Timothy D. Pyatt, Editor
University of Virginia Press
© 1996 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia
Conditions of Use
Manuscripts Department
CB #3926, Wilson Library
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill NC 27514-8890
Phone: (919) 962-1345
Fax: (919) 962-4452
E-mail: MSS@email.unc.edu
Hours: Monday-Friday, 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Saturday, 9:00
a.m.-1:00 p.m.
Services: photocopying available
The Manuscripts Department of the Academic Affairs Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has a long tradition for documenting the history and culture of the American South. Because African Americans have played an integral and leading role in forming that history, records relevant to African-American life and culture constitute a prominent portion of the department's holdings of nearly 14.5 million items.
The majority of the collections documented in this guide are plantation records from the antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction period. Entries for these collections discuss topics such as slaves as plantation labor, and later, the hiring of freedmen. There are also several twentieth-century collections described that cover topics such as desegregation, bussing, race relations, and civil rights.
The entries are arranged alphabetically by collection name. Listed after the collection name is the collection number and the date span of the entire collection. The entries describe only the portion of the collection pertaining to African Americans, with complete summary records for collections available through the library's online catalog. The full texts of selected inventories (i.e., folder and box lists) are present on the library's INTERNET server.
This guide would not be possible without the hard work of a number of staff, both past and present. We are especially grateful to our compilers. The project was first started by Katrin Hardikar, an NC State University intern. The bulk of the work was done by Lauren Kerr, a UNC-CH graduate student. Enola Guthrie also assisted with the data entry.
Chiefly letters written by Alcorn, brigadier general of Mississippi state forces, Republican governor, and U.S. senator, to his wife. Letters discuss Union soldiers freeing slaves (1862); Alcorn's relations with slaves and freed blacks (1862- 1864); the marriage of Northern white women to blacks (1865); and the status of free blacks in the South (1865). The collection also contains two plantation inventories and Alcorn's diary, which contain slave records (1855-1865).
Correspondence and estate and family records of the families of Adam Leopold Alexander, a Scottish planter who emigrated to Georgia, and of David Hillhouse, a Connecticut native living in Georgia. Alexander's correspondence discusses his relationships with free blacks and suggests he maintained close ties with former slaves after Emancipation (subseries 1.1). Microfilm available.
Predominantly correspondence between George Washington Allen, planter of Opelika and Lafayette, Alabama, and Alexander A. Allen, planter and lawyer of Bainbridge and Lexington, Georgia. Topics include the management of slaves (1832-1865); the murder of an Alexander relative in Alabama by a slave (1849); and former slaves renting houses in Tuskegee in order to qualify for the vote (1868). Microfilm available.
Papers of the family of Colonel James Allen of Warren, Mississippi, Provost Marshal of Freedmen. Includes a notebook containing records of accounts with "Indians and Negroes" (1788- 1796). Microfilm available.
Letters to Allen of Arkansas from friends and relatives in Alamance County, North Carolina, including some letters relating to the hiring and sale of slaves. Included is a letter to "Aunt Jenny," a slave owned by Allen, which discusses important events in the lives of related slaves still living in North Carolina (1856). Typed transcript only; location of originals unknown.
Correspondence, deeds, estate records, and other financial and legal items of Allen, farmer and slave owner in Wake County, North Carolina, and of members of his family. Legal and financial items include records of slave sales. The collection also includes a bawdy poem about a white parson and a black woman (before 1865).
Correspondence and other papers of Amberson, native of Pennsylvania, while he was a professor at the University of Tennessee Medical School at Memphis, advisor to the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, and trustee of the Delta and Providence Cooperative Farms in Mississippi. Discussions at times relate to race relations.
Correspondence, speeches, reports, clippings, scrapbooks, photographs, and other materials of Ames of Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina. Papers concern Ames's work in the Texas Interracial Commission, the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, and the Association of Southern Women Against Lynching. Included are case histories of individual lynchings investigated by the ASWAL (mostly 1933); notes on the Federal Anti-Lynching Bill (1934-1937); and letters pertaining both to race relations (1944-1946) and to a training school for delinquent African-American girls (1929).
Family letters and assorted volumes of Anderson, U.S. Navy officer, Confederate officer, planter, politician, and businessman of Savannah, Georgia. Correspondence covers various topics including black Union soldiers (1863) and African Americans living in Savannah (1868). Manuscript volumes include slave papers which document slave births and deaths (1817-1866) and blankets and shoes distributed to slaves (1853-1866). Anderson's diary mentions conferences to establish an African-American hospital (1870), a riot connected with segregation on street cars, African-American education in Savannah, and national race relations (1872). Microfilm available.
Personal correspondence, chiefly 1883-1903, of Anderson of Wilmington, North Carolina, an admiral in the U.S. Navy. Letters pertaining to a visit to Liberia describe his meeting with slave-owning Africans and with former American slaves (1886) and discuss the native populace and religious customs of inhabitants of the Gabon River and Congo River Basin areas (1887). Note: Portions of Anderson's papers are also available at Duke University.
Miscellaneous papers belonging to Anderson of South Carolina, including records of the division of an estate and the sale of its slaves.
Largely correspondence of Andrews, a Raleigh, North Carolina, lawyer active in legal, civic, religious, and educational groups. The collection contains letters pertaining to Andrews's interest in legal education, adult illiteracy, and the training of African-American teachers in North Carolina. Included are a letter concerning Andrews's article "Negro Congregations and Communicants" (1939) and a letter from Andrews to Clifford P. Morehouse of The Living Church recording African-American church statistics (1943).
Primarily correspondence relating to the congressional career of Andrews, a Democrat representing North Carolina's 4th Congressional District from 1972-1984. The collection contains correspondence on bussing and civil rights.
Two letters and forty-six deeds, plats, and legal papers of the Armistead family of Windsor and Plymouth, North Carolina. The bulk of the collection relates to Armistead's purchases of property and slaves in Bertie, Washington, and Chowan Counties, North Caroling.
Papers of members of the Arnold family of Providence, Rhode Island, and Bayou County, Georgia, and of the Screvan family of Savannah, Georgia. The collection contains business and family correspondence, financial and legal writings, farm journals, and genealogical information. Papers include instructions on the management of slaves in Georgia. (1832-1861), medical bills for treatment of slaves (1762-1826), and slave lists (1811-1869). Also documented are family disputes over the ownership of 60 slaves (1833?); Northern attitudes toward slavery (1849); attempts to stop the flow of runaway slaves behind Union lines (1862); and relations with free black Union soldiers (1864). Microfilm available.
Chiefly business and agricultural papers of Arrington, planter of Nash County, North Carolina, and Democratic member of the 27th and 28th U.S. Congresses (1841-1845) as well as of the first Confederate Congress (1861). Plantation records contain slave lists, slave bills of sale, hiring agreements, and birth dates; records of provisions given to, and contracts made with, freedmen (1866-1895); and overseer contracts (1789-1909). Materials relating to Arrington's political career include notes on laws regulating the oversight of slaves (1841-1845). Microfilm available.
The plantation journal of Ashmore, planter of Sumter and Anderson districts, South Carolina, member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, and Democratic congressman. Some entries mention individual laborers, presumably slaves, by name, although most describe groups of workers as "hands." Microfilm available.
An open letter from Askew of Windsor, North Carolina, addressed to Fred M. Vinson, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, explaining to him the master race theory and the danger he considers inherent to the amalgamation of races in the United States.
Correspondence and financial and legal records of the Avery and Marsh families of Petite Anse Island Plantation (later Avery Island) near New Iberia in Iberia Parish, Louisiana, and of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Included are slave bills of sale, some of which include a form, signed by the slave, agreeing to move to Louisiana (1817-1827, 1836-1843); bills for the medical treatment of slaves; records of a jail fee paid for a runaway slave; and a document freeing mulatto slaves (1856). Correspondence covers various topics including runaway slaves (1814, 1846-1847); the desertion by former slaves of plantations (1863); supplies and work contracts for former slaves (1866); and African-American voting (1866-67, 1890). The collection also contains a ledger recording anecdotes about family servants before and after slavery. Microfilm available.
Correspondence, financial and legal papers, and other items of the Bacot family, cotton planters of the Mars Bluff Plantation near Florence in Darlington District, South Carolina, and partners in the Jarrot and Bacot Drug Store in Florence, South Carolina. Materials relate chiefly to plantation management. Included are slave lists (1853); documents relating to freedmen working at Mars Bluff (1866, 1867); and a medical services contract between freedmen and a local physician (1866-1867). Microfilm available.
Personal correspondence, financial and legal papers, and other materials of Bailey, county treasurer and Superintendent of Labor for the Engineers Department of Eastern District Florida. The collection contains a list of slaves assigned to the Engineer's Department of Eastern District Florida (n.d.). Microfilm available.
Primarily family correspondence and papers of Bailey of Pasquotank County, Hillsborough, and Asheville, North Carolina, superior court judge, 1837-1863. The collection contains deeds of gift and sale of slaves in the 1840s and 1850s; papers concerning lands and slaves (1821-1829); and a letter describing Northern attitudes toward slavery and abolitionists (1860).
Analytical letters from D. H. Baldwin, merchant of Savannah, Georgia, and New York City, to William Baldwin of Massachusetts. A group of letters written from 1860 to 1861 discuss the secession crisis; the role of slavery and the Republican party in precipitating the crisis; the South's determination to achieve independence; and Baldwin's own opinions on the South. Later letters (1867-1869) analyze Reconstruction and race relations, and include a proposal by Baldwin to import laborers from Africa for Southern planters.
Collection documents segregation in Georgia streetcars, 1903-1908.
Records of Comingtee, a Cooper River, South Carolina, plantation in Charleston District (later Berkeley County), and of other rice plantations of the Ball family, including Stoke, Kensington, and Bridway. Volumes contain slave records listing supplies issued, births and deaths, names, and other data (1780-1833, 1836). Microfilm available.
Records of three generations of the Ball family and a group of Cooper River plantations, Charleston District (later Berkeley County) South Carolina. Included are records of slave births, the names of slave mothers, and slave deaths (1808-1835, 1838-1879); an account of blankets and cloth distributed to slaves (1821-1833, 1840-1860); and a hog killing record that details the distribution of meat to slaves (1819-1834). Microfilm only.
Personal diaries and plantation journal of Baker of Jefferson, Panola, and Hinds Counties, Mississippi, containing references to farming, household matters, philosophical ideas, recipes, and rules for plantation living. Diaries record events in the lives of Baker's slaves, including illnesses, holidays, and an attack on an overseer (26 May 1854). In 1865, Baker writes about emancipation and his efforts to hire free blacks as plantation workers, and mentions his attendance at a "Negro preaching and ordination" in 1867. Microfilm available.
Barnsley, of Woodlands Plantation, Cass County, Georgia, and Sao Paulo, Brazil, was a Confederate soldier, hospital steward, medical student, and assistant surgeon in the 8th Georgia Regiment, who emigrated to Brazil after the Civil War. The collection contains correspondence, reminiscences, scrapbooks, printed pamphlets, and other material . Included are a letter mentioning Barnsley's plan to teach the slaves on Woodlands Plantation, Georgia, how to read (1854) and a plantation journal listing family slaves and hired slaves (1859-1861). Microfilm available.
