Historic Stagville preserves a section of the Bennehan and Cameron plantations, one of the largest sites of plantation slavery in antebellum North Carolina. Here, enslaved people built a sprawling plantation complex of farms, workshops, mansions, and mills. Year after year enslaved families suffered separation, violence, hard labor, and disease. Amid the horrors of slavery, they resisted, claiming some measure of freedom through sabotage, direct action, cultural traditions, and freedom seeking. In 1864, over 1,000 people were enslaved by the Cameron and Bennehan heirs. 

Today, Historic Stagville is a 165-acre State Historic Site that inspires new understanding about the history of slavery through preservation, interpretation, research, genealogy, and descendant engagement.