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The Story Lives On: The Legacy of North Carolina's Incarcerated Railroad Workers

The Story Lives On

The Western North Carolina Railroad had a major impact on North Carolina history. Today, scholars and activists are emphasizing incarcerated laborers’ role in building this vital infrastructure. Though the system of forced labor used on the Western North Carolina Railroad, convict leasing, was phased out during the early twentieth century, incarcerated people continue to experience harsh labor conditions in the modern era.

Two undergraduate students from Western Carolina University sift through soil during excavations at the Cowee Tunnel Prison Labor Camp, 2024

Two undergraduate students from Western Carolina University search for artifacts during excavations at the Cowee Tunnel Prison Labor Camp on the former Western North Carolina Railroad in 2024. Photo by Ashley Evans.

Remembering the Incarcerated Laborers

Impact on the Region

The railroad helped transform western North Carolina. Between 1870 and 1900, the population of Asheville swelled from 1,400 to nearly 21,000 people. Beginning with the operation of the rail lines to Asheville in 1880, passengers and goods moved through the region more quickly than ever before. The railroad facilitated the logging industry and the growth of manufacturing in western North Carolina.

Today, tourists flock to Western North Carolina to experience the beautiful vistas; however, few realize that the roads and rails they’re travelling on through mountain passes were built on the backs of incarcerated laborers nearly 150 years ago.

Tourists from around the country came to western North Carolina for sightseeing, utilizing the railways incarcerated laborers built to see sites like Round Knob in McDowell County. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

Asheville, photographed here in 1902, grew into a bustling metropolis due to the railroad. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

Memorials to the Incarcerated Railroad Laborers

In 2020, Dr. Daniel Pierce and Marion Mayor Steve Little founded the Railroad and Incarcerated Laborer (RAIL) Memorial Project with the goal of memorializing the imprisoned laborers who built the Western North Carolina Railroad.1 The RAIL Project brought together western North Carolina historians, archivists, museum specialists, and other community members.  That same year, the Mountain Gateway Museum at Old Fort unveiled a new exhibit about the use of incarcerated labor entitled “The Price of Progress.” The RAIL Project erected the “Memorial to the Incarcerated Railroad Workers Who Built the Mountain Division of the Western North Carolina Railroad” near the local landmark of Andrew’s Geyser on the outskirts of Old Fort, in 2021.  The group commissioned two multi-generational African American stonemasons from the area, Paul Twitty and Jimmy Logan, to build the monument.2

The ”Memorial to the Incarcerated Railroad Workers Who Built the Mountain Division of the Western North Carolina Railroad”

The ”Memorial to the Incarcerated Railroad Workers Who Built the Mountain Division of the Western North Carolina Railroad” just outside Old Fort. Commissioned by the RAIL Project. Photo by Cayla Colclasure.

Phtograph from the unveiling event of the NC Highway marker for incarcerated laborers

The North Carolina Highway Marker Program unveiled a marker in 2024 which commemorates the in carcerated laborers who built the Western North Carolina Railroad, and particularly those that died in the Cowee Tunnel Disaster of 1882.

Dedicated in 2024, the Incarcerated Laborers State Historic Highway Marker commemorates the prisoners who built the Cowee Tunnel and lost their lives in the process. The Jackson County chapter of the NAACP applied for the marker and worked with the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources to create the text.3 Also in Jackson County, at Western Carolina University, a temporary exhibit entitled “Shadows of Incarceration: the Cowee 19 Story” was guest-curated by Danielle Duffy at the Mountain Heritage Center. This exhibit explored the lives of the men and boys who drowned in the Tuckasegee River on December 30, 1882, and put their stories into broader context. Duffy commissioned local artist, author, and African American memory keeper Ann Miller Woodford to do a painting for the exhibit based on the event.4

Archaeology at the Cowee Tunnel Prison Labor Camp

Since 2024, historical archaeologist Cayla Colclasure has been doing archaeological excavations at the site of a Western North Carolina Railroad prison labor camp near the Cowee Tunnel. Workers stayed there while building the tunnel, including those who died in the December 1882 disaster. Artifacts from 2024 excavations were displayed as part of the “Shadows of Incarceration” exhibit, and WCU and the Jackson County Public library hosted public talks on the excavations’ discoveries. Excavations will continue in summer 2025.

Cayla Colclasure, PhD Candidate at UNC-CH, and Dr. Benjamin Steere, Professor of Anthropology at WCU, during excavations at the Cowee Tunnel Prison Labor Camp.

Cayla Colclasure, PhD Candidate at UNC-CH, and Dr. Benjamin Steere, Professor of Anthropology at WCU, during excavations at the Cowee Tunnel Prison Labor Camp. Photo by Ashley Evans.

Undergraduate students from Western Carolina University search for artifacts during excavations at the Cowee Tunnel Prison Labor Camp

Undergraduate students from Western Carolina University search for artifacts during excavations at the Cowee Tunnel Prison Labor Camp. Photo by Ashley Evans. 

Artifacts found at the Cowee Tunnel Prison Labor Camp, including rusted 19th century iron nails from camp buildings and a ceramic Prosser button, likely from one of the prisoners’ uniforms.

Artifacts found at the Cowee Tunnel Prison Labor Camp, including rusted 19th century nails from camp buildings and a ceramic Prosser button, likely from a prisoner's uniform. Photo by Cayla Colclasure.

19th century nails from camp buildings discovered at the Cowee Tunnel Prison Labor Camp

Some of the hundreds of 19th century nails from camp buildings discovered at the Cowee Tunnel Prison Labor Camp. Photo by Cayla Colclasure.

Mass Incarceration Today

Although the western North Carolina Railroad was completed in the 1890s and North Carolina phased out the convict leasing system in the early twentieth century, the state carries on a legacy of mass incarceration into the modern era. During the early to mid-twentieth century, the state used chain gangs of convicts to build and repair roads throughout the state, following a similar system that the railroad companies had used. Throughout the 20th century prisoners performed all sorts of tasks for the state, from growing and canning food to making license plates.5

"A North Carolina Convict Camp" in Lauringburg, 1910. Five men in the front row hold dogs trained to track runaways. Courtesy of Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Incarcerated men processing canned food in a prison labor camp in Caswell, 1945. Courtesy of North Carolina Museum of History.

