The Neck and Green Hill, the Moseley family at Moseley Hall, the Moore family at The Vats, the Lane family at Springfield, the Williams family at Mount Gallant, the Swann family at The Oak, the Jones family at Spring Garden, and the John Henry King Burgwin at The Hermitage

 DeRosset Family Papers, 1671-1940

-       The DeRosset family descended from French Huguenot Armand John DeRosset, who immigrated to the American colonies in the 1730s and settled in Wilmington, N.C., where four generations of DeRossets worked as physicians and merchants. Many letters contain information about the small town of Smithville (now Southport) in Brunswick County, N.C., where the DeRossets owned a rice plantation. Some letters written by slaves, some of which describe the yellow fever epidemic of 1862. Some Reconstruction era letters discuss activities of former DeRosset slaves. Also included is correspondence with British author Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who was a family friend. Financial and legal materials include papers documenting land transactions; papers relating to slave sales and a volume listing births and deaths of DeRosset slaves, 1770-1854. Letters describe the health and welfare of the enslaved people left behind, especially the yellow fever epidemic of 1862; the need for clothing for an upcoming wedding; mistreatment of enslaved people who had been hired out; and faith in God.

 William Watters Papers, 1733-1768

-       Miscellaneous papers include an undated clipping from an Asheville, N.C., newspaper containing a copy of the will of Lady Martha Dalrymple of Brunswick County, N.C., 1768, bequeathing her slaves and other property to her Watters brothers and other relatives. There are also grants and deeds, 1733-1741, to William Watters and his father, Joseph Watters, of New Hanover County, N.C.

 T.D. McDowell Papers, 1735-1925

-       Thomas David Smith McDowell (1823-1989), of Bladen County, N.C., was a planter, legislator, and Confederate congressman. Business and political papers document Bladen County court business, particularly from 1735 to 1844, and include slave lists. After his father's death in 1846, Thomas and his brother John managed the Purdie Plantation on which they had been reared. In 1860, the plantation contained 320 acres, housed 57 slaves, and was valued at $65,000. McDowell worked in the state legislature; his bills included the banning of the emancipation of slaves by the owner's will after his death. Correspondence also contains negotiations for slave hire.

 Davis and Walker Family Papers, 1755-1962

-       The Davis and Walker families were residents of Wilmington, N.C. There is also a letter, 1862, written from one family slave to another, and some Walker family slave lists

 Alfred Waddell Papers, 1768-1935

-       A hand drawn map of Wilmington, N.C., and Brunswick County, sketched circa 1890s-1900s, that appears to depict the area during the Revolutionary War era. The map includes the names of property holders in the area, and the location of sawmills, forts, and other landmarks (DIGITAL)

 North Carolina Image Reference Cards, 1839-1990

 North Carolina County Photographic Collection, circa 1850-2000

 Fisher Family Papers, 1758-1896

-       As president of the Western North Carolina Railroad, Charles F. Fisher was awarded a contract to build a section of the track. Much of the material from 1852 to 1860 consists of work records for both enslaved and free laborers; contracts for the hire of slaves and valuations of slaves; vouchers for work; work reports and financial accounts of various overseers; and estimates of masonry and grading work (Rowan County?)

 Slave Birth Record, 1807-1861

-       The collection is five pages from a medical manual entitled “A Compendium of the Theory and Practice of Midwifery containing Practical Instructions for the Management of Women during Pregnancy, in Labour, and in Child-bed,” by Samuel Bard, 1817. Records of slave births and deaths from 1807 to 1861 are written in the margins. The pages appear to be from a volume belonging to A.C. Philips. No location is indicated

 Slavery Papers, 1799-1818

-       Notes regarding legal cases involving slaves in New York City, 1799-1818; bills of sale for slaves, Stokes County, N.C., 1801, and Wake County, N.C., 1818; a list of slaves and values, no place indicated, undated; and a slave pass (typed transcription), Darlington, S.C., undated

Slavery Justification Essays, circa 1854

-       Manuscript volume, circa 1854, containing essays and dialogue for a Biblical defense of slavery and criticism of abolitionists. The contents are possibly speech notes or a college student's lecture notes. Source and background of this item are unknown

Online Catalogue, The National Archives, Kew, UK (formerly the Public Record Office)

 For the entirety of the UK National Archives online catalogue, see:  https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk . The archives below were found after investigating two archival references from the UK National Archives (CUST 16/1 and CO 5/1441) used in Walter Minchinton’s article, “The Seaborne Slave Trade of North Carolina.” I widened my search to include CUST and CO 5 more broadly.

