The history of North Carolina from pre-colonial history to the present, covers the experiences of the people who have lived within the territory that now comprises the U.S. state of
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia a ...
.
Findings of the earliest discovered human settlements in present day North Carolina, are found at the
Hardaway Site, dating back to approximately 8000 BC. From around 1000 BC, until the time of European contact, is the time period known as the
Woodland period
In the classification of archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 BCE to European contact in the eastern part of North America, with some archaeo ...
. It was during this time period, that the
Mississippian culture
The Mississippian culture was a Native American civilization that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1600 CE, varying regionally. It was known for building large, ear ...
of Native American civilization flourished, which included areas of North Carolina. Historically documented tribes in the North Carolina region include the
Carolina Algonquian-speaking tribes of the coastal areas, such as the
Chowanoke,
Roanoke,
Pamlico
The Pamlico (also ''Pampticough'', ''Pomouik'', ''Pomeiok'') were American Indians of North Carolina. They spoke an Algonquian language also known as ''Pamlico'' or ''Carolina Algonquian''.
Geography
The Pamlico Indians lived on the Pa ...
,
Machapunga
The Machapunga are a small Algonquian language-speaking Native American tribe from coastal northeastern North Carolina. They were part of the Secotan people. They were a group from the Powhatan Confederacy who migrated from present-day Virgini ...
,
Coree, and
Cape Fear Indians
The Cape Fear Indians were a small, coastal tribe of Native Americans who lived on the Cape Fear River in North Carolina (now Carolina Beach State Park).
Name and language
The autonym of the Cape Fear Indians may have been Daw-hee. Their name fo ...
– these Natives were the first encountered by English colonists. Other tribes included the
Iroquoian
The Iroquoian languages are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking.
As of 2020, all surviving Iroquoia ...
-speaking
Meherrin
The Meherrin Nation ( autonym: Kauwets'a:ka, "People of the Water") is one of seven state-recognized nations of Native Americans in North Carolina. They reside in rural northeastern North Carolina, near the river of the same name on the Virgin ...
,
Cherokee
The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, th ...
, and
Tuscarora in the interior part of the state. There were also Southeastern
Siouan
Siouan or Siouan–Catawban is a language family of North America that is located primarily in the Great Plains, Ohio and Mississippi valleys and southeastern North America with a few other languages in the east.
Name
Authors who call the enti ...
-speaking tribes, such as the
Cheraw
The Cheraw people, also known as the Saraw or Saura, were a Siouan-speaking tribe of indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, in the Piedmont area of North Carolina near the Sauratown Mountains, east of Pilot Mountain and north of the Yad ...
,
Waxhaw,
Saponi
The Saponi or Sappony are a Native American tribe historically based in the Piedmont of North Carolina and Virginia.Raymond D. DeMaillie, "Tutelo and Neighboring Groups," pages 286–87. They spoke a Siouan language, related to the languages of ...
,
Waccamaw
The Waccamaw people were an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, who lived in villages along the Waccamaw and Pee Dee rivers in North and South Carolina in the 18th century.Lerch 328
Language
Very little remains of the Waccama ...
, and
Catawba.
The earliest English attempt at colonization was the
Roanoke Colony in 1585, the famed "Lost Colony" of
Sir Walter Raleigh
Sir Walter Raleigh (; – 29 October 1618) was an English statesman, soldier, writer and explorer. One of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era, he played a leading part in English colonisation of North America, suppressed rebellio ...
. The
Province of Carolina
Province of Carolina was a province of England (1663–1707) and Great Britain (1707–1712) that existed in North America and the Caribbean from 1663 until partitioned into North and South on January 24, 1712. It is part of present-day Alab ...
would come about in 1629, however it was not an official province until 1663. It would later split in 1712, helping form the
Province of North Carolina
Province of North Carolina was a province of Great Britain that existed in North America from 1712(p. 80) to 1776. It was one of the five Southern colonies and one of the thirteen American colonies. The monarch of Great Britain was rep ...
. North Carolina is named after King
Charles I of England
Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. He was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after ...
, who first formed the English colony. It would become a
royal colony
A Crown colony or royal colony was a colony administered by The Crown within the British Empire. There was usually a Governor, appointed by the British monarch on the advice of the UK Government, with or without the assistance of a local Council ...
of the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading post ...
in 1729. In 1776, the colony would declare independence from
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
. The
Halifax Resolves resolution adopted by North Carolina on April 12, 1776, was the first formal call for independence from Great Britain among the American Colonies during the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolu ...
. On November 21, 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the
United States Constitution.
From colonial times, through the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by state ...
, slavery was legal in North Carolina. Tensions on the issue of slavery would lead as the main cause of the Civil War. North Carolina declared its secession from the
Union on May 20, 1861. Following the Civil War, North Carolina was restored to the Union on July 4, 1868. The
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. The amendment was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, by the House of Representati ...
was ratified December 6, 1865, ending legal slavery in the United States. After the
Reconstruction era, white Democrats gained control of the state's political system. In the 1890s, white Democrats would pass
Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sou ...
hindering many
poor white
Poor White is a sociocultural classification used to describe economically disadvantaged Whites in the English-speaking world, especially White Americans with low incomes.
In the United States, Poor White (or Poor Whites of the South for ...
s from voting and effectively
disfranchised African Americans from voting. Jim Crow laws also enforced
racial segregation
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the Intern ...
. These laws were upheld until federal legislation was passed in the 1960s.
On December 17, 1903,
Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully piloted the world's first powered
heavier-than-air-aircraft at
Kill Devil Hills
Kill Devil Hills is a town in Dare County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 7,633 at the 2020 census, up from 6,683 in 2010. It is the most populous settlement in both Dare County and on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The K ...
, in the
Outer Banks
The Outer Banks (frequently abbreviated OBX) are a string of barrier islands and spits off the coast of North Carolina and southeastern Virginia, on the east coast of the United States. They line most of the North Carolina coastline, separating ...
of North Carolina. During the late 19th and early 20th century, North Carolina would start its shift from mainly an
agricultural
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled peopl ...
based economy, to
industrialization
Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econ ...
, adding many more new job occupations throughout the state. Many
tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ch ...
and
textile
Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not t ...
mills started to form around this time, especially in the
Piedmont
it, Piemontese
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 =
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographics1_title1 =
, demographics1_info1 =
, demographics1_title2 ...
region of the state. Also the
furniture
Furniture refers to movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., stools, chairs, and sofas), eating ( tables), storing items, eating and/or working with an item, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks) ...
industry would become an economic boom for North Carolina for most of the 20th century. The
Great Depression in the 1930s would hit the North Carolina economy hard, however
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Con ...
projects would help the state recover. Following
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, North Carolina started to see more
economic diversification
Economic diversity or economic diversification refers to variations in the economic status or the use of a broad range of economic activities in a region or country. Diversification is used as a strategy to encourage positive economic growth and d ...
, with more industries helping fuel state growth in the following decades.
During the mid-20th Century,
Research Triangle Park
Research Triangle Park (RTP) is the largest research park in the United States, occupying in North Carolina and hosting more than 300 companies and 65,000 workers.
The facility is named for its location relative to the three surrounding citie ...
, the largest research park in the United States, was established in 1959 near Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. During the
Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
, the
Greensboro sit-ins
The Greensboro sit-ins were a series of nonviolent protests in February to July 1960, primarily in the Woolworth store—now the International Civil Rights Center and Museum—in Greensboro, North Carolina, which led to the F. W. Woolworth C ...
led by African American students, lead to Greensboro businesses desegregating their lunch counters. This movement also spread to many other cities in America, helping end racial segregation policies. During the 1960s, passage of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration req ...
and
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The suffrage, Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of Federal government of the United States, federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President of the United ...
enabled African Americans to have a voice in society and political life.
By the late 20th century, industries such as
technology
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, scie ...
,
pharmaceuticals
A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field and ...
,
bank
A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets.
Becau ...
ing,
food processing
Food processing is the transformation of agricultural products into food, or of one form of food into other forms. Food processing includes many forms of processing foods, from grinding grain to make raw flour to home cooking to complex industr ...
, and
vehicle parts started to emerge as main economic drivers within the state, a shift from the states former main industries of
tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ch ...
,
textiles
Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not th ...
, and
furniture
Furniture refers to movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., stools, chairs, and sofas), eating ( tables), storing items, eating and/or working with an item, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks) ...
. The main factors in this shift were globalization, the state's higher education system, national banking, the transformation of agriculture, and new companies moving to the state. During the 1990s,
Charlotte
Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Meckl ...
had become a major regional and national banking center. Through the late 20th century and into the 21st century, North Carolina's
metropolitan areas
A metropolitan area or metro is a region that consists of a densely populated urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories sharing industries, commercial areas, transport network, infrastructures and housing. A metro area usually com ...
continued to
urbanize and grow. This led to many migrants coming to North Carolina from both within the United States and internationally.
Pre-colonial history
The earliest discovered human settlements in what eventually became North Carolina are found at the
Hardaway Site near the town of
Badin in the south-central part of the state.
Radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon.
The method was de ...
of the site has not been possible. But, based on other dating methods, such as
rock strata
In geology and related fields, a stratum ( : strata) is a layer of rock or sediment characterized by certain lithologic properties or attributes that distinguish it from adjacent layers from which it is separated by visible surfaces known as e ...
and the existence of
Dalton-type spear points, the site has been dated to approximately 8000 BCE, or 10,000 years old.
Spearpoints of the Dalton type continued to change and evolve slowly for the next 7,000 years, suggesting a continuity of culture for most of that time. During this time, the settlement was scattered and likely existed solely on the
hunter-gatherer level. Toward the end of this period, there is evidence of settled
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled peop ...
, such as plant domestication and the development of
pottery
Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and po ...
.
From 1000 BCE until the time of European settlement, the time period is known as the "
Woodland period
In the classification of archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 BCE to European contact in the eastern part of North America, with some archaeo ...
". Permanent villages, based on settled agriculture, were developed throughout the present-day state. By about 800 CE, towns were fortified throughout the
Piedmont
it, Piemontese
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 =
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographics1_title1 =
, demographics1_info1 =
, demographics1_title2 ...
region, suggesting the existence of organized tribal warfare. An important site of this late-Woodland period is the
Town Creek Indian Mound
Town Creek Indian Mound (Smithsonian trinomial, 31 MG 2) is a prehistoric Native Americans in the United States, Native American archaeological site located near present-day Mount Gilead, North Carolina, Mount Gilead, Montgomery County, North Caro ...
, an archaeologically rich site occupied from about 1100 to 1450 CE by the
Pee Dee people
The Pee Dee people, also Pedee and Peedee, are Native Americans in the United States, American Indians of the Southeast United States. Historically, their population has been concentrated in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont of present-day S ...
of the
South Appalachian Mississippian culture
The Mississippian culture was a Native American civilization that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1600 CE, varying regionally. It was known for building large, ear ...
.
The Native Peoples of North Carolina
North Carolina was home to several distinct cultural groups. Along the east coast were the
Chowanoke, or
Roanoke, and
Croatan nations, Algonquian speaking people. The Chowanoke lived north of the Neuse River and the Croatan south of it. They had (along with the Powhatan, Piscataway & Nanticoke further north) adopted a governing system by which there would be a largely patriarchal society living under the rule of several local chiefs who all answered to a single, higher ruling chief and formed a council with him to discuss political affairs. This was different from the more common Algonquian approach, which was a more loosely organized style of governing, without a true full-time government. The Chowanoke became protected by English colonists in the late 17th century, but dissolved completely in the 19th century. Their descendants reformed during the 21st century. In the 18th century, the Croatan and several local Siouan groups would merge to form the
Lumbee
The Lumbee are a Native American people primarily centered in Robeson, Hoke, Cumberland and Scotland counties in North Carolina. They also live in surrounding states and Baltimore, Maryland.
The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina is a state-rec ...
, who still exist in the state to this day. Apparently there was also a long-standing debate dating to at least the 1970s, as to whether the Croatan had ever actually existed. In this case, much of their assumed lands would have been claimed by Eastern Siouan tribes. As the Powhatan started to dissolve due to encroaching, some tribes—like the
Machapunga
The Machapunga are a small Algonquian language-speaking Native American tribe from coastal northeastern North Carolina. They were part of the Secotan people. They were a group from the Powhatan Confederacy who migrated from present-day Virgini ...