The 1970s marked the beginning of the “mass incarceration” era in the United States. The dramatic rise in the number of people being imprisoned during this era is tied to economic policies which relocated manufacturing industries to countries in Latin America and Asia and left many working-class Americans unemployed. Today, the United States incarcerates a higher percentage of its population that any other wealthy nation. People of color, especially Black, Indigenous, and Latino people, continue to disproportionately face imprisonment in the U.S. According to census data, African Americans comprise approximately 13.7% of the U.S. population as of July 2021, while 38.7% of inmates in the federal prison system today are Black.6

Incarcerated people today still face abusive labor conditions across the United States. In 2023, prisoners sued the state of Alabama for working conditions they likened to “a form of slavery.” Today, incarcerated people mainly work within the prison itself, though states like Alabama still lease workers to private businesses, and in California prisoners fight wildfires.7 To learn more about incarcerated labor today, check out the resources linked below.

Further Reading:

James Faucette, Didge Daniels, and Kai Fenty, "Paying NC's Imprisoned People."

Kimber Heinz, "Stories from the Inside: Four Eras of North Carolina Prison History."

Prison Policy Initiative. "Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2025."

The Sentencing Project. "Growth in Mass Incarceration."

The Vera Institute, "American History, Race, and Prison."

Sign for Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina. It reads "Central Prison 1300 Western Blvd." Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

  1. The RAIL Project.
  2. Paul Twitty, interview by Cayla Colclasure, Catawba Vale Collaborative, 2023.
  3. Leslie Leonard, "Incarcerated Laborers Who Built Western North Carilina Railroad to be Featured on N.C. Highway Historical Marker, " North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, 2024. (Accessed 22 April 2025).
  4. Ann Miller Woodford, Presentation to the Western Carolina University Archaeological Field School, 2024.
  5. Akilah Davis, "From Plantation to Prison: How American Capitalism Still Utilizes Forced Labor," ABC 11, 2023. (Accessed 21 April 2025); Michael Hennessey, "Take a Look Inside the Prison Plant where North Carolina License Plates are Created," Fox 8, 2023. (Accessed 21 April 2025).
  6. Federal Bureau of Prisons, "Inmate Statistics: Race," 19 April 2025. (Accessed 22 April 2025).
  7. Robin McDowell and Margie Mason, "Alabama Profits off Prisoners who Work at McDonald's but Deems them too Dangerous for Parole," AP News, 20 December 2024. (Accessed 21 April 2025); Tammy Webber and Dorany Pineda, "On LA Fire Lines, Inmates Shoulder Heavy Packs and Tackle Dangerous Work for Less than $30 a Day," AP News, 18 January 2025. (Accessed 21 April 2025).
  8. The banner for this exhibit, a photograph of incarcerated workerns on the Western North Carolina Railroad, ca. 1885, is courtesy of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
  9. The banner for the subheadings in this exhibit, a map of the Mountain Division of the Western North Carolina Railroad, ca. 1881, is courtesy of the State Archives of North Carolina.

The People Imprisoned: Stories from Incarcerated Railroad Workers

The People Imprisoned

The majority of incarcerated people on the railroad were Black men and boys. They worked alongside smaller numbers of Black women and girls, as well as white men. These people were from all across the state of North Carolina, and occasionally neighboring states like South Carolina and Virginia. Most of these individuals were convicted of crimes relating to poverty and lack of employment opportunities.

Incarcerated workers and guards on the Western North Carolina Railroad. In the foreground, several men stand to the left, and several women to the far right. Courtesy of the Buncombe County Special Collections, Pack Memorial Library.

How We Know About Them

Despite rarely having first-hand accounts written by prisoners themselves, numerous archival documents can provide insight into who these incarcerated people were. Sentencing documents provide information about the crimes they were convicted of, whether they pleaded “guilty” or “not guilty”, and what judge and jurors were involved in their trial.  The North Carolina State Penitentiary’s Descriptive Register is a book of tables with each prisoner’s name, age, place of residence, education, occupation, marital status, and even physical characteristics like height, weight, and the color of their skin, eyes, and hair. Prison department receipts tell us when individual people went from the penitentiary in Raleigh to various locations along the Western North Carolina Railroad.

The Register of Convicts and sentencing documents can help to identify the correct individual in federal census records, freedman’s bureau records, other government documents, and newspapers. Together, these sources can help us reassemble a sketch of a person’s life beyond incarceration.

photo of a hand over an archival document

A letter concerning Lucy Morgan, a woman imprisoned on the Western North Carolina Railroad, in the UNC Wilson Library Special Collections. Photo by Jess Abel.

Individual Stories

William Anderson

William Anderson was an African American man born in Virginia around 1849. William may have been enslaved prior to the end of the Civil War. Later, he worked much of his life as a tenant farm laborer before eventually being able to purchase his own farm.

William married his wife, Fannie, in 1870, and the couple settled down in Sampson County, North Carolina. The couple had several children, including two daughters named Lucy and Rena. William was twenty-eight years old when he was charged with larceny on December 3, 1877. During his one-year prison sentence, he was sent to work on the Western North Carolina Railroad. William was discharged from his prison sentence on November 3, 1878.

Though prison records state that William was illiterate when he was arrested, by 1900 he was able to both read and write. By 1920, he owned a farm in North Clinton, where his grandchildren, Ollie, James, and Joseph, lived with him. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 79 on February 22, 1926, and was laid to rest in South Clinton.

African American farmworkers in Ablemarle, North Carolina, 1881. Courtesy of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Laura Barrow

A young African American woman in a maid's uniform with a girl, circa 1904-1918. Courtesy of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Laura Barrow was an African American girl born around 1859 in North Carolina, possibly into slavery.  Laura received little formal education in her youth, and from an early age she worked as a house servant. She reportedly sometimes used the alias “Laura Zegler.” Laura was convicted of larceny on May 16, 1873, when she was fourteen years old, and sentenced to four years of hard labor.

