US Southern Colonies Province of North Carolina History

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US Southern Colonies Project|US Southern Colonies Sources and Resources Directory|Province of North Carolina History

See the table at US Southern Colonies Sources and Resources Directory for links to other US Southern Colonies pages relevant to North Carolina, the Carolinas and South Carolina, and to the other southern colonies (Maryland, Virginia, and Georgia), and project-wide pages, such as US Southern Colonies Reliable Sources.

The purpose of this page is to provide background and resources relevant to colonial North Carolina. It is managed by the Province of North Carolina Team of the US Southern Colonies Project.

Province of North Carolina

Note: Within Wiktree, use Category:North Carolina, Category:Province of North Carolina, and Category:Province of Carolina.

Origin and History

Early Province of North Carolina Settlements

What does North Carolina mean? Carolina is taken from the Latin word for Charles (Carolus), honoring King Charles I of England (who made the original land grant in 1629). North Carolina was formed in 1729 when the Province of Carolina was divided in two. North Carolina was admitted to Union on November 21, 1789 as the 12th State to ratify the constitution.

Some important dates In North Carolina History

• 1492-1692. Diseases carried by the foreigners brought about the demise of about 95 percent of the Cherokee Nation during the first 200 years of European presence.
• 1587, North Carolina was first settled in 1587. 121 settlers led by John White landed on present-day Roanoke Island on July 22, 1587. It was the first English settlement in the New World. On August 18, 1587, White’s daughter gave birth to Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the New World. By 1590, however, all of the colonists on the island had disappeared. To this day, no one knows what happened to them, though some believe they integrated with and were absorbed by one of the local tribes. Today, the colony is referred to as “The Lost Colony”.
• 1629. King Charles I. grants territory, located between 31° and 36° N latitude, to Sir Robert Heath, who names it "Carolina" after the king.

Province of Carolina in 1663

• 1663, King Charles II awarded eight noblemen called the Lord Proprietors the Province of Carolina (named after the King) in appreciation of their efforts in helping him regain the throne of England. At the time, the Province of Carolina included both present-day North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi, as well as parts of modern Florida and Louisiana
• 1655, The first permanent English settlement in North Carolina occurred in 1655 when Nathaniel Batts, a Virginia farmer, migrated to an area just south of Virginia with the hopes of finding suitable farmland.
• 1665, Sir John Yeamans established a second permanent colony in North Carolina on the Cape Fear River near present-day Wilmington. In 1670, a settlement near present-day Charleston, South Carolina (Charles Town) was established. This settlement grew quickly because it had a natural harbor and allowed easy access to trade with the West Indies. Charles Town soon became the principal seat of government for the entire region. Because of the distance between Charles Town and points in the northern part of the colony, the terms “North Carolina” and “South Carolina” came into use.
• 1705. First school opened, in Pasquotank County. Bath is first town incorporated.
• 1710. Colony of Swiss and German Protestants founded New Bern.
• 1711-1713. Indians massacre settlers in Tuscarora War.
• 1713. Tuscarora Indians migrate into New York.
• 1712. Carolina divided into two provinces, North Carolina and South Carolina.
• 1729. Seven Lords Proprietors sell lands back to George II and North and South Carolina became separate royal colonies.
• 1771. Farmers oppose British rule; are defeated in battle of Alamance Creek.
• 1774. Provincial congress organized at New Bern to plan resistance against royal rule.
• 1775. Citizens of Mecklenburg County may have issued first declaration of independence (Mecklenburg Resolves).
• 1775-1783 - colonies fight for freedom from Britain in Revolutionary War
• 1776. Milita defeat Loyalist troops at Moore's Creek Bridge near Wilmington Feb. 27th. First state constitution adopted May 20th. (Population: 300,000; 3rd largest in the Union)
• April 12, 1776 - North Carolina officially votes for freedom from Britain
• 1789, North Carolina admitted to Union on November 21, 1789 as the 12th State to sign the constitution

References:

• Some Interesting Facts About North Carolina
• The North Carolina Colony by Aurelia Nightriver on 19 February 2012
• Colonial Government of North Carolina
• Washington District Present day Tennessee.
• Mr Nussbaums Colonies for Kids   This link produces a page not found error.
• Tennessee Counties Originally in North Carolina   This link produces a page not found error.
• State Symbols USA

