Slavery Documented
Davidson County’s participation in the slave-trade is a part of the historical record. It is through preserved and accessible primary source documents that we are better able to understand how the practice of selling, trading, and hiring out enslaved labor was conducted. Below are resources utilized in ongoing research about the practice of slavery in Davidson County.
1860 census records indicate there were 429 head-of-house slave owners in Davidson County, the average number of slaves each owned was seven, and the total number of slaves was 3,076.
According to record, Dr. William R. Holt was one of the largest slave owners in Davidson County. His "Plantation Commonplace Book” includes a 23-page inventory of slaves from 1850 to 1863. It notes births, deaths, and the monetary value on each slave, and is the only such original record in the Museum's permanent collection.
The Museum's archive contains documents from estates and other transactions that mention slaves in the context of property settlements, bequests, or sales. Below is an excerpt from the will of James Cameron (1800-1861) which left directions for the disposition of his estate, which included 6 slaves:
"I give and bequeath to my beloved wife Julia Ann my two negro slaves, Spencer and Mary…. My other negro slaves, Bob, Augustus, Amos and Jane to be hired out every year until my daughter Mary becomes of age or dies, then said negroes or surviving ones and increase to be sold to the highest bidder on a credit of 12 months.”
Another resource is the Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, the system of local government used prior to 1867. These minutes are being transcribed by the Davidson County Genealogical Society, which has created an "Index of Slaves & Free Persons of Color Without Surnames, 1830 through 1839". The Genealogical Society of Davidson County has also transcribed the Black Marriages records from 1866-1938. Both resources are available at the Genealogy & History Room.
Another resource is Marguerita Sandrock’s Master’s Thesis, Slaveholders Before and After the Civil War: Davidson County, North Carolina, 1820-1880, published in 1979. The thesis contains information about slaveholders in Davidson County gathered from census records, court minutes, deeds, wills, commissioner’s records, newspaper accounts, private papers such as letters, ledgers, receipts, and diaries housed in the Southern Historical Collection at Chapel Hill and at the State Archives, and private family documents from the heirs of former slaveholders.
Dispatch, August 3, 1855.
Another resource is newspapers which occasionally advertised the sale of slaves or other notices such as missing or captured enslaved people.
This ad states that a slave, Jim, will be disposed of according to law if his owner does not come forward with proof of ownership. If not, perhaps Jim would have been made available for purchase, perhaps through public auction.
Thus far, we have found no evidence of auctions held in Davidson County by domestic slave traders. However, estates were auctioned on the courthouse steps and some of the inventories here appear to be related to estate settlements. There were many private transactions in which slaves were sold by one owner to another. Bills of sale were recorded and noted in county court minutes.
Real property auctions and estate sales were held on the steps of the courthouse. Real property auctions and estate sales sometimes included the sale of slaves. The ads below were published in the Lexington and Yadkin Flag from 1855 to 1856. These slave sales would have occurred at the first county courthouse, completed in 1825, which stood in the center of the square. There is 1 documented witness account surviving which describes the sale of slaves taking place at the 1825 courthouse. Research is ongoing.
Commissioners were appointed to assess the value of slaves to be distributed amongst heirs and also sell slaves in order for an estate to be divided equally among heirs. Commissioners appointed for this role were often prominent slaveholders themselves.
Account of George Henderson in a Dispatch article published in August, 1911.
The market for buying and selling enslaved people and hiring out enslaved labor in the south continued during the Civil War. Though, it is unknown at this time when the sale of slaves through property auctions and estate sales ended in Davidson County. It is reasonable to surmise that the sale of slaves through property auctions and estate sales could have occurred on the steps of the second courthouse, at least from its completion in 1858 to the start of the Civil War 4 years later. Research is ongoing.
Davidson County’s participation in the slave-trade is also part of the oral tradition, the verbal transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next, which contributes to research about specific historic events.
Local tradition says that the granite blocks at each end of the front portico of the 1858 courthouse were used as slave auction blocks. At this time, only 1 documented witness account survives as evidence to support this story. Mark McCrary, born in 1838, in an 1911 Dispatch article, recalls his pre-Civil War memories about the sale of enslaved people on the blocks at the courthouse. Research is ongoing.
Account of Mark McCrary in a Dispatch article published in 1911. After checking census records, Mark McCrary would have been in his 20s at the time of the events recalled.
Dr. William R. Holt was a founder of the North Carolina Agriculture Society, and engaged in experimental farming at his Linwood Plantation.
Plantation Commonplace Book, Slave Register
