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All About The North Carolina Colony (1712 to 1776)

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All About The North Carolina Colony (1712 to 1776)

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North Carolina was founded as​ proprietary colony, but became royal colony in 1729.

All colonial officials were appointed by either the Lords Proprietor prior to 1728 or The Crown afterwards.​

Many North Carolina colonists where upset because they felt like they didn't have a voice in government. They also felt like the taxes where unfair because the rich and poor people had to pay the same amount.

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Tobacco was the main product the colony depended on but they did farm cotton and other crops.

Most people in the colony made there living off as farmers or traders.

Tobacco and water falls used to power mills where some of the natural resources used to build the economy.

North Carolina depended heavily on indentured servitude and slavery to power the economy.

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The official religion of England was Anglican and North Carolina was a Royal colony.  The colony was mainly protestant.

People from different countries settled different regions in North Carolina and this lead to differing cultures and loyalties.  The Eastern lowlands were settled by mainly English and Scottish immigrants.  The uplands were settled by Scots-Irish, English and German settlers.

North Carolina had the same class system as England, but in addition they had a class of people who where enslaved.

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North Carolina has three main regions: the eastern Atlantic coastal pl​ains, the central Piedmont region, and the Appalachian mountains in the West.

The colonists took advantage of the geography by finding crops that grew well in the climate and farming them​.

The climate was difficult for the Europeans because it was very hot and they found it hard to work in the heat.

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​The Timechart History Of America, published by Barns & Noble, page 7

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​The Timechart History Of America, published by Barns & Noble, page 7

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Atlas Of World History, editor Patrick O' Brien ​page 124

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Atlas Of World History, editor Patrick O' Brien ​page 124

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Welcome to Britannica School , a safe, up-to-date, and age-appropriate information resource for Elementary, Middle, and High School.

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Herman Husband was at various times a surveyor, planter, miner, legislator, and county official. In 1766, Husband and others in the area in and around Orange County formed an association at Sandy Creek to protest government abuses. Husband wrote sermons and published pamphlets related to the cause of exposing government corruption, and he was jailed at least twice, once in Hillsborough and once in New Bern, for inciting protest and violence against the royal colonial goverment. Husband did not officially join the Regulators when they began to formally organize in 1768, although his sermons and poems were used by the Regulators and he is often associated with the Regulator movement as one of its leaders. Below is an excerpt of one of his sermons, published in 1770. Husband argued that North Carolina's colonial government was unfair to small farmers. This primary source transcription includes annotations with definitions and additional historical commentary.
I shall now consider some grievous oppressions that we labor under.

First, The Publick taxes is an unequal burden on the poor of this province, by reason the poorest man is taxed as high as the richest This kind of tax is called a poll tax, which requires everyone to pay the same amount of money. In North Carolina in the 1760s, the poll tax was seven shillings sixpence per year for each white man over the age of sixteen and each person of color over the age of twelve.. Allowing the taxes to be all necessary, yet there ought to be some regard had to the strength of the beast; for all asses are not equally strong. We ought to be taxed according to the profits of each man's estate. And as we have no trade to circulate money, this tax ought to be paid in country produce. There would be men enough to be found to fill all posts of office for a salary paid in produce, as any man can afford to officiate in an office for country produce The produce of farms was whatever crops those farms produced (not just fresh fruits and vegetables, as we use the term today). Husband is suggesting that taxes be payable in whatever a farmer grew, such as tobacco or corn -- not only in hard cash, since there was so little cash in the economy. as well as to farm or follow any other calling, the chief of which bring in nothing else.

This is a grievous burden on the poor, as matters have been carried on, for money is not to be had There had never been enough money circulating in colonial America, but in the 1760s the problem became much worse. To make up for the lack of gold and silver coin, the colonies had been printing paper money. But the Currency Act, passed by Parliament in 1764, prohibited colonial governments from printing paper money. According to one estimate, by 1768, there was only five shillings in circulation in North Carolina for every inhabitant -- less than the annual poll tax! (For comparison, according to a 1725 probate inventory, 5 shillings would have bought 20 pounds of dried meat, a beehive and bees, 15 pounds of lard, or a pair of knit stockings with two shillings left over.) Money was in even shorter supply in the Piedmont than it was on the coast. In fact, a letter from an Edenton man in the Virginia Gazette said that "The greatest grievance complained of" by the Regulators was "the want [lack of paper currency, or some medium to answer the trade of the country."]: And when a poor man's goods is distrained If a man could not pay his debts, the sheriff could distrain his property, seize it and sell it for payment of his debt., the practice has been to take double, treble, yes ten times the value has sometimes been taken away. -And if they complain, they are not heard; if they resist, they are belabored like asses.

Merciful Lord, would any people rise in mobs to disturb a peaceable nation if they could help it! Who is more ready than the poor to venture their lives in time of war for the safety of the nation! nay it is pinching hunger and cold, brought on them by abuse of officers, that is the cause....

Neither is it any reflection on the king, to say, the poor are oppressed; for he don't make our laws: -'Tis the subjects themselves, like the fish, devouring one another, with this difference, we are devoured by law.

The narrow limits of our inferior court's jurisdiction, and likewise of a single magistrate, is a grievous burden on both poor and rich; and more so as we are obliged to fee laywers; and in their demands they have got above the law, and have monopolized the whole power of the courts into their own hands.... [T]he lawyers use us as we do our stocks, they kill one here and there, or pluck us well, and then let us run a while to feather again.

We must make these men subject to the laws, or they will enslave the whole community. - General and private musters are also an unnecessary burden North Carolina did not have a professional army. Instead, the colony had a militia made up of armed citizens who could be called out in time of danger. By law, adult white men were required to serve in the militia, and the militia mustered, or gathered for training, on a regular schedule. A general muster included everyone in the county, while a private muster was of a single, local company. Anyone not appearing at muster could be fined. Poor farmers could not afford to lose time away from the work of their farms, which is why Husband is saying the burden of militia service was unfair. And, as Husband explains, these musters were not always especially productive. The officers might not take their duty seriously, but might instead use the muster as a time to socialize with friends -- which made the poor men stuck out in the cold and rain especially angry., especially in our large counties, the out sides of which have to ride from thirty to fifty miles; and the out sides of a county contain more than the heart. Going to one of these musters generally costs a whole week's labour. -And on the whole, costs the counties at least a Thousand Pounds each. A general muster is one week's loss in a year, which is one-fiftieth part of the year. -Four private musters one week more, which is one twenty-fifth part. - Working on the roads North Carolina did not pay workers to build roads. Instead, citizens could be called out to work on roadbuilding, just as they were called to militia service. (This practice actually was a holdover from feudal England.) In practice, this didn't happen very often, and North Carolina didn't have many roads. and attending courts, will soon reduce it to one-twelfth part of our time. -And of what service is all this cost attending the militia law? It serves to bring custom to a few Ordinary-Keepers Ordinary keepers were innkeepers. In the eighteenth century and earlier, ordinary was used to mean ordinary or daily fare -- that is, regular meals. The term also came to refer to inns or taverns where regular meals could be obtained for a fixed price., and for a day of gaiety and feasting to a few individuals, who have been vain enough sometimes to publish such a day's diversion in distant Gazettes.

With what indignation must a poor ass read such a paragraph of such vain boasting of such a crowd of poor asses, faint with hunger, cold and thirst, laying out two or three nights by a fire in the woods, to perform this journey; destitute even of a great coat of a blanket; and of no use under the sun but to make a show of grandeur to a few who, perhaps, are the most unworthy in the county.

This excess has not been practiced perhaps in many counties; -But it is not amiss to check it, lest it should grow, and you be tied neck and heels In the British Army, soldiers could be "tied neck and heels" as punishment -- have their neck and heels tied together for a period of time. Typically the punishment lasted for half an hour to an hour, but it could be repeated on consecutive days. for the least affront, and made to ride the wooden mare The wooden mare was the gallows, the structure from which condemned people were hanged. To "ride the wooden mare" was, of course, to be hanged. (The carptenter's support we now call a sawhorse was then called a wooden mare, or wooden horse. The gallows presumably took the same name because its supports resembled the structure of a sawhorse.). -It is enough to make a freeman's flesh creep to read this law; -which might be more tolerable, were the people allowed to choose their own officers. -It would be needless to mention every circumstance of oppression in this, which is yet but the civil burden.

I shall now proceed to the 3d head, to consider of a method to remove these burdens.

