Many of the famous abolitionist and anti-slavery pamphleteers lived in or were natives of the Tar Heel State. For various reasons, they condemned the peculiar institution. Some did so for humanitarian reasons; others did so for practical reasons or because they believed that slavery prevented whites from achieving economic progress.
For more concerning North Carolinians’ contribution to the abolitionist/anti-slavery literature, consult the following northcarolinahistory.org entries. Hinton Rowan Helper argued in The Impending Crisis of the South that that slavery was the biggest obstacle to Southern economic growth.
In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs, a runaway slave from Edenton, describes the cruelty of slavery, debunks the myth of the content or
happy slave, and argues that a slave?s behavior must be judged by
different standards than those applied to free people.
David Walker, a Wilmington native, called for a slave revolt and a restoration of what he deemed true Christianity. His Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World struck fear in the hearts of many white Southerners and prompted the General Assembly to ban the book.
