Forever Free: Slave Deeds of Buncombe County, NC

The Buncombe County Register of Deeds Office commemorated the 150-year anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation in 2013 to remember those who were enslaved and their immeasurable contributions to our community.

The Buncombe County Register of Deeds office has kept property records since the late 1700s. These records are an effort to help remember our past so we will never again repeat it. The enslaved people in the records were considered “property” prior to the end of the Civil War; therefore, these transfers were recorded in the Register of Deeds office.

In every county in North Carolina, the Register of Deeds played a role in cataloging the transactions of slavery in handwritten books. Contained in these handwritten files from the early 1800s are deeds documenting the trading of slaves as property.

One of the stories highlighted in the Slave Deed exhibit is of a slave named Sarah Gudger. Ms. Gudger was born into slavery in Old Fort, North Carolina but spent the majority of her life in Reems Creek. Her story is one of the only first-hand accounts that we have of slavery in Buncombe County.

For more information please go to www.buncombecounty.org/slavedeeds. 

View the records at www.buncombenc.gov/543/Slave-Deeds.