Illustration of a black magic practioner performing a ritual on a kneeling African American man. Enslaved North Carolinians kept African traditions alive by practicing hoodoo and other forms of folk magic. Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

An enslaved person might find themselves being owned by a variety of different individuals throughout their life, each of whom might treat the enslaved individual very differently. A change in ownership, whether desired or not, was often a source of immense anxiety for enslaved individuals. Such was the case for Daniel, an enslaved African American man living in Hyde County.

In the early summer of 1756, Daniel felt his life turn upside-down when his enslaver, Littleton Eborne, announced his marriage to Elizabeth McSwain. McSwain evidently had a reputation in the area as a cruel and strict owner. Daniel expressed his anxieties to another enslaved person named Peter, stating that Elizabeth McSwain, now Eborne, was "as Cross as the Devil" and refused to allow the enslaved people to eat pork.

Feeling as though Elizabeth Eborne’s treatment of enslaved people was intolerable, Daniel might have thought it was a sign when he found a dead rattlesnake. Taking it home, Daniel carefully cut off its head and dried it before grinding it up into a fine powder, which he secretly slipped into her "Victuals and Drink." By June 1756, she was dead. However, the secret was too much for Peter, who testified against Daniel, and Daniel was found guilty of murder.

Herbal remedies and rituals were not always meant to influence enslavers. In some cases, such as Jane’s, an enslaved woman in Johnston County, they were a means of preserving bodily autonomy. In 1779 she sought out a local enslaved conjurer named Caesar. From Caesar, Jane received an herbal substance, referred to as "truck," which was supposed to work as a contraceptive.

In many cases, enslavers wanted their enslaved people to have children, as it’d be a means of increasing their workforce. Further, having children also made enslaved adults less inclined to try to self-emancipate themselves by running away. By seeking out contraception, Jane undertook a conscious step for herself, disregarding what her enslaver’s wishes might have been. By deciding on her own whether she wanted children, Jane exercised agency over her body and her future.

While Anne boycotted British imports such as tea, she still relied on Esther to serve her food and drinks, amongst many other duties. We cannot be certain whether Esther herself recognized this irony. Whatever her reason, in 1779, just five years after the Edenton Resolves, when Anne asked Esther to prepare her a cup of tea, a task Esther had probably performed thousands of times before, something snapped in Esther.

That day, Esther slipped a secret ingredient into Anne’s tea—verdigris, a blue-green compound that was considered a medicine in the colonial era, which was meant, in small quantities, to induce vomiting. Esther hadn’t meant for the verdigris to be a tonic, however. Instead she meant to poison and kill her enslaver. Esther’s plot was uncovered however, and Anne survived the poisoning attempt. Did Esther have the irony of the Edenton Resolves in mind when she poisoned Anne’s tea specifically? We’ll never know for sure. But the question highlights what’s left to discover about North Carolina colonial history.

Inscribed with the message "Am I not a man and a brother?" this medallion was designed as by Josiah Wedgewood for the Anti-Slavery Society in 1787. The icon of the African American man kneeling in chains helped to rally people toward the cause of abolition. Courtesy of the New York Public Library.

When petitioning for their freedom, many enslaved individuals relied on endorsements of support from their local communities. By demonstrating that they had their neighbors’ goodwill, enslaved individuals attempted to ease officials’ concerns, showing that their freedom would not cause issues. In addition to citing a long history of good behavior, some enslaved individuals also pointed to vital services they did for their communities.

Peter, an enslaved man of African American and American Indian descent, collected signatures from his neighbors in Perquimans County for his freedom petition. Peter’s community attested that he had no criminal history, and, in fact, was an asset for the surrounding populace. Locals depended on Peter, an expert tracker and hunter, to kill dangerous wild animals that threatened their livestock such as “Bears, Wolves, Wild Cats, & Foxes.”

The outcome of Peter’s petition was not recorded, but his case exemplifies how enslaved people emmeshed themselves within communities and provided vital services despite being in bondage. They then used that social capital when it suited them, such as collecting support for their applications for freedom.