, broke away and migrated south to live among the Chowanoke.
Inland of them were three Siouan speaking tribes associated with a culture group called the Eastern Siouans. Broken into several smaller tribes, they were the
Catawba, the
Waccamaw Siouan
Waccamaw Siouan Indians are one of eight state-recognized tribes in North Carolina. They are also known as the "People of the Fallen Star." Historically Siouan-speaking, they are located predominantly in the southeastern North Carolina counties of ...
, the
Cheraw
The Cheraw people, also known as the Saraw or Saura, were a Siouan-speaking tribe of indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, in the Piedmont area of North Carolina near the Sauratown Mountains, east of Pilot Mountain and north of the Yad ...
, the
Winyaw, the
Wateree and the Sugaree. It's difficult to say just how many existed in the region. Between 1680 and 1701, the region also played host to the
Saponi
The Saponi or Sappony are a Native American tribe historically based in the Piedmont of North Carolina and Virginia.Raymond D. DeMaillie, "Tutelo and Neighboring Groups," pages 286–87. They spoke a Siouan language, related to the languages of ...
,
Tutelo
The Tutelo (also Totero, Totteroy, Tutera; Yesan in Tutelo) were Native American people living above the Fall Line in present-day Virginia and West Virginia. They spoke a Siouan dialect of the Tutelo language thought to be similar to that of thei ...
,
Occaneechi
The Occaneechi (also Occoneechee and Akenatzy) are Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Native Americans who lived in the 17th century primarily on the large, long Occoneechee Island and east of the confluence of the Dan River, Dan and Roanoke Riv ...
Keyauwee,
Shakori and
Sissipahaw
The Sissipahaw or Haw were a Native American tribe of North Carolina. They are also variously recorded as ''Saxahapaw'', ''Sauxpa'', ''Sissipahaus'', etc. Their settlements were generally located in the vicinity of modern-day Saxapahaw, North ...
(possibly among others), who had been driven out of the state by an invasion of the
Iroquois
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...
Confederacy. Most of these tribes later returned to Virginia, where they came to be collectively known as the Eastern Blackfoots, or Christannas. Most of all other Siouan tribes of the Carolinas slowly merged and were all thought of as subtribes of the Catawba Nation by the American Revolution. In the 19th century, the Catawba moved west and were consolidated with the Cherokee, despite keeping their own traditions alive long term. It is also important to note that many of the southernmost Eastern Siouan tribes had largely homogenized their culture with that of the Muskogean populations beyond the Santee River. There were even isolated communities north of the river who are believed to have acted as Siouans, but spoke Muskogean. The northernmost known tribe such as this—the
Pedee—lived in south-central North Carolina.
The first Spanish and English explorers appear to have greatly overestimated the size of the Cherokee, placing them as far north as Virginia. However, many historians now believe that there was a large, mixed race/mixed language confederacy in the region, called the
Coosa. Spanish explorers also gave them the nicknames Chalaques & Uchis during the 16th century, and English colonists turned Chalaques into Cherokees. The Cherokees we know today were among these people, but lived much further south and both the Cherokee language (of Iroquoian origin) and the Yuchi language (Muskogean), have been heavily modified by Siouan influence and carry many Siouan borrow words. This nation would have existed throughout parts of the states of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North & South Carolina & Georgia, with cores of different culture groups organized at different extremes of the territory &, probably, speaking Yuchi as a common tongue.
Two other tribes must be noted here. Between 1655 and 1680, a tribe known as the
Westo appeared in the region. It is now believed that they were the remainder of the Erie and Neutral Iroquoian nations who had been pushed out of Ohio during the Beaver Wars. They appeared in West Virginia, driving the Tutelo east to live near the Saponi, then punched straight south, through the Chalaques, settled somewhere around the
Yadkin River
The Yadkin River is one of the longest rivers in North Carolina, flowing . It rises in the northwestern portion of the state near the Blue Ridge Parkway's Thunder Hill Overlook. Several parts of the river are impounded by dams for water, po ...
and began preying on the smaller Siouan tribes of the region. After they were defeated by a coalition led by the "Sawannos," much of the land in North Carolina was reclaimed by its former owners. However, Muskogean people from further south filed north into the southern reaches of this area and reformatted themselves to create the
Yamasee
The Yamasees (also spelled Yamassees or Yemassees) were a multiethnic confederation of Native Americans who lived in the coastal region of present-day northern coastal Georgia near the Savannah River and later in northeastern Florida. The Yama ...
Nation.
In further reference to the Chalaques, after the Westo punched straight through them, they seem to have split along the line of the Tennessee River to create the Cherokee to the south and the Yuchi to the north. Then, following the
Yamasee War
The Yamasee War (also spelled Yamassee or Yemassee) was a conflict fought in South Carolina from 1715 to 1717 between British settlers from the Province of Carolina and the Yamasee and a number of other allied Native American peoples, includ ...
(1715–1717), the Yuchi were forced across Appalachia and split again, into the Coyaha and the Chisca. The French, seeing an opportunity for new allies, ingratiated themselves with the Chisca and had them relocated to the heart of the Illinois Colony to live among the Algonquian Ilinoweg. Later, as French influence along the Ohio River waned, the tribe seems to have split away again, taking many Ilinoweg tribes with them, and moved back to Kentucky, where they became the Kispoko. The Kispoko later became the fourth tribe of Shawnee.
Meanwhile, the Coyaha reforged their alliance with the Cherokee and brought in many of the smaller Muskogean tribes of Alabama (often referred to as the Mobilians), to form the Creek Confederacy. The Creeks would go on to conquer the Yamasee and the remaining Muskogean peoples of the east coast, as well as the Carib Calusa nation of southern Florida. They then spread out, splitting into the Upper, Middle & Lower Creeks—best known today as the Muscogee, Cherokee, and Seminole Nations.
Although broken and abandoned by the English colonists they were formerly allied to, the Yamasee people survived as backwater nomads throughout a vast territory between South Carolina and Florida. Many Yamasee tribes have since reformed in modern times.
Later, the Meherrin migrated south from Virginia and settled on a reservation in northeast North Carolina. Due to early maps, the Iroquoian Nottoway may have also existed more on the Virginia-North Carolina border before migrating a little more northwest. They are noted as the Mangoag on a map by John Smith from 1606. Following the Meherrin were a small group of Tuscaroras, who remained in the region after the Tuscarora War, and sent most of their people north to live among the Iroquois.
Earliest European explorations
The earliest exploration of North Carolina by a European expedition is likely that of
Giovanni da Verrazzano
Giovanni da Verrazzano ( , , often misspelled Verrazano in English; 1485–1528) was an Italian ( Florentine) explorer of North America, in the service of King Francis I of France.
He is renowned as the first European to explore the Atlant ...
in 1524. An Italian from Verrazzano in the province of
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...
, Verrazzano was hired by French merchants in order to procure a sea route to bring silk to the city of
Lyon
Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of ...
. With the tacit support of
King Francis I, Verrazzano sailed west on January 1, 1524, aboard his ship ''
La Dauphine'' ahead of a flotilla that numbered three ships.
The expedition made landfall at
Cape Fear, and Verrazzano reported of his explorations to the King of France,
"The seashore is completely covered with fine sand 5 feet
5 (five) is a number, numeral (linguistics), numeral and numerical digit, digit. It is the natural number, and cardinal number, following 4 and preceding 6, and is a prime number. It has attained significance throughout history in part because typ ...
deep, which rises in the shape of small hills about fifty paces wide ... Nearby we could see a stretch of country much higher than the sandy shore, with many beautiful fields and planes icfull of great forests, some sparse and some dense; and the trees have so many colors, and are so beautiful and delightful that they defy description."
Verrazzano continued north along the
Outer Banks
The Outer Banks (frequently abbreviated OBX) are a string of barrier islands and spits off the coast of North Carolina and southeastern Virginia, on the east coast of the United States. They line most of the North Carolina coastline, separating ...
, making periodic explorations as he sought a route further west towards China. When he viewed the
Albemarle and
Pamlico
The Pamlico (also ''Pampticough'', ''Pomouik'', ''Pomeiok'') were American Indians of North Carolina. They spoke an Algonquian language also known as ''Pamlico'' or ''Carolina Algonquian''.
Geography
The Pamlico Indians lived on the Pa ...
Sounds opposite the Outer Banks, he believed them to be the Pacific Ocean; his reports of such helped fuel the belief that the westward route to Asia was much closer than previously believed.
[
Just two years later, in 1526, a group of Spanish colonists from ]Hispaniola
Hispaniola (, also ; es, La Española; Latin and french: Hispaniola; ht, Ispayola; tnq, Ayiti or Quisqueya) is an island in the Caribbean that is part of the Greater Antilles. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and t ...
led by Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón
Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón (c. 1480 – 18 October 1526) was a Spanish magistrate and explorer who in 1526 established the short-lived San Miguel de Gualdape colony, one of the first European attempts at a settlement in what is now the United State ...
landed at the mouth of a river they called the "Rio Jordan", which may have been the Cape Fear River
The Cape Fear River is a long blackwater river in east central North Carolina. It flows into the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Fear, from which it takes its name. The river is formed at the confluence of the Haw River and the Deep River (North Ca ...
. The party consisted of 500 men and women, their slaves, and horses. One of their ships wrecked off the shore, and valuable supplies were lost; this coupled with illness and rebellion doomed the colony. Ayllón died on October 18, 1526, and the 150 or so survivors of that first year abandoned the colony and attempted to return to Hispaniola. Later explorers reported finding their remains along the coast; as the dead were cast off during the return trip.
Hernando de Soto first explored west-central North Carolina during his 1539–1540 expedition. His first encounter with a native settlement in North Carolina may have been at Guaquilli, near modern Hickory
Hickory is a common name for trees composing the genus ''Carya'', which includes around 18 species. Five or six species are native to China, Indochina, and India (Assam), as many as twelve are native to the United States, four are found in M ...
. In 1567, Captain Juan Pardo led an expedition from Santa Elena at Parris Island, South Carolina
Parris Island is a district of the city of Port Royal, South Carolina on an island of the same name. It became part of the city with the annexation of the Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island on October 11, 2002. For statistical purposes, the ...
, then the capital of the Spanish colony in the Southeast, into the interior of North Carolina, largely following De Soto's earlier route. His journey was ordered to claim the area as a Spanish colony, pacify and convert the natives, as well as establish another route to protect silver mines in Mexico (the Spanish did not realize the distances involved). Pardo went toward the northwest to be able to get food supplies from natives.[Ward (1999), pp. 229–231]
Pardo and his team made a winter base at Joara
Joara was a large Native American settlement, a regional chiefdom of the Mississippian culture, located in what is now Burke County, North Carolina, about 300 miles from the Atlantic coast in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Joara is n ...
(near Morganton, in Burke County), which he renamed Cuenca. After building Fort San Juan, Pardo left about 30 Spaniards then traveled further, establishing five other forts. In 1567, Pardo's expedition established a mission called Salamanca
Salamanca () is a city in western Spain and is the capital of the Province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The city lies on several rolling hills by the Tormes River. Its Old City was declared a UNESCO World Her ...
in what is now Rowan County. Pardo returned by a different route to Santa Elena. After 18 months, in 1568, natives killed all but one of the Spaniards, and burned the six forts, including the one at Fort San Juan. The Spanish never returned to the interior to press their colonial claim, but this marked the first European attempt at colonization of the interior. Translation in the 1980s of a journal by Pardo's scribe Bandera have confirmed the expedition and settlement. Archaeological finds at Joara indicate that it was a Mississippian culture
The Mississippian culture was a Native American civilization that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1600 CE, varying regionally. It was known for building large, ear ...
settlement and also indicate the Spanish settlement at Fort San Juan in 1567–1568. Joara was the largest mound builder
A number of pre-Columbian cultures are collectively termed "Mound Builders". The term does not refer to a specific people or archaeological culture, but refers to the characteristic mound earthworks erected for an extended period of more than 5 ...
settlement in the region. Records of Hernando de Soto's expedition attested to his meeting with them in 1540.[
]
British colonization
Roanoke colony
The earliest English attempt at colonization in North America was Roanoke Colony of 1585–1587, the famed "Lost Colony" of Sir Walter Raleigh
Sir Walter Raleigh (; – 29 October 1618) was an English statesman, soldier, writer and explorer. One of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era, he played a leading part in English colonisation of North America, suppressed rebellio ...