When the time of an election comes on, and those man of the world, who rule by wealth, and whose business it is to corrupt their fellow subjects, and cheat them by flattery and corruption; out of their liberty come to ask your votes, -do you despise their offers That is, reject them, and refuse to vote for them., and say to them, Your money perish with you....

Secondly, Forever despise that man who has betray'd the liberty of his constituents; this will lay a restraint upon the venal disposition of such as Incline to sell their country for Preferment. It would be a check to hinder them from going into the schemes of a Governor. - Never send those who depend on favour for a living, or on the perplexity of the laws Men who "depend on favour for a living" are men who depend on friendship with other powerful men. In the eighteenth century, a truly free man was considered one who did not depend on anyone else for his living. Lawyers and officials who worked for other people, Husband is saying, can't be trusted to work for the public good -- they will be more likely to work for the good of the people whose favor they need. Men who depend "on the perplexity of the laws" -- that is, on the laws being perplexing or confusing to ordinary people -- are, of course, laywers. Obviously, the more complicated the law is, the more help people will need dealing with laws and courts. According to Husband, lawyers have an incentive to make the law unnecessarily complicated, which hurts the poor., nor any who have ever discovered a want of good principles.

North-Carolinians, if you remain under these burdens, it must be your own faults Or, as we would say today, if you don't vote, you can't complain about the results.; -you will stand recorded for asses to all generations if you do not assert your privileges before it is too late to recover them. It is not disloyalty, nor injurious, to give Instructions to the candidates you choose, and take their solemn promise and obligation, that they will follow those instructions. This is far more noble than rioting a few days in drunkenness. Assembly men are your servants, and it is but reasonable they be made accountable to you for their conduct....

Finally, My brethren, whenever it is in your power, take care to have the house of assembly filled with good honest and faithful men; and encourage and instruct them on all occasions: And be sure to let your elections be no expence to them In the eighteenth century, elections were held at the county courthouse, and men cast their ballots in the open. Supporters of various candidates often gave out rum or hard cider, and fistfights and drunkenness were sometimes reported. As a devout Christian and former Quaker, Husband spoke out several times against drunkenness. Here, when he says "let your elections be of no expence to (the candidates)," he is saying not to take bribes -- in the form of alcohol or anything else..

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Herman Husband was at various times a surveyor, planter, miner, legislator, and county official. In 1766, Husband and others in the area in and around Orange County formed an association at Sandy Creek to protest government abuses.

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One of the original 13 colonies, North Carolina was the first state to instruct its delegates to vote for independence from the British crown during the Continental Congress. Following the Revolutionary War, North Carolina developed an extensive slave plantation system and became a major exporter of cotton and tobacco, although the slave population remained relatively small compared to that of other southern states. In 1861, North Carolina became one of 11 states to secede from the United States, beginning the American Civil War. Despite no major battles being fought in the state, North Carolina sent more recruits to fight for the Confederacy than any other rebel state. In 1903, the state became the site of the first manned self-propelled airplane flight when the Wright brothers took off from a cliff near Kitty Hawk.

Date of Statehood: November 21, 1789

Did you know? The infamous pirate Blackbeard was killed by British troops off North Carolina's Outer Banks in 1718.

Capital: Raleigh

Population: 9,535,483 (2010)

Size: 53,819 square miles

Nickname(s): Old North State; Tar Heel State

Motto: Esse Quam Videri ("To Be Rather Than to Seem")

Tree: Pine

Flower: Dogwood

Bird: Cardinal

Interesting Facts

In one of the nation's most intriguing mysteries, a group of around 150 colonists from Plymouth, England, who had landed on Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina in July 1587 vanished without a trace, except for the word "Croatoan" scratched on a post that had enclosed the settlement. Although there have been several hypotheses as to what occurred, historians and archaeologists have been unable to find evidence to support any of them.

The first child born in America of English descent was a girl named Virginia Dare. Born on August 18, 1587, Virginia was one of the members of the "Lost Colony," discovered missing on what would have been her 3rd birthday by her grandfather John White, who had originally led the colonial expedition to Roanoke Island but later returned to England for supplies.

Angered by the Navigation Acts, which imposed taxes on colonial goods, and the abuse of power flaunted by the customs collector and deputy governor, Thomas Miller, a group of about 40 rebels imprisoned Miller and seized control of local government in 1677. John Culpeper, one of the group's leaders, was tried for treason in England, but was acquitted and returned to Albemarle. The uprising became known as Culpeper's Rebellion.

Orville and Wilbur Wright's first powered airplane flight on December 17, 1903, covered only 120 feet and lasted only 12 seconds.

During World War II, approximately 10,000 enemy soldiers were contained within 18 prisoner of war camps throughout the state of North Carolina.

North Carolina is the largest producer of sweet potatoes in the nation. In 2011, farmers within the state harvested 64,000 acres-yielding 1.28 billion pounds of the vitamin A-rich tubers.

PHOTO GALLERIES

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One of the original 13 colonies, North Carolina was the first state to instruct its delegates to vote for independence from the British crown during the Continental Congress. Following the Revolutionary War, North Carolina developed an extensive slave plantation system and became a major exporter of cotton and tobacco, although the slave population remained relatively small compared to that of other southern states.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina#Colonial_period_and_Revolutionary_War

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North Carolina () is a state in the southeastern region of the United States. North Carolina is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the 50 United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and South Carolina to the south, and Tennessee to the west. Raleigh is the state's capital and Charlotte is its largest city. The Charlotte metropolitan area, with an estimated population of 2,569,213 in 2018, is the most-populous metropolitan area in North Carolina, the 23rd-most populous in the United States, and the largest banking center in the nation after New York City. The Raleigh metropolitan area is the second-largest metropolitan area in the state, with an estimated population of 1,362,540 in 2018, and is home to the largest research park in the United States, Research Triangle Park.

North Carolina was established as a royal colony in 1729 and is one of the original Thirteen Colonies. North Carolina is named in honor of King Charles I of England who first formed the English colony, Carolus being Latin for "Charles". On November 21, 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the United States Constitution. In the run-up to the American Civil War, North Carolina declared its secession from the Union on May 20, 1861, becoming the last of eleven states to join the Confederate States. Following the Civil War, the state was restored to the Union on June 25, 1868. On December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully piloted the world's first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft at Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina's Outer Banks. North Carolina uses the slogan "First in Flight" on state license plates to commemorate this achievement, alongside a newer alternative design bearing the slogan "First in Freedom" in reference to the Mecklenburg Declaration.

North Carolina is defined by a wide range of elevations and landscapes. From west to east, North Carolina's elevation descends from the Appalachian Mountains to the Piedmont and Atlantic coastal plain. North Carolina's Mount Mitchell at 6,684 feet (2,037 m) is the highest-point in North America east of the Mississippi River. Most of the state falls in the humid subtropical climate zone; however, the western, mountainous part of the state has a subtropical highland climate.

Woodland-culture Native Americans were in the area around 1000 BCE; starting around 750 CE, Mississippian-culture Indians created larger political units with stronger leadership and more stable, longer-term settlements. During this time, important buildings were constructed as pyramidal, flat-topped buildings. By 1550, many groups of American Indians lived in present-day North Carolina, including Chowanoke, Roanoke, Pamlico, Machapunga, Coree, Cape Fear Indians, Waxhaw, Waccamaw, and Catawba.

Juan Pardo explored the area in 1566-1567, establishing Fort San Juan in 1567 at the site of the Native American community of Joara, a Mississippian culture regional chiefdom in the western interior, near the present-day city of Morganton. The fort lasted only 18 months; the local inhabitants killed all but one of the 120 men Pardo had stationed at a total of six forts in the area. A later expedition by Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe followed in 1584, at the direction of Sir Walter Raleigh.

In June 1718, the pirate Blackbeard ran his flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, aground at Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina, in present-day Carteret County. After the grounding her crew and supplies were transferred to smaller ships. In November, after appealing to the governor of North Carolina, who promised safe-haven and a pardon, Blackbeard was killed in an ambush by troops from Virginia. In 1996 Intersal, Inc., a private firm, discovered the remains of a vessel likely to be the Queen Anne's Revenge, which was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

North Carolina became one of the English Thirteen Colonies and with the territory of South Carolina was originally known as the Province of North-Carolina. The northern and southern parts of the original province separated in 1729. Originally settled by small farmers, sometimes having a few slaves, who were oriented toward subsistence agriculture, the colony lacked cities or towns. Pirates menaced the coastal settlements, but by 1718 the pirates had been captured and killed. Growth was strong in the middle of the 18th century, as the economy attracted Scots-Irish, Quaker, English and German immigrants. A majority of the colonists generally supported the American Revolution, and a smaller number of Loyalists than in some other colonies such as Georgia, South Carolina, Delaware, New York.