Family, business, and political papers of Barringer of Cabarrus County and Raleigh, North Carolina, UNC student, lawyer, legislator, U.S. representative, minister to Spain, and Democratic Party member and chairman. Correspondence discusses the execution of slaves accused of killing a white woman (1828); the buying of slaves (1849; 1863); a "Negro convention" at which a former Barringer slave was a secretary (1865); conditions of Southern freedmen (1865, 1867); a "Negro procession" and meeting in Lexington, North Carolina (1869); and requests for aid for two brothers convicted of illegal activities associated with the Ku Klux Klan (1871). References to the purchase of slaves express attempts to keep slave families intact.
Correspondence and other papers of Barrow and members of his family of Lexington, Georgia. The collection includes slave bills of sale and a receipt from a jailor for a runaway slave (1850). Correspondence, generally relating to Barrow's plantations in various parts of Georgia, discusses preaching to slaves (1859); slave insurrections and runaways (1860-1865); promises made to slaves concerning the percentage of crops they would receive; efforts to keep slaves out of Sherman's path (1865); attempts to raise slave troops and an advisement against the use of slave soldiers in the Confederacy (1865); an agreement with "Tillman, a freedman" for labor (1865); and voting (1872).
This collection includes the original and a typed transcription of the plantation journal, 1857-1858, of Barrow, sugar planter and canal operator in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. The journal documents the relationship between plantation owner and overseer, and between overseers, field slaves, and slave drivers. It also contains slave lists, accounts of resistance and punishments, and tasks assigned slaves, and includes information on slave births, deaths, and illnesses as well as items distributed to slaves and runaways. Microfilm available.
The diary of Bateman of Argyle Plantation near Greenville, Washington County, Mississippi. Entries occasionally refer to slaves and overseers. Microfilm available.
Letters to Mrs. J. J. Walker in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, from Batré in Mobile, Ala., containing news of slaves.
An extensive collection of business and personal papers and correspondence of the Battle family, whose members were intimately involved in North Carolina politics, the Episcopal Church, and the University of North Carolina. Letters contain references to the drowning of a young slave (1847); fear of a slave insurrection in Raleigh (1847); the annual hiring of slaves (1855, 1856, 1863); illnesses among slaves (1855-1856); a young slave's attempt to poison her slaveholders (1861); reparation requested for the death of a slave hired out to the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad (1864); an account of the trial and conviction of slaves who robbed a smokehouse (1864); a request that Kemp Plummer Battle serve as a nominal master of a slave sent to Raleigh to seek carpentry work (1865); the mistreatment of an African American by a group of whites in Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1866); criticism of the Emancipation Proclamation and Reconstruction (1867); comments on the racial climate in Chapel Hill (1868); a congressional investigation into the Ku Klux Klan (1871); and an invitation of "colored citizens" to Kemp Plummer Battle to deliver an address on the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation (1876). The collection also contains two slave bills of sale (1832, 1856).
Daily record of the activities at Bayside, a large plantation on Bayou Teche (near New Iberia) Louisiana, and at an unnamed plantation on Bayou Millet, near Opelousas, Louisiana. The record was kept by a proprietor, Francis DuBose Richardson, by members of his family, and by overseers, and discusses the management of slaves and free labor. Entries also note illnesses among slaves (1842-1852) and give an assessment of personal property that includes slaves (1846). Microfilm available.
Legal papers of and letters received by Bell of Camden County, North Carolina. Some of the papers pertain to the sale and exchange of slaves. Microfilm available.
Interview, conversation and narrative in Gullah dialect by African Americans Jim and Christina Milligan and Nettie Whaley, recorded by Herman Bell on Edisto Island, South Carolina in 1967. Topics include the Civil War, houses, food, fishing, school, local people, and some animal tales. [1 reel, FT1200]
Primarily military papers of Benning, Confederate Army officer of Georgia and Virginia. Items relating to slavery include the summary of a Baldwin Superior Court case arising from the sale of blacks seized by the state of Georgia because of a violation of the U.S. law prohibiting the importation of slaves (1818); and information about a case brought before the Supreme Court of Georgia that involved the sale of slaves in connection with a mortgage foreclosure (1855). Microfilm only.
Diary of Overton Bernard while he was a Methodist minister in Edenton, North Carolina, and a bank employee in Portsmouth, Virginia; and of his son, Jessee Bernard, an Alcachua County, Florida, lawyer. One entry in the elder Bernard's diary includes discussion of the demoralization of freedmen (1862).
Personal and legal correspondence of Berrien of Savannah, Georgia, constitutional lawyer, U.S. senator, and attorney general in Andrew Jackson's cabinet. Correspondence includes a discussion of the rights of "free persons of color" under the Constitution (1820). Microfilm available.
Mainly prenuptial correspondence between Oliver Arms of Lincoln County, North Carolina, and Elizabeth Sprague of South Deerfield, Massachusetts. In a letter dated 10 February 1839, Arms discusses the condition of southern slaves, stressing their religious freedom. Microfilm available.
Personal diary of Bethell, who spent most of her life in Rockingham, County, North Carolina. Entries reveal thoughts on the departure of slaves and difficulties with free blacks after the war. Microfilm available.
Diary and miscellaneous papers of Bills, a Tennessee planter, merchant, and friend of U.S. President James Knox Polk. The diary contains references to the work, treatment, and prices of slaves.
Chiefly unrelated 19th century letters from several different states collected by Blackford of Richmond, Virginia. Writers and topics include a traveler in Mississippi who refers to the rental of several of his slaves to pick cotton during a temporary layover caused by a local yellow fever epidemic (1833); a slave owner in Shackleford, North Carolina, concerning possible charges brought against a slave for beating a slave owned by the writer (1835); and a Baptist minister in Vicksburg, Mississippi, to a minister in New York, expressing concern over the impact of the abolition movement on missionary efforts (1844).
The Blackford collection consists of correspondence and other papers of three generations of the Blackfords of Fredericksburg, Lynchburg, and Alexandria, Virginia. Much of the correspondence relates to the activities of the American Colonization Society and its counterpart in Great Britain, and documents the Blackford family's antislavery sentiments and their attempts to organize a colonization society in Fredericksburg. The collection includes discussion of fears of a large-scale slave insurrection in the slave states (1831); difficulties in educating black women to be teachers; the life of missionaries in Liberia (1836, 1843, 1845, 1852, 1855); freeing slaves to send to Liberia (1841); observations of South American slavery (1842-1843); antislavery views in Richmond, Virginia; and opposition to the annexation of Texas as a proslavery plot to enable the South to secede (1844); the outfitting with tools of a slave manumitted by the Blackfords (1844); letters written by the slave Maria West for her blind owner and occasional personal notes from West herself (1846-1847); news of Abraham, a manumitted Blackford slave who joined a colony in Liberia (1845); opposition faced by abolitionists in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and nationally (1849); views on slavery and colonization (1850); response to a plan to send slaves to the Amazon Valley (1851); Charles Blackford's opinion of the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853); a proslavery argument and description of the treatment of slaves written by V. M. Randolph of Forkland, Alabama (1859); an account of the life, death, and philosophies of Richard Randolph, a Virginian who freed his slaves and moved to Ohio (1859); reaction to John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry (1860); the Northern working-class view of the war and slavery (1862); the secession crisis and Confederate army life (1861-1865); problems with freed slaves (1865); news of Liberia and the hope that emancipated slaves would join the African colony (1865); the idleness of freedmen and thievery among blacks and whites (1866); experiences of the white M. Payne in teaching black children (n.d.); and a description of a Danville, Virginia, race riot (1883).
Family, professional, and business papers of Blanchard, author, art collector, and interior decorator of California and New York. This extensive collection contains correspondence, diary entries, clippings, pictures, and other background materials relating to Blanchard's book, The Life and Times of Sir Archie: The Story of America's Greatest Thoroughbred, as well as family letters written from a plantation near Columbus, Mississippi. The correspondence contains plantation letters from Sarah Amis that routinely mention the welfare of two slaves named Lethe and Sophia, including an 1840 note stating that Lethe gave birth to a child who was "right good looking and not black of course"; a letter from Sophia to Bettie and Sallie Amis (1858); a North Carolina letter referring to "old negroes" at the end of the Civil War (1867); a comment from Sallie Amis in Petersburg, Virginia that "the niggas are as impudent as they can be" (1867); a report from Mamie Amis in San Francisco of Irish prejudice against free blacks (1869); and discussion of the political actions of blacks in Louisiana (1870-1876).
This collection includes three scrapbooks containing newspaper clippings from the North Carolina Goldsboro and Wilmington Messengers, of which John Henry William Bonitz was coproprietor. The clippings are primarily columns written by Bonitz or his wife. Volume 2 contains two photographs of two African Americans: Alexander Manly, an editor in Wilmington, North Carolina (1898), and "Drake," a candidate for mayor in Wilmington in 1897. There is also a typescript copy of notes on Manly's background.
Correspondence, business and legal papers, scrapbooks, genealogical information, pictures, and miscellaneous papers of the Markham, Leigh, Durham, Lloyd, and other families, chiefly of North Carolina. The collection contains business and legal papers primarily of the Shephard, Leigh, and Markham families of Orange and Durham Counties, North Carolina. Papers include a will that calls for the sale of land and slaves (1819); a property inventory listing slaves (1821); and documents relating to the hiring of slaves (1832, 1839). Among the Durham and Lloyd family correspondence is a letter of application for a position as a teacher at an African-American public school in the Beth-Carr district, probably in Orange County, North Carolina. (1900). In addition, the collection contains post-Civil War letters of three African-American families: the Goodwins of South Carolina, the Pickens of Connecticut, and the Mitchells of Durham, North Carolina.
Records of several generations of the Anderson family, physicians and planters near Stateburg, South Carolina. Included are a slave book and notes (1830); a contract for labor with free blacks (1865); and store accounts and advances made to free blacks (1866-1868). Microfilm available.
Records of the Old Hickory Council of the Boy Scouts of America, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Included are papers relating to integration of the troop (1964).
Family, business, and military papers of the Boykin family of Camden, South Carolina. Mainly business and plantation papers, the collection contains slave bills of sale; a typescript narrative entitled "The Tell-Tale Letter Picked Up by a Slave" (1865); and transcriptions of letters concerning John W. DeSaussure's emancipation of his slaves (1865). Post-Civil War materials contain the paper "Articles of Agreement between Freedmen and Women and S. Boykin" (1868) and letters concerning labor problems on plantations (1865-1881).
Seven tapes of stories of Demus Green, from a Gullah community in Charleston, South Carolina.
Correspondence, financial and legal papers, memorandum books, and diaries of Bradbury, insurance agent of New Orleans, and other members of the Bradbury family of Manlius and Canandaigua, New York; Cincinnati and Montgomery, Ohio; Madison, Indiana; and New Orleans, Louisiana. Legal papers contain slave bills of sale, including an 1841 bill for a slave described as addicted to drunkenness. Microfilm available.
Personal, business, and political papers of four generations of the family of John Branch, planter and politician. Correspondence includes frequent references to plantation life, black slaves/workers, and concerns over the Civil War. Folder #134 contains an undated contract for labor with freedmen (late 1850s), and subseries 2.1.2 and 2.2.2 include information on freedmen. Microfilm available.
