The Rivers Run Through It

New Bern, North Carolina, was a major national and international port in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The Neuse and Trent Rivers, which converged at the port, served as transportation routes for freedom seekers from inland plantations. With easy access to the Atlantic Ocean, the port was one of North Carolina’s three top refuges for freedom seekers, who were aided by sympathetic sailors and watermen. A network of Black watermen drove New Bern’s maritime Underground Railroad.

The surrounding tributaries and forests provided concealment and work for those seeking freedom via the waterfront. Upon the Union Army’s occupation of New Bern in March 1862, the nature of Underground Railroad activity shifted dramatically. The town became a mecca for thousands of enslaved people seeking the protection of Union forces.

New Bern's History

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Before European settlement, the Neusiok Indians lived in this vicinity along the southern banks of the Neuse River. The town of New Bern was officially established in 1710 by Baron Christoph von Graffenried of Bern, Switzerland, and settled by German Palatine and Swiss colonists. By 1722, New Bern became the seat of the Craven precinct, and by the mid-eighteenth century it had achieved considerable importance in the colony. The most central of the North Carolina coastal settlements, the town was a natural hub for government and trade. Located at the confluence of the Neuse and Trent rivers, it was relatively accessible to the outside world by water and to interior settlements by river and overland transportation.

New Bern’s prominence grew steadily through the eighteenth century. The colonial assembly first met there in 1737, and after 1746, met there nearly regularly until after the Revolution. In 1749 the first printing press in North Carolina was established in New Bern and in 1751 the first newspaper in the colony was printed here. In 1765, Governor William Tryon began construction of the Governor’s Palace, firmly establishing New Bern as the colonial capital. In the next decade, the town became a revolutionary center as well. The first Provincial Congress held in America in open defiance of royal authority was called here in 1774.1

For much of its early history, New Bern ranked as North Carolina’s largest city with about 2500 residents in 1800, more than 3600 in 1820, and over 3700 in 1830.2 New Bern has historically been a majority-Black city. The 1820 census showed 60% of the town’s population was Black, with the 1860 count at 57%.3 Comparatively, only about one quarter of the statewide population was Black.

Slavery and Maritime Trade

With the 1791 movement of the state capital inland, New Bern’s already strong maritime trade became an even more vital means of local support. The town’s growing prosperity depended primarily on the trade of goods and enslaved persons associated with plantation agriculture. Surrounded by dense pine forests, New Bern exported large quantities of lumber, hogshead staves, barrel parts, and naval stores - tar, pitch, and turpentine.

Agricultural products like pork, corn, and peas passed through the town’s port from plantations and farms in the west. New Bern became a central hub in the “Triangular Trade” in sugar, slaves, and other goods between the Carolinas, the West Indies, and New England. The coastwise trade with mid-Atlantic ports like New York and Philadelphia, and southern cities of Charleston and Wilmington was also key to New Bern’s affluence.

Sugar Cane Plantation - Island of Antigua c. 1823

Rivers: Conduits for Freedom Seekers

The convergence of the two rivers at New Bern’s waterfront provided a natural escape route for freedom seekers. From its origin southwest of Kinston, the Trent River flows eastward through the fertile farmlands and plantation properties of the Coastal Plains, joining the Neuse River at New Bern.

As the longest river in North Carolina, the Neuse originates north of Durham in the Piedmont region and meanders southeast for over 275 miles, passing through or alongside nine counties. At New Bern, it expands into a wide estuary before continuing past the Croatan Forest and into the Pamlico Sound.

The two rivers provided invaluable transportation pathways for enslaved people from the inland tobacco and cotton plantations. In The Waterman’s Song, the seminal work on Black maritime workers, author and historian David Cecelski writes: “Relying on their own watercraft skills or on the ubiquitous Black boatmen who plied the waters, fugitive slaves often followed rivers to those ports. The majority could not risk a long canoe or flatboat trip, even traveling only at night. But slaves escaped frequently enough by boat that when a Slocumb Creek man discovered a cypress dugout deserted near his home on Christmas Day 1828, he simply assumed that the craft ‘must have been last in the possession of a runaway negro’ who was heading down the Neuse River toward Pamlico Sound and the Atlantic.”

Advertisements posted in New Bern newspapers reveal frequent searches for freedom seekers believed to be following the Neuse and Trent Rivers.

An 1817 Carolina Federal Republican ad by a Jones County plantation owner seeks his enslaved runaways ABRAM and PEG, thought to be “lurking in Craven County on Neuse, where they have a number of connexions....”

An early 1800s post seeks runaway SIMBO of Onslow County “supposed to be lurking sometimes down Neuse river, and at others going up the same, and so he ranges through Craven, Jones, and Onslow counties.

A review of state-wide advertisements in 1818 alone showed escape attempts from at least five inland counties along the path of the Neuse and Trent Rivers and their tributaries – Wayne, Carteret, Lenoir, Onslow, and Granville.

Remote tributaries of the Neuse and Trent Rivers offered abundant travel paths and hiding places for freedom seekers from inland plantations.

A 1717 North Carolina Gazette ad sought SMART, an enslaved man described as very black, well made, and speaking broken English, but “very artful and insinuating.” SMART was thought to be lurking about Slocomb's Creek (a tributary of the Neuse River south of New Bern), with another freedom seeker and “a Gang of Runaways.”

Freedom seeker AMY must have availed herself of Trent River tributaries to reach shelter along the Neuse. In 1818, Mr. Hatch of Jones County along the Trent River posted in the Carolina Federal Republican that AMY had previously run away via the Neuse River, where she was harbored by enslaved people at two different plantations, before again crossing the Neuse, seeking safety with enslaved people at yet another plantation.

Likewise, an 1830 ad in the Carolina Centinel sought PETER, who was expected to be hiding between the Trent River and Bachelor’s Creek, a nearby tributary of the Neuse River outside of New Bern.

Partial collection of advertisements published in New Bern c. 18th Century

DIVERSITY & FREEDMEN

More than racial tolerance existed in New Bern – it was also a center of anti-slavery sympathy among wealthy white residents.

An 1838 letter written by a Quaker society president provides a powerful example of local abolitionist activity.

The correspondence reveals that the unnamed son of a white New Bern slaveholder regularly hid freedom seekers in ships sailing to Philadelphia. He also provided them with contacts in the Vigilance Committee of Philadelphia or even arranged for undercover abolitionists to escort them to freedom.

It is likely that this brave and “most effective worker,” as he was described, had developed contacts along the shipping routes between New Bern and the North and with sympathizers elsewhere in the state.

With its significant Black and freedmen population, New Bern quickly gained a reputation as a haven for runaways seeking to be hidden in plain sight.

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