. The colony was established at Roanoke Island
Roanoke Island () is an island in Dare County, bordered by the Outer Banks of North Carolina, United States. It was named after the historical Roanoke, a Carolina Algonquian people who inhabited the area in the 16th century at the time of Engli ...
in the Croatan Sound
Croatan Sound is an inlet in Dare County, North Carolina. It connects Pamlico Sound with Albemarle Sound, and is bordered to the east by Roanoke Island; Roanoke Sound is on the other side of the island. Its name comes from the Croatan Indians who ...
on the leeward side of the Outer Banks
The Outer Banks (frequently abbreviated OBX) are a string of barrier islands and spits off the coast of North Carolina and southeastern Virginia, on the east coast of the United States. They line most of the North Carolina coastline, separating ...
. The first attempt at a settlement consisted of 100 or so men led by Ralph Lane
Sir Ralph Lane (c. 1532 – October 1603)
Boston: Directors of the Old South Work, 1902, ''Documenting the America ...
. They built a fort, and waited for supplies from a second voyage. While waiting for supplies to return, Lane and his men antagonized the local Croatan peoples, killing several of them in armed skirmishes. The interactions were not all negative, as the local people did teach the colonists some survival skills, such as the construction of dugout canoe
A dugout canoe or simply dugout is a boat made from a hollowed tree. Other names for this type of boat are logboat and monoxylon. ''Monoxylon'' (''μονόξυλον'') (pl: ''monoxyla'') is Greek – ''mono-'' (single) + '' ξύλον xylon'' ( ...
s.
When the relief was long in coming, the colonists began to give up hope; after a chance encounter with Sir Francis Drake
Sir Francis Drake ( – 28 January 1596) was an English explorer, sea captain, privateer, slave trader, naval officer, and politician. Drake is best known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580 ...
, the colonists elected to accept transport back to England with him. When the supply ships did arrive, only a few days later, they found the colony abandoned. The ship's captain, Richard Grenville
Sir Richard Grenville (15 June 1542 – 10 September 1591), also spelt Greynvile, Greeneville, and Greenfield, was an English privateer and explorer. Grenville was lord of the manors of Stowe, Cornwall and Bideford, Devon. He subsequently ...
, left a small force of 15 men to hold the fort and supplies and wait for a new stock of colonists.[Ward (1999), p. 232]
In 1587, a third ship arrived carrying 110 men, 17 women, and 9 children, some of whom had been part of the first group of colonists that had earlier abandoned Roanoke. This group was led by John White. Among them was a pregnant woman, who gave birth to the first English colonist born in North America, Virginia Dare
Virginia Dare (born August 18, 1587, in Roanoke Colony, date of death unknown) was the first English child born in a New World English colony.
What became of Virginia and the other colonists remains a mystery. The fact of her birth is known be ...
. The colonists found the remains of garrisons left behind, likely killed by the Croatan who had been so antagonized by Lane's aggressiveness. White had intended to pick up the remaining garrisons, abandon Roanoke Island, and settle in the Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the ...
. White's Portuguese pilot, Simon Fernandes, refused to carry on further. Rather than risk mutiny, White agreed to resettle the former colony.
The Spanish War prevented any further contact between the colony and England, until a 1590 expedition, which found no remains of any colonists, just an abandoned colony and the letters "CROATOAN" carved into a tree, and "CRO" carved into another. Despite many investigations, no one knows what happened to the colony. Historians widely believe that the colonists either died of starvation and illness, or they were taken in and assimilated with Native American tribes.
Development of North Carolina colony
The Province of North Carolina
Province of North Carolina was a province of Great Britain that existed in North America from 1712(p. 80) to 1776. It was one of the five Southern colonies and one of the thirteen American colonies. The monarch of Great Britain was rep ...
developed differently from South Carolina
)'' Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no)
, anthem = "Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind"
, Former = Province of South Carolina
, seat = Columbia
, LargestCity = Charleston
, LargestMetro = G ...
almost from the beginning. The Spanish experienced trouble colonizing North Carolina because it had a dangerous coastline, a lack of ports, and few inland rivers by which to navigate. In the 1650s and 1660s, settlers (mostly English) moved south from Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the East Coast of the United States, Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography an ...
, in addition to runaway servants and fur trappers. They settled chiefly in the Albemarle borderlands region.
In 1665, the Crown issued a second charter to resolve territorial questions. As early as 1689, the Carolina proprietors named a separate deputy-governor for the region of the colony that lay to the north and east of Cape Fear. The division of the province into North and South became official in 1712. The first colonial Governor of North Carolina was Edward Hyde who served from 1711 until 1712. North Carolina became a crown colony in 1729. Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) ce ...
took a heavy toll in the region among Native Americans, who had no immunity
Immunity may refer to:
Medicine
* Immunity (medical), resistance of an organism to infection or disease
* ''Immunity'' (journal), a scientific journal published by Cell Press
Biology
* Immune system
Engineering
* Radiofrequence immunity desc ...
to the disease, which had become endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...
in Asia and Europe. The 1738 epidemic was said to have killed one-half of the Cherokee, with other tribes of the area suffering equally. Historians estimate there were about 5,000 settlers in 1700 and 11,000 in 1715.
While the voluntary settlers were mostly British, some had brought Africans
African or Africans may refer to:
* Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa:
** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa
*** Ethn ...
as laborers; most were enslaved. In the ensuing years, the settlers imported and purchased more slaves to develop plantations in the lowland areas, and the African proportion of the population rose rapidly. A colony at New Bern
New Bern, formerly called Newbern, is a city in Craven County, North Carolina, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 29,524, which had risen to an estimated 29,994 as of 2019. It is the county seat of Craven County and ...
was composed of Swiss
Swiss may refer to:
* the adjectival form of Switzerland
* Swiss people
Places
* Swiss, Missouri
*Swiss, North Carolina
* Swiss, West Virginia
* Swiss, Wisconsin
Other uses
* Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports
*Swiss Internati ...
and German settlers. In the late 18th century, more German immigrants migrated south after entry into Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Ma ...
.
By 1712, the term "North Carolina" was in common use. In 1728, the dividing line between North Carolina and Virginia was surveyed. In 1730, the population in North Carolina was around 30,000. By 1729, the Crown bought out seven of the eight original proprietors and made the region a royal colony. John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville
John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville, 7th Seigneur of Sark, (; 22 April 16902 January 1763), commonly known by his earlier title Lord Carteret, was a British statesman and Lord President of the Council from 1751 to 1763; he worked extremely clo ...
refused to sell, and in 1744 he received rights to the vast Granville Tract, constituting the northern half of North Carolina.
Bath
Bath may refer to:
* Bathing, immersion in a fluid
** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body
** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe
* Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities
Plac ...
, the oldest town in North Carolina, was the first nominal capital from 1705 until 1722, when Edenton took over the role, but the colony had no permanent institutions of government until their establishment in the new capital New Bern
New Bern, formerly called Newbern, is a city in Craven County, North Carolina, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 29,524, which had risen to an estimated 29,994 as of 2019. It is the county seat of Craven County and ...
in 1743. Raleigh would become capital of North Carolina in 1792.
In 1755 Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor
An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a m ...
, the Postmaster-General for the American colonies, appointed James Davis as the first postmaster of the North Carolina colony at New Bern.[ Lee, 1923, pp. 53-54] In October of that year the North Carolina Assembly awarded Davis the contract to carry the mail between Wilmington, North Carolina
Wilmington is a port city in and the county seat of New Hanover County in coastal southeastern North Carolina, United States.
With a population of 115,451 at the 2020 census, it is the eighth most populous city in the state. Wilmington is t ...
and Suffolk, Virginia.
Immigration from north
The colony grew rapidly from a population of 100,000 in 1752 to 200,000 in 1765.
The Lord Proprietors encouraged importing of slaves to the Province of North Carolina by instituting a headright system that gave settlers acreage for the number of slaves that they brought to the province. The geography was a factor that slowed the importation of slaves. Settlers were forced to import slaves from Virginia or South Carolina because of the poor harbors and treacherous coastline. The enslaved black population grew from 800 in 1712 to 6,000 in 1730 and about 41,000 in 1767.
In the mid-to-late 18th century
The 18th century lasted from January 1, 1701 ( MDCCI) to December 31, 1800 ( MDCCC). During the 18th century, elements of Enlightenment thinking culminated in the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions. During the century, slave tradin ...
, the tide of immigration to North Carolina from Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the East Coast of the United States, Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography an ...
and Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Ma ...
began to swell. The Scots-Irish (Ulster Protestants) from what is today Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. North ...
were the largest immigrant group from the British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles (O ...
to the colonies before the American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolu ...
. In total, English indentured servants, who arrived mostly in the 17th and 18th centuries, comprised the majority of English settlers prior to the Revolution. On the eve of the American Revolution, North Carolina was the fastest-growing British colony in North America. The small family farms of Piedmont contrasted sharply with the plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Th ...
economy of the coastal region, where wealthy planters had established a slave society, growing tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ch ...
and rice
Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly '' Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and ''Porteresia'', both wild and domestica ...
with slave labor.
Differences in the settlement patterns of eastern and western North Carolina, or the low country and uplands, affected the political, economic, and social life of the state from the 18th until the 20th century. The Tidewater
Tidewater may refer to:
* Tidewater (region), a geographic area of southeast Virginia, southern Maryland, and northeast North Carolina.
** Tidewater accent, an accent of American English associated with the Tidewater region of Virginia
* Tidewater ...
in eastern North Carolina was settled chiefly by immigrants from rural England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
and the Scottish Highlands
The Highlands ( sco, the Hielands; gd, a’ Ghàidhealtachd , 'the place of the Gaels') is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland ...
. The upcountry of western North Carolina was settled chiefly by Scots-Irish, English and German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
Protestants
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
, the so-called " cohee". During the Revolutionary War, the English and Highland Scots of eastern North Carolina tended to have more loyalist towards the British Crown, because of longstanding business and personal connections with Great Britain. The English, Welsh, Scots-Irish and German settlers of the western half of North Carolina, largely tended to favor American independence from Britain.
With no cities and very few towns or villages, the colony was rural and thinly populated. Local taverns provided multiple services ranging from strong drink, beds for travelers, and meeting rooms for politicians and businessmen. In a world sharply divided along lines of ethnicity, gender, race, and class, the tavern keepers' rum proved a solvent that mixed together all sorts of locals, as well as travelers. The increasing variety of drinks on offer and the emergence of private clubs meeting in the taverns, showed that genteel culture was spreading from London to the periphery of the English colonial empire.
The courthouse was usually the most prominent building within a county. Jails were often an important part of the courthouse but were sometimes built separately. Some county governments built tobacco warehouses to provide a common service for their most important export crop.
Slavery
In the early years, the line between white indentured servants and African laborers was vague, as some Africans also arrived under an indenture, before more were transported as slaves. Some Africans were allowed to earn their freedom before slavery became a lifelong racial caste. Most of the free colored families found in North Carolina in the censuses of 1790–1810 were descended from unions or marriages between free white women and enslaved or free African or African-American men in colonial Virginia. Because the mothers were free, their children were born free. Such mixed-race families migrated along with their European-American neighbors into the frontier of North Carolina. As the flow of indentured laborers slackened because of improving economic conditions in Britain, the colony was short on labor and imported more slaves from European slavers who traded or purchased them from African tribal chiefs in West Africa. It followed Virginia in increasing its controls on slavery, which became a racial caste of the foreign Africans.
Much of the economy's growth and prosperity was based on slave labor, devoted first to the production of tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ch ...
. The often oppressive and brutal experiences of slaves and poor whites led many of them to resort to escape, violent resistance, and theft of food and other goods in order to survive.
Politics
In the late 1760s, tensions between Piedmont farmers and coastal planters developed into the Regulator movement
The Regulator Movement, also known as the Regulator Insurrection, War of Regulation, and War of the Regulation, was an uprising in Provincial North Carolina from 1766 to 1771 in which citizens took up arms against colonial officials, whom they v ...