Slave Voyages Digital Archive

For the entirety of the Slave Voyages database, see:  https://www.slavevoyages.org/american/database .

Africa to Carolina, North Carolina African American Heritage Commission Website

 This online collection pulls from other archival sources already listed elsewhere in this document, namely those in the Slave Voyages Database and Walter Minchinton’s “The Seaborne Slave Trade of North Carolina.” However, it is a useful and perhaps more accessible version of these other datasets. See:  https://aahc.nc.gov/programs/africa-carolina-0#TheGranville1761-839 .

Published Archives

Barbara T. Cain, Ellen Z. McGrew, and Charles E. Morris, eds. Guide to Private Manuscript Collections in the North Carolina State Archives, 3d ed. (Raleigh: Division of Archives and History, Department of Cultural Resources, 1981).

Clark, Walter, ed. The State Records of North Carolina, 16 vols. (Raleigh: State of North Carolina, 1895-1905).

Ingmire, Frances Terry, ed. Brunswick County, North Carolina, Marriage Records, 1804-1867 (Signal Mountain, Tenn.: Mountain Press, 2003).

 Johnson, James. The Life of the Late James Johnson (Coloured Evangelist): Escaped Slave from the Southern States of America (Oldham: Miss Alice Johnson, n.d.; estimated by David Cecelski as 1877/78). Enslaved at Orton, Brunswick County; escaped and lived out life in Oldham, UK.

Jones, Thomas H. The Experience of Thomas H. Jones, Who Was a Slave for Forty-Three Years (Boston: Bazin & Chandler, 1862). Born and enslaved in Wilmington.

North Carolina State Documents. Muster Rolls of the Soldiers of the War of 1812: Detached from the Militia of North Carolina in 1812 and 1814 (Raleigh: Ch. C. Raboteau, 1851).

Porcher Jr., Richard Dwight and William Robert Judd, The Market Preparation of Carolina Rice: An Illustrated History of Innovation in the Lowcountry Rice Kingdom  (The University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, South Carolina, 2014).

Robinson, Reverend William H. From Log Cabin to the Pulpit; or, Fifteen Years in Slavery (Eau Claire, Wisc.: James H. Tifft, 1913). Born and enslaved in Wilmington from 1848-1863.

 Saunders, William L. (ed.). The Colonial Records of North Carolina, 10 vols. (Raleigh: State of North Carolina, 1886-1890).

Schaw, Janet. Journal of a Lady of Quality: Being the Narrative of a Journey from Scotland to the West Indies, North Carolina, and Portugal, in the Years 1774 to 1776 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1921).

 

Scholarly Literature

 The following is a working bibliography of scholarly literature. It includes texts and resources that are both essential and potentially useful for any project on slavery and slave life in Southeastern North Carolina during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

 Angley, Wilson. “A Brief History of the Eagles Plantation and Mill Facility in Brunswick County,” (Raleigh: Research Branch, N.C. Division of Archives and History, 1989).

 Brimmer, Brandi. Claiming Union Widowhood (Durham: Duke University Press, 2020).

 Cathey, Cornelius Oliver. Agricultural Developments in North Carolina, 1783-1860 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1956).

 Cecelski, David S. The Fire of Freedom: Abraham Galloway and the Slaves’ Civil War (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2012).

Cecelski, David, and Alex Christopher Meekins. “The Life of the Late James Johnson: An American Slave Narrative from Oldham, England,” (April 24, 2017) found at  https://davidcecelski.com/2017/08/24/the-life-of-the-late-james-johnson-an-american-slave-narrative-from-oldham-england/  [April 2, 2021].

 Cecelski, David S., and Alex Christopher Meekins. “The Life of the Late James Johnson: An American Slave Narrative from Oldham, England,” Carolina Comments, vol. 56, no. 3 (July 2008): 108-113.

 Cecelski, David S. The Waterman’s Song: Slavery and Freedom in Maritime North Carolina (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001).

 Cecil-Fronsman, Bill. Common Whites: Class and Culture in Antebellum North Carolina (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992).

