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• 1 2021-12-01T18:27:52+00:00 Water-Life-Urban Spaces and Water Towns 1 plain 2021-12-01T18:27:52+00:00 The dominant urban spaces within the coastal and tidewater region of North Carolina settled around the major rivers, namely Tar River (Washington), Nuese River (New Bern), Roanoke and Chowan River (Edenton), and Cape Fear River (Wilmington).
  

  The labor duties of black people gave them considerable mobility. Blacks, slave and free, were about half of the population in Wilmington in 1850 and, like other urban spaces, had a major hand in building the town's infrastructure.

  Blacks, enslaved and free, took as much advantage of this mobility as possible. At night, whites were not always comfortable with black mobility mainly because slaves gained more understanding of geography and the inner workings of general society with greater freedom of movement. Thus, there was a desire to limit slave movement at night. For instance, “Ebenezer Pettigrew later urged the re-institution of a night guard in Edenton as ‘Useful and necessary,’ since blacks were too ‘numerous to have uncured liberty at night.” Pettigrew understood enough about slave life to know that “night is their day.”

  The unpredictability of black leisure and black nightlife, which they knew was very lively, pushed Pettigrew to call for restricting slave mobility at night. It is important to understand that at night, enslaved people did much for themselves; therefore, the attempt to restrict slaves’ mobility at night was not only about restricting time not used for earning profits for slaveholders but also preventing the nightly free time used by the enslaved to secure profit for themselves. 

  Monitoring the movement of the enslaved was critical to the actual and illusion of control for whites. The desire to restrict black mobility, especially during the colonial period, resulted in the need for enslaved people to have tickets to buy and sell. In some places, enslaved had to carry a ticket and candle if they were outside after 10 pm. This method failed to cause a change in the behavior because it was rarely enforced. Thus, it is not surprising to learn that many of the activities carried out by blacks at night often benefited whites-economically and recreationally.

  Another reason for the failure to enforce a "black" curfew was because enslaved people, in many cases, served as an extension of their slaveholders-either is business or in others ways. For instance, “urban slaves also performed certain civic duties. Negroes worked with their masters or in lieu of them to maintain the town’s streets.” Although there was a desire to restrict slave mobility in coastal urban towns, the rules were rarely enforced, thereby allowing enslaved people to maintain a level of mobility in urban areas, not experienced in other places in North Carolina.

  Few places in North Carolina matched enslaved people's mobility when compared to Wilmington. However, urban spaces that were close include Fayetteville, New Bern, Edenton, and Halifax. However, even these towns were not Wilmington.

  In places such as Wilmington, some enslaved people had their own homes, separate from slaveholders. Because slaveholders made large profits from hiring out their slaves, instead of wasting the time of traveling back and forth from areas surrounding Wilmington, enslaved people were provided their own homes. Moreover, as this process became custom and expected, it became the culture of Wilmington for enslaved people to have more mobility. This is not to say that whites, mainly non-slaveholders, enjoyed the fact that slaves had greater mobility. However, slaveholders with the most political and social power desired their slaves to have more mobility, and non-slaveholders could do little to change their culture. 

  In addition, the environment was also different due to the presence of free blacks in the area. Although other locations in North Carolina had higher free black populations than New Hanover County, such as Halifax County and Carven County, the interaction between free blacks and enslaved people made this relationship and the mobility of the enslaved more difficult to control owing to the unique culture of Wilmington. 

  The relationship between free and enslaved blacks caught the attention of white citizens; see example HERE, to prevent the association between the enslaved and free blacks, mainly free blacks that were out traveling the seas. White citizens petitioned to quarantine free blacks on ships to prevent their commercial activity and slow their association with the enslaved [in coastal places such as Wilmington, free blacks made a living through various maritime occupations, such boatmen and pilots seamen, stewards, and cooks]. This shows that the petitioner sought to limit the mobility of free blacks and slaves despite the inability to prevent slave mobility. 

  The initial petition was rejected in the 1820s; however, in the 1830s, the legislature passed an act to quarantine free blacks on ships. This was done after the publishing of David Walker’s appeal (1829). Post-1831, there was a growing hostility toward free blacks in North Carolina after Nat Turner’s rebellion.