Carolinas

“ Perchance never in the history of the Carolinas has there at any one time so much of true bravery been shown as we saw then when the only discontent was because one was more favored than another in the permission to offer his life as a sacrifice. ”

“ The history of the Carolinas only resembles that of Maryland in the fact that they were both proprietary colonies. The swampy and low-lying coast to the south of Virginia had, in the early years of colonisation, offered little temptation to settlers, and long remained uninhabited by Englishmen or Spaniards. Certainly in 1564, Laudonnière, a Huguenot gentleman and naval officer, attempted a plantation at Port Royal in South Carolina, and named his fortress Caroline, "in honour of our Prince, King Charles" ”

“ The settlement of mountainous and middle North Carolina was practically by the same elements,—Scotch-Irish, Germans, Moravians, and Quakers,—as came to Pennsylvania. Many emigrants landing at Philadelphia and New Castle, Delaware, settled first in Pennsylvania and moved southward through the Valley and Piedmont of Virginia to the Carolinas. ”

“ In 1663 Charles II. cut off the southern part of Virginia, the area covering the present states of North and South Carolina and Georgia, and it was formed into a new province called Carolina. In 1729 the two groups of settlements which had grown up along its coast were definitively separated into North and South Carolina; and in 1732 the frontier portion toward Florida was organized into the colony of Georgia. Thus four of the original thirteen states—Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia—were constituted in the southern zone. ”

“ If those who make up the ragamuffin following of Mister Washington could not depend on such as you to provide for the women and children, they might be forced to remain at home where they belong, instead of hatching treason, and I could then, perhaps, clear this portion of the colonies of every male inhabitant who is old enough to be of service in any capacity. Before I have performed my mission you of the Carolinas shall understand what rebellion means, for it is my purpose to teach you a lesson. ”

“ The slower advance is explained, partly because of the later settlement of the Carolinas, partly because the Indians continued to be troublesome on the flanks of the advancing population, as seen in the Tuscarora and Yemassee wars, and partly because the pine barrens running parallel with the fall line made a zone of infertile land not attractive to settlers. The North Carolina low country, indeed, had from the end of the seventeenth century been a kind of southern frontier for overflow from Virginia ”

“ The old charters of Massachusetts, Virginia, and the Carolinas had given title to strips of territory extending from the Atlantic westward to the Pacific. ”

“ Until nearly a century after the founding of the Carolinas there was not a town in North Carolina that had a population of 1000, and the urban population of the state was exceptionally small at the beginning of the rapid rise of the manufacturing industries about 1880. ”

“ There were boundary disputes with Maryland, and there was so much trouble in “The Territories” that in 1703 Penn made the latter the separate province of Delaware. Disputes in both provinces continued, however, and lasted, under both him and his heirs, down to the Revolution. Nevertheless, there was a marked and continuous growth in material prosperity.
THE SOUTHERN COLONIES. 72. The Settlement of the Carolinas.—As we have seen, attempts had been made to settle in the region between Spanish Florida and Virginia, both by French Huguenots and by Englishmen sent out by Raleigh. ”

“ In North Carolina alone it seems to have come about with the peaceful assent of all parties. ... Without a struggle, North Carolina cast off all traces of its peculiar origin and passed into the ordinary state of a crown colony." J. A. Doyle, The English in America: Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas, chapter 12. NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1710. Palatine colonization at New Berne. See PALATINES. NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1711-1714. Indian rising and massacre of colonists. Subjugation and expulsion of the Tuscaroras. See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: IROQUOIS TRIBES OF THE SOUTH. NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1740. ”

“ The rich and beautiful lands which fell under the eye of the North Carolina and Virginia pioneers under Waddell, Byrd, and Stephen, lured them irresistibly on to wider casts for fortune and bolder explorations into the unknown, beckoning West. ”