During colonial times, Edenton served as the state capital beginning in 1722, and New Bern was selected as the capital in 1766. Construction of Tryon Palace, which served as the residence and offices of the provincial governor William Tryon, began in 1767 and was completed in 1771. In 1788 Raleigh was chosen as the site of the new capital, as its central location protected it from coastal attacks. Officially established in 1792 as both county seat and state capital, the city was named after Sir Walter Raleigh, sponsor of Roanoke, the "lost colony" on Roanoke Island. The population of the colony more than quadrupled from 52,000 in 1740 to 270,000 in 1780 from high immigration from Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania plus immigrants from abroad.

North Carolina made the smallest per-capita contribution to the Revolutionary War of any state, as only 7,800 men joined the Continental Army under General George Washington; an additional 10,000 served in local militia units under such leaders as General Nathanael Greene. There was some military action, especially in 1780-81. Many Carolinian frontiersmen had moved west over the mountains, into the Washington District (later known as Tennessee), but in 1789, following the Revolution, the state was persuaded to relinquish its claim to the western lands. It ceded them to the national government so the Northwest Territory could be organized and managed nationally.

After 1800, cotton and tobacco became important export crops. The eastern half of the state, especially the Tidewater region, developed a slave society based on a plantation system and slave labor. Many free people of color migrated to the frontier along with their European-American neighbors, where the social system was looser. By 1810, nearly three percent of the free population consisted of free people of color, who numbered slightly more than ten thousand. The western areas were dominated by white families, especially Scots-Irish, who operated small subsistence farms. In the early national period, the state became a center of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy, with a strong Whig presence, especially in the West. After Nat Turner's slave uprising in 1831, North Carolina and other southern states reduced the rights of free blacks. In 1835, the legislature withdrew their right to vote.

Post civil war-debt cycles pushed people to switch from subsistence agriculture to commodity agriculture. Among this time the notorious Crop-Lien system developed and was financially difficult on landless whites and blacks, due to high amounts of usury. Also due to the push for commodity agriculture, the free range was ended. Prior to this time people fenced in their crops and had their livestock feeding on the free range areas. After the ending of the free range people now fenced their animals and had their crops in the open.

Democrats were elected to the legislature and governor's office, but the Populists attracted voters displeased with them. In 1896 a biracial, Populist-Republican Fusionist coalition gained the governor's office and passed laws that would extend the voting franchise to blacks and poor whites. The Democrats regained control of the legislature in 1896 and passed laws to impose Jim Crow and racial segregation of public facilities. Voters of North Carolina's 2nd congressional district elected a total of four African-American congressmen through these years of the late 19th century.

Political tensions ran so high that a small group of white Democrats in 1898 planned to take over the Wilmington government if their candidates were not elected. In the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, more than 1,500 white men attacked the black newspaper and neighborhood, killed numerous men, and ran off the white Republican mayor and aldermen. They installed their own people and elected Alfred M. Waddell as mayor, in the only coup d'état in United States history.

In 1899 the state legislature passed a new constitution, with requirements for poll taxes and literacy tests for voter registration which disenfranchised most black Americans in the state. Exclusion from voting had wide effects: it meant black Americans could not serve on juries or in any local office. After a decade of white supremacy, many people forgot that North Carolina had ever had thriving middle-class black Americans. Black citizens had no political voice in the state until after the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed to enforce their constitutional rights. It was not until 1992 that another African American was elected as a U.S. Representative from North Carolina.

As in the rest of the former Confederacy, North Carolina had become a one-party state, dominated by the Democratic Party. Impoverished by the Civil War and vicious debt cycles, the state continued with an economy based on tobacco, cotton textiles and commodity agriculture. Towns and cities remained few in the east. A major industrial base emerged in the late 19th century in the counties of the Piedmont Triad, based on cotton mills established at the fall line. Railroads were built to connect the new industrializing cities. The state was the site of the first successful controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air flight, by the Wright brothers, near Kitty Hawk on December 17, 1903. In the first half of the 20th century, many African Americans left the state to go North for better opportunities, in the Great Migration. Their departure changed the demographic characteristics of many areas.

By the 1970s, spurred in part by the increasingly leftward tilt of national Democrats, conservative whites began to vote for Republican national candidates and gradually for more Republicans locally. The Greensboro Sit-ins played a crucial role in the Civil Rights Movement to bring full equality to American blacks.

Native Americans, lost colonies, and permanent settlement

North Carolina was inhabited for at least ten thousand years by succeeding prehistoric indigenous cultures. The Hardaway Site saw major periods of occupation as far back as 10,000 years. Before 200 AD, they were building earthwork mounds, which were used for ceremonial and religious purposes. Succeeding peoples, including those of the ancient Mississippian culture established by 1000 AD in the Piedmont, continued to build or add on to such mounds. In the 500-700 years preceding European contact, the Mississippian culture built large, complex cities and maintained far-flung regional trading networks. Its largest city was Cahokia, located in present-day Illinois near the Mississippi River. The Native polities of the Mississippian culture fell apart and reformed as new groups such as the Catawba due to a series of destabilizing events know as the "Mississippian shatter zone" as described by anthropologist Robbie Ethridge. The Mississippian shatter zone was an area of great instability, in what is now the American South, caused by the instability of Mississippian chiefdoms, diseases from Europe, the construction of the global capitalistic economy through the trading of Native American slaves, and the emergence of Native "militaristic slaving societies".

Spanish explorers traveling inland in the 16th century met Mississippian culture people at Joara, a regional chiefdom near present-day Morganton. Records of Hernando de Soto attested to his meeting with them in 1540. In 1567 Captain Juan Pardo led an expedition to claim the area for the Spanish colony and to establish another route to protect silver mines in Mexico. Pardo made a winter base at Joara, which he renamed Cuenca. His expedition built Fort San Juan and left a contingent of 30 men there, while Pardo traveled further, and built and garrisoned five other forts. He returned by a different route to Santa Elena on Parris Island, South Carolina, then a center of Spanish Florida. In the spring of 1568, natives killed all but one of the soldiers and burned the six forts in the interior, including the one at Fort San Juan. Although the Spanish never returned to the interior, this effort marked the first European attempt at colonization of the interior of what became the United States. A 16th-century journal by Pardo's scribe Bandera and archaeological findings since 1986 at Joara have confirmed the settlement.

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 part of the territory of Virginia). It was the second American territory which the English attempted to colonize. Raleigh established two colonies on the coast in the late 1580s, but both failed. The fate of the " Lost Colony" of Roanoke Island remains one of the most widely debated mysteries of American history. Virginia Dare, the first English child to be born in North America, was born on Roanoke Island on August 18, 1587; Dare County is named for her.

As early as 1650, settlers from the Virginia colony moved into the area of Albemarle Sound. By 1663, King Charles II of England granted a charter to start a new colony on the North American continent; it generally established North Carolina's 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, owing to disputes over governance, the Carolina colony began to split into North Carolina and South Carolina. The latter became a crown colony in 1729.

In the 1700s, a series of smallpox epidemics swept the South, causing high fatalities among the Native Americans, who had no immunity to the new disease (it had become endemic in Europe). According to the historian Russell Thornton, "The 1738 epidemic was said to have killed one-half of the Cherokee, with other tribes of the area suffering equally."

After the Spanish in the 16th century, the first permanent European settlers of North Carolina were English colonists who migrated south from Virginia. The latter had grown rapidly and land was less available. Nathaniel Batts was documented as one of the first of these Virginian migrants. He settled south of the Chowan River and east of the Great Dismal Swamp in 1655. By 1663, this northeastern area of the Province of Carolina, known as the Albemarle Settlements, was undergoing full-scale English settlement. During the same period, the English monarch Charles II gave the province to the Lords Proprietors, a group of noblemen who had helped restore Charles to the throne in 1660. The new province of "Carolina" was named in honor and memory of King Charles I (Latin: Carolus). In 1712, North Carolina became a separate colony. Except for the Earl Granville holdings, it became a royal colony seventeen years later. A large revolt happened in the state in 1711 known as Cary's Rebellion.