Professional correspondence and writings of Branson, educator, author, editor, president of the state Normal School of Georgia and head of its Department of Rural Economics and Sociology; and founder and head of the Rural Social Economics Program at the University of North Carolina. Letters discuss race relations in Orange County, North Carolina, and elsewhere (1914, 1916-1917, 1920); lynchings (1915-1921); African-American land owners (1915); schools for African Americans (1917-1918); the northern migration of African Americans (1917); the University Commission on Race Relations (1918); the search for an African-American "draft dodger" (1918); the work of the Southern Publicity Committee for better race relations (1918); wages of African-American workers (1919); civil rights (1919); meetings of the Inter-Racial Committee (1919); recommendations for interracial work with the YMCA (1920); the increase of racial prejudice in the South (1921); attitudes toward the Ku Klux Klan (1922); fundamentalism and the Klan (1926); and the voting of southern African Americans (1927). The collection also includes addresses and essays on the ownership of farms by African Americans in Georgia (1886-1913); "The Negro Working out His Own Salvation" (1913); surveys of the African-American population in Georgia (1911); information about African-American churches in Georgia (1913); and statistics on slave ownership in North Carolina (1915).
Chiefly correspondence among members of the Brashear, Lawrence, and related Barr, Parker, Clay, Tilton, and Townsend families. Letters include references to buying slaves (1827) and the management of plantation slaves in New Orleans (1844-1860).
A collection of letters written by Bratton, physician, state senator, and Confederate army officer from Winnsboro, South Carolina, to his wife. Letters discuss "free Negro volunteers" at Ft. Pickens, Battery Island, South Carolina (1861), and Bratton's directions on the care of slaves in the event that Yankees reach his South Carolina home (1865).
Legal papers, financial records, and family correspondence, chiefly 1850-1889, of the Blodgett, Britton, and Moore families of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Northampton County, North Carolina; and New Orleans, Louisiana. Correspondence includes two letters to Ellen (Britton) Moore from Howard Moore, the son of a former Moore slave, concerning his progress in a Raleigh, North Carolina, school. Financial papers contain records of the hiring of slaves (1854-1855) and the purchase of a slave (1850).
Correspondence, financial and legal materials, and other items relating to Brooks's activities as teacher, Baptist preacher, and plantation owner of Georgia and South Carolina, and the activities of his family. Brooks, who amassed through marriage and purchase considerable holdings of land and slaves, was a staunch supporter of slavery. Included in this collection are letters from overseers discussing the condition of slaves on Brooks's Georgia plantation (1846-1855); letters documenting Brooks's desire to publish an account of the South's view on slavery, "A Defence of the South Against the Reproachments and Encroachments of the North: In Which Slavery is shown to be an Institution of God" (1850); receipts of slave sales (1787-1832); a document of inheritance concerning the management of slaves in Georgia (1831); and a slave list compiled for tax purposes (1861). Microfilm available.
Family correspondence of Broun, planter of Richland County, South Carolina, and Lowndes County, Alabama. Correspondence includes a letter advising Broun to sell southern property due to the impending abolition of slavery (1842), and a letter recollecting past days of "loved and trusted slaves" (1933). The collection also includes a list of slaves and their supposed ages and valuations (1843). Microfilm available.
Diary of Broun describing events and conditions in the area near her home at "Sunny Bank," Middleburg, Virginia, during and after the Civil War. She discusses her dealings with both Union and Confederate soldiers as they passed through her land and the behavior of enslaved and free blacks.
Recordings of sacred songs, worksongs, popular songs, and blues collected in North Carolina. Includes Pilgrim Singers, Boone State Prison Camp; Prymrolle Quartet, Boone State Prison Camp; Will "Shorty" Love, Durham; and various artists, Spear.
Extensive and varied business and personal papers of three generations of the prominent Brown family of Wilkes County, North Carolina, and the related Gwyn, Gordon, and Finley families. Antebellum papers dating from the 1770s contain a number of slave bills of sale and documents concerning the hiring-out of slaves in Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee; a series of letters from William Gwyn concerning arrangements to hire a particular slave couple (1835); and several letters from Indiana residents responding to runaway slave notices posted by Hamilton Brown (1835-1839). Also included are letters from slaves negotiating terms of hire (1830s-1840s) and contracts for hiring freedmen (1871-1907). Microfilm available.
Correspondence and other papers of the Brownrigg family of Chowan County, North Carolina, and Lowndes County, Mississippi. Financial and legal materials contain many items concerning the buying and selling of slaves (1736-1862). Personal correspondence includes comments on the disposition of slaves (1885); the prayer of slave "old Dick" (1835); messages sent home from slaves traveling with their owners (1835); and an observation of the "kindly affectionate relations" between slaves and masters in southwest Virginia (1835). Microfilm available.
Miscellaneous papers of Laura M. Cole Smith and family of South Carolina. Series 2 includes an autobiographical sketch of James R. Brumby, a Confederate soldier and businessman, in which Brumby refers to going into business with an African American (1929). Microfilm available.
Primarily business papers and correspondence documenting the professional and commercial activities and home life of the families of James W., James A., and Charles S. Bryan. Correspondence covers topics such as the transfer and sale of slaves (1841); the murder of an overseer by a slave (1840); rumors of a slave insurrection in New Bern, North Carolina (1840); legal justice for the murder of a slave (1846); the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850; race riots in Boston (1851); the issue of a free black woman of British citizenship who had been enslaved in America (1851); the issue of confiscated land given to freedmen (1883); the white supremacy movement (1890s); and the Ku Klux Klan (1920s). Microfilm available.
Personal and business papers of the Bryan, Leventhorpe, Davenport, and Avery families, chiefly of North Carolina. Material prior to 1860 includes many documents relating to the buying and selling of slaves, and scattered Civil War items concern the secession crisis.
Scattered family letters (1807-1918), bible records, and Civil War reminiscences of the Bryan and Minor families of Georgia and Virginia. The collection contains papers relating to slavery and freedmen, including statements of a former slave and servant.
Personal and business correspondence and legal and financial papers of the Bullock and Hamilton families of Granville (now Vance) County, North Carolina, and Lowndes County, Mississippi. The Bullock papers contain a letter discussing opinions on slavery (1844) and the will of Sally Fain, an African-American woman who owned slaves (1854). Hamilton family papers refer to the purchase, rental, and treatment of slaves and to the issue of runaway slaves as well as to the North's view on the treatment of slaves and the relocation of freed slaves to the North. The collection also contains a letter from a freedman in New Orleans who was trying to purchase his enslaved sisters from Hamilton (1851). Microfilm available.
Letter dated 26 October 1860 from N. Bullock of Bristol, Rhode Island, to his nephew E. C. Bullock, a Eufaula, Alabama, lawyer, legislator, and secessionist. The letter gives N. Bullock's opinions on slavery, abolitionist theories, and New Englanders.
Diaries, correspondence, and writings of a family of North Carolina Methodist ministers and editors of church publications. Materials include information concerning racial violence in Tennessee in 1946 collected by Paul F. Bumpas. A diary of Sidney D. Bumpas contains an account of the mistreatment of free black Lunsford Lane in Raleigh, North Carolina (1842).
Miscellaneous papers of the Burgwyn family of Northampton County, North Carolina, largely of William Hyslop Sumner Burgwyn. Volumes include plantation accounts, a personal diary, deeds and family letters. Financial and legal materials contain receipts of slave sales and slave lists (1830-1861), and correspondence of Henry King Brown discusses the handling of slaves (1843). Microfilm available.
Accounts kept by Burke of Rowan County, North Carolina, including records of slave hirings.
Memoir written by Edwina Burnley and Bertha Burnley Ricketts discussing the Burnley family history. Most of the manuscript focuses on recollections of childhood on the plantation "Somerset" in Copiah County, Mississippi, and details relations with relatives, neighbors, and slaves. Microfilm only.
Correspondence, legal, and financial papers of Burton and his wife Nancy, both of Yanceyville, North Carolina. The collection contains correspondence from family members that discusses the prices of slaves in Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama. Included is one letter of inquiry concerning the purchase of a female slave and her child.
Family correspondence among members of four generations of the Burton and Young families of Granville, Lincoln, Cabarrus, and Mecklenburg Counties, North Carolina. Included are papers sent to Sarah Virginia Burton Young by the managers of her plantation discussing the conduct of workers, especially rioting by freedmen, and the unsettled nature of local politics as related to freedmen's votes (1866-1896).
This collection consists of personal, financial, and legal papers of the Burwell family of Warren, Vance, and Granville counties, North Carolina, and Mecklenburg County, Virginia, and the Williams family of Warren County, North Carolina. Included are letters which concern slave sales (1736-1799, 1832-1835); the hiring of slaves (1820-1835); the division of slaves according to an estate settlement (1850s); records of slaves hired and purchased (1830-1845, 1845-1860); letters of agreement between free blacks and William Henry Burwell of Virginia (1866-1873); account books and farm journals that record the birth dates of slaves and horses belonging to the Burwell family and slave purchases and sales (1805-1860); lists of both black and white members of the Tabernacle Society of the Tabernacle Methodist Episcopal Church in North Carolina (1832-1850); and a school register for a black school in Vance County, North Carolina (1881- 1887).
Judicial files, correspondence, and other materials of Butler, a Sampson County, North Carolina, lawyer (1931-1959), U.S. District Judge for eastern North Carolina (1959-1978), and active member of the Republican Party. While serving as a judge Butler gained a reputation for his involvement in desegregating North Carolina public schools and in numerous civil rights cases. The collection reflects his efforts in the civil rights movement and contains speeches that reveal his dedication to desegregation (1950s-1970s).
Primarily correspondence of Button, Virginia Commissioner of Insurance, 1925-1929. Correspondence reflects his involvement with the White Advisory Committee for the Richmond Colored Community Hospital Campaign (1927).
Largely personal correspondence of the Caffery and Richardson families of Iberia Parish, Louisiana. The collection includes information on plantation life and refers to white control over slaves and free blacks (1840, 1857, 1868). Microfilm available.
The Cameron family of Orange and Durham Counties and Raleigh, North Carolina, was among the state's largest landowners and slaveholders during the antebellum period. Correspondence regards attitudes toward slavery; plantation management (1830s); runaway slaves (1847); a former slave's attempts to buy her children (1859); and the aftermath of emancipation, including the looting of Fairntosh Plantation by former slaves. Additional materials include a narrative about a test case brought by an African-American servant (1865); slave lists and a slave ledger which provide information on the hiring and expenses of slaves, transfer of slaves, contracts to sell slaves, recording birth and deaths and slaves' occupations; student essays on slavery (1796-1805); an undated essay "A Peep into the Old Dominion" discussing problems of free labor; and an account book recording accounts for African Americans (1866). The collection also includes letters written to and from a former Cameron family slave living in Liberia (1840s) and letters from a slave in Alabama reporting on plantation business to the Camerons. Microfilm available.
One letter to Professor Campbell of Washington College, Lexington, Virginia, from T. J. Jackson, describing the Lexington Sabbath School for African Americans (1858). Microfilm only.
Correspondence, volumes, financial items, and other material (1811-1899) of the Capehart family of Scotch Hall Plantation, Bertie County, North Carolina, with some material concerning the Martin family of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The collection includes slave records (1840-1864), a recipe book containing a list of the names and births of former slaves who remained on the plantation after the war, and letters from Kate (Mary Carey Capehart) to her father (Cullen Capehart) mentioning freed blacks who wished to remain with their former owners (1866). Microfilm only.
Collection of several hundred sound recordings containing extensive documentation of musical and religious life in the Sea Island communities of Georgia and South Carolina as well as events relating to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.