“ Twenty thousand acres of land were reserved for the original Proprietors, but at the same time a notice was issued inviting planters to settle in the colony, promising one hundred acres to each settler within five years, together with the privilege of residing in a land blest with the doctrine of freedom of conscience. This notice was published not only in England, but also in Barbadoes, the Bermudas, Virginia and New England, so that the colonisation of the Carolinas was not only, nor even mainly, undertaken by adventurers from the home country. ”

“ The negro population grew by leaps and bounds, until on the eve of the Revolution it amounted to more than half a million. In five states—Maryland, Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia—the slaves nearly equalled or actually exceeded the whites in number. In South Carolina they formed almost two-thirds of the population. Even in the Middle colonies of Delaware and Pennsylvania about one-fifth of the inhabitants were from Africa. ”

“ So rapid was the settlement in North Carolina that in the interval 1717-32 the population quadrupled in numbers. A map of the 4 colonial settlements in 1725 reveals a narrow strip of populated land along the Atlantic coast, of irregular indentation, with occasional isolated nuclei of settlements further in the interior. The civilization thus established continued to maintain a close and unbroken communication with England and the Continent. As long as the settlers, for economic reasons, clung to the coast, they reacted but slowly to the transforming influences of the frontier. ”

“ An excellent pen-picture of educational and cultural conditions in the backwoods of North Carolina, by one of the early settlers in the middle of the century, exhibits in all their barren cheerlessness the hardships and limitations of life in the wilderness. The father of William Few, the narrator, had trekked down from Maryland and settled in Orange County, some 26 miles east of the little hamlet of Hillsborough. ”

“ We humbly thank North Carolina for every sentiment of regard she has for us, but are sorry to observe, that as it is founded upon principles of interest, as is aparent from the tenor of your letter, we are doubtful, when the cause ceases which is the basis of that affection, we shall lose your esteem. ”

“ Atchison, “there is only one possible solution. When the rest of us have entered the dining-room and taken our places, a bugle will sound; the governor of North Carolina shall enter from the north door; the governor of South Carolina from the south door, and advance to seats facing each other midway of the table. Professor Griswold, you are an old friend of the family, and you shall yourself take me in to dinner.” ”

“ Two distinct classes of society were gradually drawing apart from each other in North Carolina and later in Virginia—the pioneer democracy of the back country and the upland, and the planter aristocracy of the lowland and the tide-water region. From the frontier came the pioneer explorers whose individual enterprise and initiative were such potent factors in the exploitation of the wilderness. ”

“ In the beginning the settlements gradually extended westward from the coast in irregular outline, the indentations taking form around 5 such natural centers of attraction as areas of fertile soil, frontier posts, mines, salt-springs, and stretches of upland favorable for grazing. After a time a second advance of settlement was begun in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, running in a southwesterly direction along the broad terraces to the east of the Appalachian Range, which in North Carolina lies as far as two hundred and fifty miles from the sea. ”

“ Gabriel Johnston, Governor of North Carolina, to the Secretary of the Board of Trade, February 15, 1751.
At the opening of the eighteenth century the tide of population had swept inland to the "fall line," the westward boundary of the established settlements. The actual frontier had been advanced by the more aggressive pioneers to within fifty miles of the Blue Ridge. ”

“ Emigrants from the north of Ireland, by the way of Pennsylvania, flocked to that country; and a considerable part of North Carolina ... is inhabited by those people or their descendants." [5] From 1740 onward, attracted by the rich lure of cheap and even free lands in Virginia and North Carolina, a tide of immigration swept ceaselessly into the valleys of the Shenandoah, the Yadkin, and the Catawba. ”

“ In the North Carolina piedmont region the proprietary, Lord Granville, through his agents was disposing of the 10 most desirable lands to settlers at the rate of three shillings proclamation money for six hundred and forty acres, the unit of land-division; and was also making large free grants on the condition of seating a certain proportion of settlers. "Lord Carteret's land in Carolina," says North Carolina's first American historian, "where the soil was cheap, presented a tempting residence to people of every denomination. ”

