Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Nealia Pickens and Jesse Graves Papers, #599-z, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: SHC Staff

Encoded by: Noah Huffman, December 2007

Updated by: Laura Clark Brown, December 2012

Conscious Editing Work by: Patrick Cullom, July 2020. Updated abstract, subject headings, biographical note, and scope and content note.

Since August 2017, we have added ethnic and racial identities for individuals and families represented in collections. To determine identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic and racial identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual's preference for identity information to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Alamance County(N.C.)--History--19th century.
• Enslaved persons--North Carolina.
• Graves, Jesse.
• Hendersonville (N.C.)--History--19th century.
• Pickens, Nealia.
• Real property--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Slavery--United States--History--19th century--Sources.
• Women--North Carolina--History--19th century.

Collection includes an indenture dated 1 April 1854, from white enslaver George Foust to white enslavers Jesse Graves and Mary E. Graves of Alamance County, N.C., detailing the transfer of an enslaved Black woman named Ellen and an enslaved Black man named Arnold, to the Graves. Also included is a tax document issued to Jesse Graves as well as two pieces of correspondence between Nealia Pickens of Hendersonville , N.C. and her family.