Sometime after 1875, Laura was sent to work on the Western North Carolina Railroad. There, Laura worked alongside a group of women to cook, clean, launder, and mend clothes for the incarcerated men and boys doing railroad construction. Laura was discharged from her prison sentence on March 24, 1877, when she was eighteen years old.

Van Fuller

Van Fuller was an African American man born around 1857 in North Carolina. Van worked as a general laborer in Alamance county. At the age of twenty-one, on May 22, 1878, Van was convicted of larceny. He was sentenced to two years of hard labor and sent to work on the Western North Carolina Railroad. He was released from his prison sentence on March 15, 1880.

In 1902, Van and his mother— “Lavinia” or "Winnie”— were arrested in connection with burning two barns in Hillsborough. Van fled north to Virginia but was captured by police and returned via train to North Carolina for trial. He was convicted of arson and sentenced to thirty years in prison, and his mother was convicted as an accomplice and sentenced to twenty years. Samuel P. Kirkpatrick, who owned one of the barns Van was accused of burning, was a former enslaver. One newspaper stated that “the motive for their crimes was revenge.” Van’s sentence was commuted by the state governor in 1917, when Van claimed he was around seventy years old.

Barn Burners Get Long Sentences. Raleigh March 17.—

Lavinia Fuller and her son, Van Fuller, have been put in the penitentiary here, the former to serve 30 years and the latter 20 years for burning barns in Orange county. They are negroes, and the motive for their crimes was revenge."

-Rockingham Anglo-Saxon, 20 March 1902

African American man unloading a cart loaded with turpentine barrels, circa 1880s. Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

Jack McNatt

Photograph of a turpentine still, circa 1895. Courtesy of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

 

Jack McNatt was an African American man born around 1844 in South Carolina. He spent much of his life in Robeson County, North Carolina. In 1874, the Wilmington Weekly Star reported that Jack had attempted to vote in an election, and Daniel McNatt challenged Jack’s ballot, getting it rejected. Daniel McNatt, who prevented Jack from voting, was a Confederate veteran and a former slave owner. Because they share the same last name, it seems likely that Daniel McNatt had been Jack’s enslaver.

Jack was accused of burning Daniel McNatt’s turpentine still in retaliation for the obstruction and was sent to jail in Lumberton. Jack was charged with burning the still on October 3, 1874, when he was thirty years old. He was sentenced to three years of hard labor and sent to work on the Western North Carolina Railroad. He was discharged from the railroad on August 1, 1877.

Daniel McNatt’s still, twelve miles from this place, was burnt out on the night of the election. Mr. McNatt’s loss is about $700. The circumstances of the burning, as we have learned them, are as follows: Jack McNatt, a negro, was challenged at the election by Mr. McNatt. It was found that he was not a legal voter, and consequently his ballot was rejected. It is said that Jack then said he would kill or burn Daniel McNatt. The last of these threats has been fulfilled. Jack McNatt is now in Lumberton Jail."

-Wilmington Morning Star, 16 August 1874

Darry Woods

 

Darry Woods was an African American boy born around 1864 in South Carolina. Darry spent part of his youth in Columbus County, North Carolina. He was arrested at the age of fourteen in 1878, standing under five feet tall and weighing only 90 pounds. Darry was accused of stealing a pocket watch. While awaiting trial, he was also indicted for allegedly attempting to destroy a train by laying iron bars across the tracks. He was convicted of larceny and sentenced to seven years of hard labor on the Western North Carolina Railroad. He escaped from the railroad on December 9, 1881, and was recaptured on December 11, 1881. When Darry was around eighteen years old, he escaped again on May 20, 1882, and there is no record of his recapture thereafter.

A house near Lake Waccamaw in Columbus County, perhaps similar to where Darry Woods would have resided, circa 1915. Courtesy of North Carolina Digital Collections.

Samuel Underwood

Two African American men on horseback during the late 19th or early 20th century. Underwood crafted saddles and harnesses such as those pictured. Courtesy of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

 

Samuel Underwood was born around 1818 in North Carolina. Samuel was a biracial man, and prior to emancipation he was a free person of color. A skilled tradesperson, Samuel made and repaired leather saddles and harnesses. He lived with his wife, Mary, in Caldwell County, North Carolina.

Samuel was sixty years old when he was convicted of larceny on May 23, 1878. He was sentenced to two years hard labor on the Western North Carolina Railroad. After his release in 1880, Samuel and Mary moved to Boone (Watauga County), North Carolina.

Willis Garrett

 

Willis Garrett was an African American man born around 1853 in North Carolina. Willis lived in Northampton County with his wife and worked as a wagoner transporting goods. Sometime in his childhood or adolescence, Willis learned to read.

Willis was convicted of larceny on November 16, 1874, when he was twenty-one years old. He was sentenced to six years of hard labor and sent to work on the Western North Carolina Railroad. Willis attempted to escape from the railroad alongside two other incarcerated men and was shot and killed by a guard on March 31, 1876.

The Burke Blade says that the convicts at work on the Western North Carolina Railroad made an ineffectual attempt to overpower the guard last Friday night. The stockade door had been closed at dark, but was opened about 8 o’clock to lock up the convict cooks, who are usually employed till that time. The convicts made an attempt to overpower the guard just as the door opened. Three got out of the stockades, Samuel Lyons, Gillespie Williams, and Willis Garret, all colored. The first two escaped, but Garret was shot in the body after he had run a few yards and died instantly..."

-Newbern Weekly Journal of Commerce, 8 April 1876

African American man driving a wagon in Asheville, North Carolina, circa 1895-1910. Courtesy of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Parrish Ray

Parrish Ray was a biracial man born around 1858 in North Carolina, to his parents Levi and Judia Ray. Parrish had several siblings, including Stanly, Gracy, Francis, and Moses. He and his family lived in Durham, North Carolina. Parrish was convicted of larceny on May 13, 1878, when he was nineteen years old, and sentenced to one year of hard labor on the railroad. Parrish was released on April 18, 1879. He was shot and killed by a Durham police officer on February 7, 1887, when he was around twenty-nine years old.

