Rooted in Research

Rhiannon Giddens is conducting primary-source archival research for the first time as part of her Southern Futures Research Residency with CPA. Each semester, Rhiannon visits campus for a week. During these visits she spends a few days researching in the Louis Round Wilson Library. To streamline the process, Research Assistant Callie Beattie carefully selects documents for Rhiannon to review based on search terms, topics, and people of interest.

Out of dozens of documents she’s viewed, a few have stuck out. Rhiannon is especially interested in items that document interracial relationships and sentiments. She is fascinated with the 1800s in the United States, especially the period between emancipation and the 1920s. According to her, this period of approximately 40 years is “particularly important and particularly ignored when it comes to cultural things like music, dance, and literature happening in the underclass.” To understand more about the cultural roots of this country, Rhiannon has been researching the lives and feelings of everyday people, searching for clues on how the different racial groups thought of one another, interacted with each other, and set the foundation for the contemporary racial reality.

On October 5, 2023, WUNC Race and Southern Cultures Reporter Leoneda Inge joined Rhiannon in conversation about her experience conducting research in Wilson Library, and the two discussed several documents. On this page, you can view each document and listen to audio of Leoneda and Rhiannon discussing the document in the context of Rhiannon’s creative scholarly practice.

A small account book with expenses of Phineas Nixon while on the voyage of the Sally Ann from Beaufort, NC to Haiti, 1826

This document is a small account book, and its size suggests it might have been kept in a jacket pocket, close to the author’s person. It was written by Phineas Nixon, and used as an expense log during his time on the Sally Ann, a ship that sailed from Beaufort N.C. to Haiti in 1862. Phineas Nixon was an agent for the Committee of Sufferings of the Religious Society of Friends, also known as the Quakers. The Sally Ann was sponsored by the Meeting for the Sufferings, a branch of the Yearly Meeting of Friends (a branch of North Carolina Quakers), and it transported about 120 formerly enslaved people voluntarily emigrating to Haiti.

This item is from the Collection of Manumission Records in North Carolina, 1773–1845, a collection composed primarily of the papers of Richard Mendenhall, a white Quaker of Guilford County, N.C., relating to the Manumission Society of North Carolina and other anti-slavery groups. Manumission societies emerged in the 18th century as part of a movement aimed at ending slavery through voluntary liberation. This effort was primarily instigated by the Society of Friends, also known as Quakers, who believed that slavery was ethically wrong and contrary to Christian principles.

This account book is several pages long but Rhiannon was most interested in page 5, where Nixon transcribed (possibly in secrecy) a racist rant by a ship captain. Here is the transcription: 

“Captain Phelps and Captain Conely heard Captain Thomas Thomson say that he wishes the Quakers and negroes were all in hell locked up and that he had the keys and power to keep them there and also heard him say that he wished that 40 negroes were tied round my neck and all of us throwed into the gulph [gulf] stream. Christopher Davis heard Captain Thomson say to Cooke that it would not do to put anymore cargo on board for the Quakers would not like it. Cooke replied that he did not care for the Quaker; it shall go on board.”

A small account book with expenses belonging to Phineas Nixon while on the voyage of the Sally Ann from Beaufort, N.C. to Haiti, 1826, Folder 12 in the Collection of Manumission Records in North Carolina, 1773–1845, in the Southern Historical Collection, Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Letter and poem written by George Moses Horton to President David L. Swain

George Moses Horton was an African-American poet from North Carolina who was enslaved. Horton was the first Southern Black person to be published after the United States gained independence from England. He was commonly referred to as the “Slave Poet.”

Around 1815, Horton began crafting poems mentally, reciting them aloud, and offering them “for sale” to a growing audience of white people at the bustling Chapel Hill farmers market.  Horton also had a presence at Carolina, where students from the University would commission or purchase his love poems and lend him their books to read.

On September 11, 1853 George Moses Horton wrote a letter to then-University President David L. Swain in which he made a plea for his freedom. At the close of the letter, Horton penned a poem entitled, “The Poet’s Feeble Petition.” During her research, Rhiannon looked at a few examples of Horton’s poetry, but this is one of few Horton poems in the Library’s collection that was not written for a student suitor. Most of Horton’s poems that are in archival collections are commissioned poems, usually limerick-style love poems, and are not poems expressing Horton’s personal writings/poetic reflections. Rhiannon was most struck by this particular letter and accompanying poem because it’s one of the only examples of Horton’s personal thoughts and a poem expressing those feelings. This is a powerful letter and a moving poem in which Horton petitions Swain for his freedom. Swain did not grant Horton his freedom and Horton was enslaved until 1865 when the Union troops arrived in North Carolina carrying the Emancipation Proclamation.

