The relatively small class of plantation owners in the state continued to hold political power during the antebellum period or the period prior to the Civil War.

It is important for students to understand the varied experiences of North Carolinians during this period as well as disagreements about the institution of slavery. There were abolitionists, including members of the Quaker faith, who openly resisted slavery during the period. Of course, the cruelness of slavery was most real for enslaved North Carolinians who experienced an increasingly strict set of black codes and fugitive slave laws. As the Civil War neared, North Carolinians were divided about whether to secede and become part of the Confederacy. In this module, students will once again grapple with North Carolina’s troubled past as a slave state.