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Between mainland North Carolina and the narrow stretch of barrier islands we call the Outer Banks, sits a tiny island, just 12 miles long and around 3 miles wide. Dotted with rich maritime forest and bordered by brackish salt marsh on all sides, it’s home to two sleepy towns aptly named Manteo and Wanchese. This is Roanoke Island of course, of Lost Colony fame. But some 300 years later, in the mid 1800s, it was home to another colony entirely, one you’ve probably never even heard of, a colony whose population soared to just under 4,000 people in a matter of a few years. That’s more than the combined populations of Manteo and Wanchese today. This was the Roanoke Island Freedmen’s Colony and its history, its story, some might argue, has become even more lost than the Lost Colony itself. Let’s fix that.
Hello, I’m Shea LaFountaine and you’re listening to History Fix where I discuss lesser known true stories from history you won’t be able to stop thinking about. I’m very very excited to be joined this week by a descendent of the Roanoke Island Freedmen's colony to help me tell this story
Joan: My name is Joan Collins, I am a board member with the Pea Island Preservation Society Inc. We’re also called PIPSI, the Pea Island Preservation Society Inc. But we’re a non profit organization located on Roanoke Island and our mission is to promote the history of Keeper Richard Etheridge and the Pea Island Life Savers, a history that’s also connected to the story of the enslaved, the story of the Freedmen’s Colony on Roanoke Island.
But Joan is more than just a preservationist.
Joan: Well actually, my descendants were at the Freedmen’s Colony. Although I did not grow up and live on Roanoke Island as a young person. You know, I have deep roots to this area.
Before we get into the colony itself, there’s a whole backstory I need to fill you in on, some context. Our story begins in 1861, not at all coincidentally the same year the American Civil War began. So, the southern states, including North Carolina, have seceded from the Union to form the Confederate States of America. The southern states are protecting their own interests. They want slavery. They need slavery. Because their economy is mostly built on agriculture and if you have to actually pay people to work on your plantations, you can’t make nearly as much money. In the north, they have factories and industry, manufacturing, not plantations, so slavery isn’t as big of a deal up there and in fact, many people in the northern states have come to understandably despise the institution. These abolitionists want to put an end to slavery and the southern states see this is a threat. Yes, there are other factors at play that led to the southern states seceding from the Union but it’s safe to say that slavery is the spark, the catalyst, the straw that broke the camels back.
The Civil War officially began in April of 1861 when Confederate troops captured Fort Sumter, a Union post near Charleston, South Carolina. Now here’s the problem for the south in this war. They don’t have a lot of stuff. They don’t have guns and ammunition. They have cotton and tobacco and you can’t win a war with cotton and tobacco. The north makes stuff in their factories. They make guns and ammunition and cannons and uniforms and helmets and boots, all of it. They make it. They have it. The south doesn’t. The way the south gets things they need is by selling their crops. They sell their cotton and they use the money to buy these things. They trade for it, essentially. So when the war starts, the most obvious way for the north to win is to block this trade. They obviously aren’t going to be selling any guns to the south. They’re going to have to get them from somewhere else, mostly Europe. So the southern states pack their cotton and tobacco onto ships and take it to Europe where they turn it into guns and ammunition and boots, etc. If the Union forces can stop this trade, this exchange from happening, then the Confederacy is screwed. They are outgunned. And that’s exactly what they do. They set up blockades to stop southern ships from being able to trade. But, the south has to try. They send blockade runners to sneak past the Union blockades and make this very important trade happen. This is Rhett Butler from Gone With the Wind. Wilmington, North Carolina is the main blockade running port for the state. So if you can get your goods to Wilmington, you stand a chance of being able to trade them. But between all of these big agricultural towns, New Bern, Plymouth, Edenton, Elizabeth City and Wilmington and between major Confederate cities like Richmond and Norfolk and Wilmington, are sounds bodies of brackish water, four of them, four sounds, the Pamlico Sound, the Albemarle Sound, the Croatan Sound, and the Roanoke Sound. And smack dab in the middle of those four sounds sits Roanoke Island. It’s the back door to all of it. If the Union can control Roanoke Island, they will control all of coastal North Carolina.