. With specie scarce, many inland farmers found themselves unable to pay their taxes
A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, o ...
and resented the consequent seizure of their property. Local sheriffs sometimes kept taxes for their own gain and sometimes charged twice for the same tax. Governor William Tryon
Lieutenant-General William Tryon (8 June 172927 January 1788) was a British Army officer and colonial administrator who served as governor of North Carolina from 1764 to 1771 and the governor of New York from 1771 to 1777. He also served duri ...
's conspicuous consumption in the construction of a new governor's mansion at New Bern fueled the resentment of yeoman farmers. As the western districts were under-represented in the colonial legislature, the farmers could not obtain redress by legislative
A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government.
Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known ...
means. The frustrated farmers took to arms and closed the court in Hillsborough, North Carolina
The town of Hillsborough is the county seat of Orange County, North Carolina, United States and is located along the Eno River. The population was 6,087 in 2010, but it grew rapidly to 9,660 by 2020.
Its name was unofficially shortened to "Hillsb ...
. Tryon sent troops to the region and defeated the Regulators at the Battle of Alamance
The Battle of Alamance, which took place on May 16, 1771, was the final battle of the Regulator Movement, a rebellion in colonial North Carolina over issues of taxation and local control, considered by some to be the opening salvo of the Americ ...
in May 1771, where several leaders of the movement, including Captain Robert Messer, Captain Benjamin Merrill
Benjamin Merrill (sometimes Merrell) (c. 1731 – June 19, 1771) was a captain in the militia of Rowan County, North Carolina who sided with the Regulators during the pre- Revolutionary War uprising. He was captured following the conflict ending ...
, and Captain Robert Matear, were captured and hanged.
New nation
American Revolution
The demand for independence came from local grassroots organizations called " Committees of Safety". The First Continental Congress
The Continental Congress was a series of legislative bodies, with some executive function, for thirteen of Britain's colonies in North America, and the newly declared United States just before, during, and after the American Revolutionary War. ...
had urged their creation in 1774. By 1775, they had become counter-governments that gradually replaced royal authority and took control of local governments. They regulated the economy, politics, morality, and militia of their individual communities, but many local feuds were played out under ostensibly political affiliations. After December 1776 they came under the control of a more powerful central authority, the Council of Safety.
In the spring of 1776, North Carolinians, meeting in the fourth of their Provincial Congresses, drafted the Halifax Resolves, a set of resolutions that empowered the state's delegates to the Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress was a late-18th-century meeting of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that united in support of the American Revolutionary War. The Congress was creating a new country it first named " United Colonies" and in ...
to concur in a declaration of independence from Great Britain. In July 1776, the new state became part of the new nation, the United States of America.
In 1775, the Patriots easily expelled the Royal governor and suppressed the Loyalists
Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Crow ...
. In November 1776, elected representatives gathered in Halifax to write a new state constitution, which remained in effect until 1835. One of the most prominent Loyalists was John Leggett, a rich planter in Bladen County. He organized and led one of the few loyalist brigades in the South (the North Carolina Volunteers, later known as the Royal North Carolina Regiment). After the war, Colonel Leggett and some of his soldiers moved to Nova Scotia; the British gave them free land grants in County Harbour as compensation for their losses in the colony. The great majority of Loyalists remained in North Carolina and became citizens of the new nation.
Local militia units proved important in the guerrilla war of 1780–81. Soldiers who enlisted in George Washington's Continental Army fought in numerous battles up and down the land.
Struggling with a weak tax base, state officials used impressment to seize food and supplies needed for the war effort, paying the farmers with promissory notes. To raise soldiers, state officials tried a draft law. Both policies created significant discontent that undermined support for the new nation. The state's large German population, concentrated in the central counties, tried to remain neutral; the Moravians were pacifist because of strong religious beliefs, while Lutheran and Reformed Germans were passively neutral. All peace groups paid triple taxes in lieu of military service.
The British were punctual in paying their regulars and their Loyalist forces, but American soldiers went month after month in threadbare uniforms with no pay and scanty supplies. Belatedly, the state tried to make amends. After 1780, soldiers received cash bounties, a slave "or the value thereof," clothing, food, and land (after 1782 they received from 640 to 1,200 acres depending on rank). Since the money supply, based on the Continental currency was subject to high inflation and loss of value, state officials valued compensation in relation to gold and silver.
Military campaigns of 1780–81
After 1780, the British tried to rouse and arm the Loyalists, believing they were numerous enough to make a difference. The result was fierce guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run ...
between units of Patriots and Loyalists. Often the opportunity was seized to settle private grudges and feuds. A major American victory took place at King's Mountain along the North Carolina– South Carolina border. On October 7, 1780, a force of 1,000 mountain men from western North Carolina (including what is today part of Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to ...
) overwhelmed a force of some 1,000 Loyalist and British troops led by Major Patrick Ferguson
Patrick Ferguson (1744 – 7 October 1780) was a Scottish officer in the British Army, an early advocate of light infantry and the designer of the Ferguson rifle. He is best known for his service in the 1780 military campaign of Charles ...
. The victory essentially ended British efforts to recruit more Loyalists.
The road to the American victory at Yorktown led by North Carolina. As the British army moved north toward Virginia, the Southern Division of the Continental Army and local militia prepared to meet them. Following General Daniel Morgan
Daniel Morgan (1735–1736July 6, 1802) was an American pioneer, soldier, and politician from Virginia. One of the most respected battlefield tacticians of the American Revolutionary War of 1775–1783, he later commanded troops during the sup ...
's victory over the British under Banastre Tarleton
Sir Banastre Tarleton, 1st Baronet, GCB (21 August 175415 January 1833) was a British general and politician. He is best known as the lieutenant colonel leading the British Legion at the end of the American Revolution. He later served in Por ...
at the Battle of Cowpens
The Battle of Cowpens was an engagement during the American Revolutionary War fought on January 17, 1781 near the town of Cowpens, South Carolina, between U.S. forces under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan and Kingdom of Great Britain, British for ...
on January 17, 1781, the southern commander Nathanael Greene
Nathanael Greene (June 19, 1786, sometimes misspelled Nathaniel) was a major general of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War. He emerged from the war with a reputation as General George Washington's most talented and dependa ...
led British Lord Charles Cornwallis
Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, (31 December 1738 – 5 October 1805), styled Viscount Brome between 1753 and 1762 and known as the Earl Cornwallis between 1762 and 1792, was a British Army general and official. In the United ...
across the heartland of North Carolina, and away from Cornwallis's base of supply in Charleston, South Carolina. This campaign is known as "The Race to the Dan" or "The Race for the River."[Lefler and Newsome, (1973)]
Generals Greene and Cornwallis finally met at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse
The Battle of Guilford Court House was on March 15, 1781, during the American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a m ...
in present-day Greensboro
Greensboro (; formerly Greensborough) is a city in and the county seat of Guilford County, North Carolina, United States. It is the third-most populous city in North Carolina after Charlotte and Raleigh, the 69th-most populous city in th ...
on March 15, 1781. Although the British troops held the field at the end of the battle, their casualties at the hands of the numerically superior Continental Army were crippling. Cornwallis had a poor strategic plan which had failed in holding his heavily garrisoned positions in South Carolina and Georgia and had failed to subdue North Carolina. By contrast, Greene used a more flexible adaptive approach that negated the British advantages and built an adequate logistical foundation for the American campaigns. Greene's defensive operations provided his forces the opportunity to later seize the strategic offensive from Comwallis and eventually reclaim the Carolinas. The weakened Cornwallis headed to the Virginia coastline to be rescued by the Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by Kingdom of England, English and Kingdom of Scotland, Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were foug ...
. A French fleet repulsed the British Navy and Cornwallis, surrounded by American and French units, surrendered to George Washington, effectively ending the fighting.
By 1786, the population of North Carolina had increased to 350,000.
Early Republic
The United States Constitution drafted in 1787 was controversial in North Carolina. Delegate meetings at Hillsborough
Hillsborough may refer to:
Australia
*Hillsborough, New South Wales, a suburb of Lake Macquarie
Canada
*Hillsborough, New Brunswick
*Hillsborough Parish, New Brunswick
* Hillsborough, Nova Scotia, in Inverness County
*Hillsborough (electoral d ...
in July 1788 initially voted to reject it for anti-federalist reasons. They were persuaded to change their minds partly by the strenuous efforts of James Iredell and William R. Davie
William Richardson Davie (June 20, 1756 – November 29, 1820) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father of the United States, military officer during the Revolutionary War (United States), Revolutionary War, and List of Go ...
and partly by the prospect of a Bill of Rights
A bill of rights, sometimes called a declaration of rights or a charter of rights, is a list of the most important rights to the citizens of a country. The purpose is to protect those rights against infringement from public officials and pri ...
. Meanwhile, residents in the wealthy northeastern part of the state, who generally supported the proposed Constitution, threatened to secede if the rest of the state did not fall into line. A second ratifying convention was held in Fayetteville in November 1789, and on November 21, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
North Carolina adopted a new state constitution in 1835. One of the major changes was the introduction of direct election of the governor, for a term of two years; prior to 1835, the legislature elected the governor for a term of one year. North Carolina's historic capitol building was completed in 1840.
Transportation
In mid-century, the state's rural and commercial areas were connected by the construction of a 129–mile (208 km) wooden plank road, known as a "farmer's railroad", from Fayetteville in the east to Bethania (northwest of Winston-Salem
Winston-Salem is a city and the county seat of Forsyth County, North Carolina, United States. In the 2020 census, the population was 249,545, making it the second-largest municipality in the Piedmont Triad region, the 5th most populous city in N ...
).
On October 25, 1836 construction began on the Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad to connect the port city of Wilmington with the state capital of Raleigh. In 1849, the North Carolina Railroad was created by an act of the legislature to extend that railroad west to Greensboro
Greensboro (; formerly Greensborough) is a city in and the county seat of Guilford County, North Carolina, United States. It is the third-most populous city in North Carolina after Charlotte and Raleigh, the 69th-most populous city in th ...
, High Point, and Charlotte
Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Meckl ...
. During the Civil War, the Wilmington-to-Raleigh stretch of the railroad would be vital to the Confederate war effort; supplies shipped into Wilmington would be moved by rail through Raleigh to the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia
(Thus do we reach the stars)
, image_map =
, mapsize = 250 px
, map_caption = Location within Virginia
, pushpin_map = Virginia#USA
, pushpin_label = Richmond
, pushpin_m ...
.
Rural life
During the antebellum period, North Carolina was an overwhelmingly rural
In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are descri ...
state, even by Southern standards. In 1860, only one North Carolina town, the port city of Wilmington, had a population of more than 10,000. Raleigh, the state capital, had barely more than 5,000 residents.
The majority of white families comprised the Plain Folk of the Old South
''Plain Folk of the Old South'' is a 1949 book by Vanderbilt University historian Frank Lawrence Owsley, one of the Southern Agrarians. In it he used statistical data to analyze the makeup of Southern society, contending that yeoman farmers ...
, or "yeoman farmers." They owned their own small farms, with some owning a few slaves. Most of their efforts were to build up the farm and feed their families, with a little surplus sold on the market in order to pay taxes and buy necessities.
Plantations, slavery and free blacks
After the Revolution
In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...
, Quakers
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...
and Mennonite
Mennonites are groups of Anabaptist Christian church communities of denominations. The name is derived from the founder of the movement, Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings about Reformed Christianity during the Ra ...
s worked to persuade slaveholders to free their slaves. Some were inspired by their efforts and the revolutionary ideas to arrange for manumission
Manumission, or enfranchisement, is the act of freeing enslaved people by their enslavers. Different approaches to manumission were developed, each specific to the time and place of a particular society. Historian Verene Shepherd states that t ...
of their slaves. The number of free people of color in the state rose markedly in the first couple of decades after the Revolution. Most of the free people of color in the censuses of 1790-1810 were descended from African Americans who became free in colonial Virginia, the children of unions and marriages between white women and African men. These descendants migrated to the frontier during the late eighteenth century along with white neighbors. Free people of color also became concentrated in the eastern coastal plain, especially at port cities such as Wilmington and New Bern
New Bern, formerly called Newbern, is a city in Craven County, North Carolina, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 29,524, which had risen to an estimated 29,994 as of 2019. It is the county seat of Craven County and ...
