When, in 1524, Giovanni da Verrazano sighted Cape Fear, he described a new land that, he wrote, had never been seen before by "any man, either ancient or modern." In fact, the area now encompassed by North Carolina was then home for perhaps 30,000 Native Americans representing three language groups (Algonkian, Iroquoian, and Siouan). Now, nearly 500 years after that initial contact, the area is inhabited mainly by descendants of immigrants who displaced all but a few of the native peoples.
Exploration and Early Settlement.
Two years after Verrazano explored the coast for France, Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon led a band of Spaniards from Santo Domingo and planted a temporary colony near the couth of "Rio Jordan" - probably the Cape Fear River. In 1540, Hernando de Soto penetrated the mountain area of North Carolina before turning west and discovering the Mississippi River. Neither the French nor the Spanish established a permanent colony, and the area was left to eventual colonization by the English.
On March 25, 1584, Queen Elizabeth I gave Walter Raleigh permission to plant a colony in the New World. A month later, Raleigh sent Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe in command of two ships to find a good location for the colony. The expedition arrived at the North Carolina coast and soon took possession of the land in the name of the queen. The men visited an island that the Native Americans called Roanoke, explored the region for several weeks, and then set sail for England, carrying tow Native Americans, Manteo and Wanchese. Elizabeth, highly pleased with Barlowe's account of the region, knighted Raleigh. The new land was christened Virginia in honor of the unmarried "Virgin Queen."
In 1585, Raleigh founded on Roanoke Island the first English colony in America. Sir Richard Grenville transported the colonists - 108 men - in seven vessels. They built Fort Raleigh and a number of dwellings, but, facing danger and starvation, all but three absent men boarded, in June 1586, the ships of Sir Francis Drake, who was returning to England from the West Indies. A few days later, Grenville, who had been to England for supplies, arrived at Roanoke Island, too late to save the colony. But he left 15 men at Fort Raleigh to maintain English claims.
In 1587, Raleigh sent a second colony of 91 men, 17 women, and 9 boys to Roanoke Island under Gov. John White. White's daughter Eleanor, wife of Ananias Dare, gave birth on August 18 to a daughter, Virginia, the first child born of English parents in the New World. White soon went back to England for supplies, but a threatened invasion by the Spanish Armada delayed his return to Roanoke until 1590. by then the colony had vanished, and the lost colony's fate has remained one of the mysteries of history. Raleigh himself never came to North America.
In 1629, Charles I granted "Carolana" (later, Carolina) to his attorney general, Sir Robert Heath. But Heath did not succeed in promoting settlement of Carolana. The region north of Albemarle Sound was initially settled in the late 1650s by people moving south from Virginia in quest of good land. This activity attracted attention in England, where a group of courtiers applied to Charles II for a grant (patent) to the territory south of Virginia. In 1663 the king granted to eight lords proprietors the region laying between 31 degrees and 36 degrees north latitude and extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific. A second charter in 1665 extended Carolina northward to include the Albemarle settlements and southward far into Spanish Florida.
The Proprietary Period.
The proprietors established Albemarle county but failed to provide a stable government or competent officials. The Charleston settlement in Carolina (originally Craven county) far to the south grew rapidly, and the two settled areas gradually came to be known as North and South Carolina. A reorganization in 1691 provided for a governor of all Carolina, resident in Charleston, who ruled the northern settlement through a deputy. From 1712 to 1729 the proprietors appointed governors to rule North Carolina as a separate colony.
The settlers had trouble with the nonresident proprietors over inefficient governors; with Virginia, which forbade shipment of Carolina tobacco through its ports; and with Britain, whose trade regulations and taxation of tobacco led to widespread smuggling. The Tuscarora War (1711 - 1713) hurt the colony, and its trade was disrupted by pirates until they were put down in 1718.
Owing to these troubles and to poor transportation, North Carolina grew slowly. Not until 1706 did the colony have its first incorporated town, Bath, settled by Huguenots. New Bern, the second town, was founded in 1710.
The Royal Period.
North Carolina became a royal province in 1729, when George II purchased the shares of seven of the lords proprietors. The eighth share (Carteret's) was not bought, however, and many years later the existence of this private grant (called the Granville District) within the colony proved unsatisfactory to all concerned. It included about two-thirds of the colony's population. During the Revolution the new state solved the problem by confiscation.
The royal period was characterized by a steady and rapid growth in population, settlement of the Cape Fear Valley and the Piedmont, and expansion of agriculture, industry, and trade. Between 1739 and 1776 about 20,000 Highland Scots settled in the Cape Fear Valley and 65,000 Ulster Scots and 25,000 Germans settled throughout the Piedmont. The population of the entire colony by 1776 was about 300,000.