Because there are very few ways out of these sounds, you’re blocked in by the barrier islands and there’s only a handful of ways out. Oregon Inlet is a big one. Controlling Roanoke Island means controlling Oregon Inlet. Hatteras Inlet is another big one. So first the Union goes after Hatteras. In August of 1861, about 4 months after the start of the war, Union Army General Benjamin Butler joined forces with Navy Commodore Silas Stringham to take over a couple of pretty shoddy sand forts the Confederacy had set up on Hatteras Island. So we have the army and the navy involved here because this is what’s called an amphibious attack, you have to be able to fight by water and by land. But, honestly, they don’t even have to fight to take Hatteras, they just kind of show up and take it. It’s not well manned. When word reached Norfolk that Union forces were going after Hatteras, the Confederacy hastily sent reinforcements to help hold the forts but they fell well before the regiment arrived. So they get there and they're like “well, shoot, they got it.” But instead of heading back to Norfolk, they go set up shop on Roanoke Island. If the Union is after inlets, it won’t be long before they set their sights on Roanoke. In all there were around 1,400 Confederate troops but according to author and historian William R. Trotter in his book Ironclads and Columbiads “the number available for duty was smaller than that because the living conditions put as many as one-fourth of the command on the sick list.” So yeah the Confederates are struggling on Roanoke Island. They are poorly clothed and super underequipped. Most of them are using their own shotguns they brought from home, not even legit military issued guns.
Henry A. Wise was put in charge of these troops and although he begged Norfolk for more guns, they were like “nah, y’all are good.” But they weren’t good. And I think this was a major oversight. I don’t think the Confederacy realized how valuable Roanoke Island really was. Or maybe they just didn’t have the equipment to equip them with. Maybe they would have sent more guns if they had had them. They were more focused on protecting Richmond, the capital. They were like Roanoke who? But, with what little they have, Wise sets up some forts to defend the island. They have 37 cannons and they spread them around to man these makeshift forts with almost all of them focused on the Croatan sound which is on the backside of Roanoke Island, the western side between the island and the mainland. Unfortunately for the Confederacy, they do almost nothing to protect entrance from the Pamlico sound to the south which is where the Union will ultimately approach from. Wise knows this is a measly attempt at defence. He knows they’re screwed if the Union tries to take the island. He sinks a few ships in the sound, hoping to make it impassable. And the Confederate Navy under Flag Officer William F. Lynch cobbles together 7 gunboats that will come to be called the “Mosquito Fleet” to help defend from the water. But Wise disagrees with this strategy because these ineffective gun boats took guns, and by guns I mean cannons, from the forts and they also took men from the forts and they also needed the boats to be used as boats. Wise wrote quote “Captain Lynch was energetic, zealous, and active, but he gave too much consequence entirely to his fleet of gunboats, which hindered transportation of piles, lumber, forage, supplies of all kinds, and of troops, by taking away the steam-tugs and converting them into perfectly imbecile gunboats,” end quote.
So the Confederate troops on Roanoke Island were a hot mess scrambling around trying to work with what they had which was almost nothing. Meanwhile, the Union is planning another amphibious attack. This one led by Navy flag officer Louis M. Goldsborough and Army Brigadier General Ambrose Burnside. This would come to be called the Burnside Expedition. In contrast to the 37 gun disaster happening over on Roanoke Island, the Union had 108 pieces of artillery aboard their ships when they set out from Annapolis, Maryland in January of 1862. The Army guys meet up with the Navy guys near the Chesapeake Bay and at this point, which this is kind of crazy to me, but up until this point, only Burnside and his immediate staff, like his inner circle, knew their destination. This isn’t just like a couple guys. We’re talking about 13,000 men and over 80 ships. And the captains of those ships had no idea where they were going. Once at sea the captain of each ship opened sealed orders that revealed that they needed to go towards Cape Hatteras. And you guys, Hatteras, the Village of Hatteras today has a population of 458 people. So imagining 13,000 Union troops on their way to Hatteras is pretty wild.