Interview with Preston Sylvester Fulp, blues guitarist in Walnut Cove, North Carolina, and family members.
Papers, chiefly from 1890, of Carmack, editor of Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee, prohibitionist, U.S. Representative, and U.S. Senator. The collection contains material primarily relating to political activities. Included are photographs of black agricultural laborers and other plantation scenes in the vicinity of "Rosemary," a farm or plantation presumably in Alabama (probably Hale County), ca. 1890-1910. Microfilm available.
Diaries of various members of the Carmichael family of Augusta, Georgia, including the diary, 1837-1845, of Mrs. Eliza (Eve) Carmichael, which mentions family slaves. Microfilm available.
Diary of Carney, the daughter of a Murfreesboro, Tennessee, merchant, describing antebellum life in Murfreesboro and travel to various places. Many entries mention slaves, including a description of slaves purchased and bestowed as a wedding gift (1859) and the marriage of slaves (1862). Microfilm available.
Letters, telegrams, business and legal documents, maps, newspaper clippings, and miscellaneous papers pertaining to the business and personal affairs of Carr of Chapel Hill and Durham, North Carolina, manufacturer of tobacco products and Methodist Church and Democratic Party member. The collection includes a group of manuscript addresses and Sunday School lessons given by Carr, some of which discuss race relations in North Carolina and throughout the South (1896-1923).
Chiefly financial papers of various Wilson, North Carolina, residents, some of whom were members of the Carr, Barnes, and Branch families. Included are estate inventories and papers relating to the hiring of slaves.
Correspondence and financial and legal papers of Carter, planter, land speculator, and entrepreneur of Scottsborough Plantation, near Milledgeville, Baldwin County, Georgia, and of Coosawattee Plantation, Murray County, Georgia. The collection primarily documents Carter's business activities, including the buying, selling, and hiring-out of slaves. Letters also cover topics such as the treatment of slaves (1825); problems of slave management (1830-1850); news of house servants and field hands (1851-1858); effects of an ordinance passed in Marietta, Georgia, concerning African Americans' autonomy to hire out their services and relating to their residences (1854); and marriage customs among slaves (1854). Financial and legal materials include bills of sale for slaves (1812, 1821); a certificate of character for a slave (1830); bills for hire of slaves (1840); and terms for hire of slaves (1850). The papers also document Carter's involvement in legal controversies over ownership of slaves in Florida. Microfilm available.
Two tapes of Willie Trice, blues singer and guitarist in Orange County, North Carolina.
Letters and papers of Caruthers, lawyer, state legislator, Whig politician, founder and professor of law at Cumberland University, U.S. Representative, state supreme court justice, and Confederate governor of Tennessee. Papers include letters from nephew Jesse Caruthers of Yazoo County, Mississippi, which discuss hiring free blacks (1865-1867). Microfilm available.
Correspondence, speeches, writings, and research materials of Chambers, native of North Carolina, newspaper editor, and author. The 1930s papers include an unpublished editorial about lynching, a news release from Atlanta, Georgia, about the Southern Commission on the Study of Lynching, and a mimeographed report about lynching from Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. Also included are a group of "Letters to the Editor" and correspondence on the Supreme Court decision on segregation in public schools (1954-1958); a report entitled "Press Coverage of the Desegregation Story" given at an American Society of Newspaper Editors convention (1955); information on the policies of newspapers in Norfolk and Princess Anne Counties, Virginia, concerning circulation to blacks (1956); drafts, booklets, and articles concerning school desegregation and the migration of blacks to the North (1958).
Letters sent by Kemp Battle, W. B. Phillips, and J. M. Horner to Edward A. Oldham regarding Chavis, an African-American educator and minister.
Predominantly professional correspondence, speeches, writings, and subject files documenting Cheshire's activities as a North Carolina Episcopalian clergyman and bishop, 1878-1932. Cheshire was actively involved in mission work and concerned with relations with African-American Episcopalians in the Diocese. Issues of race relations within the Diocese are well documented throughout the collection. Speeches include "Church and the Negro," ca. 1885, and "Racial Episcopate," 1916. Subject files cover topics including "St. Augustine's School," "Convocation Among Colored People," and "Joint Commission on a Racial Episcopate."
Contains letters of the Cheves, Wagner, and related families, chiefly of South Carolina and Georgia, discussing negotiations to unite a Cheves household slave, Harry, with his wife, who was owned by another family (1819-1846). Microfilm available.
The Claiborne papers contain a small number of items relating to the personal life of Claiborne, lawyer, congressman, editor, and historian of Mississippi and Louisiana, and consist largely of materials collected by him in preparation of a history of Miss. Included are power-of-attorney papers of Ann Young of Washington, DC, given to Claiborne for the purpose of recovering her minor son, a free black (1836); a long account of grievances of Margaret Forbush, the wife of a freedman, claiming that a group of white men deprived her of property and requesting the protection of the U.S. government and courts (1869); a reply to an unidentified antislavery treatise (Folder 60); fragments and drafts on slavery (Folder 62); and newspaper clippings on slavery (Folder 73).
Chiefly letters to Clarke from his father, Colin Clarke, planter and lawyer of Gloucester County, Virginia, describing hardships under Union occupation during the Civil War. Included are references to slaves leaving the plantation and taking property with them (1862-1863); Union arrangements for hiring free blacks (1862); a gift of $50.00 from Fanny, a black nurse, to her white charge (1863); difficulties in purchasing clothes for blacks (1863); and "trouble" with blacks (1863).
Undated recollections of Clawson, then city editor of the Wilmington, North Carolina, Messenger, who was an eyewitness to the Wilmington race riot of November 1898. The collection also includes a notarized copy of the editorial concerning southern womanhood by black editor Alexander L. Manly, which preceded the riot.
A letter from Thomas Fearn, an Alabama native visiting England, to Clay, prominent lawyer and politician in Huntsville, Alabama. The letter chiefly concerns Fearn's sentiments in favor of emancipation.
Papers of Clay, a member of the Georgia militia, include a record of slaves impressed to work on Savannah defenses (1864).
Professional and personal correspondence of Clement, an African-American civic leader and educator who served as a member and chair of the Durham, North Carolina, City Board of Education. Her political activities include support for civil rights and women's rights.
Personal and professional papers of Clement, an executive of the black owned and operated North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company and a civic leader in Durham, North Carolina. Correspondence, financial and business papers, and records document his activities with groups including the Durham Committee on Black Affairs, Penn Community Services, North Carolina Central University, and the Durham Progress Group. The collection also contains papers relating to Clement's family life and North Carolina politics.
The personal diaries of Clitherall, a plantation owner's wife and school teacher of Belleville and Waterloo, South Carolina, Thornbury Plantation, North Carolina, and Greensboro, Tuscaloosa, and Mobile, Alabama. Entries detail the reception of Clitherall's mother by family slaves in North Carolina (1784); the loss of slaves because of financial problems (1813); and Clitherall's attempts to instill religious beliefs in her slave Eliza (1853). Microfilm available.
Chiefly personal correspondence of Cocke, planter and U.S. naval captain of Prince George County, Virginia, and of his family. Included are papers relating to Harrison Cocke's activities in the late 1840s when he commanded the U.S.S. St. Louis in the suppression of the illegal slave trade. Microfilm available.
Correspondence and writings of Coles, child psychiatrist, educator, social activist, writer and professor of psychiatry and medical humanities at Harvard University. A leading authority on poverty, racial discrimination, and minority children, Coles won recognition for his book Children of Crisis: A Study in Courage and Fear, based on his study of African-American children in the South in the 1960s.
Mostly papers and correspondence of the family of Colhoun (1750-1802), lawyer, South Carolina legislator, and U.S. senator. Papers relate to plantation management and contain information on slave conditions, frequently mentioning runaways, their reasons for leaving, and their punishments, along with tasks assigned to particular slaves. The diary of James Edward Colhoun discusses the execution of two slaves for poisoning their master (1825-1826). Microfilm available.
Papers from the Confederate Army engineer's office at Charleston, South Carolina. Includes accounts for slave and free labor.
Recordings of African-American musicians who performed in clubs in vicinity of Carrboro and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in the 1970s. Artists include "Dump" Fairo, a boogie woogie and blues piano player, and Jasper "Jack" Minor, guitarist. Recorded by Cece Conway in or near Chapel Hill, 1974. [4 reels, FT1722-FT1725]
Fretless banjo songs and tunes played by African-American musician John Snipes, recorded by Cece Conway and Tommy Thompson in 1974. [4 reels, FT1766-FT1769] Banjo songs and vocals played and sung by African-American musician Dink Roberts (b. 1895), recorded by Cece Conway and Tommy Thompson in Haw River, North Carolina, ca. 1974. These audio recordings complement video recordings (or film) made at the same event(s). [8 reels, FT1770-FT1777] Banjo and fiddle music played by Joe and Odell Thompson, recorded by Cece Conway and Tommy Thompson in Mebane, North Carolina (1974). No other information available at time of writing. [7 reels, FT1778-FT1784]
Records of Cooke, a U.S. army quartermaster in the New Bern, North Carolina, area, including financial and personal records, accounts of garrison equipage, and records of quartermaster's stores. Many of the personnel were former slaves, then called "contrabands," hired as laborers and serving in the 2d U.S. Colored Calvary.
Correspondence, writings, speeches, scrapbooks, teaching materials, and clippings of Coon of Wilson, North Carolina, an advocate of educational issues, including African-American education. Coon was appointed Superintendent of North Carolina Negro Normal Schools (1904-1906), and discussions of African-American education can be found throughout the collection, including correspondence with E. E. Smith, F. M. Kennedy, J. B. Dawdle, J. D. Raid, and Booker T. Washington, among others (1909, 1912-1913). Papers also discuss the northern migration and African-American tuberculosis hospitals. Scrapbooks and other materials reflect Coon's various interests including North Carolina history and juvenile crime among blacks and whites in North Carolina (1910-1911).
The diary of Cooper, homeowner in Tuscumbia, Alabama, and plantation owner in Coahoma County, Mississippi. Entries record daily incidents in plantation management, including his dealings with slaves and free black laborers. The diary mentions the sale of slaves (1862); supplies given to black workers on credit (1865, 1872); slave births (1865); and evangelical services held by Mrs. Frame, a black minister in Tuscumbia, Alabama (1886). Microfilm available (in part).
This collection consists of a diary, writings, correspondence, sermons, and records of Cornish, Episcopal minister of Aiken, South Carolina. The diary records Cornish's experiences and thoughts on teaching and preaching in the South Carolina low country. He includes his observations of plantation life and the treatment of slaves as well as of the black community's attendance of church services in Charleston and on Edisto Island, both in South Carolina, and mentions services held specifically for blacks. The collection also includes a register of black members of an Episcopal Church on the North Santee River (1843). Microfilm available (in part).
The bulk of this collection consists of a microfilm copy of personal correspondence and financial material of the Couper family of Glynn County, Georgia. Papers relate mainly to the family plantations and refer to workers and slaves. Materials include a deed for slaves and land (1827) and a list of plantation slaves recorded for the purposes of a mortgage deed (1861).
Papers of Cowles (1821-1907), a Wilkes County, North Carolina, merchant specializing in roots and herbs, a Whig and post-war Republican, and a consistent promoter of land, mining, and railroad development in northwestern North Carolina. Included are slave bills of sale (1773-1839) and a letter concerning a young runaway slave (1857).