The Vestry of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Edenton, pictured above, hired out Amy Demsy's labor to the Duckenfields. Courtesy of SANC.

Enslaved individuals used petitions not only to apply for their own manumission, but also to ensure they’d be able to maintain their freedom. Such was the case for James, an African American man residing in Perquimans County. James had been enslaved by a prominent local Quaker named Thomas Newby. Morally opposed to slavery and no longer bound by British laws that had forbidden emancipation, in 1776 Newby and several other Quakers freed their enslaved people, including James.

The threats to James’ personhood should have ended there—he was legally manumitted, but in 1777 the North Carolina General Assembly passed a new law forbidding emancipation and declared that those enslaved individuals freed in 1776 were retroactively in violation of the new law.² If Newby refused to take James back, then the law stated that James would be reenslaved and sold at public auction.

Rather than risking reenslavement, James took to the high seas, serving as a privateer in Patriot service during the American Revolution. After the war, Newby and several other prominent Perquimans citizens filed a petition, arguing that James ought to be allowed to remain free due to his meritorious military service. The petition was granted and James was able to live out his life as a free North Carolinian alongside his wife and children.

Engraving of a group of African American men watching as two white people sleep in a burning building. Courtesy of New York Public Library.

While sometimes a means to freedom, enslaved people also engaged in violence when they’d had enough of the cruel circumstances of their enslavement and desired revenge. One such woman who’d had enough was Rose, an African American woman in Halifax County. Rose was enslaved by Matthew Rabun and when Rabun’s neighbor had Rose whipped for an unspecified crime, Rose immediately desired retribution.

Tired of the cruel treatment she had endured, a short time later when Rabun threatened to burn all of Rose’s clothes, she hit her breaking point. Rose ran away, or self-emancipated herself, and set fire to the neighbor’s barn before making her escape. Later, officials captured Rose, who confessed to the crime. At Rose’s trial, enslaved people testified that she’d told them of her plans to burn area enslavers’ “houses over their heads,” and that if she could not escape, she’d commit suicide. Ultimately the local court found Rose guilty and ordered her execution.

Rose committed these violent acts against her enslaver, knowing fully what the consequences could be. In the face of such severe mistreatment, Rose and other enslaved individuals responded with violence, wanting to exert their own control over themselves and their surroundings, no matter the cost.

When a chance at freedom was no longer an option, some enslaved individuals banded together to conspire against their enslaver instead. Such was the case for five enslaved people owned by Beaufort County bachelor Henry Ormond. One night in July 1770, one of the enslaved people escaped, but Ormond recaptured them, punishing them severely.

The enslaved escapee was probably Annis, an African American woman responsible for the day-to-day management of Ormond’s household. Feeling as though there was no way out from Ormond’s cruel treatment, Annis then conspired with her fellow enslaved people to hatch a new plan. If they could not leave Ormond’s bondage, then they’d make Ormond’s power over them terminate in another way—by murdering him.

That same night, five of Ormond’s enslaved people, namely Annis, Lucy, Phillis, Cuff, and an unnamed man, crept into Ormond’s bedroom while he was sleeping. Using a handkerchief, they strangled him until he was unresponsive. Ormond regained consciousness however, and when they heard him stir, Annis encouraged the others to return and attack him again. Reportedly Ormond begged for mercy, which Annis refused, citing his prior cruel behavior. The conspirators then placed a spare mattress on top of Ormond, smothering him to death. Trying to cover up their crime, they dressed Ormond in riding clothes, put his body on his horse, and set the horse down the road, hoping to make it seem as if Ormond had died during a nighttime horse-riding accident instead.