“ We hope by this time you have entered upon your government of our province of Carolina, and therefore we earnestly require your endeavours to reconcile the minds of the inhabitants to each other, that the name of parties, if any yet remains among them, may be utterly extinguished: for we can by no means doubt, but their unanimous concurrence with our endeavours for their prosperity, will most effectually render Carolina as flourishing a colony as any in America. ”

“ This province was to be called Carolina, either in honour of Charles I., or because the name had been given by the Huguenots in 1562 in honour of Charles IX. of France to a point farther south on that coast and was vaguely applicable to territory between Virginia and Florida. A charter conveying this land to Lord Baltimore had already been made out when Claiborne appeared with his objections, which were supported by other persons in London who were entertaining schemes for founding a sugar-planting colony in Carolina. ”

“ Almost simultaneously another colony (Clarendon) was settled in what is now North Carolina. As early as 1660 some adventurers from Massachusetts had gone to the Cape Fear, sometimes called the Charles, River, and purchased lands from the Indians; but in a few years abandoned the situation, leaving their cattle and swine in care of the natives. To the same locality the attention of the inhabitants of Barbadoes [709] was directed on the grant of the territory to the powerful noblemen whose names are given in the charter. ”

“ It is very well known, that Carolina can raise every thing that this Colony can ; and they having their Labour so much cheaper will always ruin our Market, unless we are in some Measure on a Footing with them ; and as in both, the Land is worn out in four or five Years, and then fit for Nothing but Pasture ; we must be always at a great deal more Expence than they in Clearing new Land for Planting. ”

“ Neither aristocratic like Virginia and South Carolina, nor turbulent like Georgia, nor troubled by a sense of social importance, but above all thoroughly democratic, North Carolina tolerated more freedom of political action and showed less fam­ily and social influence, fewer vested rights in political power, and less tyranny of slaveholding interests and terrors than were common elsewhere in the South. Neither cultivated nor brilliant in intellect, nor great in thought, industry, energy, or organiza­tion, North Carolina was still interesting and respect­able. ”

“ The Inhabitants of Carolina, thro' the Richness of the Soil, live an easy and pleasant Life. The Land being of several sorts of Compost, some stiff, others light, some marl, others rich black Mould; here barren of Pine, but affording Pitch, Tar, and Masts; there vastly rich, especially on the Freshes of the Rivers, one part bearing great Timbers, others being Savanna's or natural Meads, where no Trees grow for several Miles, adorn'd by Nature with a pleasant Verdure, and beautiful Flowers, frequent in no other Places, yielding abundance of Herbage for Cattle, Sheep, and Horse. ”

“ The fruits of industry perished on the spot where they were produced, or were consumed by the foe.
The plains of Carolina drank up the most precious blood of her citizens. Black, smoking ruins marked the places which had been the habitation of her children. Driven from their homes into the gloomy and almost impenetrable swamps, even there the spirit of liberty survived, and South Carolina, sustained by the example of her Sumters and her Marions, proved, by her conduct, that though her soil might be overrun, the spirit of her people was invincible. ”

“ Besides, what the Mountainous Part of this Land may hereafter lay open to our View, Time and Industry will discover, for we that have settled but a small Share of this large Province, cannot imagine, but there will be a great number of Discoveries made by those that shall come hereafter into the Back-part of this Land, and make Enquiries therein, when, at least, we consider that the Westward of Carolina is quite different in Soil, Air, Weather, Growth of Vegetables, and several Animals too, which we at present are wholly Strangers to, and to seek for. ”

“ North Carolina, rich in biographical notices of
distinguished citizens and inscriptions from their
tombstones, upon reading which one might well
wonder why North Carolina had not long ago
eclipsed the rest of the world in wealth, wisdom,
glory, and renown. On almost every page of this
monumental work could be found the most ardent
panegyrics of liberty, side by side with the slavery
statistics of the State,--an incongruity of which
the learned author was deliciously unconscious. ”