Scattered papers of Cox, businessman, local official at Kinston, North Carolina, and mayor of Goldsboro, North Carolina. The collection contains miscellaneous receipts and communications relating to the hiring of slaves (1861-1865), including two items signed by Washington Duke (1863).
Farm account books of Edward Cox, owner of six farms in Henrico County, Virginia, and physician's ledger/notebooks and farm account/daybooks of his son Thomas Edward Cox, physician and farmer in Henrico County. Included are slave lists as well as slave medical accounts (1847); a record of shoes given to slaves (n.d.); inventories of slaves owned by Thomas Cox (1854); and meat and meal allowances to slaves and white farm hands (1854). Microfilm available.
Dub of original disc recording submitted with Portia Crawford's masters thesis entitled "A Study of Negro Folksong from Greensboro, N.C. and Surrounding Towns" (UNC-CH, Folklore, 1965). Includes mostly unaccompanied singing by people aged ten to 106 and includes spirituals, children's songs, ballads, and animal songs. Recordings presumed to have been made between 1960 and 1963. [1 reel, FT1319]
Correspondence and miscellaneous papers of Criglar, owner of a lumber milling business with holdings in Escambia County, Alabama, and in the adjoining Florida counties of Escambia and Santa Rosa. The collection includes a slave list and a deed of bequest from Criglar to his wife which names and describes the slaves of the mill (1862). Microfilm available.
A commonplace book and diary kept by Crocker, teacher of Warsaw, Wyoming County, New York, and of Falling Creek, Wayne County, North Carolina. The volume contains discussion of Whig opposition to the expansion of slavery with diary entries relating to Southern plantation life. Includes entries on the condition and treatment of slaves.
Croom, native of North Carolina, botanist, and Florida planter, died with his family in the wreck of the steamer Home which sailed from New York for Charleston in 1837 and wrecked south of Hatteras. Papers in this collection were gathered in the course of litigation over Croom's estate and consist chiefly of his own correspondence. Included are letters concerning his plantation slaves. Microfilm available.
A varied collection of business and personal papers, chiefly relating to persons living in, near, or connected with Edenton, North Carolina, to the affairs of the town and county and to the state government. The papers consist of public and private papers and records, several photographs, drawings, maps, and pamphlets. Included are numerous mentions of slaves.
Letters from prominent Americans to Curry, a Southern educator and general agent of the Slater Fund for the education of freedmen. Included are two letters from Grover Cleveland and one each from James Bryce and Wade Hampton concerning Curry's work with freedmen (1899).
Personal and professional papers of Curtis, an Episcopal minister, teacher, and noted mycologist of Wilmington, Raleigh, and Hillsborough, North Carolina, and of Society Hill, South Carolina. The collection includes comments on Dearest family slaves (1841-1842); a receipt for the sale of a slave (1846); letters discussing a Dearest family neighbor charged with murdering a slave and the white community's outrage at the accused (1811); the acquisition of a preacher to minister to slaves (described as "a godless set") (1841); and the reception of Uncle Tom's Cabin in England (1853). Curtis's personal diary contains entries that describe the panic and activities relating to the Nat Turner insurrection in Southampton County, Virginia, and the threat of an uprising in the vicinity of Wilmington, North Carolina (1831).
Material related to the Penn Normal Industrial and Agricultural School and/or to life on St. Helena Island, South Carolina, compiled by Dabbs, collector and writer of the island's history. The collection includes an article or speech entitled "African Music," a short history of the Penn School; copy of a transcript of the diary of Laura M. Towne (1862-1864), one of the founders of the Penn School; a letter written by a plantation owner's wife (1791); and photographs of sketches of buildings on the island (sketches produced in the 1860s).
Papers of Dabbs, English professor, churchman, civil rights leader, and farmer of Mayesville, South Carolina, including records of Penn Community Services, a center for civil rights debates and conferences. Papers discuss, among other political and social issues, racial inequalities (1944-1970). The collection includes letters commenting on the treatment of blacks, occasional hate-mail letters prompted by Dabbs's civil rights activism and writings, Dabbs's articles on desegregation, and research material Dabbs collected in files, bearing titles such as "Freedom of Thought in Southern Colleges" (which contains correspondence between Dabbs and professors at southern institutions about the issue of freedom to comment on desegregation events) and "The economic effect of the racial struggle."
Business and personal correspondence of the Dabney family of Virginia that includes a report from a slave of the cruelty of an overseer, requests for baby clothes for slaves, and a certificate of reward for the return of a runaway slave (1772). The collection also contains an undated letter from R. L. Dabney to the Head of the Freedmen's Bureau.
Miscellaneous papers including the Civil War reminiscences of Dalton, Confederate naval courier to Europe, and an account by Hamilton H. Dalton of his service with the U.S. Navy off the African coast and capture of slave ships. Photocopies only.
Three account books, a cipher book, an "album of remembrance," and pages of data from a family Bible belonging to the Daniel family of North Carolina. One account book contains a list of names and dates of slaves born (1813-1864).
Correspondence, writings, notes, clippings, pictures, and other materials of Daniels of Raleigh, North Carolina, freelance journalist and author, editor of the Raleigh News and Observer, wartime assistant to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and advisor and biographer of President Truman. Material throughout the collection relates to race relations, including school integration in the South.
Correspondence, financial and legal material, account books, and other material of Nathaniel Chesley Daniel and Anne H. Bullock Daniel, of Tranquility Plantation, Granville County, North Carolina. Included is a letter advising Anne of her inheritance of a slave (1856) and two photographs of three former slaves of the Daniel and Bullock families.
Collection containing several hundred reels of audio tape and thousands of feet of moving image material, as well as correspondence, field notes, production logs, photographs, promotional material, and other documentation relating to films made by Tom Davenport. Several of Davenport's films pertain to African-American subjects, notably Born For Hard Luck, which looks at the life and times of medicine show performer, songster, and blues man, "Peg Leg" Sam Jackson, and A Singing Stream, which examines the musical life and traditions of the Landis family and their gospel singing group, The Golden Echoes.
Scattered family papers and data pertaining to the descendants of John Daves of New Bern, North Carolina, and related families. The collection includes a copy of a deed for sale of slaves (1816). Microfilm available.
Family and business correspondence, account books, ledgers, and day books of members of the Davidson family of Mecklenburg and Gaston Counties, North Carolina. Includes letters discussing the high price of slaves in Florida and an investment scheme to purchase North Carolina slaves to resell in Florida (1836).
Letters, report cards, and other items relating to Davis and other members of the Davis family of Warren County, North Carolina. The bulk of the collection consists of letters written to Davis while he was a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. These discuss, among other topics, sicknesses among Davis slaves (1853) and neighborhood suspicion of a black woman who was accused of arson (1854).
Correspondence, scattered business papers, addresses and essays, and miscellaneous materials, mostly 1850-1900, of the Davis and Walker families of Wilmington, North Carolina. The Davis Family Series contains one slave deed of ownership (1833); documents relating to the Freedmen's Bureau (1866); and recollections of songs sung by blacks on a Davis rice plantation (1915). The Walker Family Series contains slave deeds of ownership (1786, 1855); slave lists (1855, 1862); a promissory note paid for the hiring of a slave (1861); and letters discussing Walker slaves living in Raleigh and Wilmington. The correspondence expresses concern for slaves' health and over- frequent escape attempts (1862, 1865); the permissive attitude of an acquaintance toward slaves (1865); and anxiety about the arrival of black troops in Wilmington (1865). An account of rent payments received, some apparently from former Walker slaves (1867), also is present.
Papers of two cooperative farms in Mississippi founded in an attempt to help southern agricultural workers, including African Americans, out of their economic plight.
Correspondence, legal and financial papers, record books and diaries of the De Rosset family of Wilmington and Hillsborough, North Carolina, and Columbia, South Carolina. Correspondence includes letters, discussing the hiring out of slaves written to the De Rossets by their slaves in Wilmington, North Carolina (1861-1864) and activities of freed slaves (1865-1871). Financial materials include slave bills of sale; a deed of emancipation for a Charleston, South Carolina slave (1817); and a slave record listing births and deaths of De Rosset family slaves (1790-1854). The collection also includes four prints of charcoal drawings of African Americans by H. P. Kimball.
Plantation journal of DeSaussure, physician and planter of Beaufort County, South Carolina. Entries discuss slaves, diseases, weather conditions, and DeSaussure's war-time duties as a surgeon with the 8th and 4th South Carolina regiments. Included are slave lists which note births, deaths, and sales (1835-1856), and a list of slaves that notes familial relationships (1857). Microfilm available.
Military and business papers of Devereux, hardware merchant, banker, and Confederate veteran of New Orleans, and financial, personal, and legal papers of Stephen and J. C. Van Wickle, both sheriffs of Point Coupee Parish, Louisiana. The collection includes a letter (1829) authorizing the hiring out of slaves, slave treatment, and the inappropriateness of a woman's handling the hiring out of slaves. Financial and legal papers include a slave bill of sale (1842). A volume of sheriff's accounts includes a clipping concerning the legality of a free black manumitting a slave and her three children (1827) and another volume lists slaves purchased and amount paid. Among the Civil War records is a list of slaves conscripted to work on the fortification of Fort Pemberton, Mississippi, and a provision return form for slaves transporting ammunition and guns from Greenwood to Wenona, Mississippi (1863). Microfilm available.
Chiefly correspondence between the family of Dickins, planter of Ossian Hall in Fairfax County, Virginia, agent for the U.S. War and Treasury Departments, and lawyer of Washington, DC, and the family of his wife, Margaret Harvey Randolph. Correspondence includes advice on the handling of slaves (1845); the purchase of two elderly slaves (1848); and a mention of post-Civil War servants in Virginia (1868).
Chiefly business and personal papers of the family of Dickson, UNC alumnus, attorney, and state representative of Burke (now Caldwell) County, North Carolina. The collection includes letters discussing the poor health of Tennessee slaves (1814-1818); freed slaves leaving their masters (1865); and the imprisonment of a white man in Morganton, North Carolina, for shooting a black man (1865). A personal journal records the production output of a Kings Mountain iron forge that employed slave labor (1837- 1852).
Personal correspondence and diaries of Dixon, native of Mississippi, Confederate officer, and California lawyer. The collection consists chiefly of correspondence between Dixon and his parents near Greenville, Mississippi, and in Demopolis, Alabama, discussing the Fugitive Slave Act (1860); the "fate of negroes who followed enemy's columns," (1862); the faithfulness of slaves during the war (1863); the disinclination of former slaves to sign unspecified "contracts" in Alabama (1867); the refusal of former slaves to work for former slaveholders (1867); former slaves as sharecroppers (1869); blacks wearing Union Army uniforms (1869); and the opinions of whites toward blacks following the war (1869). Microfilm available.
Professional and personal papers of Dozier, a Georgetown, South Carolina, attorney and state legislator. Letters written during Reconstruction present a detailed description of the role of African Americans in local politics (1868); discuss the integrated Legislature (1868); and provide information on African-American juries and judges and on business difficulties faced by African Americans (1870).
Manuscript notebook of an Ascension Parish, Louisiana, lawyer contains notes and dates of family events (chiefly 1843-1855), including a trip taken on the Mississippi River on a boat carrying a cargo of slaves.
Account book probably kept by Alexander Ross, a trader and planter in West Florida, the Bahamas, and elsewhere (1776-1793). The volume also contains entries of William Dunbar's son of the same name, a Natchez, Mississippi, planter (1845-47). Entries record dealings with the colonial governor of Virginia as well as with freedmen. Microfilm available.
