North Carolina’s Native American History
People began living in the area now known as North Carolina at least 12,000 years ago. Starting around 700 A.D., indigenous people created more permanent settlements, and many Native American groups populated North Carolina, such as the Cape Fear, Cheraw, Cherokee, Chowanoke, Croatoan, Meherrin, Saponi, Tuscarora and Waccamaw.
Europeans started to settle in the area in the mid-1600s. Native Americans attacked settlements, while colonists enslaved indigenous people, seized their lands and took advantage of them in trading negotiations. Scores of Native Americans were displaced from North Carolina or killed by smallpox and other diseases brought by the settlers.
Skirmishes between colonists and indigenous people eventually led to the Tuscarora War, which began in 1711 when the Tuscarora people attacked colonial settlements in North Carolina, attempting to drive out colonists backed by the Yamasee tribe. In 1713, hundreds of Tuscarora were killed or sold into slavery; most who remained migrated north to join the Iroquois Confederation.
Starting in the early 1700s, the Cherokee people in North Carolina were forced to cede large portions of their land to American colonists. Colonists and the Cherokee regularly got into armed conflicts. In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, and five years later about 17,000 Cherokee were forcibly moved from North Carolina to present-day Oklahoma on what became known as the Trail of Tears. About 4,000 people died. After several hundred Cherokee refused to leave North Carolina, the American government established a reservation for the Eastern Band of Cherokee.
Today, there are eight federally-recognized Native American tribes in North Carolina, including the Coharie, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the Haliwa-Saponi, the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, the Meherrin, the Sappony, the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation and the Waccamaw Siouan.
North Carolina’s Colonial History
Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto landed in North Carolina in the 1540s but left without staking a claim. In 1584, explorers traveling for the English adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh arrived at Roanoke Island, North Carolina, and the first English settlement was established there in 1585. The settlers developed a hostile relationship with indigenous people, and Sir Francis Drake took most settlers back to England in 1586. When a rescue ship returned, the remaining few had vanished.
Fifteen men from the ship remained to secure the land for the English. Their bones were found in 1587 by explorer John White, who was sent by Raleigh with 116 English settlers to set up a colony. White left the island to secure supplies, and when he returned three years later the settlers had 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 Roanoake settlement became known as the Lost Colony.
In 1629, King Charles I created the province of Carolina from northern Florida to Albermarle Sound. In the 1600s, the first colonists from Virginia began permanently settling in Carolina. A northern colony was established in the county of Albemarle in 1664, followed by a southern colony with its own government at Charles Town (now Charlestown, South Carolina) in 1670, and North Carolina and South Carolina were officially divided in 1712.
North Carolina in the Revolutionary War
In the 17th century, North Carolina residents became angered by the navigation acts, which imposed taxes on colonial goods. To retaliate against the taxes and abuse of power flaunted by the customs collector and deputy governor, Thomas Miller, a group of about 40 North Carolina rebels imprisoned Miller and seized control of the 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.
On November 2, 1769, North Carolina signed a nonimportation agreement to resist British taxes. Thought to be the first time a legislative body acted during the Revolutionary War, it may have inspired the North Carolina slogan “First in Freedom.” The slogan may also refer to the “Halifax Resolves,” which was when North Carolina's assembly authorized their Continental Congress delegates to vote for independence from Great Britain, on April 12, 1776—the first official state action for independence.
Five battles were fought in North Carolina during the American Revolution. In 1780, following the disastrous siege of Charleston, South Carolina, the Battle of King’s Mountain in North Carolina proved a major defeat for the British attempt to secure the southern colonies. North Carolina became the 12th state in the Union when its General Assembly ratified the U.S. Constitution on November 21, 1789.
