Early Settlement
by David Goldfield
Professor of History, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2005.
Reprinted with permission from The North Carolina Atlas Revisited. Managing editor: Alfred W. Stuart.
Development of the Frontier, 1657 - 1835
During the late 17th century, settlement in North Carolina proceeded from Virginia migration, first into the Albemarle region, then into the Pamlico district. By 1710, the new sparsely settled province had a capital at Edenton. But the migration caused growing alarm among the Indian populations resulting in a conflict that raged on and off for four years concluding in 1715 with the decimation of the Indians and the opening up of additional land to white settlement. The key event that affected the colony’s development until the time of the Revolution was King George II’s takeover of North Carolina from the heirs of the Lords Proprietors in 1729. The change generated a land bonanza in the colony as the Crown eased land purchase requirements and sent out the equivalent of real estate agents to drum up business. Their work, and the encouragement of royal governors, touched off a boom in North Carolina that lasted from 1730 to the American Revolution. Forests along the Coastal Plain were leveled for farms, settlers poured into the backcountry, and the line of settlement extended to the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Avenues of Early Settlement
The origins of North Carolina’s 18th-century newcomers varied widely. South Carolinians moved north into the Lower Cape Fear region to establish pine plantations with African slave labor. As land grew scarce in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia after 1730, migrants trekked down the Great Wagon road which began near Philadelphia and extended southwestward to the Shenandoah Valley before veering east into the North and South Carolina Piedmont. These newcomers included a variety of ethnic and religious groups, including Quakers, German Lutherans, German Moravians, and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians and Baptists. Settling primarily in the Piedmont, they contrasted with the mostly English and African coastal areas and, in fact, had little contact with those areas. The rivers of the Piedmont flowed into the South Carolina colony and that is the route commerce and communication followed as well. By themed-eighteenth century residents of Piedmont North Carolina had more contacts with Pennsylvania than they did with the coastal district of their own colony.
European and African Settlement in 1730
In 1730, the colony’s population included 30,000 whites and 6,000 blacks, almost all of whom lived along the Coastal Plain; by 1775, the population had grown to 265,000 inhabitants, including 10,000 blacks, and settlement was scattered from the coast to the mountains. By that latter date, North Carolina was the fourth most populous of the thirteen colonies. The population was also among the most diverse with some estimates placing the German population as high as 30 percent.
References and additional resources:
Orr, Douglas Milton, and Alfred W. Stuart. 2000. The North Carolina atlas: portrait for a new century. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Powell, William Stevens, and Jay Mazzocchi. 2006. Encyclopedia of North Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Powell, William Stevens. 1989. North Carolina through four centuries. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
26 August 2005 | Goldfield, David
Comments
do you have any idea what the
do you have any idea what the early/first colonies were. im doing a project and this is the last thing i need so if you have any ideas id love to hear them. thank you and goodbye
Thank you for posting your
Thank you for posting your question.
The following entries should help you:
Good luck on your project! If you need any additional information, Reference Services at the Government & Heritage Library would be happy to help you. Their contact information may be found at http://statelibrary.ncdcr.gov/contact.html
Thanks,
Michelle Czaikowski, Government & Heritage Library
this is great and fun too
this is great and fun too learn aboout the place that my mom was born in!
I like this site.
I like this site.
Umm I am doing a state prject
Umm I am doing a state prject at scool on North Carolina. Who permanently settled in Nortg Carolina?? Please E-Mail me or type me back!! It is due tomorrow!! Help PLEASE!!! Thanks,
CandyBart
Hi Candy, I recognize this
Hi Candy,
I recognize this morning may be when your project is due so I hope you were able to find the information you sought either in other articles in NCpedia or by following the link to NCknows on the right side of every page in NCpedia that would permit you to "chat" live with a librarian 24-7 to find the information.
The following entries should help with your project:
Settlement of the Coastal Plain: http://ncpedia.org/history/colonial/coastal-plain
Settlement of the Piedmont: http://ncpedia.org/history/colonial/piedmont
Settlers of the Albemarle: http://ncpedia.org/history/colonial/albemarle
Settlement of the Mountains, 1775-1838: http://ncpedia.org/history/1776-1860/mountain-settlement
Good luck on your project!
Michelle Czaikowski, Government & Heritage Library
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