Aspects of Slavery and Freedom Seeking in North Carolina
Introduction
They did a lot
If one wishes to know about what slaves were made to do, it will be hard to imagine because they were made to do anything and everything. Slaves have been typically relegated to the margins of historical writing, both deliberately and coincidentally. When we think of slavery and slaves, the image of hard labor, whips, cotton, humiliation, poor quality of life, and sadness appear before our eyes. Sure, slavery certainly involved all of this, but it involved a lot more than merely this. The slaves played a pivotal role in the life of other slaves. They lived together, labored together, and faced the terror of slavery together. Moreover, although the togetherness shared among the slaves came with conflicts, their being together forged a new people in the world. They became a new people not merely made by circumstances, but through effort, love, and mercy—they emerged as a people of their own. The emergence of the enslaved free from shackles is undeniable—some of their cultural expressions, such as spiritual activities and dietary practices, that are followed even today are testaments to their oneness and uniqueness.
Slaves are like shadows in most history books. They are rarely predominantly mentioned, even though they always existed in the folds of history. This could be attributed to some obvious reasons. For instance, the slaves were never relegated to agricultural duties; some of them were body servants, who followed their masters wherever they went. The slaves also did a lot of other activities, as illustrated below by a traveler’s account of a hunting trip:
"We crossed Neuse River, and passed over a continuous pine barren to Wilmington, on Cape Fear River. This was a compact town, ten miles from the sea, and is surrounded by sandhills. It was defended by two forts and two brigs of sixteen guns each.* It formerly exported large quantities of naval stores, pork, furs, & c, which it received by the river from the fertile country in the interior. The killing of deer by torchlight was a favorite amusement of the inhabitants of this region. A negro precedes the sportsmen, bearing a piece of burning pitch pine; the foolish animal, fascinated by the light, remains stationary, with his head erect, and his eyes steadily fixed on the blaze."
Most accounts of history ensure an easy dismissal of the presence of slavery. They are devalued as a people, often overlooked, and their contributions faded away as being the cornerstone of the making of this nation. Their life, particularly, their labor was key to the formation of the whole Euro-American republic. References abound that prove that the enslaved people, especially those in North Carolina, were critical to its growth. For example, their enslaved people’s hard work, albeit forced, was highly regarded by those such as the colonial governor William Tyron.
William Tryon voiced his admiration for the work and contributions of the enslaved people to help North Carolina develop. He stated, “Slaves in North Carolina were doing every type of labor imaginable and doing it well. While blacks were employed chiefly 'in the woods and field, sowing, and attending and gathering in the Corn,' they also made 'barrels, hoops, staves, shingles, rails, posts, and pails, all which they do to admiration....”
Slaves are like shadows in most history books. They are rarely predominantly mentioned, even though they always existed in the folds of history. This could be attributed to some obvious reasons. For instance, the slaves were never relegated to agricultural duties; some of them were body servants, who followed their masters wherever they went. The slaves also did a lot of other activities, as illustrated below by a traveler’s account of a hunting trip:
"We crossed Neuse River, and passed over a continuous pine barren to Wilmington, on Cape Fear River. This was a compact town, ten miles from the sea, and is surrounded by sandhills. It was defended by two forts and two brigs of sixteen guns each.* It formerly exported large quantities of naval stores, pork, furs, & c, which it received by the river from the fertile country in the interior. The killing of deer by torchlight was a favorite amusement of the inhabitants of this region. A negro precedes the sportsmen, bearing a piece of burning pitch pine; the foolish animal, fascinated by the light, remains stationary, with his head erect, and his eyes steadily fixed on the blaze."
Most accounts of history ensure an easy dismissal of the presence of slavery. They are devalued as a people, often overlooked, and their contributions faded away as being the cornerstone of the making of this nation. Their life, particularly, their labor was key to the formation of the whole Euro-American republic. References abound that prove that the enslaved people, especially those in North Carolina, were critical to its growth. For example, their enslaved people’s hard work, albeit forced, was highly regarded by those such as the colonial governor William Tyron.
William Tryon voiced his admiration for the work and contributions of the enslaved people to help North Carolina develop. He stated, “Slaves in North Carolina were doing every type of labor imaginable and doing it well. While blacks were employed chiefly 'in the woods and field, sowing, and attending and gathering in the Corn,' they also made 'barrels, hoops, staves, shingles, rails, posts, and pails, all which they do to admiration....”
Before the British
The black and enslaved experience began long before the British arrived and continued after the British arrival. Blacks were already enslaved by early Spanish explorers of the so-called new world prior to the arrival of the British. In the 1520s, Blacks had accompanied Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon when he traveled to the territory that later came to be known as North Carolina. Black presence likely remained in North Carolina because of Lucas de Ayllon’s journey and the obstacles faced in North Carolina. According to Jack Forbes, Ayllon’s slaves rebelled which resulted in some or many of them being left in North Carolina.