, where they could get a variety of jobs and had more freedom in the cities. Restrictions increased beginning in the 1820s; movement by free people of color between counties was prohibited. Additional restrictions against their movements in 1830 under a quarantine act. Free mariners of color on visiting ships were prohibited from having contact with any blacks in the state, in violation of United States treaties. In 1835, free people of color lost the right to vote, following white fears aroused after Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion
Nat Turner's Rebellion, historically known as the Southampton Insurrection, was a rebellion of enslaved Virginians that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831.Schwarz, Frederic D.1831 Nat Turner's Rebellion" ''American Her ...
in 1831. By 1860, there were 30,463 free people of color
In the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, free people of color (French: ''gens de couleur libres''; Spanish: ''gente de color libre'') were primarily people of mixed African, European, and Native American descent who were not ...
who lived in the state but could not vote.
Most of North Carolina's slave owners and large plantations were located in the eastern portion of the state. Although its plantation system was smaller and less cohesive than those of Virginia, Georgia or South Carolina, significant numbers of planters were concentrated in the counties around the port cities of Wilmington and Edenton, as well as in Piedmont around the cities of Raleigh, Charlotte, and Durham. Planters owning large estates wielded significant political and socio-economic power in antebellum North Carolina, placing their interests above those of the generally non-slave holding "yeoman" farmers of the western part of the state. "By 1860, the state legislature had a higher percentage (85) of politicians owning human beings than any statehouse in the country."
While slaveholding was less concentrated in North Carolina than in some Southern states, according to the 1860 census, more than 330,000 people, or 33% of the population of 992,622, were enslaved African Americans. They lived and worked chiefly on plantations in the eastern Tidewater
Tidewater may refer to:
* Tidewater (region), a geographic area of southeast Virginia, southern Maryland, and northeast North Carolina.
** Tidewater accent, an accent of American English associated with the Tidewater region of Virginia
* Tidewater ...
and the upland areas of Piedmont.
Whigs versus Democrats
Two party competition was the main theme during the Second Party System
Historians and political scientists use Second Party System to periodize the Political parties in the United States, political party system operating in the United States from about 1828 to 1852, after the First Party System ended. The system was ...
in the state, 1824 to early 1850s. According to Max R. Williams, voters in the 1820s became polarized over general Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American lawyer, planter, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, he gained fame a ...
. After his victory in 1828 as President, his enemies pulled together to form the new Whig party, thus introducing competitive two-party politics in the state. By 1836, the Jacksonians had formed the modern Democratic Party. Both parties were well organized at the county level, with their voters drilled in army-style tactics to march to the polls and declare victory on election say. In 1832, however, Democrats triumphed, giving Jackson 84% of the vote for his reelection. However, Jackson's war on the banking system alienated the business - oriented voters, and they staffed and funded the Whig party. They came to power using the revised new state constitution in 1835, and build a strong base in the western counties. Moving beyond negativism, the Whigs developed a positive program for modernization of the economically backward rural state. The Whigs used the state government to foster internal improvements, especially in terms of better transportation systems, and new education opportunities. The Whigs rallied around Kentuckian Henry Clay
Henry Clay Sr. (April 12, 1777June 29, 1852) was an American attorney and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He was the seventh House speaker as well as the ninth secretary of state, ...
, and his American plan for economic and social modernization. They opposed westward expansion and rejected "manifest destiny
Manifest destiny was a cultural belief in the 19th-century United States that American settlers were destined to expand across North America.
There were three basic tenets to the concept:
* The special virtues of the American people and th ...
". Both parties had a broad base in terms of geography and social class. The North Carolina Whig party was a replica in one state of the national party.
Civil War through late 19th century
Civil War
In 1860, North Carolina was a slave state, in which about one-third of the population of 992,622 were enslaved African Americans. In addition, the state had just over 30,000 Free African Americans. There were relatively few large plantations or old aristocratic families. North Carolina was reluctant to secede from the Union when it became clear that Republican Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
had won the presidential election. With the attack on Fort Sumter
Fort Sumter is a sea fort built on an artificial island protecting Charleston, South Carolina from naval invasion. Its origin dates to the War of 1812 when the British invaded Washington by sea. It was still incomplete in 1861 when the Battl ...
in April 1861, and Lincoln's call for troops to march into South Carolina, North Carolina legislators decided to not attack South Carolina, leading to North Carolina joining the Confederacy.
North Carolina was the site of few battles, though it provided at least 125,000 troops to the Confederacy. North Carolina also supplied about 15,000 Union troops. Over 30,000 North Carolina soldiers would die of disease, battlefield wounds, or starvation. Confederate troops from all parts of North Carolina served in virtually all the major battles of the Army of Northern Virginia
The Army of Northern Virginia was the primary military force of the Confederate States of America in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. It was also the primary command structure of the Department of Northern Virginia. It was most o ...
, the Confederacy's most famous army. The largest battle fought in North Carolina was at Bentonville, which was a futile attempt by Confederate General Joseph Johnston to slow Union General William Tecumseh Sherman
William Tecumseh Sherman ( ; February 8, 1820February 14, 1891) was an American soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861–1865), achieving recognition for his com ...
's advance through the Carolinas in the spring of 1865. In April 1865 after losing the Battle of Morrisville, Johnston surrendered to Sherman at Bennett Place, in what is today Durham, North Carolina. This was the next to last major Confederate Army to surrender. North Carolina's port city of Wilmington was the last major Confederate port for blockade runners; it fell in the spring of 1865 after the nearby Second Battle of Fort Fisher
The Second Battle of Fort Fisher was a successful assault by the Union Army, Navy and Marine Corps against Fort Fisher, south of Wilmington, North Carolina, near the end of the American Civil War in January 1865. Sometimes referred to as the "Gi ...
.
Elected in 1862, Governor Zebulon Baird Vance tried to maintain state autonomy against Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
The Union's naval blockade of Southern ports and the breakdown of the Confederate transportation system took a heavy toll on North Carolina residents, as did the runaway inflation of the war years. In the spring of 1863, there were food riots in North Carolina as town dwellers found it hard to buy food. On the other hand, blockade runners brought prosperity to several port cities, until they were shut down by the Union Navy
The Union Navy was the United States Navy (USN) during the American Civil War, when it fought the Confederate States Navy (CSN). The term is sometimes used carelessly to include vessels of war used on the rivers of the interior while they were und ...
in 1864–65.
North Carolina Union troops played key roles during the war as well, with the 3rd North Carolina Cavalry taking part in the Battle of Bull's Gap
The Battle of Bulls Gap was a battle of the American Civil War, occurring from November 11 to November 13, 1864, in Hamblen County and Greene County, Tennessee.
Background
In November 1864, Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge undertook an expedition ...
, Battle of Red Banks
The Battle of Red Banks was an American Civil War battle that took place on December 29, 1864, between Union and Confederate forces. It took place at the Red Banks of the Nolichucky River in Unicoi County, Tennessee near the North Carolina borde ...
, and Stoneman's 1864 and 1865 raids in western North Carolina, southwest Virginia, and eastern Tennessee. Approximately 10,000 white North Carolinians, and 5,000 black North Carolinians, joined Union Army units. They consisted of soldiers in North Carolina Union regiments, Confederate Army deserters who later joined the Union Army, and men who left the state to join Union Army units elsewhere.
Reconstruction era
During Reconstruction, many African-American leaders arose from people free before the war, men who had escaped to the North and decided to return, and educated migrants from the North who wanted to help in the postwar years. Many who had been in the North had gained some education before their return. In general, however, illiteracy was a problem shared in the early postwar years by most African Americans and about one-third of the whites in the state.
A number of white northerners migrated to North Carolina to work and invest. While feelings in the state were high against carpetbaggers
In the history of the United States, carpetbagger is a largely historical term used by Southerners to describe opportunistic Northerners who came to the Southern states after the American Civil War, who were perceived to be exploiting the lo ...
, of the 133 persons at the constitutional convention, only 18 were Northern carpetbaggers and 15 were African Americans. North Carolina was readmitted to the Union in 1868, after ratifying a new state constitution. It included provisions to establish public education for the first time, prohibit slavery, and adopt universal suffrage. It also provided for public welfare institutions for the first time: orphanages, public charities and a penitentiary. The legislature ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Often considered as one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and e ...
.
In 1870, the Democratic Party regained power in the state. Governor William W. Holden had used civil powers and spoken out to try to combat the Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Ca ...
's increasing violence, which was used to suppress black and Republican voting. Conservatives accused him of being head of the Union League, believing in social equality between the races, and practicing political corruption. But, when the legislature voted to impeach him, it charged him only with using and paying troops to put down insurrection (Ku Klux Klan activity) in the state. Holden was impeached, and turned over his duties to Lieutenant Governor Tod R. Caldwell
Tod Robinson Caldwell (February 19, 1818July 11, 1874) was an American lawyer and the List of Governors of North Carolina, 41st Governor of North Carolina, governor of the U.S. state of North Carolina from 1871 until his death in Hillsborough i ...
on December 20, 1870. The trial began on January 30, 1871, and lasted nearly three months. On March 22, the North Carolina Senate found Holden guilty and ordered him removed from office. He was the first governor in the United States to be removed from office through impeachment.
After the national Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 went into effect in an effort to reduce violence in the South, the U.S. Attorney General, Amos T. Akerman
Amos Tappan Akerman (February 23, 1821 – December 21, 1880) was an American politician who served as United States Attorney General under President of the United States, President Ulysses S. Grant from 1870 to 1871. A native of New Hampshire, A ...
, vigorously prosecuted Klan members in North Carolina. During the late 1870s, there was renewed violence in the Piedmont
it, Piemontese
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 =
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographics1_title1 =
, demographics1_info1 =
, demographics1_title2 ...
area, where whites tried to suppress black voting in elections. Beginning in 1875, the Red Shirts, a paramilitary group, openly worked for the Democrats to suppress black voting.
As in other Southern states, after white Democrats regained power, they worked to re-establish white supremacy
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White s ...
politically and socially. Paramilitary groups such as the Red Shirts beginning in 1875, worked openly to disrupt black political meetings, intimidate leaders and directly challenge voters in campaigns and elections, especially in the Piedmont area. They sometimes physically attacked black voters and community leaders.
Post-Reconstruction and disfranchisement
In the 1880s, black officeholders were at a peak level in local offices, where much business was done, as they were elected from black-majority districts. By the 1890s, white Democrats had regained power on the state level.
Post-Civil War racial politics encouraged efforts to divide and co-opt groups. In the drive to regain power, Democrats supported an effort by state representative Harold McMillan to create separate school districts in 1885 for "Croatan Indians" to gain their support. Of mixed race and claiming Native American heritage, the families had been classified as free people of color
In the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, free people of color (French: ''gens de couleur libres''; Spanish: ''gente de color libre'') were primarily people of mixed African, European, and Native American descent who were not ...
in the antebellum
Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to:
United States history
* Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern United States
** Antebellum Georgia
** Antebellum South Carolina
** Antebellum Virginia
* Antebellum arc ...
years and did not want to send their children to public school classes with former slaves. After having voted with the Republicans, they switched to the Democrats. (In 1913, the group changed their name to "Cherokee Indians of Robeson County", "Siouan Indians of Lumber River" in 1934-1935, and were given limited recognition as Indians by the U.S. Congress as Lumbee
The Lumbee are a Native American people primarily centered in Robeson, Hoke, Cumberland and Scotland counties in North Carolina. They also live in surrounding states and Baltimore, Maryland.
The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina is a state-rec ...
in 1956. The Lumbee are one of several Native American tribes that have been officially recognized by the state in the 21st century.)
In 1894, after years of agricultural problems in the state, an interracial coalition of Republicans and Populists
Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group against " the elite". It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. The term develope ...
won a majority of seats in the state legislature and elected as governor, Republican Daniel L. Russell, the Fusionist candidate. That year North Carolina's 2nd congressional district elected George Henry White
George Henry White (December 18, 1852 – December 28, 1918) was an American attorney and politician, elected as a Republican U.S. Congressman from North Carolina's 2nd congressional district between 1897 and 1901. He later became a banker ...
, an educated African-American attorney, as its third black representative to Congress since the Civil War.
Democrats worked to break up the biracial coalition, and reduce voting by blacks and poor whites. In 1896, North Carolina passed a statute that made voter registration more complicated and reduced the number of blacks on voter registration rolls.