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 in eastern North Carolina was settled chiefly by immigrants from rural England and the Scottish Highlands. The upcountry of western North Carolina was settled chiefly by Scots-Irish, English, and German Protestants, the so-called " cohee". Arriving during the mid- to late 18th century, the Scots-Irish from what is today Northern Ireland were the largest non-English immigrant group before the Revolution; English indentured servants were overwhelmingly the largest immigrant group before the Revolution. During the American Revolutionary War, the English and Highland Scots of eastern North Carolina tended to remain loyal to the British Crown, because of longstanding business and personal connections with Great Britain. The English, Welsh, Scots-Irish, and German settlers of western North Carolina tended to favor American independence from Britain.

Most of the English colonists had 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 unions or marriages between free white women and enslaved or free African or African-American men. Because the mothers were free, their children were born free. 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, planters imported more slaves, and the state's legal delineations between free and slave status tightened, effectively hardening the latter into a racial caste. The economy's growth and prosperity was based on slave labor, devoted primarily to the production of tobacco.

The road to Yorktown and America's independence from Great Britain led through North Carolina. As the British Army moved north from victories in Charleston and Camden, South Carolina, the Southern Division of the Continental Army and local militia prepared to meet them. Following General Daniel Morgan's victory over the British Cavalry Commander Banastre Tarleton at the Battle of Cowpens on January 17, 1781, southern commander Nathanael Greene led British Lord Charles Cornwallis across the heartland of North Carolina, and away from the latter's base of supply in Charleston, South Carolina. This campaign is known as "The Race to the Dan" or "The Race for the River".

In the Battle of Cowan's Ford, Cornwallis met resistance along the banks of the Catawba River at Cowan's Ford on February 1, 1781, in an attempt to engage General Morgan's forces during a tactical withdrawal. Morgan had moved to the northern part of the state to combine with General Greene's newly recruited forces. Generals Greene and Cornwallis finally met at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse in present-day Greensboro 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. Following this " Pyrrhic victory", Cornwallis chose to move to the Virginia coastline to get reinforcements, and to allow the Royal Navy to protect his battered army. This decision would result in Cornwallis' eventual defeat at Yorktown, Virginia, later in 1781. The Patriots' victory there guaranteed American independence.

On November 21, 1789, North Carolina became the twelfth state to ratify the Constitution. In 1840, it completed the state capitol building in Raleigh, still standing today. Most of North Carolina's slave owners and large plantations were located in the eastern portion of the state. Although North Carolina's plantation system was smaller and less cohesive than that 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 suburban planters around the cities of Raleigh, Charlotte, and Durham in the Piedmont. Planters owning large estates wielded significant political and socio-economic power in antebellum North Carolina, which was a slave society. They placed their interests above those of the generally non-slave-holding "yeoman" farmers of western North Carolina. In mid-century, the state's rural and commercial areas were connected by the construction of a 129 mi (208 km) wooden plank road, known as a "farmer's railroad", from Fayetteville in the east to Bethania (northwest of Winston-Salem).

Besides slaves, there were a number of free people of color in the state. Most were descended from free African Americans who had migrated along with neighbors from Virginia during the 18th century. The majority were the descendants of unions in the working classes between white women, indentured servants or free, and African men, indentured, slave or free. After the Revolution, Quakers and Mennonites worked to persuade slaveholders to free their slaves. Some were inspired by their efforts and the language of the Revolution to arrange for manumission of their slaves. The number of free people of color rose markedly in the first couple of decades after the Revolution.

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 act of the legislature to extend that railroad west to Greensboro, High Point, and Charlotte. 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.

During the antebellum period, North Carolina was an overwhelmingly rural 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.

While slaveholding was slightly less concentrated 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. In addition, 30,463 free people of color lived in the state. They were also concentrated in the eastern coastal plain, especially at port cities such as Wilmington and New Bern, where a variety of jobs were available. Free African Americans were allowed to vote until 1835, when the state revoked their suffrage in restrictions following the slave rebellion of 1831 led by Nat Turner. Southern slave codes criminalized willful killing of a slave in most cases.

North Carolina was known as a 'Slave State' by 1860, in which one-third of the population was enslaved. This was a smaller proportion than in many other Southern states. The state did not vote to join the Confederacy until President Abraham Lincoln called on it to invade its sister state, South Carolina, becoming the last or penultimate state to officially join the Confederacy. The title of "last to join the Confederacy" has been disputed; although Tennessee's informal secession on May 7, 1861, preceded North Carolina's official secession on May 20, the Tennessee legislature did not formally vote to secede until June 8, 1861.

Despite the State supplying the Confederacy with at least 125,000 troops and Union with approximately 15,000 troops, it saw little action on its territory. The supply of Confederate troops was by far the greatest number of any of the Confederate States, of which approximately 40,000 of those died: more than half from disease, the remainder from battlefield wounds and starvation. Elected in 1862, Governor Zebulon Baird Vance tried to maintain state autonomy against Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Richmond.

After secession, some North Carolinians refused to support the Confederacy. Some of the yeoman farmers in the state's mountains and western Piedmont region remained neutral during the Civil War, while some covertly supported the Union cause during the conflict. Approximately 2,000 North Carolinians from western North Carolina enlisted in the Union Army and fought for the North in the war. Two additional Union Army regiments were raised in the coastal areas of the state, which were occupied by Union forces in 1862 and 1863. Numerous slaves escaped to Union lines, where they became essentially free.

Confederate troops from all parts of North Carolina served in virtually all the major battles of the Army of Northern Virginia, 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'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's port city of Wilmington was the last Confederate port to fall to the Union, in February 1865, after the Union won the nearby Second Battle of Fort Fisher, its major defense downriver.

The first Confederate soldier to be killed in the Civil War was Private Henry Wyatt from North Carolina, in the Battle of Big Bethel in June 1861. At the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, the 26th North Carolina Regiment participated in Pickett/Pettigrew's Charge and advanced the farthest into the Northern lines of any Confederate regiment. During the Battle of Chickamauga, the 58th North Carolina Regiment advanced farther than any other regiment on Snodgrass Hill to push back the remaining Union forces from the battlefield. At Appomattox Court House in Virginia in April 1865, the 75th North Carolina Regiment, a cavalry unit, fired the last shots of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the Civil War. For many years, North Carolinians proudly boasted that they had been "First at Bethel, Farthest at Gettysburg and Chickamauga, and Last at Appomattox".

The elections in April 1868 following the constitutional convention led to a narrow victory for a Republican-dominated government, with 19 African-Americans holding positions in the North Carolina State Legislature. In attempt to put the reforms into effect, the new Republican Governor William W. Holden declared martial law on any county allegedly not complying with law and order using the passage of the Shoffner Act.

North Carolina is bordered by South Carolina on the south, Georgia on the southwest, Tennessee on the west, Virginia on the north, and the Atlantic Ocean on the east. The United States Census Bureau places North Carolina in the South Atlantic division of the southern region.

So many ships have been lost off Cape Hatteras that the area is known as the " Graveyard of the Atlantic"; more than a thousand ships have sunk in these waters since records began in 1526. The most famous of these is the Queen Anne's Revenge (flagship of the pirate Blackbeard), which went aground in Beaufort Inlet in 1718.

The coastal plain transitions to the Piedmont region along the Atlantic Seaboard fall line, the elevation at which waterfalls first appear on streams and rivers. The Piedmont region of central North Carolina is the state's most populous region, containing the six largest cities in the state by population. It consists of gently rolling countryside frequently broken by hills or low mountain ridges. Small, isolated, and deeply eroded mountain ranges and peaks are located in the Piedmont, including the Sauratown Mountains, Pilot Mountain, the Uwharrie Mountains, Crowder's Mountain, King's Pinnacle, the Brushy Mountains, and the South Mountains. The Piedmont ranges from about 300 feet (91 m) in elevation in the east to about 1,500 feet (460 m) in the west.

The western section of the state is part of the Appalachian Mountain range. Among the subranges of the Appalachian Mountains located in the state are the Great Smoky Mountains, Blue Ridge Mountains, and Black Mountains. The Black Mountains are the highest in the eastern United States, and culminate in Mount Mitchell at 6,684 feet (2,037 m), the highest point east of the Mississippi River.

North Carolina has 17 major river basins. The five basins west of the Blue Ridge Mountains flow to the Gulf of Mexico, while the remainder flow to the Atlantic Ocean. Of the 17 basins, 11 originate within the state of North Carolina, but only four are contained entirely within the state's border-the Cape Fear, the Neuse, the White Oak, and the Tar- Pamlico basin.