Government Structure

Between 1663 and 1729, North Carolina was under the near-absolute control of the Lords Proprietors and their descendants. The small group commissioned colonial officials and authorized the governor and his council to grant lands in the name of the Lords Proprietors. In 1669, philospher John Locke wrote the Fundamental Constitutions as a model for the government of Carolina. Albemarle County (now extict) was divided into local governmental units called precincts. Initially there were three precincts--Berkley, Carteret, and Shaftesbury--but as the colony expanded to the south and west, new precincts were created. By 1729, there were a total of eleven precincts--six in Albemarle County and five in Bath County, which had been created in 1696. Although the Albemarle Region was the first permanent settlement in the Carolina area, another populated region soon developed around present-day Charleston, South Carolina. Because of the natural harbor and easier access to trade with the West Indies, more attention was given to developing the Charleston area than her northern counterparts. For a twenty-year period, 1692-1712, the colonies of North and South Carolina existed as one unit of government. Although North Carolina still had her own assembly and council, the governor of Carolina resided in Charleston and a deputy governor appointed for North Carolina.

References:

• Constitution of North Carolina December 18, 1776
• Colonial Period Overview Excerpted from the North Carolina Manual, 2007-2008 edition

Counties

32 of the 104 North Carolina counties were created before 1776, including four counties that no longer exist (Albemarle, Bath, Clarendon, and Tryon) North Carolina Counties are listed under the Category:North Carolina or Category:North Carolina Extinct Counties using the format [[Category:County Name, North Carolina]].

References for North Carolina Counties:

• Evolution of the counties of North Carolina from 1664. Scroll down through the adds to start the interactive map which you can stop at the appropriate/needed moment to view where a location "was" and where it "is".
• Formation of North Carolina Counties with Wikitree links

Settlers

North Carolina, the English/Welsh/Barbadian/Bermudian settlers were split - about 50-50 - between Anglicans (Church of England) and Dissenters. Dissenters typically included Presbyterians, Quakers, Baptists, Congregationalists, Unitarians, and after 1795, Methodists (too late for this discussion) in Carolina. Their unpopularity with Anglicans stemmed from their radical ideas and a continuing fear that, once empowered, they might disestablish the church. They rejected the church's thirty-nine Articles of Faith, rejected the Act of Uniformity (1662) and the Test Act (1673), both of which limited in their civil and political rights.

References:

• Carolina - The Barbadian Settlers, et.al.

North Carolina was the site of the first Jewish settler in a British colony in North America when Joachim Ganz, a native of Prague, arrived in 1585, well before the much heralded date of the 1654 settlement in New Amsterdam, on Raleigh's second expedition to Roanoke Island. Ganz, a metallurgist, returned to England two years later. John Locke's Fundamental Constitutions of 1669 opened the Carolinas to "Jews, heathens, and other dissenters," but the colony, beset by sectarian politics, was inhospitable. The 1776 state constitution included a religious test that restricted public office to Protestants. With few navigable rivers, a swampy coast, and a forested terrain, North Carolina lacked commercial opportunities for Jews.

In the early colonial era a few Jewish settlers followed coastal and inland trade routes from Virginia and South Carolina. A 1702 petition protested illegal votes by undesirables, including Jews. Jewish names appear on Masonic rolls and militia rosters. In the Charlotte area were storekeepers and Revolutionary War veterans Abraham Moses, Solomon Simons, and Aaron Cohen. A 1759 document identifies Joseph Laney as a Jew. Newport merchant Aaron Lopez sent 37 ships to North Carolina between 1761 and 1775. Eighteenth-century Sephardic Jews in Wilmington included Rivera, Gomez, David, and Levy. A rabbi, Jacob Abroo, is reported to have died in New Berne in 1790. The Benjamin family, whose son Judah became a U.S. senator and later a Confederate statesman, lived in Wilmington and Fayetteville after 1813.

References:

• Jewish History in North Carolina

Migrating from the Northern Colonies

The Great Wagon Trail to North Carolina in the 1700s

Many settlers migrated from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia down the wagon trail to the Province of North Carolina in the 1700s. One historic notable, Daniel Boone, is one of the settlers that migrated from Pennsylvania to North Carolina as a youth with his family.