“Indian hostility and fever plagued the Spaniards while the Negro slaves rebelled and apparently, some were left behind by the fleeing European survivors. It is therefore very likely that these blacks intermarried with the Carolina Indians and became the first permanent non-Indian residents of what is now the United States, eighty years before Jamestown.”
Blacks, enslaved and non-enslaved, were part of other Spanish expeditions. Some enslaved people accompanied De Soto, along with 500 to 600 persons, to the piedmont and mountain regions of North Carolina-near Charlotte, Hickory, and Morganton.
A growing body of research suggests black presence has an indigenous relationship with America, and that early relationships were forged between the Native Americans and Africans, long before Columbus. It can be said for certain that Black History in North Carolina, started before 1619. It is important to learn the authentic history of blacks in America, as well as to distinguish the different black people in terms of their culture, ethnic groups, and histories.
For more information, see:
They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America
Frontier, Discover, and the Invaluable Black Presence to the making of European-America
As the British came to America, black presence became indispensable for building European America. The enslaved people’s presence and labor on the Euro-American frontier were critical. They had been brought there to transform North Carolina’s environment and landscape, as Europeans sought to use, or rather exploit, the land to increase the treasuries of the European nations, mainly England. The frontier conditions in some spaces initially witness a different aspect of slavery. On the frontier, racial hierarchy was sometimes indistinct and, at times, suspended. Nathan Huggins noted:
“White men with modest capital—title in land and ownership of a few slaves—would, on the labor of blacks, convert the wilderness tract into a producing enterprise.
They began as whites and blacks together, transforming the untamed land into meager living space and money crop. Black men and women wielded broadax and two-hand saw against standing timber. With white men, they cut logs into their first dwelling place. Side by side, they worked to clear enough land for the first crops of corn.”
“The frontier experience was not pleasant for slaves. It entailed grueling work under conditions of great hardship. Dangers were all about: Native Americans, disease, well animals and snakes, which grudgingly retreated from the settled country. Survival could not be taken for granted among whites or blacks. It was the nature of slavery, however, that the risk to body and life all shared in the taming of the country would mainly profit the master, and what creature comforts came with the development was only incidentally enrich the slave.”
“The frontier was fluid, and conditions and human relationships transformed themselves as the country became settled and developed.”
However, once the land was cleared, settled, and prosperous, the relationship between the whites and blacks assumed its original form—the whites ruled over the blacks. Nathan Higgins added:
“Settled country meant a society for white people, and this would cause masters to draw away from the casual intimacies that had sustained them in meaner times.”
It is important to keep in mind that labor was necessary in order to build Euro-America. The labor was derived from blacks (sometimes as indentured servants), Native Americans (as allies or enslaved), mostly African/Americans (enslaved and free).
To cite some obscure references of enslaved people and examples of how they directly aided in the growth of Euro-America, one needs to only point to the Asheville Sulphur Springs. These springs and several others in western North Carolina were well known and used by the Native Americans in the area. Notably, it was not until 1827 that Sam, the slave of Robert Henry, discovered the spring near Asheville. Here, a wooden hotel was built by Col. Reuben Deaver in 1830. The hotel was quite popular. John Preston Author noted, “As many as five hundred are said to have been there at one time, and the neighborhood was ransacked for beds, bedding, chairs, and provisions. Most of the visitors came from South Carolina, among whom were the Pinckneys, Elmores, Butlers, Prestons, Alstons, Kerrisons, and others.” Most of these names are of people who were major slaveholders and/or statesmen.
The author noted that the hotel was frequented commonly by the Aristocrat Pinckney Family of South Carolina; thus, the use of the name Pink in various places in Asheville was a nod to their visitation.
Black presence did not begin and end with Sam, the finder of the springs. Apart from enslaved blacks serving as servants for the hotel, free blacks from Charleston and Columbia provided music for guests in the property next to the hotel. Among the musicians who played at the hotel, one of the most famous was a man named Lapitude, “who owned a plantation near Charleston and forty slaves. He was a man of some education, and the manner of a Chesterfield.”
Lapitude was not the only black celebrated at the hotel. It is said that a formerly enslaved black named Randall was “presented with a purse of $5,000 by the white people of South Carolina, [at the hotel] for having given information about a contemplated negro insurrection at Charleston.”
Blacks were wealth builders, and the Asheville Sulphur Springs is an example of how their presence made a tremendous impact on shaping America.
Sam was not the only enslaved person to discover Sulphur Springs in North Carolina. Uncle Jerry, enslaved by James R. Love, also located the Waynesville White Sulphur Spring. After serving as a residence, which later got destroyed in a fire, a “brick hotel” was built in 1886.