A negro man named Parrish Ray was shot and killed by officer Faucett at Durham. The Recorder says: There was a large crowd of negro men and women gathered at this place, and several of the men followed the officers and their prisoner. They had gone about 150 yards when Parrish Ray declared that he would go no further until he had gone home. The officers refused to allow this and then the ‘row began.’ Faucett fired and Parrish fell dead. The officers then ran, as one of them had been disarmed, and the odds were too great against them. The negroes fired on the fleeing officers three times at a distance of fifty feet, but without effect."

-Goldsboro Messenger, 14 February 1887

Skyline of Durham, North Carolina, circa 1905. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

  1. The banner for this exhibit, a photograph of incarcerated workerns on the Western North Carolina Railroad, ca. 1885, is courtesy of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
  2. The banner for the subheadings in this exhibit, a map of the Mountain Division of the Western North Carolina Railroad, ca. 1881, is courtesy of the State Archives of North Carolina.

Life on the Rails: Incarcerated Laborers' Living & Working Conditions

Life on the Rails: Incarcerated Laborers’ Living and Working Conditions

Life on the Western North Carolina Railroad was often painful and exhausting for incarcerated people. When they were not working long hours on the railroad, they were confined in crowded prison labor camps. The grueling work and poor living conditions took a toll on their health. Many incarcerated people fought back against the system that exploited them.

Incarcerated workers and guards on the Western North Carolina Railroad, ca. 1878-79. Courtesy of the Buncombe County Special Collections, Pack Memorial Library.

The Work

Incarcerated people worked long days doing difficult, dangerous labor to construct the railroad. They used explosives along the mountainsides to create cuts and tunnels and then broke up the rock and debris by hand using picks and shovels. There was often a shortage of mules and horses, so men pushed wheelbarrows and pulled carts to remove the heavy loads. Many incarcerated workers died or were injured in explosion accidents, rockslides, and cave-ins.

Incarcerated women and girls, as well as some men and boys who were sick or injured, were put to work in the prison labor camps. There, they cooked meals, mended and laundered clothes, and maintained the sleeping quarters. Some able-bodied men and boys also worked in the camps cutting wood and doing other necessary tasks.

To prevent escape, some incarcerated people were forced to wear a ball and chain or shackles while they worked and, even sometimes, while they slept. At other times, guards shackled men and boys together at the ankles in a “chain gang.” The state government also permitted the guards and overseers to whip incarcerated workers using a rod or leather strap. Under the “trusty” system, some prisoners who were deemed unlikely to make an escape attempt were allowed to move around without shackles or constant supervision from guards.

Incarcerated workers on the Western North Carolian Railroad loading debris onto a gravel train in an area known as Mud Cut. Courtesy of Buncombe County Special Collections, Pack Memorial Library.

"Some are lazy and have to be punished to make them work. Others are disobedient and have to be punished, or the discipline of the institution cannot be maintained. Some are always seeking an opportunity to escape, and some do escape, notwithstanding the danger they encounter in doing so"

-Thomas J. Jarvis, 1883

In labor camps throughout the south, such as this one in Oglethorpe, Georgia, guards watched as incarcerated labrorers performed backbreaking work. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

Incarcerated workers such as these four loggers in Florida often labored while chained together to prevent escape attempts. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

The Camps

Prison labor camps, also referred to in the historic documents as “convict quarters” or simply “stockades,” were built along the railroad corridor to house incarcerated workers. Camps could hold hundreds of workers at a time. In other cases, prisoners were housed temporarily in train cars. The camps usually included separate sleeping quarters for male prisoners, female prisoners, and guards, as well as outdoor kitchen areas, makeshift hospitals, and work areas for blacksmithing, woodcutting, and other tasks needed to keep the work crews supplied.

Incarcerated laborers and guards standing along the Western North Carolina Railroad in front of the Swannanoa or “Top of the Mountain” Stockade, a prison labor camp near Ridgecrest, NC. Courtesy of Buncombe County Special Collections, Pack Memorial Library.

A group of incarcerated laborers at a work camp in Mississippi wash their clothes in communal basins. Courtesy of Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

The Swannanoa Stockade was one of the largest of these camps and was located just east of the 1,832-foot Swannanoa Tunnel. This tunnel inspired the folk song by the same name, sometimes also called “Asheville Junction,” which is thought to have originated with the imprisoned workers themselves as a hammer song they sang while working. Prisoners were said to have played instruments and sing “freely” on Saturdays nights and Sundays, and that local community members would come to the camps to hear the music they made.3

The lyrics of many versions of “Swannanoa Tunnel” recall the dangers, the severity of the elements, and the specter of death:

One incarcerated man dances while another plays guitar. From a camp in Greene County, Georgia, in 1941. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

I'm going back to that Swannanoa Tunnel
That's my home, baby, that's my home
Asheville Junction, Swannanoa Tunnel
All caved in, baby, all caved in

Last December, I remember
The wind blowed cold, baby, the wind blowed cold
Hammer falling from my shoulder
All day long, baby, all day long

When you hear my watchdog howling
Somebody around, baby, somebody around
When you hear that hoot owl squalling
Somebody dying, baby, somebody dying

Ain't no hammer in this mountain
Outrings mine, baby, outrings mine
This old hammer, it killed John Henry
It didn't kill me, baby, it couldn’t kill me

This old hammer rings like silver
Shines like gold, baby, shines like gold
Take this hammer, throw it in the river
It rings right on, baby, it shines right on

Some of these days I'll see that woman
Well, that's no dream, baby, that’s no dream
I'm going back to that Swannanoa Tunnel
That's my home, baby, that's my home
"

Health

The injuries, illnesses, and psychological traumas incarcerated railroad workers suffered often had life-long consequences. In an 1879 report, railroad and penitentiary employees testified that prisoners were “not sufficiently clad in underclothing” and that the general supply of clothing was not sufficient, especially bed clothing. One interviewee stated that “The rations furnished at these quarters are ½ pound of bacon and 1 ½ pounds of corn meal, and it is not sufficient; the meat is barely sufficient and the meal is less so.”

Some incarcerated people developed scurvy, a painful illness resulting from a prolonged lack of vitamin C, because the railroad officials did not provide fruits or vegetables. Viruses and bacterial infections also spread among incarcerated people in labor camps due to crowded sleeping areas, unsanitary conditions, and exposure to severe weather. Doctors working at the state prison said that incarcerated people were “returned from the railroads broken down and hopelessly diseased” and with “shattered constitutions.”