Now, let me remind you, this stretch of the Atlantic off the Outer Banks is known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic for a reason, and it lives up to its name during this expedition. The weather does not cooperate, they’re dealing with nor’easters, rough seas, many of the men are seasick and three of the ships sink, the City of New York, which was full of supplies, Pocahontas which was full of horses, and a gunboat called Zouave. But all the men are rescued from these ships and crowd onto the other ships. The horses were not as lucky, sadly. They need to pass through Hatteras Inlet and into the Pamlico sound in order to make their way up to Roanoke Island. The problem is, their ships draw 8 feet of water and they were under the impression that the inlet was 8 feet deep but they find that it is actually only 6 feet deep. This is the same exact problem the Roanoke Colonies ran into. The sound, the inlets, who knows how deep they are, they change constantly as sand is washed around and they are quite often impassable for larger vessels like this. So for the Burnside Expedition, this meant leaving most of their supplies on Hatteras Island to lighten the ships enough to pass through into the sound. Some of the ships couldn’t make it through even after lightning their loads. So three full regiments of men were left behind in Hatteras, one turned around and went back to Annapolis altogether, and the rest were crowded onto already overcrowded ships.
They make their way through the inlet and up the Pamlico Sound to Stumpy Point which is southwest of Roanoke Island. Here, Burnside encounters some formerly enslaved freedom seekers who had escaped from North Carolina plantations and they inform him of the Confederacy's sorry situation on Roanoke Island. They know where the forts are and, more importantly, they know where the forts are not. The Roanoke Sound to the east is too shallow, they have to approach from the west, which is why most of the Confederate forts face the Croatan sound west of the island. But with this intel Burnside gets, he sees an opening through Captain William Ashby’s farm on the southside of the island and this is where they make landfall, bombarding the Confederate defenses and making their way ashore to camp for the night. Now, once they're ashore, the Confederacy is kind of screwed. Almost all of their defenses were positioned to hold the Union off in the water. Now that they’ve made landfall, all the Confederacy has left is this measly little earthenwork mound in the center of the island with three cannons on it. Here’s how the National Park Service describes it quote “This battery, sitting astride the road, was thirty-five yards wide with a water-filled ditch eight feet wide and three feet deep guarding the front. Supporting the three guns were about 1,000 poorly armed soldiers from various regiments. The field in front of the battery was seven hundred feet long by three hundred feet wide and surrounded by marshy swamps. It was these pools of black, slimy swampy ground that the Confederates put their faith in. They expected the Union force to funnel their attack down the roadway, as the swamps were too treacherous and impassable. They were proven wrong,” end quote. So yeah, they were not deterred by the swamps. They hopped right in the swamp and approached from all angles, easily taking this last stronghold on February 8th, 1862. Which get this, I’m researching and writing this episode… on February 8th. Did not plan that. Had no idea when the Battle of Roanoke Island took place, could have been July for all I knew. I had a one in 365 chance of that happening so that one really blew me away. And, I know I’ve mentioned this before, that has happened so many times in the making of this podcast it’s really wild. I just take it as a sign that I’m on the right track. That I’m supposed to be doing this. Just a little validation from the universe.
There really weren’t very many casualties in the Battle of Roanoke Island. Once again, the Union just kind of showed up and took it. The Confederate troops at that little 3 gun mound retreated pretty much immediately back to their camp and then surrendered. They were so outnumbered and so outgunned there was just no point in fighting. It would be an unnecessary loss of life. According to the National Park Service quote “Roanoke Island was captured by Burnside at a very modest cost in casualties to his men. Official Union losses were given as thirty-seven killed, 214 wounded, and thirteen missing. Confederate losses were only twenty-two killed and fifty-eight wounded. However, 2,500 Confederate soldiers surrendered,” end quote. Now this may not seem like a big deal. This is a tiny island in the middle of the sound, how important could it possibly be? And perhaps that’s why the Confederacy sort of overlooked it, failed to properly man and gun it. But it was actually a huge victory for the Union army. The National Park Service says quote “On a military front, the capture of Roanoke Island opened up the interior riverline port cities, such as Plymouth and New Bern, to direct invasion as well as to threaten Morehead City, North Carolina and Norfolk, Virginia from their weaker rear areas. By the summer of 1862, all of the above cities had fallen to Union forces and seriously threatened the vital rail line from the Confederate capital in Richmond, Virginia to its only east coast blockade running port in Wilmington, North Carolina. With the huge success at Roanoke Island, the Union stranglehold on the South was ever tightening,” end quote.