Geographic, ethnic, economic, social, religious, and political differences produced an enduring east-west sectionalism. The government was dominated by the east, and the backcountry inhabitants suffered from excessive taxes, dishonest officials, and exorbitant fees. An association called the Regulators sought vainly to "regulate" the evils of government. Members refused to pay taxes and fees, beat up a few officials, and interfered with the courts. In the ensuing "Ware of the Regulation," the insurgents were crushed at the Battle of Alamance (1771). Their failure to achieve a more democratic government gave impetus to settlement of the region beyond the mountains and made many of the people of the backcountry lukewarm in the impending conflict between their eastern oppressors and the mother country.
Revolution and Independence.
In August 1774 the First Provincial Congress met in New Bern in defiance of Gov. Josiah Martin, and they elected delegates to the First Continental Congress. Royal rule ended in May 1775, when Martin fled to a British ship in the Cape Fear River. The Second Provincial Congress in 1775 vested government in a provincial congress and in committees of safety. Public meetings were held in many counties. Most famous was that in Charlotte on May 31, 1775, at which the "Mecklenburg Resolves" declared null and void all commissions granted by the king, and made provisions for a new county government. On April 12, 1776, the provincial congress in Halifax unanimously adopted a resolution "that the delegates for this Colony in the Continental Congress be empowered to concur with the delegates of the other Colonies in declaring Independency." North Carolina thus became the first colony to declare officially its readiness for independence.
In the American Revolution, North Carolina furnished ten regiments of Continental forces and many thousands of militia. It sent troops to the aid of Virginia and South Carolina and to Gen. George Washington's army in the north. Earl Cornwallis's first invasion was turned back on Oct. 7, 1780, by the destruction of Maj. Patrick Ferguson's forces at King's Mountain in South Carolina. Cornwallis's second invasion culminated in the Battle of Guilford Courthouse on March 15, 1781. Though Guilford Courthouse was a technical victory for the British, Cornwallis then retreated to Wilmington, from which point he marched north to his fate at Yorktown, Va.
Agricultural North Carolina was in the vanguard for independence but not for union. Jealous of its own rights, it contributed little to the movement of the conservative propertied classes for a stronger federal government. It did send a conservative delegation to the convention of 1787 that wrote the federal Constitution, but it refused to ratify the Constitution until a Bill of Rights and various amendments were laid before Congress and the states. As a result of changed conditions and the pressure of public opinion, however, a convention held in Fayetteville in November 1789 ratified the Constitution.
Although the turmoil of the war and postwar periods helped to put the Federalists in power, the pro-Northern, Hamiltonian program of the federal government soon caused North Carolina to support the opposition Democratic-Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson. In 1789, North Carolina, then under Federalist control, ceded its western territory (Tennessee) to the Union. A permanent capital was located in Raleigh in 1792. In the War of 1812 the state's quota of 7,000 soldiers served on the southern frontier and in Canada.
Antebellum North Carolina.
From 1815 general political apathy and economic stagnation characterized a one-party system controlled by landowners and merchants of the east. Slavery issues were pervasive. Lured by the opportunities of the rising West, thousands left North Carolina, then nick-named the "rip Van Winkle State," and by 1845 one-fourth of all native North Carolinians were residing in other states. Among them were Andrew Jackson, past president of the United States; James K. Polk, the sitting U.S. president; and Andrew Johnson, a future U.S. president. The way was opened for progress and reform in 1835, when the legislature, confronted by western threats of revolution, called a convention that proposed numerous constitutional amendments, which were ratified by popular vote. The main reforms were reallocation of representation, increasing the power of the more populous west in the lower house, and biennial elections of the governor.
Remarkable progress occurred in the next 25 years. A genuine two-party system (Whigs and Democrats) developed. The state government gave heavy financial aid to the building of roads and railroads, provided major support for a system of free public schools, and reformed the system of taxation. Movement began toward the liberalization of the criminal law and the legal status of women. In these years, North Carolina also experienced notable prosperity.
Civil War and Recovery.
This age of progress was ended by the Civil War. North Carolina did not favor secession even after the organization of the Confederate States of America in February 1861. Only after Lincoln's call for troops following the Confederate firing on Fort Sumter did North Carolina, on May 20, 1861, join the Confederacy. It was the last state to pass an ordinance of secession. While contributing more than one-sixth of all Confederate troops, the state sharply criticized the policies of the Jefferson Davis administration, and a peace movement developed in 1863-1864.