Miscellaneous papers and letters of various people relating to New Bern and Carteret and Craven counties, North Carolina. The collection contains letters discussing the sale and disposition of slaves (1852, 1862).
Diary of Eaton of Portland, Maine, a traveling nurse with the U.S. Army. The majority of the collection consists of Eaton's observations and opinions as an Army nurse visiting camps in Virginia, leaving supplies, and aiding the sick and the wounded. One early entry describes a church service for slaves in Mobile, Alabama (1853-1854). Microfilm available.
A record book of the Edenton (North Carolina) Methodist Episcopal Church; includes a history of the church discusses slave and free black members. Microfilm available.
Records of the Springfield Beat Company of the South Carolina militia, kept by Col. John Hill, and Hill's plantation journal. The journal records the daily activities of Hill's slaves (1830- 1832) and contains accounts for "medical services" performed to Hill's slaves (1835).
Civil War diary of Edmondson (b. 1840) of Shelby County, Tennessee. The volume contains accounts of slaves and refers to free blacks fighting on the Federal side. Microfilm available.
Records of Rotherwood Plantation near Farmville, probably in Prince Edward County, Virginia, including accounts with black domestic and agricultural laborers. Papers primarily relate to payment for labor, days worked, advances and deductions, and record transactions with former slaves, hired hands, and sharecroppers (1865-1868).
Includes reports and correspondence regarding the North Carolina College for Negroes and materials pertaining to his 1965 book, The Free Men. As a special assistant to North Carolina Governor Terry Sanford, 1963-1964, he worked on several desegregation and anti-poverty projects.
Includes a slave bill of sale, 1799.
Journal of the Elizafield Plantation, Glynn County, Georgia, which belonged to the rice planter Hugh Fraser Grant. Includes slave lists, records of goods distributed to slaves, slave birth and death lists, and a list of slaves who contracted measles in 1852. Microfilm available.
Primarily correspondence of Elliot, lumberman of Fayetteville, Cumberland County, North Carolina, who also served as a colonel in the militia and was a member of the North Carolina House of Commons, 1824-1825, and the North Carolina Senate, 1826. Contained in the collection are bills and receipts documenting the purchase and sale of slaves. Correspondence covers various topics including the possibility of slave insurrections in Mississippi and North Carolina (1840s).
The collection contains the papers of Elliot's mother-in-law, Mary Esther (Huger) Huger, which includes a plantation record book (1858-1863) and her essays on slavery and the Civil War (undated). Scattered family correspondence refers to African Americans in the New Congress in Washington DC (1866) and to an African-American politician in Charleston (1868). Microfilm available.
Correspondence, financial and legal papers, account books and writings of the Elliott and Gonzales families of Beaufort and Colleton Districts, South Carolina. Correspondence covers various topics, including a slave rebellion (1822); buying and selling of slaves (1827); hiring out of slaves; attitudes of Northerners and Southerners toward slavery and slaveholders (1847); plantation management (1848, 1849); the refusal of slaves to work, concern that slaves would run away to the Union Army, and efforts to recapture runaway slaves (1861); and a comparison of the black and white work ethic. Financial and legal papers contain slave bills of sale and slave lists (1855, 1863). The collection also includes a memorandum book listing names, probably of slaves (1859); a plantation journal listing slaves bought with the plantation (1840-1851); and letters written by slaves who were drivers on plantations (1848-1849). Microfilm available.
Slave records and other papers relating to the family of Ellison, planter of Baldwin County, Alabama. The collection includes a 16-page notebook containing lists of slaves belonging to Ellison and records of their hire to other planters (1848, 1858-1860). The collection also contains a letter from Abram M. Allen, an Ellison slave freed before the Civil War, in which Allen advises his former owners of his whereabouts and offers hope for the future (1864). Microfilm available.
The manuscript diary of Elmer, editor of the North Carolina Spectator and Western Advertiser, a weekly newspaper published in Rutherfordton, North Carolina. Diary entries include a description of Elmer's meeting of a group of slaves en route to Alabama where they were to be sold (1829), and of the general disappointment in Rutherfordton when a slave, convicted of an unspecified crime, was exiled from the town rather than hanged (1829).
Correspondence, legal, and financial papers of Erwin, Confederate officer, accountant, and bank president of Burke County, North Carolina, and of related families. The collection includes slave deeds of sale (1779-1856); correspondence referring to the health of slaves in Burke County and concerns over slaves mining gold in California (1852); and letters discussing a possible slave rebellion (1857-1861).
North Carolina lawyer, jurist, legislator, U.S. Senator, and champion of civil liberties. ERVIN opposed civil rights legislation for African Americans as a violation of the Constitution. Series 2 of his Senate files contains six boxes of materials pertaining to civil rights.
Plantation diaries of ERVIN, cotton planter and owner of Liberty Hall Plantation in Landaus County, Mississippi. Entries record slave birth and death dates, information on buying and selling slaves, the hire of slaves owned by others, distribution of blankets, hats, and other clothing to slaves, payments made to slaves for their "Christmas work," and occasional accounts of the amount of cotton picked by slaves. ERVIN also wrote rules for slave conduct and punishment, including guidelines on the handling of quarrels, the duties of husbands and wives, absence from the plantation, and curfew (1847). Microfilm available.
Professional correspondence and speeches of Ethridge related to his career in journalism, principally as editor and publisher of the Louisville, Kentucky, Courier-Journal and Times; editor of New York Newsday; and instructor in journalism at the University of North Carolina. Letters concern American race problems in general (1933); civil liberties in regard to African Americans, Jews, and the Ku Klux Klan (1939); the education of African Americans in Mississippi (1940); segregation in the South (1956, 1964); and the Ku Klux Klan (1964). The collection also contains Ethridge's personal notes on civil rights (Folder 166) and copies of his speeches, such as "America's Obligation to Its Negro Citizens" (1937), a lynching speech (1940), "The Race Problem in the War" (1942), and "The South's Worst Qualities Have Come Out," which dealt with integration (1956).
Accounts of Henry McCall of New Orleans for Evan Hall, a sugar plantation in Ascension Parish, Louisiana, and for another plantation in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana. Entries document the purchase of slaves. Microfilm only.
Personal and business correspondence and financial and legal papers of Evans, farmer, merchant, and county commissioner of Fayetteville, Cumberland County, North Carolina. The collection includes letters relating to the status of black Americans before and after the Civil War. Microfilm available.
Chiefly business materials and personal letters of Faison, a physician and cotton planter of Duplin County, North Carolina. Business papers contain scattered indentures and deeds for slaves (1770-1859).
Chiefly correspondence of Fales, a Union soldier with the 42d Massachusetts Infantry stationed outside New Orleans, Louisiana. Letters from his family discuss attitudes toward the Civil War and slavery, including comments on black regiments (1863). Fales' letters mention mulattoes and black regiments.
Correspondence, literary manuscripts, clippings, and other materials documenting the career of Farrell, a Greensboro, North Carolina, photographer who contributed photographs for several University of North Carolina Press books. The majority of the material relates to Stella Gentry Sharpe's Tobe (1939), a book describing the life of a young black child and his family in the 1930s. Tobe was considered revolutionary literature as it depicted black characters favorably. The collection includes public reactions from blacks and whites toward the book.
One letter written by Pearson to his mother in Pennsylvania. Pearson provides a brief description of Raleigh, North Carolina, during Reconstruction from the point of view of a Union soldier and comments on the activities of the Ku Klux Klan.
Letter from Whittier, a U.S. Army soldier at Hilton Head, South Carolina, to his mother, Mrs. Polly Whittier, describing the Union camp at Hilton Head. The writer discusses local blacks and states his belief that the Union should employ them in some productive way (it is unclear whether the writer means as soldiers or as laborers). He also comments that local blacks would starve to death without aid from the soldiers and states that he had been informed by several former slaves that their masters had not beaten them as he had been told at home.
Life histories, written as part of the Federal Writers' Project, and related correspondence of W. T. Couch, the assistant and associate director for the North Carolina segment of the Project, 1936-1937, and director for the Southern region, 1938- 1939. The collection contains the life histories of approximately 1200 individuals, including many African Americans. Histories are arranged by state and subjects are identified by occupation. Microfilm available.
Office files of an interdenominational, interracial group of southern church people (lay and clergy) seeking to apply the Christian faith to current social disorders in the South. While external changes in conditions caused shifts in emphasis and specific policies, basic interests lay in race relations, anti- Semitism, rural dependency, and labor conditions. Included in the collection are papers relating to new uprisings of the Ku Klux Klan and the arrest of Fellowship members in Atlanta, Georgia, because of an interracial student folk dance party (1948).
Correspondence and files relating to the activities of Felmet, a pacifist and civil rights advocate. Letters relate to Felmet's application to take the bar exam in North Carolina, which was denied by the Board of Law Examiners who believed Felmet would not uphold the law where his moral convictions conflicted with state and federal legislation. The collection also contains files that reflect Felmet's activism, with an emphasis on his civil rights work with the American Student Union and Workers Defense League, and files relating to Felmet's arrests for protesting the draft, segregation in interstate travel, and the mistreatment of migrant workers. These files, obtained by Felmet under the Freedom of Information Act, were heavily edited by the FBI prior to their release. Photocopies and carbon copies only.
Manuscript draft of a treatise or a long public address concerning the American Colonization Society and containing a description of the Society's objectives and results, policies, and enterprises. The unsigned draft is attributed to Fendall, a Washington, DC, lawyer and author. Microfilm available.
Anecdotes and tales about fishing and hunting, animals (Rooster and Buzzard, etc.) as told by African-American storyteller Howard Cotten, recorded by Joan Fenton in 1978; n.p. [3 reels, FT1159]. Henry Johnson, an African-American musician, performs five unidentified country blues songs with guitar accompaniment, recorded by Joan Fenton, Michael Levine, and Steve Wolf in Union County, South Carolina, 1973 [1 reel, FT1282]. Country blues, gospel, fiddle tunes, and ballads performed by Jamie Alston and Wilbur Atwater, recorded by Joan Fenton, Michael Levine, Steve Wolf, and Bruce Bastin in Orange County, North Carolina in 1973 [2 reels, FT1298-FT1299]. Dubs of field recordings of Reverend Gary Davis ["Blind Gary Davis"] originally recorded by John Cohen at Davis' apartment in New York City in 1952. Includes songs with guitar accompaniment and also features Reverend Peoples and Annie Davis [4 reels, FT1339-FT1342]. Interviews with and songs by Charles Williams, a washboard player from White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, and Nat Reese, a guitarist and blues singer from Princeton, West Virginia, recorded by Joan Fenton in 1978 [FT1493]. Recordings of an African-American church service with electric gospel music, biblical readings, chanted sermon, and congregational testimonies, recorded by Joan Fenton near Princeton, West Virginia, ca. 1975 [5 reels, FT1508-FT1512]. Interview with Elvie Johnson on topics including railroading, blues, and dancing. Johnson also plays songs with Travis style guitar accompaniment, recorded by Joan Fenton in Meadow Creek, West Virginia, 1975 [FT1514].
This collection contains a group of papers relating to the mobilization and service of the Halifax County, North Carolina, militia during the Nat Turner rebellion (1831-1832).