 Chapman, John K. (Yonni). “Black Freedom and the University of North Carolina, 1793-1960,” PhD Dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2006).

 Clifton, James M. “Golden Grains of White: Rice Planting on the Lower Cape Fear,” North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 50, no. 4 (October 1973): 365-393.

 Crow, Jeffrey J., Paul D. Escott, Flora J. Hatley Wadelington (eds.), History of African Americans in North Carolina (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002). First published 1992.

 Crow, Jeffrey J. The Black Experience in Revolutionary North Carolina (Raleigh: Division of Archives and History, Department of Cultural Resources, 1977).

 Escott, Paul D. “Yeoman Independence and the Market: Social Status and Economic Development in Antebellum North Carolina,” North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 66, no. 3 (July 1989): 275-300.

 Fountain, Daniel L. “A Broader Footprint: Slavery and Slaveholding Households in Antebellum Piedmont North Carolina,” The North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 91, no. 4 (October 2014): 407-444.

 Forret, Jeff. “Slave Labor in North Carolina’s Antebellum Gold Mines,” North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 76, no. 2 (April 1999): 135-162.

 Franklin, John Hope. The Free Negro in North Carolina 1790-1860 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1943).

 Fullwood, Willie. “African American Political Participation: A Case Study of Brunswick County, North Carolina,” PhD Dissertation, Union Institute & University, Cincinnati, Ohio (2008).

 Galenson, David. White Servitude in Colonial America: An Economic Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 217-218.

 Gray, Lewis Cecil. History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860, 2 vols. (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1958).

 Hall, Lewis Philip. Land of the Golden River: Historical Events and Stories of Southeastern North Carolina and the Lower Cape Fear, 3 vols. (Wilmington, N.C.: Wilmington Printing Co., 1980).

 Hazel, Forest. “Occaneechi-Saponi Descendants in the North Carolina Piedmont: The Texas Community,” Southern Indian Studies, vol. 40 (1991): 3-30.

 Hugh T. Lefler. and Albert Ray Newsome, North Carolina: The History of a Southern State, 3 rd  ed. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1973).

 Hunter, Antwain K. “Politics, Labor, and Rebellions Real and Imagined: Slaves, Free People of Color, and Firearms in North Carolina, 1729-1865,” PhD Dissertation, Pennsylvania State University (2015).

 Hunter, Antwain K. ““A Nuisance Requiring Correction”: Firearm Laws, Black Mobility, and White Property in Antebellum Eastern North Carolina,” North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 93, no. 4 (2016): 386-404.

 Jackson, Claude V. III. The Big Book of the Cape Fear River (Wilmington, NC: Dram Tree Books, 2008).

 Johnson, Guion Griffis. Ante-bellum North Carolina: A Social History (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1937).

 Kay, Marvin L. Michael, and Lorin Lee Cary, Slavery in North Carolina, 1748-1775 (Chapel Hill: North Carolina University Press, 1995).

 Lee, E. Lawrence. The History of Brunswick County, North Carolina (Bolivia, NC, 1980).

 Lee, E. Lawrence. The Lower Cape Fear in Colonial Days (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965).

Lowery, Malinda Maynor. Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South (Raleigh: University of North Carolina Press, 2010).

 McKee, Jim. Brunswick Town and Fort Anderson State Historic Site (NC: Arcadia Publishing, 2021).

 Merrens, Harry Roy. Colonial North Carolina in the Eighteenth Century: A Study in Historical Geography (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012). First published 1964.

 Milteer Jnr., Warren E. North Carolina’s Free People of Color, 1715-1885 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2020).

 Minchinton, Walter E. and Peter Waite. The Naval Office Shipping Lists for the West Indies, 1678-1825 (Wakefield, Yorkshire, England: Microform Academic Publishers, 1981).

 Minchinton, Walter E. Naval Office Shipping Lists for Jamaica, 1683-1818 (Wakefield, Yorkshire, England: Microform Academic Publishers, 1977).

 Minchinton, Walter E. “The Seaborne Slave Trade of North Carolina,” North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 71, no. 1 (1994): 1-61.

 Nevius, Marcus. City of Refuge: Slavery and Petit Marronage in the Great Dismal Swamp, 1763-1856 (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2020).

