Rodney D. Barfield

RODNEY BARFIELD is a historian, author and former history museum curator who has worked in regional history for the past thirty years. His interest in antebellum free blacks dates from an exhibit he curated in 1978 for the North Carolina Museum of History on Thomas Day, a free black cabinetmaker with roots in Virginia and North Carolina. His book, "Seasoned by Salt: A Historical Album of the Outer Banks" (University of North Carolina Press, 1995), written while the author was director of the N.C. Maritime Museum, pays tribute to the traditional folkways of the maritime communities along the North Carolina barrier islands. He co-authored "Christopher Bechtler: Mintmaster of Pioneer Gold," the only extant book on the antebellum North Carolina minters. His latest work, "America's Forgotten Caste: Free Blacks in Antebellum Virginia & North Carolina" is due for publication in May, 2013. Barfield lives and writes in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.