Civil War letters and miscellaneous military and other papers of Finley, a soldier in the 30th Illinois Infantry serving in Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Georgia. One letter discusses black soldiers coming under fire in Tennessee (1862).
Diaries, a sketchbook, and personal records of Robert George Fitzgerald, sailor and soldier in the Union Navy and in the 5th Massachusetts Colored Cavalry and teacher in Virginia and North Carolina. The collection includes copies of Fitzgerald's pension record, his marriage certificate, and his father's manumission certificate. Fitzgerald's diary entries record the activities of black regiments and personal thoughts on the future for blacks in America; employment at a freedman's school in Amelia Court House, Virginia; views of the local African-American community; political activities; attendance at Lincoln University; and personal and professional affairs as well as those of the African-American community in Hillsborough, Orange County, North Carolina. Microfilm only.
Business, financial, personal, and political papers of Fitzpatrick, lawyer, planter, and politician of Autauga (now Elmore) County, Alabama. The collection includes receipts for purchases of slaves and a letter from Dixon H. Lewis discussing abolitionists (1841). Microfilm available.
Business correspondence, receipts, and other financial papers of Raymond Cay, merchant and factor of Riceboro, Liberty County, Georgia, and personal and family correspondence of his daughter Elanore Eulalie Cay Fleming of Liberty and Harris Counties, Georgia. Letters discuss Yankee depredations in Georgia (1865) and the hire of blacks as seamstresses (1872). The collection also contains a family record that describes Salter's Creek Plantation in Liberty County, Georgia, the effect of war and Reconstruction on the plantation, and reminiscences of individual Cay family slaves. Microfilm available.
Lists tools, food, and slaves furnished by various slave owners, perhaps for a public construction project, near Fernandina or White Spring, Florida. The context for the entries is obscure.
Miscellaneous papers of French Forrest of Maryland, U.S. Naval officer in the Mexican War and Confederate Naval officer; and of his son, Douglas F. Forrest (1837-1902), officer in the Confederate Navy, lawyer in Baltimore, and Episcopal minister. The collection mentions freedmen in Texas. Microfilm available.
A collection of items related to North Carolina, including a slave bill of sale from Halifax County (1766).
Correspondence, speeches and writings, magazine and newspaper clippings, financial papers, and photographs of Forwood, physician of Darlington, Maryland. Forwood, who attempted to justify slavery on medical grounds, served as president of various local medical societies and was the local historian of his hometown. Included in the collection are letters discussing the alleged intellectual inferiority of the black race (1857) and writings and speeches concerning slavery, including: "The Negro -- A Distinct Species" (1857), "Notes on Ethnological and Anatomical Differences in the Races" (1861), and "Slavery the Cause of War" (1861- 1865).
Correspondence, financial and legal materials, and miscellaneous items chiefly relating to the family of Simon Foscue, planter of Trent Bridges (later Pollocksville), Jones County, North Carolina. Legal documents contain a listing of slaves (1803); records of the buying, selling, and hiring-out of slaves (1831-1853); and several receipts for jail and apprehension fees paid to the sheriff for the capture of runaway slaves. Correspondence includes a letter concerning the hiring of a pregnant slave (1860); the flight of the Foscue family and slaves deeper South during the Civil War (1862); and a fragment of an account of the murder of the Keaves Foscue family by black robbers (1866).
Papers documenting Fountain's 30-year career as congressman of North Carolina's Second District, an area that straddles the coastal plain and the piedmont in the northeast-central part of the state. Included are legislative documents relating to the North Carolina Black Caucus (1978); civil rights (including voting rights and segregation) (1957-1958, 1962-1971, 1973, 1975-1977, 1979-1982); and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1971- 1972, 1977-1980). The collection also contains speeches written by Fountain on such topics as the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination (1968). Use restricted.
Papers and correspondence of an African-American family concerning daily life and activities in rural Alamance County, North Carolina. Letters from family and friends discuss personal and neighborhood news, earning a livelihood, and education. The collection contains student notebooks, test papers, and essays, and a group of papers concerning Edna Lee Foust's training as a nurse (1945-1949). Use restricted.
Mostly correspondence, clippings, and printed material relating to the desegregation of the undergraduate class of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1955 by John T. Brandon and Frasier's sons Ralph and LeRoy Jr. Most of the correspondence is from friends and supporters in Durham and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and nearly all of the clippings pertain to the activities of the Frasier sons at Chapel Hill and in later years. Also included are three photographs of the students on the first day of class at UNC (1955) and a letter of R. B. Frasier to his sons in which he reminisces about the impact of the incident on the lives of the Frasiers (1971).
Account books from Hanover and York counties, Virginia, and from Frederick's Hall Plantation in Louisa County, Virginia. A letter book kept by Major John Snelson contains occasional references to slavery in Virginia and limited references to politics. Microfilm available.
Business correspondence and papers of Fries, architect, cotton manufacturer, and state legislator of North Carolina. Included is Fries' personal diary, which documents the construction and operation of his woolen mill in Salem, North Carolina, work chiefly carried out by slave labor.
Largely personal correspondence of Francis Fries (1812-1863) and his family of Salem, North Carolina, and of his daughter, Carrie (Fries) Shaffner (1839-1922) and her husband, J. F. Shaffner (1838-1908), a Confederate surgeon in North Carolina and Virginia. Letters discuss Carrie Fries' social encounters with abolitionists in Philadelphia (1857) and news of the health, illnesses, and deaths among Fries slaves in Salem (1860). Microfilm available.
Manuscript volumes and papers relating chiefly to the plantations of Fripp, cotton planter of St. Helena Island and Chechessee Bluff, Beaufort County, South Carolina. Antebellum materials include slave lists and records of religious activities and illnesses among slaves (1817-1868). Postbellum materials contain accounts and copies of letters concerning free black agricultural laborers.
Letters of the Meade and Funsten families chiefly of the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, area. Included are Civil War letters and a letter from a former slave.
Family and personal letters received by Gage, physician and horse breeder of Union, South Carolina. Correspondence contains discussions of opposition to abolitionism and includes a letter written by Gage's brother Robert discussing the difficulties he encountered in negotiating with newly freed blacks on his plantation (1866).
Family and military papers of the Gale family of Jefferson and Yazoo Counties, Mississippi, and Davidson County, Tennessee, and of the Polk family of Raleigh, North Carolina; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Sewanee, Tennessee. The collection includes information on runaway slaves and the loyalty of slaves during the Civil War and of freedmen afterwards.
Papers of and about Joseph Gales, his wife Winifred (Marshall) Gales, and their descendants, including manuscript reminiscences of their experiences as printers, publishers, and booksellers in England, as refugees in Germany, and as immigrants in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Raleigh, North Carolina. The manuscript volume "Recollections" relates the Gales' purchase of slaves for household, farm, printing, and later, paper making.
Family letters, financial and legal materials, and other papers relating to the Galyean and Munchus families of Surry County, North Carolina. An unsigned note in the collection laments the writer's loss of his slaves and investments during the Civil War (1860s).
Legal complaint of Eleazar Cumming, administrator, in regard to the settlement of the Garret estate in Wilkinson County, Georgia. The attached exhibits contain an inventory and appraisal of the estate, including mention of slaves.
Family and business papers of Gaudet, secretary-treasurer of the Miles Planting and Manufacturing Company, which controlled thirteen large sugar plantations; developer of a New Orleans subdivision; and business representative of William Porcher Miles. Series 1 contains papers relating to the ownership of the Houmas plantations and other Louisiana property and includes lists of slaves and free blacks (1840s-1850s).
Diary of Gavin, planter and lawyer who owned a plantation near St. George, South Carolina. The diary contains numerous references to slaves and free blacks, including the trial of men accused of murdering a slave (1856, 1857); slave sales (1859, 1860); a runaway slave whom Gavin originally bought because he owned the man's wife and family (1855, 1856); free blacks and reactions to a neighbor who associated with them (1855, 1858); and the murder of a woman by two free blacks (1866).
A collection of tales told to Gellert by African Americans. Entitled Tales of One Time I'shman Told by Southern Negroes, the volume expresses African-American experiences with Irish immigrants.
Over 300 reels of audiotape featuring recordings of several well-known African-American folk musicians including Elizabeth Cotten.
Chiefly correspondence relating to the Gibson and Humphreys families of Live Oak Plantation and Oak Forest Plantation near Tigerville in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, and of Sumner's Forest Plantation near Versailles, Kentucky. One letter, written from Yale College, discusses two speakers who presented lectures at the college on their opposing views of slavery (1854).
Personal correspondence (chiefly 1780s-1860s), deeds, wills, and miscellaneous papers of several generations of the Giles, Reston, Jocelyn, and other related families of Wilmington, North Carolina. Correspondence consists mainly of family matters and business, and includes letters from both Confederate and Union soldiers and a letter from a former Giles family slave (1882). The collection also contains a copy of a proslavery speech.
Five tapes of spirituals recorded at St. Joseph Mission Baptist Church, North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Recorded for the soundtrack of "The Struggle," for the Learning Institute of North Carolina. [5 reels, FT252-FT256]
Chiefly legal and financial papers of the Gillepsie and Wright families, owners of 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 contains slave bills of sale and other slave papers (1735-1861); tax-related slave documents (1801-1845); papers relating to a court case involving two slaves accused of stealing a pig (1825); and a note giving the average value of slaves in Cumberland and Sampson counties, North Carolina (1861). Other items include two undated acrostics by black poet George Moses Horton.
Correspondence, writings, and other materials of Gilmer, African Methodist Episcopal Zion minister and director of the Trinity Mission, Greensboro, North Carolina, a shelter for the destitute in the 1930s and 1940s. The collection contains many "letters to the editor" for publication in the Greensboro Daily News in which Gilmer discusses racism, the treatment of mulattoes, interracial cooperation, social welfare, and other concerns about African Americans in Greensboro (1937-1945). Gilmer's other writings address immortality, race relations, and African-American education (1940-1944).
Miscellaneous papers of Gilmer (also spelled Gilmore) and his family of Guilford County, North Carolina. The collection includes deeds, indentures, receipts, and a letter concerning the hiring-out of slaves (1846).
Personal correspondence and papers of the related Glenn, Wilson, and Torrence families of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Correspondence reflects the private life, professional activities, and opinions on public matters of members of the extended family, which included ministers, professors, merchants, and farmers. Papers discuss the emancipation of slaves (1797); opposition to slavery (1799); the purchase of slaves (1831, 1852); abolitionist activities (1834); and hired slave labor (1858). Also included are deeds of ownership of slaves (1810-1815).
Family correspondence of the Glenn family of Halifax County, Virginia, and Scotland. The collection includes a letter discussing a reward either for slaves or for capturing runaway slaves (1816) and a slave list (1846).
Recordings, photographs, contracts, correspondence, promotional material, and other documentation relating to Goldband Recording Corporation, a firm operating in Lake Charles, Louisiana, since the late 1940s. The company has produced many African-American musicians and groups, in formats ranging from sacred music to rhythm and blues. This includes artists such as Boozoo Chavis, Count Rockin' Sydney, Cookie and the Cupcakes, Phil Philips, and Herman Guice. The work of blues, rock 'n roll, and swamp-pop African-American artists such as Clarence Garlow, Big Chenier, Guitar Junior, and Katie Webster are also present.