Their subterfuge was soon discovered however when the unnamed enslaved man confessed, testifying against the others in exchange for immunity. Annis, Lucy, Phillis, and Cuff were found guilty of the crime and sentenced to death. The others faced the gallows, but for orchestrating the murder, Annis would be burned at the stake. According to oral tradition, Annis did not regret her crime even as the fire started. Ormond had never granted mercy, and therefore she refused to show remorse in return.¹ While extreme, Annis’ case demonstrates how desperate enslaved individuals were to improve their circumstances, no matter the risks or consequences.

During the colonial and revolutionary eras, there was perhaps nothing white North Carolinians feared more than the thought of an enslaved rebellion. During the summer of 1775, those fears became a reality when a group of enslaved people in Pitt, Craven, and Beaufort Counties left their plantations and potentially laid plans for a violent revolt.

According to rumor, Merrick, an enslaved ship’s pilot, had orchestrated the rebellion with assistance from an English ship captain. At least forty people of color were arrested in connection to the plot, and enslavers estimated at up to 250 enslaved people were involved. However, extant records suggest this number was more reflective of enslavers’ paranoia than reality.

Allegedly, the plan for the rebellion was one specific night, enslaved people would kill their masters’ entire families before burning down every enslaver’s home in the area. Once all the enslavers were dead, local African Americans would be free to establish their own independent government, and each person would “take Choice of the Plantation” properties as suited them.

It's difficult to say what the true extent of the plot was, but it’s clear that some enslaved individuals did self-emancipate during this period. Fewer assaulted their enslavers, and it is unclear which white people died as result of the event, if any. Nevertheless, the punishment for this supposed rebellion was harsh. Officials restricted enslaved people’s travel, and any spotted along the region’s roads without permission were legally allowed to be shot as criminals. Because of the attempted uprising, at least six enslaved African American men and women were severely punished. Enslaved revolts, while largely unsuccessful, demonstrated the extent to which enslaved people would fight to achieve their independence.

This engraving depicting Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831 reveals some enslavers' greatest fears: a violent enslaved uprising. While there appear to have been no white victims of the supposed Pitt and Beaufort enslaved uprising of 1775, unfounded rumors of such violence circled throughtout North Carolina that summer. Courtesy of University of Virginia Library.

Engraving of three African American men running. By running away, or self-emancipating, enslaved people claimed freedom for themselves. Courtesy of the New York Public Library.

Running away from their enslavers’ plantations was a common, though dangerous way, that enslaved people pursued freedom. One North Carolinian that took this path was Charles Thompson, or “Scrub,” as he was known to his enslavers.

Prominent merchant Richard Bennehan of Orange County purchased Thompson when Thompson was just twelve years old. Enslaved, Thompson was forced to labor at Bennehan’s Snow Hill Plantation, and it was not long before Thompson established a reputation for himself as someone that would resist the confines of his bondage. In 1776 with the chaos and disorder American Revolution looming, rumors swirled amongst enslaved about the possibility of running away. At this time, Bennehan advised his overseers to keep a close watch on Thompson in particular, then aged seventeen.

Finally in 1784, when Thompson was twenty-five, he seized his opportunity and ran away. In a wanted ad Bennehan published in local newspapers, he stated that Thompson might have headed for Virginia, but if that was true, it does not appear Thompson was ever captured and reenslaved.² By leaving the bounds of the plantation on his own accord, Thompson successfully seized his own freedom.

Many enslaved people tried to run away, but not everyone was successful. Yet when faced with the prospect of capture and reinslavement, runaways like Cudgo refused, making a dramatic and permanent choice to remain free of bondage.

Sometime prior to October 1768, Cudgo ran away from his enslaver, William Campbell, in New Hanover County. At first it seemed as though Cudgo would be able to maintain his freedom. However, after Cudgo was absent from the plantation for some time, Campbell had Cudgo outlawed, meaning he was wanted dead or alive.

After intensive search, somewhere along the banks of the Northeast Cape Fear River, a slave patrol closed in on Cudgo. The patrollers intended to reenslave him. If Cudgo resisted capture, he’d be met with violence in return. Perhaps feeling cornered and desperate, Cudgo opted to jump off a bridge into the rushing waters below, where he subsequently drowned. For some like Cudgo, suicide was a better option than returning to bondage.