Cramped living conditions and poor ventilation meant that incarcerated laborers often suffered from diseases such as pnemonia and tuberculosis. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

The working force on this section [the Paint Rock branch] has been materially reduced by the sudden appearance of scurvy among the convicts, owing to insufficiency of vegetable food."

- The Raleigh Farmer and Mechanic, 21 July 1881

 

Many of [the men who died] having taken their regular shifts for several years in the Swannanoa and other tunnels on the Western N. C. R. R., were finally returned to the prison with shattered constitutions, and their physical strength entirely gone, so that with the most skillful medical treatment and the best nursing, it was impossible for them to recuperate."

- Dr. J. W. McGee, Physician at the North Carolina State Penitentiary, 18804

Resistance

Workers on the Western North Carolina Railroad found many ways to resist their incarceration and mistreatment. Some incarcerated people escaped and were never found, while others were recaptured. Many were desperate for freedom and made multiple escape attempts. In several instances, workers tried to overpower guards and seize their guns. Around 150 incarcerated people joined together in an uprising against the guards on April 15, 1877. That night, nine men were killed, and fourteen others were injured before guards regained control. Between 1875 and 1890, at least 565 escapes were attempted.

Prison work camps often kept packs of attack dogs, trained to track and find prisoners who tried to escape. Courtesy of Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

"The Burke Blade says that the convicts at work on the Western North Carolina Railroad made an ineffectual attempt to overpower the guard last Friday night. The stockade door had been closed at dark, but was opened about 8 o’clock to lock up the convict cooks, who are usually employed till that time. The convicts made an attempt to overpower the guard just as the door opened. Three got out of the stockades, Samuel Lyons, Gillespie Williams, and Willis Garret, all colored. The first two escaped, but Garret was shot in the body after he had run a few yards and died instantly..."

-Newbern Weekly Journal of Commerce, 8 April 1876

A Fatal Attempt to Escape—Nine Convicts Killed.

We learn that on Saturday night the convicts guarded at the middle stockade, between Henry’s and the Swannanoa gap, on the Western North Carolina Railroad, attempted to escape in a body, there being the rise of a hundred and fifty in the stockade. The attempt proved both futile and fatal, nine of the prisoners being killed outright and fourteen wounded by the guard."

-Wilmington Morning Star, 18 April 1877

  1. The banner for this exhibit, a photograph of incarcerated workerns on the Western North Carolina Railroad, ca. 1885, is courtesy of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
  2. The banner for the subheadings in this exhibit, a map of the Mountain Division of the Western North Carolina Railroad, ca. 1881, is courtesy of the State Archives of North Carolina.
  3. Kevin Kehrberg and Jeffery A. Keith, "Somebody Died, Babe: A Musical Cover-Up of Racism, Violence, and Greed," Bitter Southerner,4 August 2020. (Accessed 25 April 2025).
  4. Biennial Report of the Board of Directors, Architect and Warden, Steward and Physcial of the North Carolina Penitentiary for the years 1879-180, pg. 8. Wilson Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Laying the Tracks: History of the Western NC Railroad

Laying the Tracks: History of the Western NC Railroad

The Swannanoa Tunnel circa 2023 along the former Western North Carolina Railroad

The Swannanoa Tunnel on the former Western N.C. Railroad in 2023, photo by Cayla Colclasure.

The North Carolina government played a major role in funding the Western North Carolina Railroad’s construction and overseeing its management. The General Assembly saw the rail project as a necessary step in growing North Carolina’s industrial economy. The state adopted the convict leasing system to fuel this economic growth at the expense of predominantly Black laborers.

 

 

Charting a Railroad Through the Mountains

During the railroad boom of the 1800s, railroads transported goods and passengers all across North America more efficiently than ever before, ushering in an era of increased mobility and trade. The State of North Carolina completed the North Carolina Railroad from Goldsboro to Charlotte in 1854, but the mountainous western region of the state remained accessible only via stagecoach routes. Consequently, in 1885, the state founded the Western North Carolina Railroad Company to connect the western counties with the existing railway network. The proposed route would begin at Salisbury, head west to Asheville, and then split into two terminus points: one near Paint Rock and one near Murphy.

 

Map of the Western North Carolina Railroad, circa 1900. The route of the railroad, marked in red, extends west from Salisbury to Asheville, where it splits towards Murphy and Paint Rock.

Map of the Western North Carolina Railroad, circa 1900. The route of the railroad, marked in red, extends west from Salisbury to Asheville, where it splits towards Murphy and Paint Rock. Created by Cayla Colclasure.

The Convict Leasing System

Constructing the railroads through North Carolina’s western mountains was dangerous work. Few men would work in such conditions for the low pay they were offered. As a result, the State of North Carolina conscripted laborers for the railroad— forcing first enslaved African Americans and later, after the abolition of slavery, prisoners, into construction. This conscription was referred to as "convict leasing."1

After the Civil War, the 13th amendment of the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery except as punishment for a crime. Consequently, many former Confederate states, no longer able to force enslaved people to perform large, dangerous construction projects, began using prisoners. Companies rented incarcerated people as forced laborers from state penitentiaries and assumed responsibility for maintaining and guarding these prisoners.

Discriminatory laws and policies of the time disproportionately affected African Americans, meaning that the vast majority of prisoners, and therefore railway laborers, were Black. Though freed from slavery, African Americans prisoners toiled in the Western North Carolina mountains under slavery of another name. North Carolina officially ended its leasing system in 1933, though they continued to use incarcerated labor to build road networks throughout the state well into the mid-20th century.

Incarcerated workers chopping wood at Reed Camp, South Carolina, ca. 1934. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Completing the Railroad

Two state governors played influential roles in the history of the Western North Carolina Railroad: Zebulon B. Vance, who held office from 1877-79, and Thomas J. Jarvis, who served from 1879-1885. Vance, Jarvis, and the WNCRR president James W. Wilson were all veterans of the Confederate army, and both Vance and Jarvis were vocal supporters of white supremacy.2 Vance and Jarvis endorsed and oversaw a dramatic rise of Black North Carolinians being incarcerated during their tenures, as well as the expansion of convict leasing on the railroad, despite many appeals from reformers that working conditions were inhumane.

