hmm leading up to the 1800s in the Southern United States Durham North Carolina was little more than a railroad Depot but to the north of town stood a massive Plantation covering 47 square miles known as stagville on first glance stagville was a humble Farmstead with a few simple buildings it represented the humility and lack of pretense that characterizes Durham even today stagville stood in real contrast to the image most people hold of lush decadent column plantations in the pre-civil war South Ville was focused on self-sufficiency and simplicity but it was a slave owning Plantation the binahan and Cameron families combine their Holdings after a marriage in 1803 to amass some thirty thousand acres around the central residencies at stagville by 1860. in the heart of an agrarian society one could find fields of vegetables cash crops such as cotton and tobacco and hills of Pine and deciduous trees alike its size allowed stagville to house some 900 slaves any of which would have needed three days in order to leave the vast property on foot only one slave was ever known to have left the stagville plantation and she only by escaping went on a family trip to Philadelphia at stagville which was one of the largest plantations in the South and the largest in North Carolina today you can find several original buildings remaining including the binahan family home dating back to the 1700s as well as a yeoman Farm's home dating back even farther in American history an original Timber barn and four two-story slave family dwellings much of what stagville represented with its vast Cruise of enslaved laborers was the source of national identity Strife the plantation and all like it were soon engulfed in a bitter War of the youthful United States