- Title
- North Carolina historical review [1948 : April]
-
-
- Date
- April 1948
-
-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
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North Carolina historical review [1948 : April]
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The North Carolina
Historical Review
Volume XXV April, 1948 Number 2
SOME ASPECTS OF NEGRO LIFE IN NORTH CAROLINA
DURING THE CIVIL WAR1
By
В.
H. Nelson
The Negro of North Carolina has been the subject of consider¬
able study in recent years. Admirable studies have appeared
on the ante-bellum period,2 and some attention has been given to
the post-Civil War period.3 But no serious attempt has been
made to study the Negro in North Carolina during the Civil War
period. A complete record of the role which this state played in
the Civil War and the problems which confronted her at home
can never be constructed as long as the Negro population of the
state is neglected.
Every aspect of life in North Carolina was disturbed by the
Civil War. State finances, commodity-supply, and labor organi¬
zation were completely disrupted. But more important to North
Carolina, the Civil War threatened to undermine traditional leg¬
islative and social machinery, developed over a period of many
decades, for the control of the Negro population of the state.
Problems arose regarding “Negro control” during the first two
years of the war which demanded immediate consideration.
Union control of the coast and of some eastern counties after
1862 and rumors of abolitionist activity in the state made the
problem even more serious.
In addition to considerations of controlling the Negro popula¬
tion, answered in part by the enactment of legislation and the
1 This is the third of a series of articles by the author on the subject “The Negro in the
Confederacy, 1861-1865.” The first article, “Legislative Control of the Southern Free Negro,
1861-1865,” appeared in the Catholic Historical Review, XXXII (1946), 28-46, and the second,
“Confederate Slave Impressment Legislation, 1861-1865,” appeared in the Journal of Negro
History, XXXI (1946), 392-410.
2 James B. Browning, “The Negro in Ante-Bellum North Carolina,” North Carolina His¬
torical Review, XV (1938), 18-46; John Hope Franklin, “The Free Negro in the Economic
Life of Ante-Bellum North Carolina,” North Carolina Historical Review, XIX (1942), 239-
259, 359-375, and The Free Negro in North Carolina. The latter is a definitive study of the
free Negro for the period 1790-1860.
3 James B. Browning, “The North Carolina Black Codes," Journal of Negro History, XV
(1930, 461-473; Roland McConnell, “The Negro in North Carolina,” unpublished doctoral
dissertation, New York University, 1945.
Г
143 ]
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