Customer Reviews

Time Full of Trial: The Roanoke Island Freedmen's Colony, 1862-1867

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As a novice Civil War Buff and North Carolina Historian, I found the book very comprehensive in its coverage of this interesting facet of Civil War, Reconstruction, and North Carolina history. Click focuses on a group of slave refugees set up in a freedmen's colony by Northern evangelists and Union military personnel and their struggle to survive in a post-slavery world. The book's rich detail is further strengthened by its ease of read and overall interestingness making it a true gem for someone researching or just looking for a good read.

Even though I am a self-taught researcher of local and NC history and genealogies, I had not heard of this publication until I saw the author on PBS TV. I ordered the book from ... and am still in the process of reading it. It seems well documented and contains information I was not aware of until I read this book. I have helped two different African-American individuals research their families and so this subject was of interest to me. I recently was in court as a juror and was approached by a bystander who heard me describe my "line of work." I told her of this book and how she could obtain a copy. She said she would like to add this publication to her personal library of publications on Black Research. I purchased this book for our local historical/genealogical library so that it could be used by everyone doing black research. I ony live about 60 miles as the crow flies from Roanoke Island and had never heard of this Freedmen's Colony until now.

"It is with a heart full of gratitude to God that I seat myself to write you this morning. It brings to mind the scenes through which we have passed since the time when my quarterly report ought to have been written - a time full of trial and yet full of joy."

- Ella Roper - Missionary Teacher - roanoke Island, 31 May 1864

In TIME FULL OF TRIAL, Patricia Click introduces why she feels that the story of the Roanoke Island's freedmen's colony is one of national significance.

She explained that she initially got interested in the subject matter of the Freedmen's Colony when she took a summer position as an historian-in-residence for the town of Manteo, North Carolina.

The town of Manteo sits on the eastern side of Roanoke Island.

Roanoke Island is located between the North Carolina mainland and the Outer Banks. For those of you familiar with English history, this is where the first English settlements in America were located. The last of these colonies was known as Sir Walter Raleigh's lost colony because it mysteriously disappeared in the 1580's.

The mayor of Manteo suggested to the author that an interesting project for her internship would be to write a history of the colony of former slaves that was established on the island during the Civil War which at the time of the Civil War was known as the Roanoke Island freedmen's colony.

Click began some research; but really did not know where to start. She discovered that there was an evangelical missionary organization that had tried to do missionary work at that time. She located many letters that were written by the American Missionary organization housed at the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans, Louisiana. She also discovered thankfully that a microfiche had been made and was housed at the University of Virginia. She ended up just writing a paper that summer giving an overview of the colony; but she felt that at a later date she might want to write a complete history of the colony itself; but she correctly determined that a summer internship was certainly not going to give her the time she needed.

It wasn't until ten years later that she revisited that summer internship project and then realized that it was much bigger than she even imagined at the time. Click contemplated that what had happened to the colony was the result of a mixture of "evangelical, traditional republican, abolition sentiments that were tempered by the crucible of the military experience." She knew that this local experiment actually had national implications.

She decided to focus not only bringing the story of the Roanoke Island freedmen's colony alive; but she also wanted to write a book which would give a scholarly account of freedmen's camps and the missionary work which was done. She was however very concerned about the lack of substantial primary source material from the freedmen's perspective.

Click emphasized that she tried to remain faithful to the terms used at that time. At first, the former slaves were referred to as contrabands. The settlement was referred to first as a camp similar to what the Union outposts in the Southern coastal regions resembled. But in 1863 things changed, a General John G. Foster instructed the Reverend Horace James to "supervise the "colonization" of the island with former slaves"

According to Click, from that point it was referred to as a "colony" When referring to the people who lived in that colony; both men and women were referred to as simply "the freedmen".

The book's title is taken actually from a letter written by a missionary teacher in May, 1864 (Ella Roper) to the American Missionary Association's corresponding secretary (Reverand George Whipple). She wrote: "with a heart full of gratitude to God; that the past quarter had been "a time full of trial and yet full of joy because our Strong Deliverer seemed so near."

Click came to the conclusion that the missionaries even though they were naive; really did want to improve the lot of the freedmen with education and felt they were performing a service.

She does not let them off the hook for their self righteousness, however; but she decided to take them at their word in regards to their missionary spirit. She also stated that the work was a trial for everyone: the colonists, the teachers, the military authorities, etc. It was also as Click stated "a trial run for some significant ideas - free universal education, small freeholding, wage labor - that could have drastically altered society and culture in nineteenth-century North Carolina."

TIME FULL OF TRIAL examines what happened to these best laid plans and ideas and why.

Click's work is scholarly, detailed, thorough and a sensitive probe into the motivations and currents of that time period. An interesting read especially during the year of Lincoln.

Bentley/June 2009