This item is from the David L. Swain Papers, 1807–1877 (bulk 1833–1868). David L. Swain was a white lawyer, a legislator, a governor of North Carolina, a president of the University of North Carolina (1835–68), and an enslaver.

Letter and poem from George Moses Horton to David L. Swain, 11 September 1853, Folder 24, in the David L. Swain Papers, in the Southern Historical Collection, Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Mary Susan Ker Diary Entry about Interracial Relationships between Children, November 23, 1895

Mary Susan Ker of Natchez, Miss. was the daughter of cotton planter and American Colonization Society vice-president, John Ker (1789–1850) and Mary Baker Ker (d. 1862). Ker was a fastidious journal-er, sometimes writing multiple times a day in her diary. Her diaries span from 1886–1923, and primarily describe the social life and customs of post-Reconstruction Mississippi, especially around Natchez and Vicksburg. This item is from the Mary Susan Ker Papers, 1785–1958.

Callie selected the Mary Susan Ker diaries due to their rich detail and high volume of entries; as a whole, they offer deep insight into Southern life and society at the turn of the 20th century. In this particular entry, dated November 23, 1859, Ker documents an event during which two white children go horseback riding with an enslaved Black child. Rhiannon is interested in representations of the ways children experienced, expressed, and interacted with race relations, which is why she was drawn to this item. The excerpt of the diary entry that caught Rhiannon’s eye reads:

“The next thing I was asked if C. could take a horseback ride with Etta and in giving my consent thought, well, no harm can come of this. What must Etta do but saddle up another horse for the house girl (a saucy young woman) and take her with her – on perfect equality. They slipped off slyly and were out of hearing before I caught sight of the party or I should have called Catharine back. When they returned I told Etta and C, what I thought of their proceeding and told C she could not go riding any more unless assured no negro should be of the party – and to make it worse they were gone until dark and Catherine had disobeyed me by eating wild grapes – which Etta lives on, I may say. I am almost in despair. I spoke to Mr. Killingsworth about the ‘negro’ ride this evening and he said that he had remonstrated with Etta about her familiarity with the negroes in vain – and so have I.”

Diary entry by Mary Susan Ker, November 23 1895, Folder 154 in the Mary Susan Ker Papers, 1785–1958, in the Southern Historical Collection, Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Entries from the Diary of Samuel A. Agnew

Samuel A. Agnew grew up and attended college and seminary in Due West, S.C. He relocated to Mississippi in 1852, and from then on lived in the northeastern part of the state, primarily in Tippah and Lee counties, where he was an Associate Reformed Presbyterian minister, teacher, farmer, and prominent local citizen.

Agnew was an avid diarist, keeping detailed entries of his thoughts, experiences, and activities. He detailed neighborhood news and public events, particularly as they affected the locality. Agnew documented information chronicling relations with enslaved and free blacks, the Civil War, during which he was in the area of operations of both armies, and Reconstruction. He also wrote about the Ku Klux Klan, local and regional church affairs, and farming and leadership in the local Grange. This item is from the Samuel A. Agnew Diary, 1851–1902.

Rhiannon was quite interested in this diary because of the distinct entry titles given by Agnew. While the titles may seem mundane at first, they are a kind of cataloging or typification by Agnew (a white man). Taken together, they show his everyday thoughts about the world and his orientation toward others. The content within the entries is also of interest. In the entry titled “A Negro Wedding,” for example, Agnew details a moment of joy and a celebration for a wedding with a frolic. Other diary entry titles that caught Rhiannon’s attention include: “Negro Rascality;” “Negro Troops Insolence,” “The Accidental Killing of Little Negro,” “Cook and Washer Obtained,” “Killing Hogs,” “Salting and Packing Pork,” “Cotton Settlement – Women,” “Negro Notions of Hiring and Renting,” “BBQ, Railroad Working,” “Prison Life of Jefferson Davis,” “Yankee Body Hunters Intimidated Us,” and “No Reliable News”

Diary tables of contents and entries by Samuel A. Agnew, 1851-1902, in the Samuel A. Agnew Diary, #923, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Diary tables of contents and entries by Samuel A. Agnew, 1851-1902, Folder 9, Volume 7b: 27 September 1863-November[?] 1864, in the Samuel A. Agnew Diary, #923, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.