Reel labeled "Singing by Plantation Negroes." Includes blues singing with guitar and gospel quartet singing with some solos. Gordon was from Mississippi State College for Women in Columbia, Miss. The recordings were presumably made in 1963 with a blues singer named "Jabo," but no other information available. [1 reel, FT1222]
Financial, legal, and business papers of Gordon, James M. Wiggins, and Robert L. Hunt, of Granville County, North Carolina. The collection includes Hunt's receipts as treasurer of the Trustees of the Oxford Colored Baptist Church. Also included are apprentice papers for freedmen (1865-1866).
Journal of Gorgas, ordinance officer in the U.S. Army and later with Confederate forces. Entries include references to the political and social situations of African Americans in Alabama immediately following the Civil War. Microfilm available.
Papers of Graham of Oxford, North Carolina, lawyer and state legislator, president of the American Cotton Exchange, and trustee of the University of North Carolina. The collection includes material on a home for African-American orphans in Oxford.
Correspondence, congressional and campaign files, speeches and writings, notes, photographs, sound recordings, and other materials documenting the personal and professional life of Graham, president of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; senator from North Carolina; United Nations representative in the dispute between India and Pakistan and in various other capacities, including the war against the Dutch for Indonesian independence, during the New Deal, World War II, and the Cold War. The papers reflect Graham's interest and activities in race relations and civil rights. Numerous documents relate to North Carolina and national race relations.
This collection consists mainly of narratives documenting the history of the Revolutionary War in western North Carolina by Army officer Graham of Lincoln County, North Carolina. Included is the book The New Annual Register of History, Politics, and Literature for the year 1782 (London: 1783), which contains notations listing slave names and birth dates from 1769-1864. The records were made by Graham and by his son-in-law Robert Hall Morrison. In part photocopies.
Letters and papers of Graham of Hillsborough, North Carolina, lawyer, legislator, U.S. Senator, Secretary of the Navy, Whig vice-presidential candidate, and Confederate senator. The collection contains slave lists; slave bills of sale (1825, 1838- 1840); notice of a sale of runaway slaves (1829); and discussion of the Fugitive Slave Act (1850), Ku Klux Klan arrests in South Carolina (1871, 1873), and race relations (1871).
Correspondence, business records, and writings of Green (1791- 1875), entrepreneur, editor, and politician, and of his son, Benjamin Edwards Green (1822-1907), businessman and diplomat. The collection contains discussion of the Central African Colonization Society (folder 189) and of slavery, abolition, and emancipation (folders 223, 224). Microfilm available.
Professional and personal correspondence, drafts of plays, and other writings of Green of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, dramatist, author, and humanitarian. The collection contains information on race relations, African Americans in the theater and in literature; African-American employment; the NAACP; the North Carolina Committee on Negro Affairs, and other organizations.
Materials relating to members of the Green family of Rolesville, Wake County, North Carolina, and to the Jones family of the Morrisville section of Wake County. The collection contains correspondence from Brian and Marcus Green which discusses the purchase of slaves (1852-1864).
The personal diary of Greenlee, planter, slaveholder, and Presbyterian evangelical of Burke and McDowell Counties, North Carolina. Entries document the daily tasks assigned to his slaves, some of whom were apparently skilled as coopers, cobblers, and tanners. Included in the diary are references to Greenlee's guarded views about the eventual abolition of slavery (1848); his support of proselytizing among slaves in order to train them as missionaries to Africa (1849-1852); and his and his slaves' reactions to emancipation (1865). Microfilm available.
Materials relating to the three court cases stemming from the November 1979 Greensboro riot involving members of the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi Party attacking Communist Worker Party demonstrators, including African Americans.
Correspondence and other papers of Griggs of Dawson, Georgia, state circuit judge and U.S. Representative. Letters relate to Democratic Party matters and congressional activities, including congressional minority leadership and committee appointments (Folder 11). The collection also contains newspaper clippings about the Atlanta Race Riot (1906).
Papers pertaining to three African-American families in Wake County, North Carolina, the McLean, Stinson, and Grisby families. Includes correspondence documenting activities of the families, school records, and involvement with the Wake County Baptist Sunday School Convention.
Diary of Grimball, a rice planter of Charleston and the Colleton District, South Carolina. Entries discuss, among other topics, slavery and free blacks. Grimball apparently employed at least one free black before the Civil War. Microfilm available.
Correspondence, plantation accounts, and financial and legal papers of the Grimball family, owners of Pinebury and Grove Plantations near Charleston, South Carolina. Correspondence discusses attempts to locate former slaves (1865); leasing of Grimball plantations, including Pinebury, which was leased to Adam Deas, believed to be a former slave of the Grimball's (1871); a Ku Klux Klan incident (1871); and the arrest of an African-American suspect in a shooting incident (1898). Financial materials contain bills of sale for slaves bought by Martin L. Wilkins and John Berkley Grimball (1826); lists of items purchased for slaves (1858); and a list of John Berkley Grimball's slaves who deserted to the Union Army (1862). Legal materials include an agreement with Henry Jenkins, a freed slave, to cultivate rice (late 1860s), and a lease with Adam Deas (1871). Microfilm available.
Manuscript diary of Margaret Ann (Meta) Morris Grimball, wife of John Berkeley Grimball, rice planter in the Colleton District of South Carolina, with connections to the Manigault and Lowndes families of South Carolina and to the Morris family of Morrisania, New York. Entries were written from Grove Plantation (the Grimball's primary residence after the Civil War), and from Charleston and Spartanburg, South Carolina, and discuss plantation life; the use of slave labor to build a fort (1861); difficulties with slaves and anxiety about their safety (1862); and general wartime hardships encountered by the family and servants (1862). Microfilm available.
Business papers and other records of the Grimes family, planters and cattlemen of Pitt and Wake Counties, North Carolina. The collection contains plantation records, personal accounts, and correspondence. Also included are papers of W. W. Meyers, U.S. Army surgeon with the Freedman's Bureau at Wilmington, North Carolina.
Letters to Gurley of Windsor, North Carolina, from friends and relatives in Tennessee and North Carolina. Papers include two letters (1830 and 1836) from Matild Turner, formerly a slave in Windsor, discussing her new home in Brownsville, Tennessee, and inquiring after the people of Windsor.
Personal correspondence, financial and legal items, diaries and accounts, and other papers of the family of Gwyn and his wife, Mary Ann Lenoir Gwyn, of Green Hill Plantation, Wilkes County, North Carolina. Included are slave bills of sale (1844-1846); a memorandum of agreement between James Gwyn and several young free blacks (1866); and letters describing Reconstruction politics in North Carolina and Louisiana (1868-1877), and race relations in Tennessee and North Carolina (1898).
Personal correspondence and genealogical data of Hairston, Virginia genealogist, and of other members of the Hairston, Penn, Wilson, and related families of Patrick and Henry Counties, Virginia. Letters discuss the condition of slaves (1852); black Union troops (1864); anxieties over newly freed slaves (1865- 1877); and agreements with Georgia freedmen (1865). Also included are several letters relating to George Hairston's military discharge during the Spanish-American War, which may have been connected with his company's involvement in an affray with an African American (1898). Partial microfilm available.
Chiefly correspondence and business papers of Hairston, tobacco planter of Pittsylvania County, Virginia. Letters discuss plantation affairs, including conditions among slaves in North Carolina (1842-1861); antebellum free blacks in Philadelphia (1847); the well-attended execution of a black man in Virginia for murdering another black man (1844); the enrollment of black soldiers by Yankee forces (1864); a "Negro tournament" in Stokes County, North Carolina (1876); African-American voting in Virginia (1884); and accounts of crops produced by freedmen in Virginia or North Carolina (1866-98). Also included are a slave bill of sale and slave lists (1840, 1844-1865) and information concerning the attempt of Hairston's step-grandfather, Robert Hairston, to will his lands in Lowndes County, Mississippi, to a slave child he fathered (1844-1865).
Correspondence, financial and legal papers, plantation ledgers, and miscellaneous items documenting the business and personal affairs of the Hairston family of southwestern Virginia and north central North Carolina. Plantations documented include Sauratown Hill in Stokes County and Cooleemee Hill in Davie County, North Carolina, and other plantations in Surry and Davidson Counties, North Carolina; Henry and Patrick Counties, Virginia; and in Columbus, Mississippi. Papers include letters that discuss the buying and selling of North Carolina slaves (1787-1828); the health of slaves on Virginia plantations (1833-1834, 1837-1840); slave unrest in Virginia (1861-1863); and a tribute written by an African-American minister to Fanny Hairston upon her death (1937). The collection also contains slave bills of sale (1815, 1821- 1826); lists of tobacco and corn picked by slaves in North Carolina (1842-1861); a letter to the Charlotte Observer from an African-American preacher expressing his views on servant-employee relations, organized labor, and the training of domestic workers (1930s); a typed copy of an oral interview of William T. Hairston, great-grandson of Hairston slaves (1865); slave registers and births (1815-1836; 1833-1850; 1850-1868; 1844-1864); copies of letters and legal documents concerning court battles over Robert Hairston's estate, which he attempted to leave to a slave child he fathered (1844-1864); and ledgers kept by plantation managers with freedmen (1866-1883).
Chiefly personal letters and papers of the Hairston and Wilson families of Martinsville, Danville, and Staunton, Virginia, and of Yalabusha County, Mississippi. Family correspondence documents the westward movement of various Hairston family members and gives detailed information about household activities and management. Subseries 2.1 includes slave lists and labor contracts with freedmen in the Danville, Virginia, area (1865-1871), and Subseries 2.2 contains information about slaves on Virginia plantations (1831-1869). Partial microfilm available.
Chiefly personal correspondence of Hall, lawyer and state senator of Wilmington, North Carolina. Letters discuss family matters, slavery, local and national politics, the University of North Carolina, and the practice of law. Included are discussions of the Fugitive Slave Act (1850).
This collection consists primarily of a scrapbook compiled by Hall, the wife of Dr. W. T. Hall, pastor of High Street African American Baptist Church in Danville, Virginia (1897-1904); vice- president of the Virginia Baptist State Convention (1908); and pastor of the Galilee Baptist Church, Roxboro, Pennsylvania (1913- 1928). The volume includes religious materials, memorabilia, poems and prayers, photographs, and family correspondence.
Professional and personal correspondence of Hamilton, rural sociologist with interests in rural life, the rural church, the rural family, rural health issues, the land tenure system, farm labor, internal migration, methods of population analysis, and social statistics. Before gaining a professorship of Rural Sociology at North Carolina State University, Hamilton taught at Morris College; the University of North Carolina; and Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Correspondence discusses, among other topics, interracial cooperation and African-American education.
Personal correspondence, notes, and unpublished writings of, or about, Hamilton, nullification governor of South Carolina and diplomat of the Texas Republic. Included in the collection are Confederate government receipts for slaves and goods (1860-1865) and letters discussing the sale of slaves, the care of slaves during the war, and abolition. Microfilm available.
Scattered papers and letters received by Hamilton, District Court judge of Travis and Williamson Counties, Texas, Democratic Party executive committee chairman, and congressional candidate in 1926. Materials chiefly relate to Hamilton's political affairs and legal career, especially his charges to the grand juries of Travis and Williamson Counties concerning investigations of the Ku Klux Klan (1921-1922). Documents relating to this matter include a typescript of Hamilton's charge to the grand jury (1921); a typed report from the grand jury to the judge concerning a specific case of Klan violence (1921); and letters received by Hamilton following his charge (1921-1922). The collection also includes an undated anti-Klan poem and a postcard of a gathering of approximately 1,000