Browse Items (26 total)

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 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.…

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)…

North Carolina enlisted approximately one-sixth of the men serving in the Confederate military. Nearly every adult white man served in some capacity. Nearly 110,000 volunteers and conscripts joined the military. (Only 115,000 white men were eligible…

In antebellum North Carolina, there were six distinct social classes. The gentry, or planter class, were those few people who owned more than twenty slaves, or well-to-do professionals like high-level public officials or lawyers. The middle class…

Levi Coffin, self-proclaimed “President of the Underground Railroad,” was born in Guilford County, North Carolina (near Greensboro). Coffin, a Quaker and abolitionist, grew weary of living in a slave state surrounded by the brutality of…

In the mid-19th Century, an elite southern white man’s reputation could make him or break him. He worked to demonstrate honor through honest dealings, activity in church and community life, respect for white women, generosity to lower classes, and…

Many of North Carolina’s enslaved communities participated in a Christmas season celebration called Jonkonnu (Johnkannaus, John Coonah, John Canoe). Outside of North Carolina, Jonkonnu was primarily seen in the Caribbean. Though Jonkonnu…

In 1860, North Carolina only had two towns with populations over 5,000 people – Wilmington and New Bern. Raleigh and Fayetteville were the next largest towns with over 2,500 people. (UNC School of Education, “Towns and Villages”)

The term "Tar Heel" originated in the Civil War-era. Sources indicate that members of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia teased soldiers from North Carolina with the nickname. Many North Carolinians worked in the naval stores industry…