One common goal of running away was freedom, but as Scipio’s story demonstrates, enslaved individuals ran away for a wide variety of reasons. Scipio, an African American man residing in Bertie County, was enslaved by Samuel Scollay. In 1741 Scipio left his enslaver’s plantation, but instead of seeking freedom for himself, he ran to the plantation of another enslaver, Benjamin Hill.

Scipio resided, and presumably labored, at Hill’s plantation for over a year before Scollay pursued legal action, demanding Scipio’s return. Legal records are scattered and incomplete, but it does not appear that Scollay’s petition was successful. Scipio remained enslaved by Hill, not Scollay, for the rest of his life. But what could prompt Scipio to leave one enslaver for another on his own accord? We can’t say for certain, but Hill’s will, dated less than a decade later, may provide some clues.

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Group photo of the NC American Indian Heritage Commission, Governor Roy Cooper, and several state officials. Courtesy of the NCAIHC.

Celebration of Governor Roy Cooper's proclamation marking November as American Indian Heritage Month in 2023. Courtesy of the NC Department of Administration.

State recognition provides American Indian nations with a variety of benefits. Recognition a way for communities to celebrate their shared ancestry and win acknowledgement from the state that their cultures and traditions are important. Moreover, formal recognition also allows tribes more direct access to shaping state legislation that affects them, as well as priority funding for educational opportunities, housing assistance, economic development, and many other state-funded initiatives. Finally, state recognition allows tribes to have representatives within state government in the form of the Commission of Indian Affairs and the American Indian Heritage Commission.

In the case of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the court system, first established in 1820, also hears criminal and civil cases that occurred on trust property.¹ This trust property, called the Qualla Boundary, was established in 1876 and comprises over 82 square miles of the Eastern Band’s historic homelands as part of a federal protective trust.² Headquartered in Cherokee, NC, portions of the Qualla Boundary lie in Graham, Haywood, Jackson, and Swain Counties. There the Cherokee Courts, in conjunction with the Principal Chief and Tribal Council, govern the Eastern Band today through a democratic process.

Map of the Qualla Boundary circa 1890, the modern home of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Courtesy of the University of North Carolina.

The NC American Indian Heritage Commission also received a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission to conduct oral histories with North Carolinian tribal elders. One of the first interviews is with Gregory Richardson, a member of the Haliwa Saponi, and is linked below. More interviews will appear on the NCAIHC site and at the NC State Archives as they are conducted.

There are many other ways to celebrate American Indian heritage and culture at the community level as well. One of the most notable is the American Indian Heritage Celebration, typically held annually each November since 1995.

Inset of an American Indian man from the 1770 John Collet map of North Carolina. Courtesy of Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.

Sanders was an American Indian man that arrived in North Carolina by 1685 as an indentured servant. Originally indentured to New England merchant Joshua Lamb, Sanders might have been a prisoner of war from one of the several American Indian nations that fought the colonists during King Philip’s War such as the Wampanoag, Narragansett, or Wabanaki. Though Sanders' knew his own identity, by the time he arrived in North Carolina, his colonial contemporaries did not view his tribal nation as important enough to record. Instead, they opted to strip him of his cultural identity and referred to him simply as "Sanders the Indian." Whatever Sanders’ tribal identity was, he’d have been entirely cut off from his native community and culture.

Sanders first appeared before the North Carolina colonial court in 1705 when he appealed for the government’s help in ending his servitude after being forced to sign an exploitative contract. After arriving in North Carolina, Sanders’ service was sold to Joseph Scott. In 1692 following the deaths of Scott and his wife, Sanders' indentured passed to the couple’s adult daughter, Juliana Laker. Laker then forced Sanders to sign a contract extending his servitude twelve more years. Despite the terms Sanders remained Laker's indentured servant up through 1705, a full year after his contract was meant to expire.¹

While other American Indians might have deferred to their tribal authorities to appeal to the colonial government on their behalf, Sanders defended himself before the Perquimans County Court and won his own freedom. After the trial, Sander continued to live in Perquimans, where he resided independently through 1717.

