A History of North Carolina
North Carolina was originally inhabited by many different native peoples, including the Cherokee, Tuscarora, Cheraw, Pamlico, Meherrin, Coree, Machapunga, Cape Fear Indians, Waxhaw, Saponi, Tutelo, Waccamaw, Coharie, and Catawba. In 1584, Elizabeth I, granted a charter to Sir Walter Raleigh, for whom the state capital is named, for land in present-day North Carolina (then Virginia). Raleigh established two colonies on the coast in the late 1580s, both ending in failure. It was the second American territory the British attempted to colonize. The demise of one, the "Lost Colony" of Roanoke Island, remains one of the great mysteries of American history. Virginia Dare, the first English child to be born in North America, was born in North Carolina. Dare County is named for her.
Main article: Province
of Carolina
As early as 1650, colonists from the Virginia colony moved into
the area of Albemarle Sound. By 1663, Charles II granted a charter to establish
a new colony on the North American continent which generally established its borders.
He named it Carolina in honor of his father Charles I. By 1665, a second charter
was issued to attempt to resolve territorial questions. In 1710, due to disputes
over governance, the Carolina colony began to split into North Carolina and South
Carolina. The latter became a crown colony in 1729.
British colonization
See
also: Roanoke Colony and Province of Carolina.
The Province of North Carolina
developed distinctly from South Carolina almost from the beginning. As early as
1689, the Carolina proprietors named a separate governor for the region of the
colony that lay to the north and east of Cape Fear. By 1712, the term "North
Carolina" was in common use. In 1728, the dividing line between North Carolina
and Virginia was surveyed. By 1729, the Crown bought out seven of the eight original
proprietors, making North Carolina a royal colony.
The proprietor who refused to sell was John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville, who in 1744 received rights to the vast Granville Tract, constituting the northern half of North Carolina. This happened just as the tide of immigration to North Carolina from Virginia and Pennsylvania started to swell. Many of the mid-eighteenth-century immigrants were farmers of Scots-Irish or German descent. On the eve of the American Revolution, North Carolina was the fastest-growing British colony in North America. The small family farms of the Piedmont contrasted sharply with the plantation economy of the coastal region, where wealthy planters grew tobacco and rice with slave labor. By 1760, enslaved Africans constituted one quarter of North Carolina's population and were concentrated along the coast.
In the late 1760s, tensions between Piedmont farmers and coastal planters welled up in the Regulator movement. With specie scarce, many inland farmers found themselves unable to pay their taxes and resented the consequent seizure of their property. Governor William Tryon's conspicuous consumption in the construction of a new governor's mansion at New Bern fuelled their resentment. As the western districts were underrepresented in the colonial legislature, it was difficult for the farmers to obtain redress by legislative means. Ultimately, the frustrated farmers took to arms and closed the court in Hillsborough. Tryon sent troops to the region and defeated the Regulators at the Battle of Alamance in May 1771.
North Carolina in the American Revolution
Although
wealthy coastal settlers opposed the Regulators, they too were growing unhappy
with royal government in the 1760s. 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 to concur in a declaration of independence from Great Britain. In November
1776, North Carolina representatives gathered in Halifax to write a new state
constitution, which remained in effect until 1835.
Although North Carolina was spared violence in the early years of the Revolutionary War, it was a major focus of fighting in 1780-81. American general Nathanael Greene engaged British forces under Charles Cornwallis at the Battle of Guilford Court House in March 1781.
The United States Constitution drafted in 1787 was controversial in North Carolina. Delegates meetings at Hillsboro 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 Davies and partly by the prospect of a Bill of Rights. 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 twelfth 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 current capitol building was completed in 1840.
James K. Polk, who was president of the United States from 1845 until 1849, was born in North Carolina. Andrew Jackson, who was president of the United States from 1829 until 1837, was most likely born in South Carolina, but is sometimes also claimed as a native of North Carolina.
The Civil War and Reconstruction
As a plantation
state, North Carolina had a long history of slavery. By 1860 there were 629,942
whites and 361,544 Negroes, of whom 30,000 were free. Up until 1835 free African
Americans had had the right to vote.
