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revised 9-22-03

NORTH CAROLINA

the first explorations known to have occurred in North Carolina was with the exploration of the costal region by Giovanni da Verrazano in 1524.  In the summer of 1584, Captain Arthur Barlow reported to his patron, Sir Walter Raleigh, that he had found a land ranking "the most plentiful, fruitful and wholesome of all the world."  Raleigh named this region "Virginia" in honor of Elizabeth, the virgin queen, but the land eventually was given its own identity as North Carolina.  The first English colony in America was built on Roanoke Island in 1586. 108 souls landed upon the shores of the island, but met with hostilities with the local Indians and left.  A second attempt to settle Roanoke Island occurred in 1587. At this settlement the first English baby to be born on American soil arrived and was named Virginia Dare.  These settlers disappeared entirely and no trace of them was ever found.  When Governor John White returned with supplies in 1590, he found only a single message, the word "Croatoan" carved into a tree.  White saw his chests had been dug up and his belongings ruined by the rain.  White assumed the settlers to have been destroyed by the Indians, but later historians believe the settlers may have been assimilated into the culture of the Indians from the village of Croatoan.   Groups of settlers came south from Virginia to occupy the area north of Albemarle Sound.  The population remained sparse in that area for the next 80 years during which time the English settlers battled against Indians, pirates and the climate to maintain their settlements.

Prior to the Revolution, Highland Scotch immigrants began settling North Carolina.  Most of them settled in the southeast section.  When large groups of Scotch-Irish left Pennsylvania down through the Shenandoah Valley to settle in Virginia, many of them continued into North Carolina.  Due to their strong Protestant views, they had been banished from Scotland.  Many came from Scotland via Ireland, in the Iredell county region.

The Germans came into North Carolina in the early days.  They appear to have settled in Forsyth and Guilford counties.  There was a colony of English speaking Quakers from Virginia, Pennsylvania and Nantucket, Massachusetts.  These settled in Rockingham, Guilford and Chatham counties.  Because of their dislike for slavery, these people later moved on into Ohio and Indiana, but many of them remained.

Prior to the Revolution, the church of England was the major power in North Carolina and Virginia.  Only the ordained ministers of that church were permitted to perform marriage ceremonies.  Those wishing to marry, had their "banns" published or announced from the pulpit or they could purchase a license.  Those who sought a license had to post a fifty pound bond.  

In 1776, North Carolina became the first colony at the Continental Congress to vote for independence from England.  North Carolina became our 12th state on 21 November 1789.  North Carolina became a slave state and a land of beautiful plantations built from the labor of those enslaved peoples.  North Carolina was lacking many things which impeded its growth.  It lacked vital seaports, interstate transportation and had little actual commerce or industry.  By 1835, North Carolina was building public roads, railroads were being built and agriculture and manufacturing began to prosper.  However in 1861, North Carolina, no longer able to support the Union pressures to eliminate slavery, seceded from the Union and joined the Confederate cause, contributing more troops than any other state in the Confederacy and suffering almost a quarter of the known casualties of that war.  

    North Carolina was re-admitted to the Union in 1868 and now came the period of Reconstruction.  North Carolina made tremendous progress during this period.  Hydro-electric power was introduced into the Piedmont area.  In 1903, the Wright brothers took off in the first airplane from Kitty Hawk.  The state economy reinvented itself into the tobacco empire of James Buchanan Duke. and in 1945 the Fontana Dam, the largest of the Tennessee Valley Authority, went into service.  Not all people prospered equally however.  More than 350,000 freed slaves were left behind as an aftermath of the Civil War.  These people were disenfranched by poll taxes and grandfather clauses, were relegated to inferior schools and often were saddled with sharecropping contracts from which they could not extricate themselves.  Three generations later, at the Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina on 1 February, 1960, the segregation movement was born.  Integration began and a new era was ushered in finally beginning the healing of years of hatred, anger and mistrust.  Although there are still carry-overs from the great strife of the pre-Civil War strife and the later years, North Carolina has perhaps progressed faster than any of the other Southern states in this regard.

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