ENAbout
The Neal Family Papers document white farmers and plantation owners, enslaved and free people of color, and freed people in Franklin County, N.C.; Fayette and Henderson counties, Tenn.; Tuscaloosa, Ala.; Hinds County, Miss.; Waxahachie, Tex.; and other areas of the old Southwest in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Antebellum letters from white enslavers in the Neal family and related Fox and Timberlake families concern moving west, buying land, establishing profitable cotton plantations, trafficking in forced labor, religious life in the old Southwest, and student life at the University of North Carolina. Of note are letters with describing an act of resistance planned by enslaved people and their subsequent murders by hanging in Livingston, Miss.; the murder of an enslaved person by another enslaved person; attitudes toward and treatment of enslaved people, including corporal punishment; health of enslaved people; courtship, marriage, and divorce among enslaved people; and Black musicians. There are two letters written by enslaved people about life after being trafficked away from home and family. Letters from the American Civil War years describe camp life and combat experiences, mainly in the Virginia theater. Letters from after the war describe an African American religious revival; a 12 year old African American girl who was jailed for starting fires; the perception of antagonistic relations between African American people and Indigenous people of North America; the oppressive impact of stock laws on Black and white farmers; home remedies; and more broadly, late 19th-century farm life in North Carolina and small-town life in Texas. Financial, legal, and other items date from both before and after the American Civil War. Of note are a promissory note related to the trafficking through hiring out of the labor, skills, and knowledge of an enslaved person and a list of people enslaved by the Neal family in 1862.
