Somewhere to Lay My Head: Black Mobility, Migration, and Landownership in Eastern North Carolina, 1861-1900

Abstract

From the Civil War through the end the 1800s, thousands of African Americansleft North Carolina for greater freedoms in various parts of the United States and abroad. Tracing African American refugees from a Civil War contraband camp on Roanoke Island, NC through generations of migration attempts, this dissertation explores the underground information networks and knowledge systems Black North Carolinians used to transmit information and make sense of their condition in the United States. Through a concept I term, “geopolitical knowledge,” I demonstrate how African Americans used kinship networks, literacy, knowledge of waterways and geography, political savvy, and religion to make freedom on their own terms. Importantly, I center religion and spirituality in shaping African Americans’ perception of freedom, community, and hope in the postbellum world. Building on Charles Long’s conception of “orientation,” I examine how African Americans used religion as a site of knowledge production and meaning making. Religion encapsulated more than adherence to a particular deity or practice, but a means through which to remap their epistemological worlds.