The war brought political division and social upheaval to North Carolina. It took the lives of some 40,000 of its men, destroyed much of its wealth, and emancipated 350,000 slaves without compensation or provision for their welfare. Military rule and enfranchisement of male freedmen enabled the newly formed Republican Party to gain control of the government in 1868, and the state was readmitted to the Union. African Americans for the first time held public office. But with an appeal to race prejudice and the sometimes violent support of the Ku Klux Klan, the Democrats regained the legislature in 1870 and the governorship six years later.
With governmental favoritism, business improved in the next two decades. Cotton, tobacco, and furniture manufacturing grew rapidly, and hundreds of miles of railroads were built. Agriculture, however, remained depressed, and in the 1890's, dissatisfied farmers (the Populists) allied with the Republicans. This "fusion" control was brief, for the Democrats again cried "white supremacy," disfranchised African Americans, enacted Jim Crow laws, and began a 72-year rule.
The 20th Century.
Under "lily white" control, North Carolina did experience an era of progress. Governor Charles B. Aycock, who assumed office in 1901, achieved dramatic improvement in educational opportunities for both races. Industrialization quickened, the automobile led to better highways and a more mobile workforce, cities grew, agriculture flourished, and state government became more responsive to the needs of the people.
More than 80,000 North Carolinians served in the armed forces during World War I, and 2,375 of them died in battle or from other causes. The Spanish influenza pandemic in 1918 took 13,644 lives in the state. The next decade brought better times. Further advances were made in education, highways were improved and new ones built, and expanding industry made North Carolina the leading manufacturing state in the South. The Depression of the 1930s brought widespread hardship and forced the state to take over from the counties the cost of operating the school and highway systems. Federal programs helped, but economic recovery was not complete until World War II. More than 360,000 "Tar Heels," including many women, donned military uniforms, and approximately 7,000 died in battle or from other causes. War, travel, and personal experiences with other Americans enabled many of the returning veterans to view their state and nation in a new light, and the veterans became leaders of a changing North Carolina. Some of them returned to uniform in the Korean War, during which 876 Tar Heels were lost, and in the Vietnam War, which took 1,572 North Carolinian lives from all causes.
Post-World War II Years.
Still agricultural in 1950, North Carolina subsequently developed a diversified economy. Successive administrations and legislatures offered incentives, and North Carolina became one of the most appealing states for companies seeking new locations. Industry grew rapidly, and giant installations sprang up throughout the state. Community colleges introduced courses to train workers. Many corporations, particularly those with fiber, biomedical, microelectronics, and environmental specialties, established laboratories in the Research Triangle Park, the home also of the National Humanities Center. Even with these advancements, wages remained below the national average, and trade unionism made little headway among traditionally independent-minded North Carolina workers.
Agriculture underwent enormous changes; mechanization, consolidation, and opportunities for other employment contributed to the declining number of farmers. The leading money crop was increasingly threatened by anti-tobacco regulations, and foreign competition adversely affected the state's textile industry. The most phenomenal change came in the growth of service industries. Two thirds of the workforce was employed in government, trade, transportation, utilities, and other business and personal services.
Shortly after World War II, North Carolina was called the most progressive state in the South, but its subsequent record in human relations has been paradoxical. It yielded only reluctantly to racial integration of the public schools, but it was the scene of the first massive busing program. Blacks and women were appointed and elected to public office, but they still occupy a small minority of such positions. The city of the first successful sit-ins (Greensboro) was also the site of a bloody shoot-out during a "Death to the Klan" rally. University students, self-proclaimed liberals, sometimes prevented other speakers from being heard.
Thus "progress" - as characterized by urbanization, smokestacks, superhighways, improved job opportunities, expanded suffrage, larger school and college enrollments, and more leisure time - was accompanied by problems common to the entire country. As individual discipline and responsibility declined, intolerance, crime, traffic fatalities, family disintegration, illegal drugs, poverty, and pollution increased. As the bureaucracy ballooned and organized groups lobbied for more public money, taxpayers began to revolt and demand greater accountability and results. As waste products piled up and threatened the environment, local groups resisted location of treatment plants in their backyard.
Now that North Carolinians have reached their longtime goal of entry into the mainstream of American life, they face the problems as well as the blessings of "progress." Their task now is to control the rudder of the ship of state by drawing upon their collective character for lessons enabling them to adjust to a new age in which all citizens share both a common heritage and a promising future.
Sections 2 - 6 by H. G. Jones
University of North Carolina
Sections 1 and 7 by Hugh T. Lefler
University of North Carolina
Sections 1 and 7 revised by H. G. Jones