In 1898, in an election characterized by violence, fraud, and intimidation of black voters by Red Shirts, white Democrats regained control of the state legislature.
Two days after the election, a small group of whites in Wilmington implemented their plan to take over the city government if the Democrats were not elected, although the mayor and a majority of city council were white. The cadre led 1500 whites against the black newspaper and neighborhood in what is known as the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898
The Wilmington insurrection of 1898, also known as the Wilmington massacre of 1898 or the Wilmington coup of 1898, was a coup d'état and massacre carried out by white supremacists in Wilmington, North Carolina, United States, on Thursday, Nove ...
; the mob and other whites killed an estimated 60 to more than 300 people. The cadre forced the resignation of Republican officeholders, including the white mayor, and mostly white aldermen, and ran them out of town. They replaced them with their own slate and that day elected Alfred M. Waddell
Alfred Moore Waddell (September 16, 1834 – March 17, 1912) was an American politician and white supremacist. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a U.S. representative from North Carolina between 1871 and 1879 and as mayor of W ...
as mayor. This is the only ''coup d'état
A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, ...
'' (violent overthrow of an elected government) in United States history.
In 1899, the Democrat-dominated state legislature ratified a new constitution with a suffrage amendment, whose requirements for poll tax
A poll tax, also known as head tax or capitation, is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources.
Head taxes were important sources of revenue for many governments f ...
es, literacy tests
A literacy test assesses a person's literacy skills: their ability to read and write have been administered by various governments, particularly to immigrants. In the United States, between the 1850s and 1960s, literacy tests were administered t ...
, lengthier residency, and similar mechanisms disfranchised most blacks and many poor whites. Illiterate whites were protected by a grandfather clause
A grandfather clause, also known as grandfather policy, grandfathering, or grandfathered in, is a provision in which an old rule continues to apply to some existing situations while a new rule will apply to all future cases. Those exempt from t ...
so that if a father or grandfather had voted in 1860 (when all voters were white), his sons or grandsons did not have to pass the literacy test of 1899. This grandfather clause excluded all blacks, as free people of color had lost the franchise in 1835. The US Supreme Court ruled in 1915, that such grandfather clauses were unconstitutional. Every voter had to pay the poll tax until it was abolished by the state in 1920.
Congressman George Henry White
George Henry White (December 18, 1852 – December 28, 1918) was an American attorney and politician, elected as a Republican U.S. Congressman from North Carolina's 2nd congressional district between 1897 and 1901. He later became a banker ...
, an African-American Republican, said after passage of this constitution in 1899, "I cannot live in North Carolina and be a man and be treated as a man." He had been re-elected in 1898, but the next year announced his decision not to seek a third term, saying he would leave the state instead.["George Henry White"](_blank)
, ''Black Americans in Congress'', US Congress He moved his law practice to Washington, D.C. and later to Philadelphia, where he founded a commercial bank.
By 1904, black voter turnout had been utterly reduced in North Carolina. Contemporary accounts estimated that 75,000 black male citizens lost their vote.[Richard H. Pildes, "Democracy, Anti-Democracy, and the Canon"](_blank)
''Constitutional Commentary,'' Vol. 17, 2000, pp. 12–13 In 1900, blacks numbered 630,207 citizens, about 33% of the state's total population, and were unable to elect representatives.
With control of the legislature, white Democrats passed Jim Crow
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
laws establishing racial segregation Segregation may refer to:
Separation of people
* Geographical segregation, rates of two or more populations which are not homogenous throughout a defined space
* School segregation
* Housing segregation
* Racial segregation, separation of human ...
in public facilities and transportation. African Americans worked for more than 60 years to regain full power to exercise the suffrage and other constitutional rights of citizens. Without the ability to vote, they were excluded from juries and lost all chance at local offices: sheriffs, justices of the peace, jurors, county commissioners and school board members, which were the active site of government around the start of the 20th century. Suppression of the black vote and re-establishment of white supremacy suppressed knowledge of what had been a thriving black middle class in the state. By 1900, the Republicans were no longer competitive in state politics, although they had strongholds within the states mountain districts and some piedmont counties.
20th century
Early 20th century
Progressive movement
North Carolina, along with all the southern states, imposed strict legal segregation in the early 20th century. The poor rural backward state took a regional leadership role in modernizing the economy in society, based on expanded roles for public education, state universities, and more roles for middle class women. State leaders included Governor Charles B. Aycock
Charles Brantley Aycock (November 1, 1859 – April 4, 1912) was the 50th governor of the U.S. state of North Carolina from 1901 to 1905. After starting his career as a lawyer and teacher, he became active in the Democratic Party during the part ...
, who led both the educational and the white supremacy crusades; diplomat Walter Hines Page; and educator Charles Duncan McIver. Women were especially active through the WCTU in church activism, promoting prohibition, missions and public schools, ending child labor in the textile mills, supporting public health campaigns to eradicate hookworm
Hookworms are intestinal, blood-feeding, parasitic roundworms that cause types of infection known as helminthiases. Hookworm infection is found in many parts of the world, and is common in areas with poor access to adequate water, sanitation ...
and other debilitating diseases. They promoted gender equality and woman suffrage, and demanded a single standard of sexual morality for men and women. In the black community, Charlotte Hawkins Brown, built the Palmer Memorial Institute to educate the black leadership class. Brown worked with Booker T. Washington of the National Negro Business League
The National Negro Business League (NNBL) was an American organization founded in Boston in 1900 by Booker T. Washington to promote the interests of African-American businesses. The mission and main goal of the National Negro Business League w ...
), who provided ideas and access to Northern philanthropy. Across the South John D. Rockefeller Jr. (of Standard Oil), provided large-scale subsidies for black schools, which otherwise continued to be underfunded. The South was helped in the 1920s and 1930s by the Julius Rosenwald Fund
The Rosenwald Fund (also known as the Rosenwald Foundation, the Julius Rosenwald Fund, and the Julius Rosenwald Foundation) was established in 1917 by Julius Rosenwald and his family for "the well-being of mankind." Rosenwald became part-owner of S ...
, which contributed matching funds to local communities for the construction of thousands of schools for African Americans in rural areas throughout the South. Black parents organized to raise the money, and donated land and labor to build improved schools for their children.
Black movement
Reacting to segregation, disfranchisement in 1899, and difficulties in agriculture in the early 20th century, tens of thousands of African Americans left the state (and hundreds of thousands began to leave the rest of the South) for the North and Midwest; looking for better opportunities in the Great Migration. In its first wave, from 1910–1940, one and a half million African Americans left the South. They went to places such as Washington D.C., Baltimore, and Philadelphia; and sometimes further north, to industrial cities where there was work, usually taking the trains to connecting cities.
Other trends
On December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers made the first successful airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
During World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, the decrepit shipbuilding industry was revived by large-scale federal contracts landed with Congressional help. Nine new shipyards opened in North Carolina to build ships under contracts from the Emergency Fleet Corporation
The Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC) was established by the United States Shipping Board, sometimes referred to as the War Shipping Board, on 16 April 1917 pursuant to the Shipping Act (39 Stat. 729) to acquire, maintain, and operate merchant sh ...
. Four steamships
A steamship, often referred to as a steamer, is a type of steam-powered vessel, typically ocean-faring and seaworthy, that is propelled by one or more steam engines that typically move (turn) propellers or paddlewheels. The first steamships ...
were made of concrete, but most were made of wood or steel. Thousands of workers rushed to high-paying jobs, as the managers found a shortage of highly skilled mechanics, as well as a housing shortage. Although unions were weak, labor unrest and managerial inexperience caused the delays. The shipyards closed at the end of the war.
The North Carolina Woman's Committee was established as a state agency during the war, headed by Laura Holmes Reilly of Charlotte. Inspired by ideas of the Progressive Movement, it registered women for many volunteer services, promoted increased food production and the elimination of wasteful cooking practices, helped maintain social services, worked to bolster morale of white and black soldiers, improved public health and public schools, and encouraged black participation in its programs. Members helped cope with the devastating Spanish flu
The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case wa ...
epidemic
An epidemic (from Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of patients among a given population within an area in a short period of time.
Epidemics of infectious d ...
that struck worldwide in late 1918, with very high fatalities. The committee was generally successful in reaching middle-class white and black women. It was handicapped by the condescension of male lawmakers, limited funding, and tepid responses from women on the farms and working-class districts.
By 1917–1919, because of disfranchisement of African Americans and establishment of a one-party state, North Carolina Democrats held powerful, senior positions in Congress, holding two of 23 major committee chairmanships in the Senate and four of 18 in the House, as well as the post of House majority leader. White Southerners controlled a block of votes and important chairmanships in Congress because, although they had disfranchised the entire black population of the South, they had not lost any congressional apportionment. With the delegation under control of the Democrats, they exercised party discipline. Their members gained seniority by being re-elected for many years. During the early decades of the 20th century, the Congressional delegation gained the construction of several major U.S. military installations, notably Fort Bragg
Fort Bragg is a military installation of the United States Army in North Carolina, and is one of the largest military installations in the world by population, with around 54,000 military personnel. The military reservation is located within C ...
, in North Carolina. President Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of P ...
, a fellow Democrat from the South who was elected due to the suppression of the Republican Party in the South, remained highly popular during World War I and was generally supported by the North Carolina delegation.
The state's road-building initiative began in the 1920s after the automobile
A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods.
The year 1886 is regarded ...
became a popular mode of transportation.
Great Depression and World War II
The state's farmers were badly hurt in the early years of the Great Depression, but benefited greatly by the New Deal programs, especially the tobacco program which guaranteed a steady flow of relatively high income to farmers, and the cotton program, which raised the prices farmers received for their crops (The cotton program caused a rise in prices of cotton goods for consumers during the Depression). The textile industry
The textile industry is primarily concerned with the design, production and distribution of yarn, cloth and clothing. The raw material may be natural, or synthetic using products of the chemical industry.
Industry process
Cotton manufac ...
in the Piedmont region continued to attract cotton mills relocating from the North, where unions had been effective in gaining better wages and working conditions.
Economic prosperity largely returned during and after World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
. North Carolina would supply the armed forces with more textiles than any other state in the nation during the war. Remote mountain places and small rural communities joined the national economy and had their first taste of economic prosperity. Hundreds of thousands of young men, and a few hundred young women, entered the armed forces from North Carolina.
Political scientist V. O. Key analyzed the state political culture in depth in the late 1940s, and concluded it was exceptional in the South for its "progressive outlook and action in many phases of life", especially in the realm of industrial development, commitment to public education, and a moderate-pattern segregation that was relatively free of the rigid racism found in the Deep South.
In 1940, fewer than one in four farms were powered by electricity
Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as describ ...
, a little more than a decade later, nearly all farm
A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used ...
steads in the state are electrified. By 1950, Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an American national park in the southeastern United States, with parts in North Carolina and Tennessee. The park straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, wh ...
which lies in both Tennessee and North Carolina, became the most visited park in the nation.
Civil Rights Movement
In 1931, the Negro Voters League was formed in Raleigh to press for voter registration. The city had an educated and politically sophisticated black middle class; by 1946 the League had succeeded in registering 7,000 black voters, an achievement in the segregated South, since North Carolina had essentially disfranchised blacks with provisions of a new constitution in 1899, excluding them from the political system and strengthening its system of white supremacy
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White s ...
through Jim Crow
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
laws.[ ]
The work of racial desegregation
Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups, usually referring to races. Desegregation is typically measured by the index of dissimilarity, allowing researchers to determine whether desegregation efforts are having impact o ...
and enforcement of constitutional civil rights for African Americans continued throughout the state. In the first half of the 20th century, other African Americans voted with their feet, moving in the Great Migration from rural areas to northern and midwestern cities where there were industrial jobs.
During World War II, Durham's Black newspaper, '' The Carolina Times'', edited by Louis Austin, took the lead in promoting the " Double V" strategy among civil rights activists. The strategy was to energize blacks to fight victory abroad against the Germans and Japanese while fighting for victory at home against white supremacy and racial oppression. Activists demanded an end to racial inequality in education, politics, economics, and the armed forces.