Elevation above sea level is most responsible for temperature change across the state, with the mountain area being coolest year-round. The climate is also influenced by the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf Stream, especially in the coastal plain. These influences tend to cause warmer winter temperatures along the coast, where temperatures only occasionally drop below the freezing point at night. The coastal plain averages around 1 inch (2.5 cm) of snow or ice annually, and in many years, there may be no snow or ice at all.

The Atlantic Ocean exerts less influence on the climate of the Piedmont region, which has hotter summers and colder winters than along the coast, though the average daily maximum is still below 90 °F (32 °C) in most locations.

North Carolina experiences severe weather both in summer and in winter, with summer bringing threat of hurricanes, tropical storms, heavy rain, and flooding. Destructive hurricanes that have hit North Carolina include Hurricane Fran, Hurricane Florence, Hurricane Floyd, Hurricane Hugo, and Hurricane Hazel, the latter being the strongest storm ever to make landfall in the state, as a Category4 in 1954. Hurricane Isabel ranks as the most destructive of the 21st century.

North Carolina averages fewer than 20 tornadoes per year, many of them produced by hurricanes or tropical storms along the coastal plain. Tornadoes from thunderstorms are a risk, especially in the eastern part of the state. The western Piedmont is often protected by the mountains, which tend to break up storms as they try to cross over; the storms will often re-form farther east. A phenomenon known as " cold-air damming" often occurs in the northwestern part of the state, which can weaken storms but can also lead to major ice events in winter.

In April 2011, the worst tornado outbreak in North Carolina's history occurred. Thirty confirmed tornadoes touched down, mainly in the Eastern Piedmont and Sandhills, killing at least 24 people. In September 2019 Hurricane Dorian hit the area.

The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of North Carolina was 10,488,084 on July 1, 2019, an 9.99% increase since the 2010 Census. Of the people residing in North Carolina 58.5% were born there; 33.1% were born in another state; 1.0% were born in Puerto Rico, U.S. Island areas, or born abroad to American parent(s); and 7.4% were foreign-born.

Demographics of North Carolina covers the variety of ethnic groups who reside in North Carolina, along with the relevant trends.

The state's racial composition in the 2010 Census:

As of 2010, 89.66% (7,750,904) of North Carolina residents age five and older spoke English at home as a primary language, while 6.93% (598,756) spoke Spanish, 0.32% (27,310) French, 0.27% (23,204) German, and Chinese (which includes Mandarin) was spoken as a main language by 0.27% (23,072) of the population five and older. In total, 10.34% (893,735) of North Carolina's population age five and older spoke a mother language other than English. North Carolina is also home to a spectrum of different dialects of Southern American English and Appalachian English.

North Carolina residents, like those of other Southern states, since the colonial era have historically been overwhelmingly Protestant, first Anglican, then Baptist and Methodist. Before the Civil War, the Baptists split into regional associations of the North and South, over the issue of slavery.

By the late 19th century, the largest Protestant denomination in North Carolina was the Baptist, when both whites and blacks were considered, but the latter people had set up their own organizations. After emancipation, black Baptists quickly set up their own independent congregations in North Carolina and other states of the South, as they wanted to be free of white supervision. Black Baptists developed their own state and national associations, such as the National Baptist Convention USA, Inc..

While the Baptists in total (counting both blacks and whites) have maintained the majority in this part of the country (known as the Bible Belt), a wide variety of faiths are practiced by other residents in the state, including Judaism, Islam, Baháʼí, Buddhism, and Hinduism. As of 2010 the Southern Baptist Convention was the biggest denomination, with 4,241 churches and 1,513,000 members; the second largest was the United Methodist Church, with 660,000 members and 1,923 churches. The third was the Roman Catholic Church, with 428,000 members in 190 parishes. The fourth greatest was the Presbyterian Church (USA), with 186,000 members and 710 congregations; this denomination was brought by Scots-Irish immigrants who settled the backcountry in the colonial era.

Currently, the rapid influx of northerners and immigrants from Latin America is steadily increasing ethnic and religious diversity: the number of Roman Catholics and Jews in the state has increased, as well as general religious diversity. The second-largest Protestant denomination in North Carolina after Baptist traditions is Methodism, which is strong in the northern Piedmont, especially in populous Guilford County. There are also a substantial number of Quakers in Guilford County and northeastern North Carolina. Many universities and colleges in the state have been founded on religious traditions, and some currently maintain that affiliation, including:

The state also has several major seminaries, including the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, and the Hood Theological Seminary (AME Zion) in Salisbury.

In 2016, the U.S. Census Bureau released 2015 population estimate counts for North Carolina's counties. Mecklenburg County has the largest population, while Wake County has the second largest population in North Carolina.

In 2018, the U.S. Census Bureau released 2018 population estimate counts for North Carolina's cities with populations above 70,000. Charlotte has the largest population, while Raleigh has the highest population density of North Carolina's largest cities.

North Carolina has three major Combined Statistical Areas with populations of more than 1.6 million ( U.S. Census Bureau 2018 estimates):

: Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, North Carolina-South Carolina population 2,728,933

The Research Triangle: Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, North Carolina population 2,238,315

The Piedmont Triad: Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point, North Carolina population 1,677,551

North Carolina's 2018 total gross state product was $496 billion. Based on American Community Survey 2010-2014 data, North Carolina's median household income was $46,693. It ranked forty-first out of fifty states plus the District of Columbia for median household income. North Carolina had the fourteenth highest poverty rate in the nation at 17.6%. 13% of families were below the poverty line.

The state has a very diverse economy because of its great availability of hydroelectric power, its pleasant climate, and its wide variety of soils. The state ranks third among the South Atlantic states in population, but leads the region in industry and agriculture. North Carolina leads the nation in the production of tobacco, textiles, and furniture. Charlotte, the state's largest city, is a major textile and trade center. According to a Forbes article written in 2013 Employment in the "Old North State" has gained many different industry sectors. Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) industries in the area surrounding North Carolina's capital have grown 17.9 percent since 2001, placing Raleigh-Cary at No.5 among the 51 largest metro areas in the country where technology is booming. In 2010, North Carolina's total gross state product was $424.9 billion, while the state debt in November 2012, according to one source, totalled $2.4 billion, while according to another, was in 2012 $57.8 billion. In 2011, the civilian labor force was at around 4.5million with employment near 4.1 million.

North Carolina is the leading U.S. state in production of flue-cured tobacco and sweet potatoes, and comes second in the farming of pigs and hogs, trout, and turkeys. In the three most recent USDA surveys (2002, 2007, 2012), North Carolina also ranked second in the production of Christmas trees.

North Carolina has 15 metropolitan areas, and in 2010 was chosen as the third-best state for business by Forbes Magazine, and the second-best state by Chief Executive Officer Magazine. Since 2000, there has been a clear division in the economic growth of North Carolina's urban and rural areas. While North Carolina's urban areas have enjoyed a prosperous economy with steady job growth, low unemployment, and rising wages, many of the state's rural counties have suffered from job loss, rising levels of poverty, and population loss as their manufacturing base has declined. According to one estimate, one-half of North Carolina's 100 counties have lost population since 2010, primarily due to the poor economy in many of North Carolina's rural areas. However, the population of the state's urban areas is steadily increasing.

Transportation systems in North Carolina consist of air, water, road, rail, and public transportation including intercity rail via Amtrak and light rail in Charlotte. North Carolina has the second-largest state highway system in the country as well as the largest ferry system on the east coast.

North Carolina's airports serve destinations throughout the United States and international destinations in Canada, Europe, Central America, and the Caribbean. In 2013 Charlotte Douglas International Airport, which serves as the second busiest hub for American Airlines, ranked as the 23rd busiest airport in the world.

North Carolina has a growing passenger rail system with Amtrak serving most major cities. Charlotte is also home to North Carolina's only light rail system known as the Lynx.

North Carolina's party loyalties have undergone a series of important shifts in the last few years: While the 2010 midterms saw Tar Heel voters elect a bicameral Republican majority legislature for the first time in more than a century, North Carolina has also become a Southern swing state in presidential races. Since Southern Democrat Jimmy Carter's comfortable victory in the state in 1976, the state had consistently leaned Republican in presidential elections until Democrat Barack Obama narrowly won the state in 2008. In the 1990s, Democrat Bill Clinton came within a point of winning the state in 1992 and also only narrowly lost the state in 1996. In the early 2000s, Republican George W. Bush easily won the state by more than 12 points.