Vance and Jarvis’s official papers reveal that they were well aware of the violence prisoners experienced on the railroad but did little to stop it. On November 18, 1877, Wilson wrote to Vance saying, “You saw no doubt the statement of two convicts being shot by a guard, they had made a key and unlocked their shackles, this shooting has already has a salutary effect—work is progressing more favorably than ever.”3 Later, Governor Jarvis travelled to western North Carolina to investigate the railroad’s  treatment of incarcerated workers, whereupon he excused the use of physical punishments on prisoners.

Governor Vance

Read the Vance papers related to incarcerated labor.

Governor Jarvis

Read the Jarvis papers related to incarcerated labor.

  • 1855
    The NC Legislature charters the Western North Carolina Railroad. Until the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, the railroad uses enslaved labor in construction.
  • 1861-1865
    Progress on the Western North Carolina Railroad halts during the American Civil War. U.S. troops destroy portions of the railway.
  • 1875
    The NC General Assembly passes “An Act to Authorize the Hire of Convict Labor In or Outside the State’s Prison, and to Regulate the Same,” which marks the beginning of the state’s convict leasing system. In the fall of 1875, the first group of imprisoned people are sent to McDowell County to work on the Western North Carolina Railroad.
  • 1877
    At least 150 incarcerated people stage an uprising at a prison labor camp between Old Fort and the Swannanoa Tunnel to escape their imprisonment. Guards kill nine men and injure fourteen more.
  • 1879
    Two crews of incarcerated men working from either side of the 1,822-foot Swannanoa Tunnel meet in the middle on May 11th. Shortly thereafter, a cave-in there kills twenty-one prisoners and one guard.
  • 1882
    The Paint Rock railway branch is completed, connecting the railroad to the Tennessee state line. On December 30, in Jackson County, nineteen incarcerated Black men and boys working on the Murphy branch of the railroad drown after the flatboat ferrying them a short distance across the Tuckasegee River sinks.
  • 1886-94
    The Richmond and Danville Railroad Company lease and operate the Western North Carolina Railroad. They oversee the completion of the Murphy branch in 1891.
  • 1894
    The Western North Carolina Railroad, as well as the North Carolina Railroad and the Richmond and Danville Railroad, becomes part of the Southern Railway Company. The Southern Railway Co. operates until 1982, when it merges with the Norfolk & Western Railway to form the Norfolk Southern Railway.
  1. Further Reading on the Convict Leasing System: Douglas A. Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II (Anchor Books, 2009); Alex Lichtenstein, Twice the Work of Free Labor: The Political Economy of Convict Labor in the New South (New York: Verso, 1996); Matthew J. Mancini, One Dies, Get Another: Convict Leasing in the American South, 1866-1928 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996).
  2. C. Scott Holmes and Amelia O'Rourke-Owens, "Trespassing on White Supremacy: The Legacy of Establishment White Supremacy in North Carolina" NCL Rev. F. 100 (2021): 149; Paul Yandle, “‘The Relapse of Reconstruction:’ Railroad -Building, Party Warfare and White Supremacy in Blue Ridge North Carolina, 1854-1888” Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports, January 1, 2006.
  3. James W. Wilson to Zebulon B. Vance, 18 November 1877, Zebulon B. Vance Governor's Papers, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh. 
  4. The banner for this exhibit, a photograph of incarcerated workers on the Western North Carolina Railroad, ca. 1885, is courtesy of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
  5. The banner for subheadings in this exhibit, a map of the Mountain Division of the Western North Carolina Railroad, ca. 1881, is courtesy of the State Archives of North Carolina.

Witchcraft and Poison in Colonial North Carolina

Witchcraft and Poison in Colonial North Carolina

Although in bondage, one way that enslaved individuals kept their traditions and culture alive was through the practice of a West African-based form of witchcraft called Hoodoo, Obeah, or conjuring.1 No matter what it was called, Hoodoo centered on herbal remedies (as well as poisons) and a series of rituals, which practitioners claimed would allow them to influence the environment around them, whether for good or for evil. By clandestinely practicing Hoodoo, enslaved individuals made choices for themselves, unbeknownst to their enslavers.

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.

Enslaved Conjuring, Poison, and Hoodoo

Some enslaved people consulted with local magic practioners, called conjurers, who promised to subtly influence enslavers' behavior.

Hoodoo rituals in North Carolina, at least according to extant sources, typically centered on special plant roots. By using these plant roots, conjurers promised to help enslaved individuals improve their lives without their enslavers noticing. For example, in Johnston County, an enslaved conjurer named Bristoe promised an enslaved man named Tom that he could make Tom’s "master Buy his wife" from a neighboring enslaver if Tom chewed a special root. Similarly, an enslaved woman named Lucy also received a root from Bristoe when she asked him to make her enslaver not sell her to a faraway plantation.

Enslaved individuals also relied on conjuring rituals for other forms of protection against their enslavers. Bristoe performed a ritual for an enslaved man named Jacob. By rubbing a dust with supposedly magical properties into Jacob’s hand, Bristoe claimed to be able to "prevent [Jacob’s] master from whipping him." Conjurers claimed to be able to cast spells on enslavers directly as well. Another enslaved man named Jacob received a special talisman from a conjurer named Quash. By hiding the talisman at the threshold of his enslavers’ door, Quash promised Jacob that it’d make his enslaver treat Jacob more nicely.

Reliance on herbal remedies and magic rituals, whether effective or not, demonstrates how some enslaved people used unorthodox means to advocate for themselves and improve their living conditions.

Drawing of the Ipomoea purga, or Jalap root. Folk magic practioners believed that the root, sometimes called the High John the Conqueror root, had magical or medicinal properties. Courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library.

In additional to rituals, enslaved people also secretly used poisons on their enslavers.

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.

19th century engraving of a rattlesnake. Daniel used a dead snake's venom to poison Elizabeth Eborne. Courtesy of New York Public Library.

Enslaved people also used herbal remedies on themselves as a way to help them preserve their own bodily autonomy.