 O’Malley, Gregory E. “Beyond the Middle Passage: Slave Migration from the Caribbean to North America, 1619-1807,” William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 66, no. 1 (Jan., 2009): 125-172.

 O’Malley, Gregory E. Final Passages: The Intercolonial Slave Trade of British America, 1619-1807 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014).

 O’Malley, Gregory, and Alex Borucki. “Patterns in the intercolonial slave trade across the Americas before the nineteenth century,” Tempo, vol. 23, no. 2 (2017): 314-338.

 Revealing Histories, Remembering Slavery. “The Life of the Late James Johnson,” found at  http://revealinghistories.org.uk/what-evidence-is-there-of-a-black-presence-in-britain-and-north-west-england/objects/the-life-of-the-late-james-johnson.html  [April 2, 2021].

Rohrs, Richard C. “State v. Edmund, a Slave (1833): Perceptions of the Legal Status of Slaves and Free Blacks in Antebellum North Carolina,” North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 95 (2018): 29-46.

Rose, Mariel. “Pocomoke: A Study in Remembering and Forgetting,” Ethnohistory, vol. 45, no. 3 (Summer, 1998): 543-573.

Roy Merrens, Harry. Colonial North Carolina in the Eighteenth Century: A Study in Historical Geography (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1964).

 Salley Jr., Alexander S. (ed.). Narratives of Early Carolina, 1650-1708 (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1911).

Schweninger, Lorren. Appealing for Liberty: Freedom Suits in the South (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).

Schweninger, Loren. ““To the Honorable”: Divorce, Alimony, Slavery, and the Law in Antebellum North Carolina,” North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 84 (2009): 127-179.

Shepherd, James F. “Commodity Exports from the British North American Colonies to Overseas Areas, 1768-1772: Magnitudes and Patterns of Trade,” Explorations in Economic History, vol. 8, no. 1 (Autumn 1970): 5-76.

Sherman, Kimberly B. ““A Spirit of Industry”: The Colonial Origins of Rice Culture in the Lower Cape Fear,” The North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 91, no. 3 (July 2014): 255-287.

Smith, John David. ““I Was Raised Poor and Hard as any Slave”: African American Slavery in Piedmont North Carolina,” North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 90, no. 1 (2013): 1-25.

South, Stanley. ““Russelborough”: Two Royal Governors’ Mansion at Brunswick Town,” in The Conference on Historic Site Archaeology Papers 1965-1966, Vol. 1 (1967): 111-122,  https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/archanth_historic_site_arch_conf_papers/  [December 19, 2023].

Sprunt, James. Tales and Traditions of the Lower Cape Fear, 1661-1896 (Spartanburg, S.C.: Reprint Co., 1973).

Taylor, Rosser Howard. Slaveholding in North Carolina: An Economic View (Chapel Hill: University of North Caolina Press, 1926).

Trinkley, Michael, and Debi Hacker. “African American Lives on the Lower Cape Fear During the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries with an Emphasis on Brunswick County and the Orton Vicinity” (Chicora, SC: Chicora Foundation, November 2018),  https://chicora.org/pdfs/RC572%20African%20American%20Lives.pdf  [December 19, 2023].

Troxler, Carole Watterson. ““To Git Out of a Troublesome Neighborhood”: David Fanning in New Brunswick,” North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 56, no. 4 (October 1979): 343-365.

Watson, Alan D. “Benjamin Smith: Brunswick County “General” and North Carolina Governor, 1810-1811,” North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 87, no. 1 (January 2010): 28-56.

Watson, Alan D. Internal Improvements in Antebellum North Carolina (Raleigh: Office of Archives and History, N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, 2002).

Watson, Alan D. Society in Colonial North Carolina (Raleigh: Division of Archives and History, N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, 1996).

Willis, Eulis A. Navassa: The Town and Its People, 1735-1991 (Navassa, NC, 1993).

Contact Information

Sherwin K. Bryant, PhD :

Rice University 307 Rayzor Hall 6100 Main Street Houston,TX 77005 (713) 348-6178

Emily Schwalbe, PhD:

Trinity Centre for Environmental Humanities Room A6 003 6th floor Arts Block Trinity College Dublin College Green Dublin 2

 

 

 

Funded by the African American Heritage Foundation of Southeastern NC and ACLS