So with Roanoke Island now under Union control and the 2,500 Confederate soldiers who surrendered likely becoming prisoners of war, there was a third group on the island, around 250 enslaved African Americans who had been sent by their enslavers to help build the Confederate forts on the island. General Burnside declares them contraband and they become the property of the Union army, same as the guns and whatever else they took from Confederate soldiers. But the Union has no interest in continuing to enslave them. That’s part of what they’re fighting for, right, an end to slavery. So they emancipated them, gave them their freedom. Many of them went to work for the Union troops now controlling the area. They went to work rebuilding the forts on Roanoke and Hatteras Islands as well as New Bern which had fallen soon after Roanoke. According to the National Park Service quote “They also served as cooks, woodcutters, teamsters, longshoremen, carpenters, and blacksmiths. Women were employed in doing tasks such as cooking and cleaning for Union officers. Other African Americans, more courageous than most, were employed as spies, scouts, and guides and completed many invaluable missions for the Union,” end quote. And they are no longer enslaved, remember, so they are paid for this work.
Joan: You know the Roanoke Island, you know I mean, just think of how people traveled during those days, you know the seaports and the trade that’s happening and you know just kind of traveling up and down the coast you know so you know when the Union troops pushed into Roanoke Island you know the Confederate troops and the slave owning farmers, they left. So now you have free blacks that are taken in by the union soldiers who, you know, gave them food helped them build shelters.
Word spread rather quickly that Roanoke Island had become a sort of safe haven for freedom seekers. And those 200 some Black people on the island after the battle, that number rose quickly to around 1,000 by the end of 1862. They are flocking to the island from surrounding areas because they know, if they can just get there, to where those Union soldiers are camping out, they will be free.
Joan: As more and more free Blacks arrived looking for safety and assurance you know the word spread as a matter fact there’s a church that’s connected to also to my family history called Haven Creek Baptist Church on Roanoke Island, and that name is derived because of the phrase if you cross the creek, which was really the sound, if you cross the creek, you’ll reach a safe Haven.
So freedom seekers from across the sound or creek were crossing over to make their way to Roanoke Island. Many of these people would have traveled from plantations on the mainland, one of the biggest was Somerset Plantation. This got me thinking because you know I’ve visited Somerset, it’s not too far from here and I know that the family that owned that plantation had the last name Collins just like Joan. So it got me wondering if Joan’s ancestors may have been enslaved at Somerset plantation.
I have to ask the family that owned Somerset Place over in Creswell, their last name was Collins. Is that where…
Joan: I truly believe so although I can’t say for certain or that I have seen a document to that effect, but you know in talking about my grandfather. My grandfather was a man named Marshall Collins and he married someone named Berry, a Gussy Berry, but anyway, my father never knew for certain where his father was born, but he always speculated that it was near the Somerset plantation, and if you know the history of the Somerset plantation you know which is about I guess about an hour drive from here on Roanoke Island and it’s interesting you raise this because I was just there about maybe a month or so ago for the second time only and it always brings up interesting emotions for me but anyway, if you know the history of the Somerset plantation and the name Collins that is a name that is also a very well-known name associated with people who were enslaved and those people you know could be you know people that people that like my family that have Native American ties they could be you know people that in their day, you know may have been known as mulatto. The Collins plantation owners not only owned Somerset, but they owned several plantations in this area and when you dig and dig and dig it just makes sense at least to me that that’s where my name derived. It’s always a journey but yeah, I do believe my last name came from Josiah Collins and that’s three generations of slave owners that were at Somerset plantation
So they arrive and build churches and schools, they start converting the old Confederate army barracks into housing and they build houses and a community of Freedmen starts to blossom.
Joan: So the Freedmen’s colony is where you know actually almost 4000, I mean imagine you think about it if you know Roanoke Island, which you obviously do, you know it’s not very large. This is almost 4000 men, women, and children ultimately seeking freedom, safety, and a better life. So they were given small portions of land you know to build houses to grow crops and schools and churches were built, Churches obviously being one of the first things that were built. You just gotta think of how they must’ve felt you know for the very first time getting a taste of freedom.