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.

Jane's evidence: "That... Ceaser gave her truck to prevent her having children."

-Trial of Bristoe, 16 October 1779

The motivations for some enslaved people's violent actions against their enslavers went unrecorded.

As historians, we can never know the full extent of an enslaved person’s thoughts and experiences. With the documents we do have, we can start to piece together details of a person’s life, but it is a puzzle that will always be missing some pieces. One such case for which we have more questions than answers concerns Esther, an African American woman in Chowan County who was enslaved by Anne Hall Blount.

Esther had been enslaved by Anne or her family for most of her life, and she was probably about the same age as Anne. Esther is likely the “girl named Easther” mentioned in Anne’s father Clement Hall’s estate inventory in 1759. In 1774 Esther was likely there to witness when Anne, along with her mother and sister, signed the Edenton Tea Party Resolves, a resolution in protest of Britain’s colonial taxation policies, wherein Anne and fifty other women gave their oaths to boycott British goods including tea. The Edenton Resolves were groundbreaking as a symbol of women’s activism during the American Revolution. Yet, it remains deeply ironic that these women signed their names in support of independence while the majority of them simultaneously were enslavers.

This 1775 satirical cartoon of the signing of Edenton Tea Party Resolves depicts several of the signers being waited upon by a person of color. Perhaps Anne Blount's enslaved woman, Esther, was present for the signing. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

Esther might have acquired the verdigris she used to poison Anne Hall Bount from from a family medicine chest, similar to the one owned by a Maryland physician pictured above.  Courtesy of NMAH, Gift of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of the State of Maryland.

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.

  1. For more information about conjuring, Hoodoo and other forms of magic, see Yvonne Patricia Chireau, Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003); Katrina Hazzard-Donald, Mojo Workin': The Old African American Hoodoo System (Champaign IL: University of Illinois Press, 2012). For more information on conjuring within North Carolina specifically, see Alan D. Watson, "North Carolina Slave Courts, 1715-1785," North Carolina Historical Review 60:1 (January 1983) 31.

Freedom Petitions in Colonial North Carolina

Freedom Petitions in Colonial North Carolina

Running away or committing physical assaults were a means towards agency for enslaved people, but they also were illegal actions. Some enslaved individuals preferred a slower, though legal, route. By appealing to the government directly, manumission petitions were a means for enslaved people to advocate for themselves and fight for freedom.1

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.

Petitioning for Emancipation

Enslaved people performed vital services to their communities, seeking freedom as a reward.

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.

Many African Americans, both enslaved and free, hunted in and  traversed the dangerous wilderness. Courtesy of Library Company of Philadelphia.

Not all enslaved people's freedom petitions were equally successful.

Many enslaved people attempted to gain their freedom through legal means, but not everyone was equally as successful. One unsuccessful applicant was Amy Demsy, a woman of mixed African American and white ancestry. Even though her mother was free, the law required that Amy serve as an indentured servant until she reached a majority because of her mixed-race identity.

Sometime during her childhood, Demsy was sold to Nathaniel Duckenfield of Bertie County, with the understanding that she’d work for him until she reached the age of thirty-one. However, when Demsy reached the age of twenty-one, she made an appeal to the North Carolina Colonial Court, questioning the system of indenture altogether.

Having already labored at the Duckenfield plantation for at least a decade, Demsy had already paid off the ten pounds Duckenfield had paid for her in the first place, she argued. Why should she continue to work for the Duckenfields for another ten years, just so they could continue to profit off her labor? Demsy’s petition was ultimately unsuccessful, and she only attained her freedom at age thirty-one, when more than half of her life had already passed. Still, her petition stands a testament to how enslaved and indentured African Americans questioned injustices within the system and advocated for themselves.

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

Your Petitioner being now arrived to the Age of twenty one years & upwards most Humbly conceives she hath served the said Duckenfield suffcient to recompence him for the money he advanced towards Purchasing your Petitioner

-Petition from Amy Demsy to Edward Moseley, circa 1744

Military service during the American Revolution granted some enslaved individuals their freedom.

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.

A privateer during the American Revolution, James might have sailed on a ship that looked like this one, illustrated on a 1733 map of North Carolina by Edward Moseley. Courtesy of East Carolina University Digital Collections.

  1. For a larger collection of Slavery Petitions from the American South, see the Race and Slavery Petitions Project, part of the Digital Library on American Slavery.
  2. For more information regarding Quakers, slavery, and Revolutionary North Carolina, see Michael J. Crawford, The Having of Negroes is Become a Burden: The Quaker Struggle to Free Slaves in Revolutionary North Carolina (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2010).

Enslaved Violence in Colonial North Carolina

Enslaved Violence in Colonial North Carolina

Running away was not the only way that enslaved people exerted their own autonomy. Within the confines of bondage, some enslaved people used violence, rebelling against the rules enslavers had set for them and their bodies. For some, violence was a means towards achieving eventual freedom. For others, it was a means of expressing themselves and asserting their own control over the world around them, no matter the consequences.

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

Enslaved Resistance through Violence

Some enslaved people used violence as a means of revenge against their enslavers.

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.

Rose used dried ears of corn and corn stalks, pictured here, to fuel the fire she set in John Bradford's barn. Courtesy of the State Archives of North Carolina.

Out of desperation, some enslaved people murdered their enslavers, knowing full well what the consequences would be.

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.

During colonial times, the punishment of being burned at the stake was reserved for especially heinous crimes, such as treason. Murdering one's superior was considered petty treason, and, as such, Lucy and the other enslaved people that murdered Ormond faced the fire as punishment. Courtesy of British Library.

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.

Not all enslaved violence was local or personal in nature. Mass revolts, though less common, were also a form of enslaved resistance.

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.

A deep laid, Horrid, Tragick, Plan, laid for distroying the Inhabitants of this Province without respect of persons age or sex

-Letter from John Simpson to Richard Cogdell, 15 July 1775

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.