In 2012, the state elected a Republican Governor ( Pat McCrory) and Lieutenant Governor ( Dan Forest) for the first time in more than two decades, while also giving the Republicans veto-proof majorities in both the State House of Representatives and the State Senate. Several U.S. House of Representatives seats flipped control in 2012, with the Republicans holding nine seats to the Democrats' four. In the 2014 mid-term elections, Republican David Rouzer won the state's seventh congressional district seat, increasing the congressional delegation party split to 10-3 in favor of the GOP.

North Carolina Republicans won 10 of the 13 seats in 2016, when Democrats got 47 percent of the statewide vote. In 2018 Republicans took nine, with one seat undecided, even though Democrats got 48 percent of the overall vote. The undecided election in North Carolina's 9th congressional district was because the bipartisan State Election Board refused in February 2019 to certify the results, after an investigation found evidence of widespread ballot fraud committed by Republican operatives.

Because of gerrymandering in redistricting after the 2010 census, Democrats have been underrepresented in the state and Congressional delegations since 2012, although they have sometimes represented more than half the state's population. The state was sued for racially gerrymandering the districts, which resulted in minority voting power being diluted in some areas, resulting in skewed representation. The federal court ordered redistricting in 2015. Two suits challenging the state congressional district map were led by "two dozen voters, the state Democratic Party, the state chapter of the League of Women Voters, and the interest group Common Cause". They contend that the redistricting resulted in deliberate under-representation of a substantial portion of voters. This case reached the United States Supreme Court in March 2019, which also heard a related partisan gerrymandering case from Maryland.

Elementary and secondary public schools are overseen by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. The North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction is the secretary of the North Carolina State Board of Education, but the board, rather than the superintendent, holds most of the legal authority for making public education policy. In 2009, the board's chairman also became the "chief executive officer" for the state's school system. North Carolina has 115 public school systems, each of which is overseen by a local school board. A county may have one or more systems within it. The largest school systems in North Carolina are the Wake County Public School System, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Guilford County Schools, Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, and Cumberland County Schools. In total there are 2,425 public schools in the state, including over 200 charter schools. North Carolina Schools were segregated until the Brown v. Board of Education trial and the release of the Pearsall Plan.

In 1795, North Carolina opened the first public university in the United States-the University of North Carolina (now named the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). More than 200 years later, the University of North Carolina system encompasses 17 public universities including North Carolina State University, North Carolina A&T State University, North Carolina Central University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, East Carolina University, Western Carolina University, Winston-Salem State University, the University of North Carolina at Asheville, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, UNC Wilmington, Elizabeth City State University, Appalachian State University, Fayetteville State University, and UNC School of the Arts, and . Along with its public universities, North Carolina has 58 public community colleges in its community college system. The largest university in North Carolina is currently North Carolina State University, with more than 34,000 students.

North Carolina is also home to many well-known private colleges and universities, including Duke University, Wake Forest University, Pfeiffer University, Lees-McRae College, Davidson College, Barton College, North Carolina Wesleyan College, Elon University, Guilford College, Livingstone College, Salem College, Shaw University (the first historically black college or university in the South), Laurel University, Meredith College, Methodist University, Belmont Abbey College (the only Catholic college in the Carolinas), Campbell University, University of Mount Olive, Montreat College, High Point University, Lenoir-Rhyne University (the only Lutheran university in North Carolina) and Wingate University.

Early newspapers were established in the eastern part of North Carolina in the mid-18th century. The Fayetteville Observer, established in 1816, is the oldest newspaper still in publication in North Carolina. The Wilmington Star-News, established 1867, is the oldest continuously running newspaper. As of January 1, 2020, there were approximately 240 North Carolina newspapers in publication in the state of North Carolina.

North Carolina is home to four major league sports franchises: the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League, the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association, and Charlotte FC of Major League Soccer are based in Charlotte, while the Raleigh-based Carolina Hurricanes play in the National Hockey League. The Panthers and Hurricanes are the only two major professional sports teams that have the same geographical designation while playing in different metropolitan areas. The Hurricanes are the only major professional team from North Carolina to have won a league championship, having captured the Stanley Cup in 2006. North Carolina is also home to two other top-level professional teams in less prominent sports-the Charlotte Hounds of Major League Lacrosse and the North Carolina Courage of the National Women's Soccer League.

Golf is a popular summertime leisure activity, and North Carolina has hosted several important professional golf tournaments. Pinehurst Resort in Pinehurst has hosted a PGA Championship, Ryder Cup, two U.S. Opens, and one U.S. Women's Open. The Wells Fargo Championship is a regular stop on the PGA Tour and is held at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, and Quail Hollow has also played host to the PGA Championship. The Wyndham Championship is played annually in Greensboro at Sedgefield Country Club.

College sports are also popular in North Carolina, with 18 schools competing at the Division I level. The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is headquartered in Greensboro, and both the ACC Football Championship Game (Charlotte) and the ACC Men's Basketball Tournament (Greensboro) were most recently held in North Carolina. Additionally, the city of Charlotte is home to the National Junior College Athletics Association's (NJCAA) headquarters. College basketball is very popular in North Carolina, buoyed by the Tobacco Road rivalries between ACC members North Carolina, Duke, North Carolina State, and Wake Forest. The ACC Championship Game and the Duke's Mayo Bowl are held annually in Charlotte's Bank of America Stadium, featuring teams from the ACC and the Southeastern Conference. Additionally, the state has hosted the NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four on two occasions, in Greensboro in 1974 and in Charlotte in 1994.

Charlotte is the most-visited city in the state, attracting 28.3 million visitors in 2018. Area attractions include Carolina Panthers NFL football team and Charlotte Hornets basketball team, Carowinds amusement park, Charlotte Motor Speedway, U.S. National Whitewater Center, Discovery Place, Great Wolf Lodge, Sea Life Aquarium, Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, Billy Graham Library, Carolinas Aviation Museum, Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, Levine Museum of the New South, McColl Center for Art + Innovation, Mint Museum, and the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

Every year the Appalachian Mountains attract several million tourists to the western part of the state, including the historic Biltmore Estate. The scenic Blue Ridge Parkway and Great Smoky Mountains National Park are the two most visited national park and unit in the United States with more than 25 million visitors in 2013. The City of Asheville is consistently voted as one of the top places to visit and live in the United States, known for its rich art deco architecture, mountain scenery and outdoor activities.

In the Conover- Hickory area, Hickory Motor Speedway, RockBarn Golf and Spa, home of the Greater Hickory Classic at Rock Barn; Catawba County Firefighters Museum, and SALT Block attract many tourists to Conover. Hickory which has Valley Hills Mall.

The Piedmont Triad, or center of the state, is home to Krispy Kreme, Mayberry, Texas Pete, the Lexington Barbecue Festival, and Moravian cookies. The internationally acclaimed North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro attracts visitors to its animals, plants, and a 57-piece art collection along five miles of shaded pathways in the world's largest-land-area natural-habitat park. Seagrove, in the central portion of the state, attracts many tourists along Pottery Highway (NC Hwy 705). MerleFest in Wilkesboro attracts more than 80,000 people to its four-day music festival; and Wet 'n Wild Emerald Pointe water park in Greensboro is another attraction.

The Outer Banks and surrounding beaches attract millions of people to the Atlantic beaches every year.

The mainland northeastern part of the state, having recently adopted the name the Inner Banks, is also known as the Albemarle Region, for the Albemarle Settlements, some of the first settlements on North Carolina's portion of the Atlantic Coastal Plain. The regions historic sites are connected by the Historic Albemarle Tour.

North Carolina has traditions in art, music, and cuisine. The nonprofit arts and culture industry generates $1.2 billion in direct economic activity in North Carolina, supporting more than 43,600 full-time equivalent jobs and generating $119 million in revenue for local governments and the state of North Carolina. North Carolina established the North Carolina Museum of Art as the first major museum collection in the country to be formed by state legislation and funding and continues to bring millions into the NC economy. Also see this list of museums in North Carolina.

One of the more famous arts communities in the state is Seagrove, the handmade-pottery capital of the U.S., where artisans create handcrafted pottery inspired by the same traditions that began in this community more than 200 years ago..

Ben Folds Five originated in Winston-Salem, and Ben Folds still records and resides in Chapel Hill.

The British band Pink Floyd is named, in part, after Chapel Hill bluesman Floyd Council.

The Research Triangle area has long been a well-known center for folk, rock, metal, jazz and punk. James Taylor grew up around Chapel Hill, and his 1968 song " Carolina in My Mind" has been called an unofficial anthem for the state. Other famous musicians from North Carolina include J. Cole, Shirley Caesar, Roberta Flack, Clyde McPhatter, Nnenna Freelon, Warren Haynes, Jimmy Herring, Michael Houser, Eric Church, Future Islands, Randy Travis, Ryan Adams, Ronnie Milsap, Anthony Hamilton, The Avett Brothers and Luke Combs.