In January of 1863, in the thick of the war, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, liberating all the enslaved people in the Confederate states which I just love so much because, okay they seceded from the Union. According to them, they are no longer part of the United States, Abraham Lincoln is not their president, they have their own president. I love that he’s like still exerting power over them despite all that like he just completely disregarded the whole secession thing. It’s the most insulting thing ever and I love it. So according to the US government, slavery is dunzo. And when this happens, they start to get serious about the fledgling Freedmen’s colony forming on Roanoke Island. This is no longer a temporary situation, these people are free forever. They are no longer enslaved. And so they start to try to help set them up for this new life of freedom. The government obtains a large tract of land from local land owners for the colony. An abolitionist army chaplain named Horace James is put in charge as quote “Superintendent of Negro Affairs for the North Carolina District,” end quote. So it’s his job to try to set up this sustainable Freedmen’s colony on Roanoke Island and also in New Bern. He’s actually based in New Bern and he’s working on another colony there too so he’s honestly spread a bit thin. They build more churches, they build more schools, they build hundreds of houses, 561 houses by 1865. Teachers are brought in from the North to teach the people how to read and write. They set up a sawmill. They give them tools for farming. And more and more people are flocking to the island. By 1865 the population of the colony had increased to 3,901 people.
Another thing that happened after the Emancipation Proclamation was Black people were allowed to join the Union Army, which they legally couldn’t do before that. When that happened, around 150 men from the Roanoke Island Freedmen’s Colony joined the army to fight for the Union. Now, considering only around 4,000 Black men in all of North Carolina joined the army, 150 from this one tiny island alone is a lot. And it actually had some repercussions for the colony. This was the majority of the physically able men in the colony. Because even with 3,000 some people, roughly half of them were younger than 14 years old. Many were women, many were elderly. And when those physically able men went off to join the army, it left the colony less self-sufficient and more reliant on government rations to survive. I mean it already kind of was because Roanoke Island doesn’t have great soil for growing crops. There’s no way they’re sustaining 4,000 people with crops grown on Roanoke Island. Another problem the Lost Colonists faced, acquiring food. It’s a problem because resources are very limited on a 12 mile by 3 mile island. Even the indigenous people who were living on Roanoke Island back in the 1500s, it wasn’t like a permanent residence. It was like an outpost of their larger village on the mainland, Dasamunkapeac, in what is today Manns Harbor. Because Roanoke Island didn’t have soil good enough to sustain large numbers of people. And this is a problem for the Freedmen’s colony as well. And when those men went off to war, it really left the rest of them in a tough spot. Government rations start to dwindle towards the end of the war and people are hungry. On top of that, infectious disease is ravaging them. And this is likely exacerbated by hunger and malnutrition but they are also all living in tight quarters with no infrastructure to handle sanitation and this is the 1860s, they still don’t even know how this stuff spreads. So diseases like smallpox, cholera, and dysentery start tearing through the colony.
Horace James is glorified quite a bit in most of the sources I read. They all talk about how he took a special interest in the colony and thought it could be this great example of how formerly enslaved people could be assimilated into American society and that’s all well and good but I don’t think he actually did a whole lot to help them when things started to take a turn. He was in New Bern, after all, he wasn’t even there. He had put other guys in charge and I don’t think they were doing a very good job. And I base that on a letter I found that was written by a Black man named Richard Etheridge to Major General Oliver O. Howard, the Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau. Now remember the name Richard Etheridge because you will be hearing it again very soon, hint hint. Richard Etheridge was kind of a special case as far as being a Black man on Roanoke Island in the 1860s. He was believed to have been the son of his enslaver and, although he was enslaved, by his own father, John B. Etheridge, he was actually raised as a part of the Etheridge household and he was educated, he could read and write. So here, in this letter, we see him advocating for the colony, most of whom were just beginning to learn to read and write as adults. Etheridge writes quote “Genl We the soldiers of the 36 U.S. Col[ored] Regt Humbly petition to you to alter the Affairs at Roanoke Island. We have served in the US Army faithfully and don our duty to our Country, for which we thank God (that we had the opportunity) but at the same time our family’s are suffering at Roanoke Island, N.C. 1 When we were enlisted in the service we were prommised that our wifes and family’s should