American Indians often appeared in colonial court proceedings even if they were not directly involved in the suit. For example, an American Indian named Tom Harriss featured prominently in a defamation suit between John Jennings and Matthew Winn. Jennings accused Winn of being a hog thief, but Winn vindicated himself when he proved he had not stolen anything. Instead, he had been helping Tom Harriss recover a pig that had escaped from Harriss’ farm and gotten onto Jennings’ property.

As the trial evidence demonstrated, Harriss had purchased the hog in question from Thomas Barecock. When the hog escaped, Harriss again depended on Barecock to help him locate and recapture the animal. In this instance Harriss not only cooperated with his colonial neighbors enough to broker a livestock trade, but he also relied on his neighbors to help find the hog too.

Small interactions like these, while relatively inconsequential, demonstrate how some American Indians and Europeans cooperated and lived alongside one another in early North Carolinian colonial society.

When a colonial court charged an American Indian with a crime, it was not a foregone conclusion that the all-white colonial jury would pronounce the American Indian guilty. Instead, in many cases, the jury carefully weighed the evidence, not allowing cultural or racial prejudices from influencing their verdict. Perhaps no trial involving an American Indian better illustrates this than the 1722 case of John Cope, a Tuscarora man charged with burglary. But what crime had Cope committed?

During the early hours of one morning in August 1722, John Cope was drunk. It was late summer, where the mornings before sunrise are especially brisk and Cope hoped to find somewhere quiet where he could warm up and sleep for a few hours. Somewhere in Bertie County near Salmon Creek he found just the spot—a large secluded home with a prominent fireplace. Cope opened a window in the home’s living room and climbed in, content to take a nap near the fireplace.

Little did Cope realize, however, that this was no ordinary house. In fact, Cope had broken into what was perhaps the most important home in the colony—that of acting colonial governor Thomas Pollock.

The noise from Cope’s unorthodox entry into the home (along with perhaps a little snoring) awoke the Pollock home’s residents, who quickly evicted Cope from his warm spot on the foyer floor.

Within a few days Cope found himself on trial before an all-white jury of the North Carolina Court of Oyer & Terminer for burglary. Cope could have faced execution or banishment for the crime, but the jury, carefully examining the facts of the case, determined that Cope had not stolen anything, nor had he intended to do so. They pronounced him not guilty, and he was allowed go free.

An all-white jury was just one of the many obstacles American Indians faced when interacting with the NC colonial court system as individuals. Still, Cope's case demonstrates that coloial juries still had the ability to focus on fact without allowing prejudices to influence their verdicts.

As the colonial court system grew during the 1720s and 1730s, more people, both colonists and American Indians, began to rely on the court. In the 1733, John Robins, a Chowanoke Indian, took out a loan of eight pounds and ten shillings from Thomas Durant, likely a member of the Yeopim Nation. When Robins failed to pay back the debt, Durant filed a suit in the Chowan County court to recover the money. Robins failed to appear, and the case dragged on for several years.

The suit by its nature as a simple debt case is not particularly remarkable, but it still tells historians today a great deal about American Indian society of the time.

Robins and Durant brokered their deal through the format of an English legal document even though seemingly neither of them could read or write in English. They, along with their witnesses, came before the Chowan County clerk or another local colonial official to make a formal agreement, a practice outside the norm of traditional American Indian custom. In addition, they described their debt not in terms of tangible goods such as deer skins, beads, or shells, but in North Carolina currency—another sign of their dependence on the existing colonial court system.¹

Robins’ and Durant’s reliance on the colonial court system suggests that they lacked confidence in preexisting American Indian governance. Neither Chowanoke nor Yeopim leadership, so it seems, had the power to enforce the agreement. The original document, as well as the transcription, are shown below.