EDM producer Porter Robinson hails from Chapel Hill.

North Carolina is the home of more American Idol finalists than any other state: Clay Aiken (season two), Fantasia Barrino (season three), Chris Daugherty (season five), Kellie Pickler (season five), Bucky Covington (season five), Anoop Desai (season eight), Scotty McCreery (season ten), and Caleb Johnson (season thirteen). North Carolina also has the most American Idol winners with Barrino, McCreery, and Johnson.

In the mountains, the Brevard Music Center hosts choral, operatic, orchestral, and solo performances during its annual summer schedule.

The state boasts three performing arts centers: DPAC in Durham, Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts in Raleigh, and the Blumenthal Performing Art Centers in Charlotte. They feature concerts, operas, recitals, and traveling Broadway musicals.

Hip-hop artists DaBaby and J. Cole hail from North Carolina.

Also, see the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame.

A culinary staple of North Carolina is pork barbecue. There are strong regional differences and rivalries over the sauces and methods used in making the barbecue. The common trend across Western North Carolina is the use of premium grade Boston butt. Western North Carolina pork barbecue uses a tomato-based sauce, and only the pork shoulder (dark meat) is used. Western North Carolina barbecue is commonly referred to as Lexington barbecue after the Piedmont Triad town of Lexington, home of the Lexington Barbecue Festival, which attracts more than 100,000 visitors each October. Eastern North Carolina pork barbecue uses a vinegar-and-red-pepper-based sauce and the "whole hog" is cooked, thus integrating both white and dark meat.

Over the last decade, North Carolina has become a cultural epicenter and haven for internationally prize-winning wine (Noni Bacca Winery), internationally prized cheeses (Ashe County), "L'institut International aux Arts Gastronomiques: Conquerront Les Yanks les Truffes, January 15, 2010" international hub for truffles (Garland Truffles), and beer making, as tobacco land has been converted to grape orchards while state laws regulating alcohol content in beer allowed a jump in ABV from 6% to 15%. The Yadkin Valley in particular has become a strengthening market for grape production, while Asheville recently won the recognition of being named 'Beer City USA'. Asheville boasts the largest number of breweries per capita of any city in the United States. Recognized and marketed brands of beer in North Carolina include Highland Brewing, Duck Rabbit Brewery, Mother Earth Brewery, Weeping Radish Brewery, Big Boss Brewing, Foothills Brewing, Carolina Brewing Company, Lonerider Brewing, and White Rabbit Brewing Company.

North Carolina has large grazing areas for beef and dairy cattle. Truck farms can be found in North Carolina. A truck farm is a small farm where fruits and vegetables are grown to be sold at local markets. The state's shipping, commercial fishing, and lumber industries are important to its economy. Service industries, including education, health care, private research, and retail trade, are also important. Research Triangle Park, a large industrial complex located in the Raleigh-Durham area, is one of the major centers in the country for electronics and medical research.

Tobacco was one of the first major industries to develop after the Civil War. Many farmers grew some tobacco, and the invention of the cigarette made the product especially popular. Winston-Salem is the birthplace of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (RJR), founded by R. J. Reynolds in 1874 as one of 16 tobacco companies in the town. By 1914 it was selling 425 million packs of Camels a year. Today it is the second-largest tobacco company in the U.S. (behind Altria Group). RJR is an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc., which in turn is 42% owned by British American Tobacco.

Several ships have been named after the state. Most famous is the USS North Carolina, a World War II battleship. The ship served in several battles against the forces of Imperial Japan in the Pacific theater during the war. Now decommissioned, it is part of the USS North Carolina Battleship Memorial in Wilmington. Another USS North Carolina, a nuclear attack submarine, was commissioned in Wilmington, North Carolina, on May 3, 2008.

The state maintains a group of protected areas known as the North Carolina State Park System, which is managed by the North Carolina Division of Parks & Recreation (NCDPR), an agency of the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (NCDENR).

Fort Bragg, near Fayetteville and Southern Pines, is a large and comprehensive military base and is the headquarters of the XVIII Airborne Corps, 82nd Airborne Division, and the U.S. Army Special Operations Command. Serving as the air wing for Fort Bragg is Pope Field, also located near Fayetteville.

On January 24, 1961, a B-52G broke up in midair and crashed after suffering a severe fuel loss, near Goldsboro, dropping two nuclear bombs in the process without detonation. In 2013, it was revealed that three safety mechanisms on one bomb had failed, leaving just one low-voltage switch preventing detonation.

Lefler, Hugh (numerous editions since 1934). North Carolina History Told by Contemporaries . University of North Carolina Press.

Jones, H. G. (1984). North Carolina Illustrated, 1524-1984. University of North Carolina Press.

North Carolina Manual. Published biennially by the Department of the Secretary of State since 1941.

The Religion in North Carolina Digital Collection. A grant-funded project to provide digital access to publications of and about religious bodies in North Carolina. Partner institutions at Duke University, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Wake Forest University contributed the largest portion of the items in this collection, but the collection is enriched by unique materials from libraries and archives throughout North Carolina. The materials in this collection include local church histories, periodicals, clergy biographies, cookbooks, event programs, directories, and much more.

James, Clay; Orr, Douglas, eds. (1971). North Carolina Atlas: Portrait of a Changing Southern State.

Christensen, Rob (2008). The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Cooper, Christopher A.; Knotts, H. Gibbs, eds. (2008). The New Politics of North Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Crow; Jeffrey J.; Tise, Larry E. (1979). Writing North Carolina History. Online.

Eamon, Tom (2014). The Making of a Southern Democracy: North Carolina Politics from Kerr Scott to Pat McCrory. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press.

Fleer, Jack D. (1994). North Carolina Government & Politics. Online political science textbook.

Hawks, Francis L. (1857). History of North Carolina, Volumes I and II.

Kersey, Marianne M.; Coble, Ran, eds. (1989). North Carolina Focus: An Anthology on State Government, Politics, and Policy. 2d ed. Raleigh: North Carolina Center for Public Policy Research.

Lefler, Hugh Talmage (1963). A Guide to the Study and Reading of North Carolina History. Online.

Lefler, Hugh Talmage; Newsome, Albert Ray (1954, 1963, 1973). North Carolina: The History of a Southern State. Standard textbook.

Link, William A. (2009). North Carolina: Change and Tradition in a Southern State. History by leading scholar.

Luebke, Paul (1990). Tar Heel Politics: Myths and Realities.

Powell, William S. (1979-88). Dictionary of North Carolina Biography. Vol. 1, A-C; vol. 2, D-G; vol. 3, H-K.

Powell, William S. (1958). North Carolina Fiction, 1734-1957: An Annotated Bibliography.

Powell, William S. (1989). North Carolina through Four Centuries. Standard textbook.

Powell, William S.; Mazzocchi, Jay, eds. (2006). Encyclopedia of North Carolina.

Ready, Milton. (2005). The Tar Heel State: A History of North Carolina.

Thuesen, Sarah Caroline. (2013). Greater Than Equal: African American Struggles for Schools and Citizenship in North Carolina, 1919-1965. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press.

WPA Federal Writers' Project (1939). North Carolina: A Guide to the Old North State. Famous WPA guide to every town.

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North Carolina () is a state in the southeastern region of the United States. North Carolina is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the 50 United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and South Carolina to the south, and Tennessee to the west.

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The Province of North Carolina, originally known as Albemarle Province, was a province of Great Britain that existed in North America from 1712 to 1776.(p. 80) It was one of the five Southern colonies and one of the thirteen American colonies. The monarch of Great Britain was represented by the Governor of North Carolina, until the colonies declared independence on July 4, 1776.

"Carolina" is taken from the Latin word for " Charles" ( Carolus), honoring King Charles II, and was first named in the 1663 Royal Charter granting to Edward, Earl of Clarendon; George, Duke of Albemarle; William, Lord Craven; John, Lord Berkeley; Anthony, Lord Ashley; Sir George Carteret, Sir William Berkeley, and Sir John Colleton the right to settle lands in the present-day U.S. states of North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida.