In 1960, nearly 25% of the state residents were African American: 1,114,907 citizens who had been living without their full constitutional rights. African-American college students began the sit-in
A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more people occupying an area for a protest, often to promote political, social, or economic change. The protestors gather conspicuously in a space or building, refusing to m ...
movement at the Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro
Greensboro (; formerly Greensborough) is a city in and the county seat of Guilford County, North Carolina, United States. It is the third-most populous city in North Carolina after Charlotte and Raleigh, the 69th-most populous city in th ...
on February 1, 1960, sparking a wave of sit-ins across the American South. They continued the Greensboro sit-ins sporadically for several months until, on July 25, African Americans were at last allowed to eat at Woolworth's. Integration of public facilities followed. During 1963 in Greenville, there was a boycott of Christmas lights
Christmas lights (also known as fairy lights, festive lights or string lights) are lights often used for decoration in celebration of Christmas, often on display throughout the Christmas and holiday season, Christmas season including Advent and ...
, known as the Black Christmas boycott
The Black Christmas Boycott, also known as the Christmas Sacrifice, in Greenville, North Carolina was a non-violent demonstration of the Civil Rights Movement in 1963 during the months of November and December.
The implementation of Jim Crow law ...
to protest the lack of hiring of black employees during the Christmas season.
Together with continued activism in states throughout the South and raising awareness throughout the country, African Americans' moral leadership gained the passage of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration req ...
and the Voting Rights Act of 1965
The suffrage, Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of Federal government of the United States, federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President of the United ...
under President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
. Throughout the state, African Americans began to participate fully in political life.
Education and the economy
North Carolina invested heavily in its system of higher education in the mid-to-late 20th century and became known for its excellent universities. Three major institutions compose the state's Research Triangle
The Research Triangle, or simply The Triangle, are both common nicknames for a metropolitan area in the Piedmont region of North Carolina in the United States, anchored by the cities of Raleigh and Durham and the town of Chapel Hill, home to ...
: the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which r ...
(chartered in 1789 and greatly expanded from the 1930s on), North Carolina State University
North Carolina State University (NC State) is a public land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina. Founded in 1887 and part of the University of North Carolina system, it is the largest university in the Carolinas. The universi ...
, and Duke University (rechartered in 1924). Research Triangle Park
Research Triangle Park (RTP) is the largest research park in the United States, occupying in North Carolina and hosting more than 300 companies and 65,000 workers.
The facility is named for its location relative to the three surrounding citie ...
, the largest research park in the United States, was established in 1959.
Conditions for funding in public elementary, middle, and high schools were not as noteworthy during the mid-20th century. In the 1960s Governor Terry Sanford
James Terry Sanford (August 20, 1917April 18, 1998) was an American lawyer and politician from North Carolina. A member of the Democratic Party, Sanford served as the 65th Governor of North Carolina from 1961 to 1965, was a two-time U.S. presi ...
, a racial moderate, called for more spending on the schools, but Sanford's program featured regressive taxation that fell disproportionately on the workers. In the 1970s Governor James B. Hunt Jr.
James Baxter Hunt Jr. (born May 16, 1937) is an American politician and retired attorney who was the 69th and 71st Governor of North Carolina (1977–1985, and 1993–2001). He is the longest-serving governor in the state's history.
Hunt is t ...
, another racial moderate, helped in educational reform policies and the Smart Start program for pre-kindergarteners.
Reformers stressed the central role of education in the modernization of the state and economic growth. They also aggressively pursued economic development, attracting out-of-state and international corporations with special tax deals and infrastructure development.
Through the early-to-mid 20th century, North Carolina's economy relied heavily on tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ch ...
, textiles
Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not th ...
, and furniture
Furniture refers to movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., stools, chairs, and sofas), eating ( tables), storing items, eating and/or working with an item, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks) ...
for its main economic drivers. By the late 20th century, economic sectors such as technology
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, scie ...
, pharmaceuticals
A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field and ...
, bank
A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets.
Becau ...
ing, food processing
Food processing is the transformation of agricultural products into food, or of one form of food into other forms. Food processing includes many forms of processing foods, from grinding grain to make raw flour to home cooking to complex industr ...
, and vehicle parts started to emerge as main economic drivers. The main factors in this shift were globalization, the state's higher education system, national banking, the transformation of agriculture, and new companies moving to the state.
Late 20th century
In October 1973, Clarence Lightner was elected mayor of Raleigh, making history as the first popularly elected mayor of the city, the first African American to be elected mayor, and the first African American to be elected mayor in a white-majority city of the South. In 1992, the state elected Eva Clayton as its first African-American congressman since George Henry White
George Henry White (December 18, 1852 – December 28, 1918) was an American attorney and politician, elected as a Republican U.S. Congressman from North Carolina's 2nd congressional district between 1897 and 1901. He later became a banker ...
in 1898.
In 1979, North Carolina ended the state eugenics
Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...
program. Since 1929, the state Eugenics Board had deemed thousands of individuals "feeble-minded" and had them forcibly sterilized. The victims of the program were disproportionately minorities and the poor. In 2011, the state legislature debated whether the estimated 2,900 living victims of North Carolina's sterilization regime would be compensated for the harm inflicted upon them by the state; no action was taken.
In 1971, North Carolina ratified its third state constitution. A 1997 amendment to this constitution granted the governor veto
A veto is a legal power to unilaterally stop an official action. In the most typical case, a president or monarch vetoes a bill to stop it from becoming law. In many countries, veto powers are established in the country's constitution. Veto ...
power over most legislation.
In 1988, North Carolina gained its first professional sports franchise, the Charlotte Hornets
The Charlotte Hornets are an American professional basketball team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Hornets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division, and pla ...
of the National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball sports league, league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues i ...
(NBA). The hornets team name stems from the American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of ...
, when British General Cornwallis described Charlotte as a "hornet's nest of rebellion." The Carolina Panthers
The Carolina Panthers are a professional American football team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Panthers compete in the National Football League (NFL), as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. ...
of the National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ma ...
(NFL) became based in Charlotte as well, with their first season being in 1995. The Carolina Hurricanes
The Carolina Hurricanes (colloquially known as the Canes) are a professional ice hockey team based in Raleigh, North Carolina. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference ...
of the National Hockey League
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey sports league, league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranke ...
(NHL) moved to Raleigh in 1997, with their colors being the same as the NC State Wolfpack
The NC State Wolfpack is the nickname of the athletic teams representing North Carolina State University. The Wolfpack competes at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I (Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) for college foot ...
, who are also located in Raleigh.
During the 1990s, Charlotte
Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Meckl ...
became the nation's number two banking center, after New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...
.
21st century
Recent times
Through the late 20th century and into the 21st century, North Carolina's population steadily increased as its economy grew, especially in finance and knowledge-based industries. This growth attracted people from places such as the North and Midwest, as well as the rest of the country and internationally. The number of workers in agriculture declined sharply because of mechanization
Mechanization is the process of changing from working largely or exclusively by hand or with animals to doing that work with machinery. In an early engineering text a machine is defined as follows:
In some fields, mechanization includes the ...
, and the textile industry saw declines because of globalization
Globalization, or globalisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences), is the process of foreign relation ...
and movement of jobs in that industry out of the country. Much of the growth in jobs and population increases happened in metropolitan areas of the Piedmont Crescent
The Piedmont Crescent, also known as the Piedmont Urban Crescent, is a large, polycentric urbanized region in the U.S. state of North Carolina that forms the northern section of the rapidly developing Piedmont Atlantic megalopolis (or "megareg ...
region, being in and around cities such as Charlotte, Raleigh, and Greensboro. Other urban areas of the state saw increases as well. With most growth occurring in or around cities, many of North Carolina's rural areas
In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are describ ...
saw declines in population and growth. In 2015, North Carolina's population surpassed 10 million people. NC population tops 10M
''WRAL.com''. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
See also
* Province of North Carolina
Province of North Carolina was a province of Great Britain that existed in North America from 1712(p. 80) to 1776. It was one of the five Southern colonies and one of the thirteen American colonies. The monarch of Great Britain was rep ...
* Colonial South and the Chesapeake
* History of the East Coast of the United States
* History of the Southern United States
The history of the Southern United States spans back thousand of years to the first evidence of human occupation. The Paleo-Indians were the first peoples to inhabit the Americas and what would become the Southern United States. By the time E ...
* History of the United States
* Black Belt in the American South
The Black Belt in the American South refers to the social history, especially concerning slavery and black workers, of the geological region known as the Black Belt. The geology emphasizes the highly fertile black soil. Historically, the blac ...
* List of colonial governors of North Carolina
This is a list of the colonial governors of North Carolina.
Governors of Roanoke and Raleigh
* Sir Ralph Lane, governor of Roanoke (1585–1586)
* John White, governor of Raleigh (1587–1590)
Governors of Albemarle, 1664–1689
Deputy Gover ...
* List of governors of North Carolina
The governor of North Carolina has a duty to enforce state laws and to convene the legislature. The governor may grant pardons except in cases of impeachment. For about 220 years the governor had no power to veto bills passed by the North Ca ...
*
*
;City timelines
* Timeline of Asheville, North Carolina
* Timeline of Charlotte, North Carolina
The following is a timeline of the history of Charlotte, North Carolina, United States.
Prior to 19th century
* 1763 – Mecklenburg County established.
* 1768 – Charlotte Town incorporated.
* 1770 – Queen's Museum chartered.
* 1774 – C ...
* Timeline of Durham, North Carolina
* Timeline of Fayetteville, North Carolina
* Timeline of Greensboro, North Carolina
* Timeline of Raleigh, North Carolina
* Timeline of Wilmington, North Carolina
* Timeline of Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Sources
References
*
*
Alternative link to Davis biography
*
(Alternative publication)
*
*
*
Bibliography
* Powell, William S. and Jay Mazzocchi, eds. ''Encyclopedia of North Carolina'' (2006) 1320pp; 2000 articles by 550 experts on all topics; . The best starting point for most research.
Surveys
* Clay, James, and Douglas Orr, eds., ''North Carolina Atlas: Portrait of a Changing Southern State'' 1971
* Crow; Jeffrey J. and Larry E. Tise; ''Writing North Carolina History''
* Fleer; Jack D. ''North Carolina Government & Politics'' (1994) online; political science textbook
* Hawks; Francis L. ''History of North Carolina'' 2 vol 1857
* Kersey, Marianne M., and Ran Coble, eds., ''North Carolina Focus: An Anthology on State Government, Politics, and Policy'', 2d ed., (Raleigh: North Carolina Center for Public Policy Research, 1989).
* Lefler; Hugh Talmage. ''A Guide to the Study and Reading of North Carolina History''
* Lefler, Hugh Talmage, and Albert Ray Newsome, ''North Carolina: The History of a Southern State'' (1954, 1963, 1973), standard textbook
* Link, William A. ''North Carolina: Change and Tradition in a Southern State'' (2009), 481pp history by leading scholar
* Luebke, Paul. ''Tar Heel Politics: Myths and Realities'' (1990).
*
* Powell William S. ''Dictionary of North Carolina Biography.'' Vol. 1, A-C; vol. 2, D-G; vol. 3, H-K. 1979-88.
* Powell, William S. ''Encyclopedia of North Carolina.'' 2006. .
* Powell, William S. ''North Carolina Fiction, 1734-1957: An Annotated Bibliography'' 1958
* Powell, William S. ''North Carolina through Four Centuries'' (1989), standard textbook
* Ready, Milton. ''The Tar Heel State: A History of North Carolina'' (2005
excerpt and text search
* Supple Smith, Margaret. '' North Carolina Women: Making History'' (1999)
* Tise, Larry E., and Jeffrey J. Crow. ''New Voyages to Carolina: Reinterpreting North Carolina History.'' (University of North Carolina Press, 2017)
* WPA Federal Writers' Project. ''North Carolina: A Guide to the Old North State.'' 1939. famous Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, in ...
guide to every town
Localities
* Boyd William Kenneth. ''The Story of Durham.'' 1925.
* Lally, Kelly A. ''Historic Architecture of Wake County, North Carolina.'' Raleigh: Wake County Government, 1994. .
* Payne, Roger L. ''Place Names of the Outer Banks.'' Washington, North Carolina: Thomas A. Williams, 1985. .
* Morland John Kenneth. ''Millways of Kent.'' UNC 1958.
* Powell, William S. ''The First State University.'' 3rd ed. Chapel Hill: 1992.
* Powell, William S. ''North Carolina Gazetteer.'' Chapel Hill: 1968. Available as an electronic book with from NetLibrary.
