Trent River Settlement

Scenes from Trent River Settlement, a freedmen's camp near New Bern. Although the Civil War resulted in hardship for white North Carolinians, it brought the opportunity for a new life—one free of the bonds of slavery—for the state's African American population. As they heard news of the arrival of the Federal army in eastern North Carolina, thousands of them seized the opportunity to flee to freedom and security within the Union lines. The numbers of these so-called "contrabands" became such a logistical problem that camps were established to house the new "freedmen" at various locations in the occupied eastern portion of the state. Volunteers and missionaries from the northern states assisted in setting up schools, clinics, and other necessary services, while the freedmen themselves were assigned small tracts of land on which they could eke out an existence.