A FREEDMAN'S COLONY

In 1862, when word of the Union's victory over the Confederate forces at Roanoke Island began to spread to the interior of the state, thousands of refugee and runaway slaves flocked to the island. General Ambrose Burnside, touched by the hard-working attitude of the former slaves, created a Freedman's Colony on the island.

For four short years, during and after the war, Roanoke Island, site of the first English settlement in the New World, became the site of the largest settlement of freed slaves in the south. Nearly 300 homes, schools, and businesses sprung up near the center of the island. By 1863, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, the population of the colony swelled to nearly 3,000. In June, 1863, the Union commander mustered the first black regiment of Union troops and transferred them to South Carolina for active duty.

In 1866, following the war, the Federal government returned all the property that had been seized for the colony on Roanoke Island to its original owners, and many of the freedmen left the island. Yet many current natives of Roanoke can trace their roots to the brave freedmen who made a new life here over 130 years ago.