Interior view of the Great Barn at Stagville Plantation, North Carolina. The Great Barn was built by enslaved people during the summer of 1860 and was originally used to house the plantation’s mules. It is thought to be the largest agricultural building built in North Carolina prior to the Civil War. A variety of sophisticated construction techniques were used in building the barn, including some shipbuilding techniques that would likely have been brought here by the enslaved people purchased from regions closer to the North Carolina coast.