Before European contact. The earliest Native North Carolinians arrived on state land by at least 8,000 B.C., but they may have been there much earlier. They were people of the Paleo-Indian culture who lived mostly by hunting. The Mississippian culture, which formed around 800 AD, had a more hierarchical social order and stronger political organization, but was otherwise similar to the earlier culture in its advanced agricultural system and mound-building traditions.
Several European explorers have reached modern North Carolina. In 1524 the Italian navigator Giovanni da Verrazzano arrived at the mouth of the Cape Fear River. Hernando de Soto traveled through the western mountains in 1540. In 1584 Englishman Sir Walter Raleigh received a grant from Queen Elizabeth I to hold land in North America, and he sent an exploratory expedition that returned with a report optimistic for potential settlement.
After attempts by Raleigh and others to colonize the coastal areas in the 1580s, the territory remained indigenous possession for decades. A grant from King Charles I in 1629 for lands south of Virginia led to the term Carolina, but there was no final settlement until Virginia farmers and merchants moved to the Albemarle Sound area in the 1650s.
The turnaround in the colony’s fortunes occurred during the decades of royal rule. The population grew rapidly, settlements spread across the Piedmont, and wealth and quality of life grew. Large numbers of slaves supported an agricultural economy based on tobacco and rice, as well as naval supplies from the region’s vast pine forests. Before the American Revolution, the beginnings of intense East-West animosity escalated into several rebellions.
Civil War and Reconstruction.
Unlike South Carolina, whose strident pro-slavery votes led the South to secession, North Carolina reluctantly left the Union, seeking compromise until the last moment. North Carolina voted for secession only when President Abraham Lincoln called the troops to war. Many North Carolinians fought for the Confederate States of America (Confederacy), although much of the fighting took place elsewhere.
North Carolina ratified the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution (which abolished slavery) in 1865, but like most southern states, white authorities in North Carolina tried to adopt new ways of controlling newly freed slaves. In 1867, Republicans in the U.S. Congress reasserted their authority over Reconstruction. The U.S. Congress sent the U.S. Army to oversee southern state governments (including North Carolina) and insisted on new constitutions protecting the rights of African Americans.
In the late 19th century, North Carolina’s economy began to form a stronger manufacturing sector, aided by the growth of textile mills and cigarette production. The Piedmont region was dotted with cotton mills. With the invention of the cigarette machine in the 1880s and the ensuing increase in cigarette consumption, tobacco factories expanded, mostly in the Winston-Salem area. By the early 20th century, the state’s income from manufacturing became more important than farm income. Moreover, North Carolina entered the era of aviation with the first successful piloting of an engine-powered airplane in 1903 by Wilbur and Orville Wright on the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk, near Roanoke Island.
North Carolina since 1900
North Carolina in the 20th century was part of a national experience of shifting economic cycles. World War I was followed by a decade of significant economic and social developments, but the Great Depression of the 1930s brought widespread deprivation and severe cuts in education and other public services.
In the 1940s, the national defense program and World War II (1941-45) further rejuvenated North Carolina’s economy. Some of the nation’s largest military installations were located in the state, especially Fort Bragg in Fayetteville. North Carolina was a major supplier of military equipment and supplied the armed forces with more textile goods than any other state.
After the war, the state began a period of rapid change. New highways were built and cities grew as new industry and new people moved into the state. North Carolina experienced a period of steady growth and maintained one of the strongest economies in the United States. Its manufacturing base remained stronger than most states, and its service sector grew, especially in banking and various research fields. Cities such as Charlotte and the Raleigh-Durham area gained more business activity and tens of thousands of new residents.
There was renewed interest in politics, and by the 1970s a viable two-party system was back in the state. A Republican governor took office for the first time since the nineteenth century in 1973, and another between 1985 and 1993. The painful struggle to eliminate racial segregation that began in public schools in the 1950s and in the Greensboro dining halls in 1960 consumed the state’s energy throughout the 1960s. While much of racial segregation ended by the 1970s, the state is still burdened by vestiges of former discriminatory practices and prejudice. As the 21st century began, North Carolina continued to face enormous challenges in extending the benefits of education and economic prosperity to all its citizens and eliminating the last vestiges of racial discrimination.