Princeville is a town in Edgecombe County, North Carolina, United States established by freed slaves after the Civil War.

[7] With the assistance of the Freedmen's Bureau, these inhabitants developed their own makeshift settlement at the site and chose the name Freedom Hill in recognition of a small raised area where a Union soldier first announced the Emancipation Proclamation.

[10] There is no evidence that the two ever attempted to remove the freedmen from their properties, probably owing to the initial presence of federal troops and the poor quality of the land, which frequently flooded.

[9] The community suffered heavily from poverty during its early years, receiving limited federal aid until the Freedmen's Bureau withdrew from North Carolina in 1869.

[12] Unlike most freedmen's towns in the Southern United States and in spite of its location in an agricultural region, Freedom Hill developed as a community with a workforce dominated by nonagricultural labor.

The 1880 U.S. census recorded 379 inhabitants of whom only 12 were farmers and 43 were farmhands, with the remainder working in various trades including day laboring, laundering, seamstressing, carpentry, and blacksmithing.

[16] After several petitions from Edgecombe County residents, in February 1885 the North Carolina General Assembly incorporated the community as the town of Princeville, named in honor of local carpenter Turner Prince.

[8] In the opening years of the 20th century, white business owners launched unsuccessful attempts to either dissolve or seize control of the town.

By the end of World War I, more than half of the town's inhabitants moved to northern cities as part of the Great Migration seeking economic opportunities and an escape from white supremacy.

Princeville experienced severe flooding in September 1999 when Cape Verde-type Hurricane Floyd pulled coffins from the cemetery and raised water levels to just below the height of rooftops and church steeples.

[21] In October 2016, Category 5 Atlantic Hurricane Matthew struck the town with similarly devastating results leaving residents with a decision between rebuilding and moving elsewhere.

In 1999, students from North Carolina State University created a mobile museum for exhibits showcasing the town's unique heritage.