receive rations from goverment. The rations for our wifes and family’s have been (and are now cut down) to one half the regular ration. Consequently three or fours days out of every ten days, they have nothing to eat. At the same time our ration’s are stolen from the ration house by Mr Streeter the Asst Supt at the Island (and others) and sold while our family’s are suffering for some thing to eat. 2nd Mr [Holland] S[r]teeter the Asst Supt of Negro aff’s at Roanoke Island is a througher Cooper head a man who says that he is no part of a Abolitionist. takes no care of the colored people and has no Simpathy with the colored people. A man who kicks our wives and children out of the ration house or commissary, he takes no notice of their actual suffering and sells the rations and allows it to be sold, and our family’s suffer for something to eat. 3rd Captn [Horace] James the Suptn in Charge has been told of these facts and has taken no notice of them. so has Coln Lehman the Commander in Charge of Roanoke, but no notice is taken of it, because it comes from Contrabands or Freedmen the cause of much suffering is that Captn James has not paid the Colored people for their work for near a year and at the same time cuts the ration’s off to one half so the people have neither provisions or money to buy it with. There are men on the Island that have been wounded at Dutch Gap Canal, working there, and some discharged soldiers, men that were wounded in the service of the U.S. Army, and returned home to Roanoke that Cannot get any rations and are not able to work, some soldiers are sick in Hospitals that have never been paid a cent and their familys are suffering and their children going crying without anything to eat. 4th our familys have no protection the white soldiers break into our houses act as they please steal our chickens rob our gardens and if any one defends their-Selves against them they are taken to the gard house for it. So our familys have no protection when Mr Streeter is here to protect them and will not do it. 5th Genl we the soldiers of the 36 U.S. Co Troops having familys at Roanoke Island humbly petition you to favour us by removeing Mr Streeter the present Asst Supt at Roanoke Island under Captn James. Genl perhaps you think the Statements against Mr Streeter too strong, but we can prove them. Genl order Chaplain Green to Washington to report the true state of things at Roanoke Island. Chaplain Green is an asst Supt at Roanoke Island, with Mr Holland Streeter and he can prove the facts. And there are plenty of white men here that can prove them also, and many more thing’s not mentioned Signed on behalf of humanity Richard Etheridge, William Benson. So this Streeter guy is a real piece of work. According to historian Robert C. Kenzer in his book “Time Full of Trial: The Roanoke Island Freedmen’s Colony” quote “The last straw came when [Holland] Streeter, [Horace] James's assistant superintendent on the island, was convicted by a military commission for "misapplication and embezzlement of property entrusted to his care.” Because James came to his assistant's defense, his relationship with the colony would never be the same,” end quote.
When the war ended in 1865, President Andrew Johnson, who became president after Lincoln was assassinated, he signed the Amnesty Proclamation which returned all property seized by Union forces during the war to its original owners. Now, a lot of these colonists, these formerly enslaved people were seized as property, contraband, initially. The Emancipation Proclamation put a stop to all that. So it’s not like they’re going to be returned to their previous enslavers BUT the land they are living on, that’s a different story. The land the colony was built on had been seized by the Union army from local landowners and, according to the Amnesty Proclamation, they now had to give it back. So this was really the beginning of the end for the colony. They were stripped of their land, they had to leave.
Joan: Unfortunately, the colony didn’t last too long that you know within a few years, the government, long story, but the government eventually decides that the land that had been given to the Freedmen to build homes on, that land would need to be returned to the whites. So most people who came left. You know I’m part of a family that you know has been here since the beginning so you know there are a few scattered families on Roanoke Island that are still here and are connected to this history. My family just happens to be one.
Many of them actually went back to the plantations in eastern North Carolina where they had previously been enslaved. They went back and continued to work the land as sharecroppers and tenant farmers. But some of them, around 300 of them, remained on Roanoke Island. An 1870 census reported 300 Black people living in 60 different households on the island. They lived there for generations and many descendants of the Roanoke Island Freedmen’s Colony still live on Roanoke Island today including our very own Joan Collins.
Joan: I always say this all the time look and read for yourself too because there’s a lot of information out here. People just don’t read or look to find it. The National Park Service here at Fort Raleigh for instance, recently opened a new trail called the Freedom Trail. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there but it’s…
I need to go. I’ve heard about this.