The Province of Carolina before and after the split into north and south

King Charles II granted the Charter of Carolina in 1663 for land south of the British Colony of Virginia and north of Spanish Florida. He granted the land to eight lords proprietor, namely Edward, Earl of Clarendon; George, Duke of Albemarle; William, Lord Craven; John, Lord Berkeley; Anthony, Lord Ashley; Sir George Carteret; Sir William Berkeley; and Sir John Colleton. Charles granted the land in return for their financial and political assistance in restoring him to the throne in 1660. The granted lands included all or part of the present-day U.S. states of North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida.

The northern half of the Province of Carolina differed significantly from the southern half, and transportation and communication were difficult between the two regions, so a separate deputy governor was appointed to administer the northern region in 1691.

The partition of Carolina into the Province of North Carolina and the Province of South Carolina was completed at a meeting of the lords proprietor held at Craven House in London on December 7, 1710, although the same proprietors continued to control both colonies. The first provincial governor of North Carolina was Edward Hyde. Unrest against the proprietors in South Carolina in 1719 led King George I to directly appoint a governor in that province, whereas the lords proprietor continued to appoint the governor of North Carolina. Both Carolinas became royal colonies in 1729, after the British government had tried for nearly 10 years to locate and buy out seven of the eight lords proprietor. The remaining one-eighth share of the province was retained by members of the Carteret family until 1776, part of the Province of North Carolina known as the Granville District.

In 1755 Benjamin Franklin, the Postmaster-General for the American colonies, appointed James Davis as the first postmaster of North Carolina colony at New Bern. In October of that year the North Carolina Assembly awarded Davis the contract to carry the mail between Wilmington, North Carolina and Suffolk, Virginia.

By the late eighteenth century, the tide of immigration to North Carolina from Virginia and the Province of Pennsylvania began to swell. The Scots-Irish ( Ulster Protestants) from present-day Northern Ireland were the largest immigrant group from the British Isles to the colonies before the American Revolution. Indentured servants, who arrived mostly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, comprised the majority of English settlers prior to the Revolution. On the eve of the Revolution, North Carolina was the fastest-growing British colony in North America.

The Granville District

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 eighteenth until the twentieth century. 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. The Tidewater in eastern North Carolina was settled chiefly by immigrants from rural England and the Scottish Highlands. The upcountry of western North Carolina was settled chiefly by Scots-Irish, English and German Protestants, and the so-called -poor, non-Anglican, independent farmers. During the Revolution, the English and Highland Scots of eastern North Carolina tended to remain loyal to the King because of longstanding business and personal connections with Great Britain. The English, Welsh, Scots-Irish, and German settlers of western North Carolina tended to favor American independence.

With no cities and very few towns or villages, the province was rural and thinly populated. Local taverns provided multiple services ranging from strong drink and beds for travelers to 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 and 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 world. The courthouse was usually the most imposing building in 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.

The Great Valley Road

Expansion westward began early in the eighteenth century from the provincial seats of power on the coast, particularly after the conclusion of the Tuscarora and Yamasee wars, in which the largest barrier was removed to provincial settlement farther inland. Settlement in large numbers became more feasible over the Appalachian Mountains after the French and Indian War and the accompanying Anglo-Cherokee War, in which the Cherokee and Catawba were effectively neutralized. King George III issued the Proclamation of 1763 in order to stifle potential conflict with Indians in that region, including the Overhill Cherokee. This barred any settlement near the headwaters of any rivers or streams that flowed westward towards the Mississippi River. It included several North Carolina rivers, such as the French Broad and Watauga. This proclamation was not strictly obeyed and was widely detested in North Carolina, but it somewhat delayed migration westward until after the Revolution.

Settlers continued to flow westwards in smaller numbers, despite the prohibition, and several trans-Appalachian settlements were formed. Most prominent was the Watauga Association, formed in 1772 as an independent territory within the bounds of North Carolina which adopted its own written constitution. Notable frontiersmen such as Daniel Boone traveled back and forth across the invisible proclamation line as market hunters, seeking valuable pelts to sell in eastern settlements, and many served as leaders and guides for groups who settled in the Tennessee River valley and the Kentucke County.

The oldest counties were Albemarle County (1664-1689) and Bath County (1696-1739). During the period of 1668 to 1774, 32 counties were created. As western counties, such as Anson and Rowan Counties were created, their western borders were not well defined and extended west as far as the Mississippi. Toward the end of this period, the boundaries were more well defined and extended to include the Cherokee lands in the west.

Two important maps of the province were produced: one by Edward Moseley in 1733, and another by John Collet in 1770. Moseley was surveyor general of North Carolina in 1710 and from 1723 to 1733. He was also the first provincial treasurer of North Carolina, starting in 1715. Moseley was responsible, with William Byrd, for surveying the boundary between North Carolina and Virginia in 1728. Other maps exist dating to the early period of the Age of Discovery that depict the coastline of the province along with that of South Carolina.

The ports for which there were Customs Agents in the Province of North Carolina included: Bath, Roanoke, Currituck Precinct, Brunswick (Cape Fear), and Beaufort (Topsail Inlet).

There were 52 new towns established in the Province of North Carolina between 1729 and 1775. Major towns during this period included: Bath (chartered in 1705), Brunswick (founded after 1726, destroyed during the Revolution), Campbellton (established in 1762), Edenton (chartered in 1712), Halifax (chartered in 1757), Hillsborough (1754), Newbern (settled in 1710, chartered in 1723), Salisbury (chartered in 1753), and Wilmington (founded in 1732, chartered in 1739 or 1740). Each of these nine major towns had a single representative in the North Carolina House of Burgesses in 1775. Campbellton and the town of Cross Creek (established in 1765) were combined in 1783 to form the town of Fayetteville.

There were two primary branches of government, the governor and his council and the assembly, called the House of Burgesses. All provincial officials were appointed by either the lords proprietor prior to 1728 or The King afterwards. The King received advice for appointment of the governor from the Secretary of State for the Southern Department. The governor was accountable to the Secretary of State and the Board of Trade. The governor was also responsible for commissioning officers and provisioning the provincial militia. Besides the governor, other provincial officials included a secretary, attorney general, surveyor general, the receiver general, Chief Justice, five Customs Collectors for each of the five ports in North Carolina, and a council. The Council advised the governor and also served as the upper house of the legislature. Members of the lower house of the legislature, the House of Burgesses, were elected from precincts (counties after 1736) and from districts (also called boroughs or towns, which were large centers of population).

The Governor's Palace, Newbern, seat of both houses of the General Assembly of North Carolina

The eight provincial governors appointed by the King were:

1. Edward Hyde (1712)

2. Charles Eden (1714-1722)

3. George Burrington (1724-1725), (1731-1734)

4. Sir Richard Everard (1725-1731)

5. Gabriel Johnston (1734-1752)

6. Arthur Dobbs (1754-1764)

7. William Tryon (1764-1771)

8. Josiah Martin (1771-1776)

The last provincial council included the following members:

Samuel Cornell

William Dry

George Mercer (Lieutenant Governor)

James Hasell (Chief Baron of the Exchequer, Acting Governor in 1771)

Martin Howard (Chief Justice)

Alexander McCulloch

Robert Palmer

John Rutherfurd (Receiver General)

Lewis Henry De Rosset

John Sampson

Samuel Strudwick (Clerk)

Thomas McGuire (Attorney General)

Governor Martin issued a proclamation on April 8, 1775, dissolving the General Assembly after they presented a resolve endorsing the Continental Congress that was to be held in Philadelphia. The provincial council met for the last time onboard HMS Cruizer in the Cape Fear River on July 18, 1775, they believed that the "deluded people of this Province" would see their error and return to their allegiance to the King.

The Court Act of 1746 established a supreme court, initially known as the General Court, which sat twice a year at Newbern, consisting of a Chief Justice and three Associate Justices. The 14 chief justices of the Supreme Court appointed by the King included the following:

Bassett, John Spencer (1896). Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina. Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, 14th series, numbers 4-5. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.

Cheshire, Joseph Blount Jr. (May 1890). The Church in the Province of North Carolina (Speech). Joint Centennial Convention of the Dioceses of North and East Carolina. Tarboro, N.C. - via Internet Archive.

Collet, John; Bayly, I. (1770). A Compleat map of North-Carolina from an actual Survey (Map). London: S. Hooper - via University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"Records of the Executive Council 1664-1734," "Records of the Executive Council 1734-1754," and "Records of the Executive Council 1755-1775," edited by Robert J. Cain, and published by the North Carolina State Archives between 1984 and 1994.

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The Province of North Carolina, originally known as Albemarle Province, was a province of Great Britain that existed in North America from 1712 to 1776.(p. 80) It was one of the five Southern colonies and one of the thirteen American colonies.