In the fraught election of 1860, North Carolina's electoral votes went to Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, an adamant supporter of slavery who hoped to extend the "peculiar institution" to the United States' western territories. He defeated the Constitutional Union candidate, John Bell, who carried much of the upper South.
In marked contrast to most of the states which Breckinridge carried, North Carolina was reluctant to secede from the Union when it became clear that Republican Abraham Lincoln had won the presidential election. In fact, North Carolina did not secede until May 20, 1861, after the fall of Fort Sumter and the secession of the Upper South's bellwether, Virginia. North Carolina was the last of the eleven Confederate states to leave the Union.
Many North Carolinians, especially yeoman farmers who owned few or no slaves, were not supportive of the Confederacy. Draft-dodging, desertion, and tax evasion were common during the Civil War years. 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 well as Georgia).
During Reconstruction African American leaders came both from the free class and from immigrants from the North. Many of these had escaped from slavery and got some education before they came back to the state. In general, however, illiteracy was a problem shared 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 feeling in the state was high against carpetbaggers, of the 133 persons at the constitutional convention, only 18 were Northern carpetbaggers and 15 were African American. North Carolina was readmitted to the Union in 1868, after ratifying a new state constitution. It included provisions to establish public education, prohibited slavery, and adopted universal suffrage. It also provided for orphanages, public charities and a penitentiary. The legislature also ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In 1870 the Democratic Party came to power in the state. Governor Holden had used civil powers and spoken out to try to combat the Ku Klux Klan's increasing violence. Conservatives accused him of being head of the Union League, of believing in social equality between the races, and of being corrupt. When the legislature voted to impeach him, however, it charged him only with using and paying troops to put down insurrection (Ku Klux Klan activity) in the state. They removed Holden from office in 1871.
After the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 went into effect, the U.S. Attorney General, Amos T. Akerman, vigorously prosecuted Klan members in North Carolina.
Andrew Johnson was born in North Carolina. Elected Vice-President, he became president following Lincoln's assassination in the spring of 1865. He remained in office until succeeded by Ulysses S. Grant in 1869.
Post-war economic development
During the
late 19th century, North Carolina's Piedmont region developed a cotton textile
industry, based in close-knit company towns. The introduction of manufacturing
helped to diversify North Carolina's overwhelming agricultural economy.
On December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers made the first successful airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
In the early 20th century, North Carolina launched both a major education initiative and a major road-building initiative to enhance the state's economy. The educational initiative was launched by Governor Charles Aycock in 1901. Supposedly, North Carolina built one school per day while Aycock was in office. In addition, North Carolina was helped by the Julius Rosenwald Fund, which contributed matching funds for the construction of schools for African Americans in rural areas in the 1920s and 1930s.
The state's road-building initiative began in the 1920s, after the automobile became a popular mode of transportation. During the early decades of the 20th century, several major U.S. military installations, notably Fort Bragg, were located in North Carolina.
North Carolina since
the New Deal
In the period since the 1930s, North Carolina's reputation as
an educational and manufacturing center has continued to grow. During World War
II, North Carolina supplied the U.S. armed forces with diverse manufactured goods,
including more textiles than any other state in the nation. North Carolina also
became known for its excellent universities. Three major institutions compose
the state's Research Triangle: the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
(chartered in 1789 and greatly expanded from the 1930s on), North Carolina State
University, and Duke University (rechartered in 1924).
Another major theme of North Carolina history in the era since the mid-20th century has been racial desegregation. The sit-in that began at the Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro on February 1, 1960, sparked a wave of copycat sit-ins across the American South. The Greensboro sit-in continued sporadically for several months until, on July 25, African-Americans were at last allowed to eat at Woolworth's. Integration of public facilities followed, in addition to African Americans' regaining voting protection and other civil rights under mid-1960s legislation.
In 1971,
North Carolina's third state constitution was ratified. A 1997 amendment to this
constitution granted the governor veto power over most legislation.
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