Joan: You should because it’s a trail that’s right at Fort Raleigh, you know the location you know where enslaved would’ve literally crossed the creek you know which is the sound to freedom. But it’s an interesting, it’s interesting and I think thoughtfully done. It’s got silhouettes that represent the people who would’ve lived on the colony And the National Park Service has done an incredible amount of research to try to bring those stories to life and worked fairly closely with our organization to get perspectives and that sort of thing, but that’s a neat place to go. I would encourage.
That Freedom Trail is set up at Fort Raleigh on the north end of Roanoke Island, which, if you were with me for the Lost Colony episodes, 27 and 28, was the location of the fort set up by Ralph Lane and his men in 1585, a different colony entirely. Also, the place where freedom seekers would have crossed over, crossed the creek to find freedom on Roanoke Island. I love the intertwining of the history on this tiny island and Joan is really at the center of it all
Joan: You know, I have a deep roots to this area, roots that are connected to the story of the Freedmen’s colony, roots that are connected, that have ties to the Native American history of the area, roots that have ties to the arrival of the English. I mean like so many locals here.
But it does leave me wondering, you know, I know so very much about the 1585 and 1587 Roanoke Colonies which happened over 400 years ago. Why have I not been taught about the Freedmen’s colony from around 150 years ago?
You know, I grew up here and I don’t, I’ve learned about the Lost Colony, you know, and I don’t remember learning about the Freedmen’s colony and that’s really a shame. I’m happy to hear that they are putting things in place to teach people about it.
Joan: I always say that this is complex and tough history. It really is, I mean I think so. You know, but people I really do need I think need to really kind of stop and think about it because what our past also teaches us I think is even how we form our own thinking today you know you know what we’re used to experiencing and learning about stays with us, so if there’s a part that has been dismissed or not made known how do you know of that? You know, how do you know of that? And I always tell people that the mission of our organization, the Pea Island Preservation Society, is simply to make this history known, you know,history that people that quite frankly has been overshadowed.You have said yourself you’ve heard of the Lost Colony you’ve heard of the Wright brothers but you know people don’t have an awareness that this history is also here.
That awareness is so important. This coming Saturday, February 22nd, Joan’s organization, the Pea Island Preservation Society, is hosting an event in Manteo to raise that awareness.
Joan: February 22nd we’ll be at the College of the Albemarle. It’s called “PIPSI Past, Present, and Future.” You know where we’re actually featuring three short videos that we’ve done that you know tell the story of Richard Ethridge and the Pea Island lifesavers and tell about us and you know what we try to do is to what I you know I call creative storytelling you know it’s you know where we try to tell the story in a little different way and it is a little different I think because there are a couple us that are descendants you know and obviously know this history based on the experiences that our family went through, but we also just tried to do it in a way that gets people to think and is engaging.
That’s 3 pm at the College of the Albemarle in Manteo, this coming Saturday, February 22nd for all my OBX people who’d like to attend.
The Roanoke Island Freedmen's Colony was short lived, but in those few short years, 1862 until it was officially abandoned for the most part in 1867, it was a remarkable thing, a gathering place for freedom seekers who knew if they could just make it to the island, if they could get over the water and make it to shore, they would find freedom. They would find a community. They would find churches, religion. They would find education. They could learn to read and write. It was a utopia of sorts. And though they suffered and struggled at times, it was something they had never had before. It was the beginnings of a foundation, of something solid on which to build, of freedom. And their legacy lives on on Roanoke Island and throughout eastern North Carolina today, the descendants born upon that solid foundation, Joan Collins included. It’s significant and yet, most have selectively forgotten all about it. It’s time we changed that.
Thank you all so very much for listening to History Fix, I hope you found this story interesting and maybe you even learned something new. Be sure to follow my instagram @historyfixpodcast to see some images that go along with this episode and to stay on top of new episodes as they drop. I’d also really appreciate it if you’d rate and follow History Fix on whatever app you’re using to listen, and help me spread the word by telling a few friends about it. That’ll make it much easier to get your next fix.
Information used in this episode was sourced from “Time Full of Trial: The Roanoke Island Freedmen’s Colony” by Robert C. Kenzer, “Ironclads and Columbiads” by William R. Trotter, the National Park Service, Wikipedia, Roanokefreedmenscolony.com, and Roanoke Island Festival Park. As always, links to these sources can be found in the show notes.