References:

• Daniel Boone & the Transylvania Company
• Quakers
• The Way We Lived in North Carolina
• The Migration to North Carolina
• VIRGINIANS IN THE ALBEMARLE
• The Very Curious Case of Colonial North Carolina By Dr. Michael Guasco From Tar Heel Junior Historian
• The American Revolution in the Southern Colonies By David Lee Russell

Ancestors Migrating from Other Countries

Immigrants to North Carolina before 1776 came from many countries, including England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany (Palatines that were part of the Holy Roman Empire), and France (particularly the Alsace region). See Category:North Carolina, Immigrants and Category:Province of Carolina, Immigrants.

Use the directions below to add a quick visual reference to your ancestors' profiles to indicate their movements, whether they migrated from other countries or between different colonies (or states). See step 9 for information about a template for ancestors who never left the city or state where they were born.

Add [[Category:Migrants from AdminEntity to North Carolina]] or [[Category:Migrants from AdminEntiy to Province of North Carolina]], where the AdminEntity is the state/province within the foreign Country that the emigrant came from, e.g. Alsace, Palatine Zweibrücken, etc. This will add the ancestor to one of the following Categories:

• Immigrants to Province of North Carolina
• Immigrants to North Carolina

References: Space:Migration Category Structure

You can also add a Migrating Sticker to the profile by cutting and pasting the following sticker to the section about the Biography header in the profile, where the person migrated from one state/colony to North Carolina'

{{Migrating Ancestor
| origin = Maryland
| destination = North Carolina
| origin-flag = US_State_Flag_Images-23.png
| destination-flag = US_State_Flag_Images-49.png
}}

For profiles where the person was born in North Carolina, please use the county or city category where they lived and not the North Carolina or Province of North Carolina Categories.

Pirates of North Carolina

Unlike the movies portrayal, Pirates helped the Colonial Economy. They did not bury their treasures, they spent and traded them. Pirates kept the Spanish so busy that the British were able to hold onto their Colonies.

Blackbeard, also known as Edward Teach and believed to have been a native of England, was killed off the North Carolina Outer Banks in November 1718. He had begun his pirating career just five years earlier, when he joined the crew of a Caribbean sloop, manned by pirate Benjamin Hornigold. Blackbeard was a notorious pirate whose long, dark beard inspired his nickname. After capturing more than 30 ships during his pirating career, Blackbeard was slain during a bloody battle on Ocracoke Island off of North Carolina, according to History.com.

References:

• One particular pirate plagued many coasts around the seas, one of them being North Carolina. Blackbeard, also known as Edward Teach, was a highly influential pirate and arguably the most famous
• Study: Pirates pursued democracy, helped American colonies survive
• Why Would a Pirate Choose North Carolina?
• Pirates in the Outer Banks

Native Americans

The Native American tribes on the seacoast, once numerous and powerful, were fast dwindling before the enterprise of the colonists. To the more inland tribes, especially the Tuscaroras and the Corees, this was an indication not to be mistaken that the days of their prosperity were fast numbering. Grieved and exasperated at the prospect before them, they now combined with other tribes to utterly exterminate the new settlers. This purpose they attempted to carry into effect; and so successful were they, that in one night, October 2nd, 1711, they massacred one hundred and thirty persons belonging to the settlements along the Roanoke River and Pamlico Sound.

A few colonists, escaping, hastened to South Carolina for assistance. Governor Craven immediately dispatched to their aid nearly a thousand men, under Colonel Barnwell. On his arrival, he defeated the enemy in several actions; and, at length, pursued them to their fortified town, which capitulated, and peace was concluded.

But it proved of short duration. The Natives renewed their hostilities, and the assistance of the southern colony was again involved. In response, Colonel Moore set out for the hostile territory, with a competent force; — forty white men; and eight-hundred friendly Indians. They reduced the fort of the Tuscaroras, and with it took eight hundred prisoners. Broken and disheartened by this defeat, the tribe, in 1713, migrated north, and became the sixth nation of the great Iroquois Confederacy; — sometimes called the Five, and after this event, the Six Nations. In 1715, a treaty was concluded with the Corees.