* Vickers, James. ''Chapel Hill: An Illustrated History.'' Chapel Hill: Barclay, 1985. .
Special topics
* Bishir, Catherine. ''North Carolina Architecture.'' Chapel Hill: UNC, 1990.
* Bost, Raymond M. "North Carolina Lutherans and the Tests of Time, 1803-2003." ''Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly''. Sep2004, 77#3, pp. 138-153.
* Riggs, Stanley R. ed. ''The Battle for North Carolina's Coast: Evolutionary History, Present Crisis, and Vision for the Future'' (University of North Carolina Press; 2011) 142 pages
Environment and geography
* Sawyer, Roy T. ''America's Wetland: An Environmental and Cultural History of Tidewater Virginia and North Carolina'' (University of Virginia Press; 2010) 248 pages; traces the human impact on the ecosystem of the Tidewater region.
Pre-1920
* Anderson, Eric. ''Race and Politics in North Carolina, 1872-1901'' (1981).
* Anderson, Eric. "James O'Hara of North Carolina: Black Leadership and local government" in Howard N. Rabinowitz, ed. ''Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era'' (1982) 101-128.
* Beatty Bess. "Lowells of the South: Northern Influence on the Nineteenth-Century North Carolina Textile Industry, 1830-1890". ''Journal of Southern History'' 53 (Feb 1987): 37-62. online at JSTOR
* Beeby, James M. ''Revolt of the Tar Heels: The North Carolina Populist Movement, 1890–1901'' (UP of Mississippi, 2008). 280 pp.
* Billings Dwight. ''Planters and the Making of a "New South": Class, Politics, and Development in North Carolina, 1865-1900.'' 1979.
* Bolton; Charles C. ''Poor Whites of the Antebellum South: Tenants and Laborers in Central North Carolina and Northeast Mississippi'' 1994
* Bradley, Mark L. ''Bluecoats and Tar Heels: Soldiers and Civilians in Reconstruction North Carolina'' (2010) 370 pp.
* Cathey, Cornelius O. ''Agricultural Developments in North Carolina, 1783-1860.'' 1956.
* Clayton, Thomas H. ''Close to the Land. The Way We Lived in North Carolina, 1820-1870.'' 1983.
* Ekirch, A. Roger ''"Poor Carolina": Politics and Society in Colonial North Carolina, 1729-1776'' (1981)
* Escott Paul D., and Jeffrey J. Crow. "The Social Order and Violent Disorder: An Analysis of North Carolina in the Revolution and the Civil War". ''Journal of Southern History'' 52 (August 1986): 373-402.
* Escott Paul D., ed. ''North Carolinians in the Era of the Civil War and Reconstruction'' (U. of North Carolina Press, 2008) 307pp; essays by scholars on specialized topics
* Escott; Paul D. ''Many Excellent People: Power and Privilege in North Carolina, 1850-1900'' (1985)
* Fenn, Elizabeth A. and Peter H. Wood. ''Natives and Newcomers: The Way We Lived in North Carolina Before 1770'' (1983)
* Gilpatrick; Delbert Harold. ''Jeffersonian Democracy in North Carolina, 1789-1816'' (1931)
* Gilmore; Glenda Elizabeth. ''Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896-1920'' (1996)
* Griffin Richard W. "Reconstruction of the North Carolina Textile Industry, 1865-1885". ''North Carolina Historical Review'' 41 (January 1964): 34-53.
* Harris, William C. "William Woods Holden: in Search of Vindication." ''North Carolina Historical Review'' 1982 59(4): 354-372. Governor during Reconstruction
* Harris, William C. ''William Woods Holden, Firebrand of North Carolina Politics.'' (1987). 332 pp.
* Hemmingway, Theodore. "Prelude to Change: Black Carolinians in the War Years, 1914-1920." ''Journal of Negro History'' 65.3 (1980): 212-227
online
* Johnson, Charles A. "The Camp Meeting in Ante-Bellum North Carolina". ''North Carolina Historical Review'' 10 (April 1933): 95-110.
* Johnson, Guion Griffis. ''Antebellum North Carolina: A Social History.'' 1937
* Kars, Marjoleine. ''Breaking Loose Together: The Regulator Rebellion in Pre-Revolutionary North Carolina'' (2002)
* Kousser, J. Morgan. "Progressivism-for middle-class whites only: North Carolina education, 1880-1910." ''Journal of Southern History'' 46.2 (1980): 169-194
online
* Kruman Marc W. ''Parties and Politics in North Carolina, 1836-1865.'' (1983).
* Leloudis, James L. ''Schooling the New South: Pedagogy, Self, and Society in North Carolina, 1880-1920'' 1996
* McDonald, Forrest, and Grady McWhiney. "The South from Self-Sufficiency to Peonage: An Interpretation". ''American Historical Review'' 85 (December 1980): 1095-1118. in JSTOR
* McDonald Forrest, and Grady McWhiney. "The Antebellum Southern Herdsmen: A Reinterpretation". ''Journal of Southern History'' 41 (May 1975): 147-66. in JSTOR
* Morrill, James R. ''The Practice and Politics of Fiat Finance: North Carolina in the Confederation, 1783-1789''. (1969)
* Newcomer, Mabel, ''Economic and Social History of Chowan County, North Carolina, 1880-1915'' (1917)
* Nathans Sydney. ''The Quest for Progress: The Way We Lived in North Carolina, 1870-1920.'' (1983).
* Norton, Clarence Clifford. ''The Democratic Party in Ante-Bellum North Carolina, 1835-1861'' (1930)
* O'Brien Gail Williams. ''The Legal Fraternity and the Making of a New South Community, 1848-1882.'' (1986).
* Opper Peter Kent. "North Carolina Quakers: Reluctant Slaveholders". ''North Carolina Historical Review'' 52 (January 1975): 37-58.
* Perdue Theda. ''Native Carolinians: The Indians of North Carolina.'' Division of Archives and History, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, 1985.
* Prather, H. Leon, '' Resurgent Politics and Educational Progressivism in the New South: North Carolina, 1890-1913.'' (1979), standard scholarly history
* Ramsey Robert W. ''Carolina Cradle. Settlement of the Northwest Carolina Frontier, 1747-1762.'' 1964.
* Risjord, Norman. ''Chesapeake Politics 1781-1800'' (1978)
* Joseph Carlyle Sitterson. ''The Secession Movement in North Carolina'' (1939) 285 pages
* Tolley, Kim, "Joseph Gales and Education Reform in North Carolina, 1799–1841," ''North Carolina Historical Review,'' 86 (Jan. 2009), 1–31.
* Louise Irby Trenholme; ''The Ratification of the Federal Constitution in North Carolina'' (1932)
* Watson Harry L. ''An Independent People: The Way We Lived in North Carolina, 1770-1820.'' (1983).
* Watson Harry L. ''Jacksonian Politics and Community Conflict: The Emergence of the Second Party System in Cumberland County, North Carolina'' (1981)
* Williams, Max R. "The Foundations of the Whig Party in North Carolina: A Synthesis and a Modest Proposal." ''North Carolina Historical Review'' 47.2 (1970): 115-129
online
Since 1920
* Abrams; Douglas Carl; ''Conservative Constraints: North Carolina and the New Deal'' (1992
online edition
* Badger; Anthony J. ''Prosperity Road: The New Deal, Tobacco, and North Carolina'' (1980
online edition
* Bell John L., Jr. ''Hard Times: Beginnings of the Great Depression in North Carolina, 1929-1933.'' North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1982.
* Christensen, Rob. ''The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics: The Personalities, Elections, and Events That Shaped Modern North Carolina'' (2008
excerpt and text search
* Clancy, Paul R. ''Just a Country Lawyer: A Biography of Senator Sam Ervin.'' (1974). Senator who helped to bring down Richard Nixon, but opposed the Civil Rights Movement
* Cooper, Christopher A., and H. Gibbs Knotts, eds. ''The New Politics of North Carolina'' (U. of North Carolina Press, 2008)
* Gatewood; Willard B. ''Preachers, Pedagogues & Politicians: The Evolution Controversy in North Carolina, 1920-1927'' 196
online edition
* Gershenhorn; Jerry. ''Louis Austin and The Carolina Times: A Life in the Long Black Freedom Struggle'' (University of North Carolina Press, 2018)
* Gilmore; Glenda Elizabeth. ''Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896-1920'' (1996)
* Grimsley, Wayne. ''James B. Hunt: A North Carolina Progressive'' (2003) governor 1977-2000
* Grundy; Pamela. ''Learning to Win: Sports, Education, and Social Change in Twentieth-Century North Carolina'' 200
online edition
* Hagood, Margaret Jarman. ''Mothers of the South: Portraiture of the White Tenant Farm Woman'' 1939
* Key, V. O. ''Southern Politics in State and Nation'' (1951)
* Odum, Howard W. ''Folk, Region, and Society: Selected Papers of Howard W. Odum'', (1964).
* Parramore Thomas C. ''Express Lanes and Country Roads: The Way We Lived in North Carolina, 1920-1970.'' (1983).
* Pleasants, Julian M. ''Home Front: North Carolina During World War II'' (UP of Florida, 2017), 366 pp.
online review
* Pope, Liston. ''Millhands and Preachers.'' (1942). A history of the 1929 Loray Mill strike in Gastonia, N.C., especially the role of the church.
* Puryear, Elmer L. ''Democratic Party Dissension in North Carolina, 1928-1936'' (1962).
* Seymour, Robert E. ''"Whites Only".'' Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson, 1991. An account of the Civil Rights Movement in North Carolina, and churches' involvement in it (on both sides) in particular, by a white Baptist pastor who was a supporter of the movement. .
* Taylor, Elizabeth A. "The Women's Suffrage Movement in North Carolina", ''North Carolina Historical Review'', (January 1961): 45-62, and ibid. (April 1961): 173-89;
* Tilley Nannie May. ''The Bright-Tobacco Industry, 1860-1929.'' (1948).
* Tilley Nannie May. ''The R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.'' (1985).
* Tullos, Allen. ''Habits of Industry: White Culture and the Transformation of the Carolina Piedmont.'' (1989)
online edition
based on interviews
* Weare; Walter B. ''Black Business in the New South: A Social History of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company'' (1993
online edition
* Wood; Phillip J. ''Southern Capitalism: The Political Economy of North Carolina, 1880-1980'' 198
online edition
Primary sources
* Butler, Lindley S., and Alan D. Watson, eds., ''The North Carolina Experience: An Interpretive and Documentary History'' 1984, essays by historians and selected related primary sources.
* Cheney, Jr., ed., John L. ''North Carolina Government, 1585-1979: A Narrative and Statistical History'' (Raleigh: Department of the Secretary of State, 1981)
* Claiborne, Jack, and William Price, eds. ''Discovering North Carolina: A Tar Heel Reader'' (1991).
* Jones, H. G. ''North Carolina Illustrated, 1524-1984'' (1984)
* Lefler, Hugh. ''North Carolina History Told by Contemporaries'' (numerous editions since 1934)
* Salley, Alexander S. ed. ''Narratives of Early Carolina, 1650-1708'' (1911
online edition
* Wolfram, Walt, and Jeffrey Reaser, eds. ''Talkin' Tar Heel: How Our Voices Tell the Story of North Carolina'' (UNC Press, 2014)
* Woodmason Charles. ''The Carolina Backcountry on the Eve of the Revolution.'' 1953.
* Yearns, W. Buck and John G. Barret, eds. ''North Carolina Civil War Documentary'' (1980
online
Primary sources: governors and political leaders
* Luther H. Hodges; ''Businessman in the Statehouse: Six Years as Governor of North Carolina'' 196
online edition
complete text
* Holden, William Woods. ''The Papers of William Woods Holden. Vol. 1: 1841-1868.'' Horace Raper and Thornton W. Mitchell, ed. Raleigh, Division of Archives and History, Dept. of Cultural Resources, 2000. 457 pp.
* ''North Carolina Manual'', published biennially by the Department of the Secretary of State since 1941.
External links
This Day in North Carolina History
N.C. Department of Cultural Resources
NCpedia
North Carolina Highway Historical Markers
North Carolina History Project
older books and scholarly articles
* Boston Public Library, Map Center
Maps of North Carolina
various dates.
*
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North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia a ...
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia a ...