Silent Sam's Reckoning

Let's take a moment to consider the main way #UNC, as an institution, participated in the slave trade - not just implicated in the actions of slaveowning students/faculty/administrators - but the actual buying and selling of human beings. Let's talk about the "escheat" system.

Multiple UNC sources claim he “died in service,” but he returned to Chowan after being released in 1865. Died of unknown causes on 3/2/1866. His name is held in a place of honor inside UNC’s Confederate Shrine aka Memorial Hall, memorialized under 1836, the year he entered UNC.

Captured again in Feb. 1862, at Roanoke Island. Captured again in March 1865, where he remained until taking Oath of Allegiance on July 25, 1865. In between time as a POW, he served in NC’s Bureau of Conscription, enforcing the Confed. draft & prosecuting deserters.

Lucius Junius Johnson, #UNC Class of 1840, born to Charles Johnson & Ann Taylor of Chowan Co., NC., enslaved at least 159 people by 1850. Although honored by UNC as having “died in service,” survived the war but died in March 1866. #samsreckoning

Not all of the 287 names venerated as UNC Confederate Dead are chiseled on tablets inside Memorial Hall. We’ve reckoned 149 / 259 tablet names and, to date, 46.3% of them were slavers; the slaving rate among parents of these Dead is 100%. #samsreckoning for all the receipts.

Time for a research update. We've reckoned 56.4% of #UNC's Confederate Dead (162 / 287). Just under half of these UNC Dead were slavers; the slaving rate among parents of the Dead is 100%. These 162 families enslaved at least 8,021 people. #samsreckoning for all the receipts.

Silent Sam is rusting in pieces somewhere off campus, but men venerated by the monument are still held in a place of honor inside UNC’s Confederate Shrine aka Memorial Hall. William T. Nicholson & Edward A.T. Nicholson are memorialized under 1856 & 1860, the yrs each entered UNC.

Brother Guilford attended UNC from 1857-61 & survived the war. 1865: Guilford wrote to the Freedmen’s Bureau asking for help transporting freed peoples from the Nicholson’s Halifax Co plantation “back” to Mississippi, from where his family taken enslaved ppls generations earlier.

Yesterday was the anniversary of Silent Sam’s fall. In recognition, we present 2 of UNC’s Confederate dead: the Nicholson brothers of Halifax Co NC. As depicted by the plaque on the plinth (RIP): one brother left UNC to die for a bigoted Southern society. twitter.com/sams_reckoning…