A document acknowledging John Robins' debt to Thomas Durant, dated 8 February 1734. Durant, a Yeopim Indian, relied on the Chowan County Court to enforce Chowanoke Indian Robins' debt. Courtesy of SANC.

February the 8—1733/4

This shall oblige me to pay or Cause to be paid to Thomas Duern Indian order the full sum of Eight Pounds Tenn Shillings Currant Bill money of North Carolina for Value Recd. as Wittness my Hand

his
John X Robin Indian
mark

        his
John D Martin
      mark

           his
James J Bunats
        mark

Charles B Beasely Indian
        his mark

For centuries American Indians in North Carolina lived communally in villages like Pomeiooc, a Secotan village illustrated by John White in about 1585. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum.

When British colonists encroached on their native land, American Indian tribes like the Yeopim of the northeastern shore of the Albemarle Sound petitioned the colonial government. Although they could have taken the trespassing colonists to court on an individual basis, the Yeopim brought to their issues to the council directly, considering the encroachment a direct threat to their sovereignty as a nation independent of the British.

As historian Michelle Lemaster argues, by directly petitioning the British colonial government, tribes like the Yeopim “considered their appeals to the colonial government as a form of diplomacy… tribes were not exhibiting submission to English law but rather the independent action of a people interested in preserving their status under the terms of their treaty agreements with other people."¹

The Yeopim's 1697 appeal was successful. The North Carolina Council ordered that no colonist be allowed to occupy land within three miles of the Yeopim’s settlement. They later formalized the Yeopim’s territorial boundary in 1704 through a survey.

However, as was the case for many other American Indian nations, the growing numbers of European colonists threated the Yeopim’s independence. As the Yeopim's population waned, more colonists began to encroach on native land, and the Yeopim found themselves without the diplomatic weight to stop it. By 1739, unable to halt the encroachment, the Yeopim sold parts of their land to colonists.When the colony stopped formally recognizing the Yeopim as a coehsive tribal troup, those tribal members who remained had not choice but to integrate themselves with the rapidly expanding colonial society.

As American Indian tribes like the Chowanoke slowly began to cede portions of their land to colonists in the 1730s, it was not a step they took lightly. Chowanoke leaders like James Bennett and Thomas Hoyter worked collectively, with several Chowanoke leading men signing each land grant.

In Chowanoke culture, like that of many other American Indian groups, there was no concept of individual land holdings. Because everyone lived on and used the land together, agreements about selling the land and using the proceeds of those sales had to be done collectively.

Rather than the individual colonists brokering land purchases with the Chowanoke directly, colonists had to receive approval from the North Carolina Council as well to make sure colonists were not seizing “Native lands without proper payment and title.”² In other words, the North Carolina Council took part in these land sales because colonists were making land deals not with fellow British citizens, but with a sovereign nation.

These land sales had the potential to not only affect individual colonists and their Chowanoke peers, but the colony’s diplomatic relationships with American Indians in the region on the whole.

In 1723, a small dispute about hunting rights had North Carolina colonial officials fearing the start of a second Tuscarora War when colonist Christopher Dudley assaulted an elderly Tuscarora man named Sighacka Blount.

That March, Blount and several other Tuscarora hunters visited colonist Richard Nixson’s house on their way to catch beavers in Beaufort Precinct. Nixson’s neighbor Christopher Dudley confronted Blount and the other Tuscarora, telling them the land was his and they had no right to hunt there, as they’d scare his livestock. When Blount made no response, Dudley became enraged and attacked him, breaking Blount’s arm.

Sighacka Blount did not fight Dudley back. However, by relying on his sovereign status as a member of the Tuscarora Nation, Blount calmly found a way to ensure that the colonist was punished for the assault. After Richard Nixson and other colonists pulled Christopher Dudley away, Sighacka, rather than going to the local colonial magistrate or justice of the peace, said he would go tell Tom Blount, the Tuscarora tribe's leader in North Carolina, about the incident. Tom Blount, in turn, would tell Colonel Robert West, a colonist who worked as a special liason between several American Indian nations and the NC Colonial Council.

