Browse Items (26 total)

Married white women in antebellum North Carolina had no independent legal identity. They could not sue or be sued, and they could not own property separate from their husbands. Their husbands were held liable for their actions. (Link 2009, 167-168)…

In 1838, the federal government forcibly removed 15,000 Cherokees from North Carolina and surrounding states to reservations west of the Mississippi river. In this forced march, known as the Trail of Tears, approximately 4,000 to 5,000 Indians died.…

Slavery expanded in North Carolina during the antebellum era. The enslaved population grew from 100,000 in 1790, about 25 percent of the total population, to 331,000 in 1860, approximately 30 percent. The slave population was not evenly distributed…

In North Carolina’s 1864 gubernatorial elections between Governor Zebulon B. Vance and William W. Holden, Vance promoted strong intimidation tactics in order to scare Holden’s supporters into voting for Vance on election day. It is also…

“By the Constitution of this State I was empowered to be commander-in-chief to call out the militia, to execute the law, suppress riots and insurrections, and to repel invasion.” (Holden 1911, 120) This was Holden’s statement in…

Many people believe that Republicans wanted to abolish slavery because they viewed it as an immoral and evil institution. Some abolitionists used their religious beliefs to shape political debates over the issue of slavery. In an article, the…

The story of the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction is well known. Most southern states felt repercussions from Klan influence and violence. Lisa Cardyn explores Klan violence on a level that is often overlooked: the sexual nature of Klan violence.…

Many women played a prominent strategic role in the Civil War, and some lost their lives for their cause. Rose O’Neal Greenhow served as a spy and ambassador for the Confederacy. Greenhow was arrested in 1862 for espionage and exiled from…

During the Civil War, the absence of men and scarcity of supplies created tremendous hardship for women and children at home, particularly in the South. Union naval blockades cut off most ports, making food, clothing, and other goods scarce and…

During the Civil War both the North and South often used a system of parole to deal with surrendered opponents, rather than taking prisoners. Captured soldiers were released on parole on their promise not to take up arms again, or not to take up arms…