References:

• Carolina Colonies A Brief History
• North Carolina American Indian History Time Line
• The State of North Carolina with Native American Ancestry: The Formation of Eastern and Costal Counties in North Carolina By Milton E. Campbell
• Wikipedia:Croatan, Croaton Indians
• Tuscarora Nation of North Carolina
• Migration Patterns of Coastal N.C. Indians Written by Fred Willard
• Description: How to use the Dawes Rolls
• The Dawes Rolls, (Final Rolls of the Citizens and Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory) 1898-1914

Indentured Servants

Most of the English colonists arrived as indentured servants, hiring themselves out as laborers for a fixed period to pay for their passage. In the early years the line between indentured servants and African slaves or laborers was fluid. Some Africans were allowed to earn their freedom before slavery became a lifelong status. Most of the free colored families formed in North Carolina before the Revolution were descended from relationships or marriages between free white women and enslaved or free African or African-American men. Many had migrated or were descendants of migrants from colonial Virginia. As the flow of indentured laborers to the colony decreased with improving economic conditions in Great Britain, more slaves were imported and the state's restrictions on slavery hardened. The economy's growth and prosperity was based on slave labor, devoted first to the production of tobacco.

References:

• North Carolina: Colonial Period and Revolutionary War

Slavery

Use the following categories for slaves and slave owners: [[Category:County Name, State, Slave]] or [[Category:County Name, State, Slave Owners]]

References for Slavery in North Carolina:

• How To: Finding Slave Records
• Documented Slave Plantations of North Carolina
• DIXIE'S CENSORED SUBJECT BLACK SLAVEOWNERS By Robert M. Grooms

Conflicts Within the Province of North Carolina and Carolina

Major conflicts from the establishment of the colony until the inclusion in the United States include the following. (There were many more skirmishes during the Revolutionary War in the Province of North Carolina.)

• 1711, Cary's Rebellion
• 1718, November 22: In a battle between British sailors and pirates near Ocracoke Inlet, Lieutenant Robert Maynard kills Blackbeard
• 1765-1771, War of Regulation, May 16: North Carolina militiamen under the command of Governor Tryon defeat the Regulators at the Battle of Alamance in Orange County, ending the Regulator movement
• 1776-1785, American Revolution
• 1776, Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge, fought near Wilmington, North Carolina on February 27, 1776.
• 1780, Battle of Kings Mountain
• 1780, Battle of Ramsour's Mill
• 1781, September 13: Whig forces attack Fanning’s army in an attempt to free Governor Burke and other prisoners. The Battle of Lindley’s Mill, which results from this attack, is one of the largest military engagements in North Carolina during the war. Fanning is injured, but his column continues. Burke is given over to the British, who imprison him at Charlestown, S.C.
• 1781, Battle of Guilford Court House

Other WikiTree Resources

Cemeteries: Use the format [[Category:Cemetery Name, City, North Carolina]] when the city is known and [[Category:Cemetery Name, County, North Carolina]] only when there is no city associated with the cemetery.

• See Category: North Carolina, Cemeteries for all County Cemetery Categories.

Sources

• Wikipedia:Province of North Carolina
• Wikipedia:Province of Carolina
• Wikipedia:North Carolina
• Colonial and State Records of North Carolina GREAT resource for public records, census etc through 1790. NOTE: Documenting the American South has changed their search box to a Google enhance box, so a direct link to search no longer work. The search box now can be found in the upper left of the screen upon browsing the page. Sponsored by University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, University Library.
• A Key to Southern Pedigrees, being a comprehensive guide to the colonial ancestry of families in the States of Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia and Alabama - Crozier, William Armstrong, 1864-1913. On label on t.p.: Genealogical Pub. Co., Baltimore, distributors
• North Carolina Land Grant Images and Data free searchable data base for over 216,000 land grants 1663-1960. Including 12,000 grants issued for what is now TN.
• History of County Formations in North Carolina 1664-1965
• Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina from the Colonial Period to about 1820, Volume 1 (Google eBook) By Paul Heinegg Winner of the North Carolina Genealogical Society~~Award in Excellence in Publishing~~ and The American Society of Genealogists Donald Lines Jacobus Awared
• Scots to Colonial North Carolina Before 1775
• State Archives of North Carolina Family Records Collection