In the 1700s and 1800s, Brunswick County was home to many plantations where Africans were enslaved and forced to farm and harvest the cash crop of rice.
Four of those plantations were located along what is now N.C. 133, which runs along the Cape Fear River. The plantations were between Southport and what is now Belville.
When slavery ended, many Africans who were once enslaved on the plantations moved to post-emancipation settlements. One such community still exists in Brunswick County today: Dark Branch. The residents of Dark Branch have held onto their ancestral land, and as development continues in the N.C. 133 corridor, they are working to preserve the community’s history and legacy…