🪧 BHM 2026 by QCT | Post #6 1790 North Carolina: Slavery, Freedom & Race Law ⚖️🏛️

🪧 BHM 2026 by QCT | Post #6

1790 North Carolina: Slavery, Freedom & Race Law ⚖️🏛️

In 1790, over 100,000 Black people were enslaved in North Carolina—25.5% of the state’s population 🧑🏿‍🌾⛓️. An additional 5,000 free Black residents (1.3%) lived in legal limbo under oppressive statutes 🧑🏾‍🦱⚠️. Freedom for the enslaved was technically possible—but heavily restricted 🔒.

📜 3 Legal Paths to Freedom:

✍️ Manumission by owner (required NC General Assembly approval) 🏛️

💰 Self-purchase (through earnings or borrowed funds) 📉

👶🏽 Birth to a mixed-race mother (most common, informal route) 🧬

While some secured freedom 🕊️, most lived under constant threat of re-enslavement, surveillance, and denial of basic rights 🚫👁️‍🗨️.

🧠 This lesser-known reality exposes the layered legal controls that shaped the lives of both enslaved and free Black North Carolinians long before slavery was officially abolished in 1865 🗓️⚖️🕯️.

📌 Sources:

[1](http://poplargrove.org/discover/gullah-geechee-2/slavery/) [2](https://www.uncg.edu/faculty-staff/research-free-people-of-color-south/) [3](https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/liberty-slaves-response-free) [4](https://archive.org/stream/freenegroinnorth00fran_0/freenegroinnorth00fran_0_djvu.txt) [5](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1886/01/the-free-negroes-of-north-carolina/522594/) [6](https://genealogical.com/2021/08/09/framework-for-6th-edition-of-free-african-americans-of-nc-va-sc/) [7](https://www.balanta.org/balantas-taken-to-north-carolina) [8](https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2083&context=facsch_papers) [9](https://dlas.uncg.edu/notices/history/) [10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8CY7Tzkrkc)