  1. Nikki M. Taylor, “Annis, Phillis, and Lucy: ‘[Your] Begging Is in Vain,’” in Brooding over Bloody Revenge: Enslaved Women’s Lethal Resistance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023) 52–65.
  2. For more information on the omnipresent fear of enslaved revolts and conspiracies in early America, see Jason T. Sharples, The World That Fear Made: Salve Revolts and Conspiracy Scares in Early America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020); Jeffery Crow, “Slave Rebelliousness and Social Conflict in North Carolina, 1775 to 1802,” William and Mary Quarterly 37:1 (Jan., 1980) 79-102; Alan D. Watson, “Impulse Toward Independence: Resistance and Rebellion Among North Carolina Slaves, 1750-1775,” Journal of Negro 63:4 (Oct., 1978) 317-328; Woody Holton, Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, & the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1999).

Freedom Seeking and Self-Emancipation in Colonial North Carolina

Freedom Seeking and Self-Emancipation in Colonial North Carolina

Self-emancipation refers to “the act of an enslaved person freeing themself from the bondage of slavery.”1 One of the most common means of self-emancipation amongst enslaved people was running away. For the enslaved, the physical act of leaving an enslaver’s property was a means of exerting control over their own bodies and circumstances. By pursuing freedom on their terms, enslaved people asserted their personhood in spite of a system of bondage meant to keep them down.

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.

Enslaved People Self-Emancipated for Many Reasons

Many enslaved individuals pursued freedom by running away from their enslavers' plantations.

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.

One of the few enslaved dwellings still standing at Richard Bennehan's Stagville plantation, from which Thompson made his escape. Courtesy of Historic Stagville.

Not all runaway attempts were successful. Still, some people resisted enslavement, no matter the cost.

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.

With its marshy banks, strong currents, and underwater obstructions, the Cape Fear River can be dangerous for swimmers. Courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Not all enslaved people ran towards freedom. Some ran towards family instead.

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.

I Give and Devise unto my Daughter... a fellow named Scipio & his wife Dinah and her Two Children Named Scipio & Nancy

-Will of Benjamin Hill, 20 June 1751

Scipio, it appears, had family that were also enslaved by the Hills, namely a wife named Dinah and two children, Scipio Jr. and Nancy. While Scipio could have made his escape from Scollay’s plantation and headed north towards a life of freedom, instead he pursued a separate path, one where he could live as a family with his wife. Freedom, it is clear, had different meanings for different individuals.

  1. Steward Henderson, “Self-Emancipation: The Act of Freeing Oneself from Slavery,” American Battlefield Trust, 25 March 2021, (accessed 5 March 2025).
  2. Richard Bennehan, "Thirty Dollars Reward," North Carolina Gazette (New Bern, NC) 2 September 1784.

Incarcerated Labor on the Western North Carolina Railroad

Thousands of incarcerated people toiled on the Western North Carolina Railroad during the 1870s and 80s as forced laborers. Most of these individuals were Black men and boys, who were convicted under discriminatory legal and judicial systems. These incarcerated workers built the railroad through the Blue Ridge Mountains, which transformed the social and economic landscapes of western North Carolina.

Incarcerated Labor on the Western North Carolina Railroad

Thousands of incarcerated people toiled on the Western North Carolina Railroad during the 1870s and 80s as forced laborers. Most of these individuals were Black men and boys, who were convicted under discriminatory legal and judicial systems. These incarcerated workers built the railroad through the Blue Ridge Mountains, which transformed the social and economic landscapes of western North Carolina.

Keep Scrolling to Learn More

A postcard with a photograph of incarcerated men and boys standing along the Western North Carolina Railroad

"Round Knob and Vicinity," a postcard published by T. H. Lindsey in Asheville, N.C., depicting incarcerated workers on the Western North Carolina Railroad, ca. 1885. Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Incarcerated Labor on the Western North Carolina Railroad by the Numbers

3644

Laborers

Estimated Total 1875-1891

499

Deaths

Known Toll 1875-1890

565

Escapes

Known Attempts 1875-1890

Laying the Tracks

The History of the Western North Carolina Railroad

Life on the Rails

Workers' Living and Working Conditions on the Railroad

People Imprisoned

Remembering the Lives of Incarcerated Workers

The Story Lives On

Incarcerated Laborers' Legacy Today

Explore Documents on Incarcerated Labor

The banner for this exhibit, a photograph of incarcerated workers on the Western North Carolina Railroad, ca. 1885, is courtesy of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Stand Against Slavery: Self-Emancipation and Resistance in Colonial North Carolina

During the 17th and 18th centuries, enslaved people of color in North Carolina resisted the conditions of their servitude in a variety of ways. Containing selected records such as petitions, court records, letters, and depositions, this exhibit demonstrates how North Carolinian people of color pursued their own freedom.

Stand Against Slavery: Self-Emancipation and Resistance in Colonial North Carolina

During the 17th and 18th centuries, enslaved people of color in North Carolina resisted the conditions of their servitude in a variety of ways. Containing selected records such as petitions, court records, letters, and depositions, this exhibit demonstrates how North Carolinian people of color pursued their own freedom through both legal and extralegal means.

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Enslaved North Carolinians By the Numbers

40000

Enslaved North Carolinians

Estimated Population in 1767

124

Documents

Transcribed

167

Named Enslaved Individuals

Included Within the Records

How did Enslaved North Carolinians Resist?

Running Away

How did enslaved people of color emancipate themselves? What were the risks and challenges?

Violence

Not all resistance was passive. From arson to assault, enslaved people challenged their bondage in many ways.

Freedom Petitions

Some enslaved people pursued freedom through the courts. What can freedom petitions tell us about enslaved individuals' experiences?

Witchcraft & Poison

Using traditional witchcraft, called Hoodoo or conjuring, some enslaved people resisted their enslavers through more subversive means.

Explore North Carolina's Records of Enslavement

The banner for this exhibit, an engraving by Alexander Anderson of African American men running away, as well as the images for the "Running Away," "Violence," and "Freedom Petitions" sections of this exhibit, are all from the Alexander Anderson Scrapbooks, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. New York Public Library Digital Collections. (Accessed 4 March 2025).

The icon for this exhibit, a set of rusted iron shackles, is courtesy of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

The image for the "Witchcraft and Poison" section of this exhibit, a lithograph of a scene of African people practicing magic, is courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

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