The implications of Sighacka Blount's decision to get Tuscarora leadership and Col. West involved in the dispute were clear to the North Carolina Colonial Court. By assaulting Blount, Dudley risked igniting a much larger war between the colonists and the Tuscarora people if the issue was not resolved quickly and to the American Indians' satisfaction.

With the bloody events of the Tuscarora War that had ended just seven years prior weighing on their minds, the North Carolina General Court indicted Dudley for assault.³ Chief Justice Christopher Gale personally signed Dudley's arrest warrant, noting how Dudley's assault could cause "many ill conveniences... to the Tranquility & p[e]ace of this Government."

Any records about the outcome of the case have not survived. Still, it is clear American Indians like Sighacka Blount leveraged their identities as members of a sovereign nation to make the colonial government consider their claims as part of larger tribal-colonial diplomatic relations.

The historic Chowan County Courthouse, built in 1767, is the third courthouse of its kind to stand on the property. The first courthouse, built in 1719, was also the seat of the colonial assembly. Courtesy of Historic Edenton.

Like the state and federal government today, North Carolina’s colonial government was made of three separate branches: the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch. The head of the executive branch was the colonial governor, and he had a board of advisors, typically six to twelve leading men in the colony, called the North Carolina Council.

The council advised the governor, served as the main executive body in the governor’s absence, and during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, council members also served as officers of the General Court. Early council members acted as general court judges interchangeably, often issuing judgements for major crimes and disputes as part of their regular council proceedings.

Later when the General Court became more formalized, many current or former members of the North Carolina Council sat on the court as judges or members of the jury, further muddling what was an official action of either the court or the council.

Due to this loose distinction between the council and the court, historians today group council proceedings together with court records to better understand how officeholders shaped and enforced laws within colonial society.

Aside from the General Court, members of the council also sat on a separate court, called the Court of Chancery, which granted things other than criminal punishments or monetary damages, such as writs or injunctions. The General Court, the Court of Chancery, and the Admiralty Court (concerned with maritime law and seafaring) made up North Carolina’s higher court system.

At the lower court level, counties (called precincts before 1739) also had their own local courts. Leading men from each county served as justices and heard both civil and criminal cases. In more serious cases or ones that needed appeal, the matter then transferred up to the higher courts.

Compared to what we think of the justice system today, these colonial courts were rather informal. Rather than being held in a courthouse, many early courts convened in prominent community member's private residences. Moreover, they only met for a couple days at a time, three or four times a year, meaning that trial proceedings could easily take several seasons or years to settle.¹

In the 1750s, as the colony's legal caseload grew even larger, North Carolina established a series of district superior courts which acted as the new higher court system. Regionally based in places like Edenton, Wilmington, Salisbury, and New Bern, the superior courts, like their county court counterparts, kept separate records for their criminal and civil proceedings.²

When navigating the North Carolina colonial court collection today, researchers will find that records are separated out by court type (general court, chancery court, district court, etc.), year, and case type (civil action or criminal action).

Despite this organization, only a fraction of the collection has been described in finding aids, let alone transcribed. Between finding the correct box and sorting through the hundreds of handwritten documents in each, searches for specific documents or topics can easily take hours. It also means there is plenty for historians today to still discover!

Finding American Indian documents specifically within this collection poses additional challenges. American Indians and their experiences appear at every level of the court records. Additionally, when advocating on behalf of their nations, American Indians also appeared before the Colonial Council rather than the General Court, as they were there for a diplomatic rather than legal purpose. Finally, not all interactions with American Indians were recorded and preserved, meaning that what remains in the archives today often provides more questions than answers.

The American Indian records in this edition are not meant to be an exhaustive collection of every instance an American Indian interacted with the colonial court system. Instead, MosaicNC editors hope that the documents contained in this collection provide useful examples of the variety of ways American Indians of many backgrounds interacted with colonial society.

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