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North
Carolina developed distinctly from South Carolina almost
from the beginning. As early as 1689, the Carolina
proprietors named a separate governor for the region of the
colony that lay to the north and east of
Cape Fear. By 1712, the term "North
Carolina" was in common use. In 1728, the dividing line
between North Carolina and Virginia was surveyed. By 1729,
the Crown bought out seven of the eight original
proprietors, making North Carolina a royal colony.
The
proprietor who refused to sell was
John Carteret,
2nd Earl Granville, who in 1744 received rights to the
vast Granville Tract, constituting the northern half of
North Carolina. This happened just as the tide of
immigration to North Carolina from Virginia and Pennsylvania
started to swell. Many of the mid-eighteenth-century
immigrants were farmers of
Scots-Irish or German descent. On
the eve of the American Revolution, North Carolina was the
fastest-growing British colony in North America. 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. By 1760, African slaves constituted one quarter of
North Carolina's population.
In the late
1760s, tensions between Piedmont farmers and coastal
planters welled up in the
Regulator movement. With specie scarce, many inland
farmers found themselves unable to pay their taxes and
resented the consequent seizure of their property. Governor
William Tryon's conspicuous
consumption in the construction of a new governor's mansion
at New Bern fuelled their
resentment. As the western districts were underrepresented
in the colonial legislature, it was difficult for the
farmers to obtain redress by legislative means. Ultimately,
the frustrated farmers took to arms and closed the court in
Hillsborough.
Tryon sent troops to the region and defeated the Regulators
at the Battle of Alamance
in May 1771.
North Carolina in the American
Revolution
Although
wealthy coastal settlers opposed the Regulators, they too
were growing unhappy with royal government in the 1760s. In
the spring of 1776, North Carolinians, meeting in the fourth
of their
Provincial Congresses, drafted the
Halifax Resolves, a set of
resolutions that empowered the state's delegates to the
Second Continental
Congress to concur in a declaration of independence from
Great Britain. In November 1776, North Carolina
representatives gathered in Halifax to write a new
state constitution,
which remained in effect until 1835.
Although
North Carolina was spared violence in the early years of the
Revolutionary War, it was a major focus of fighting in
1780-81. American general
Nathanael Greene British forces under
Charles Cornwallis at the
Battle of Guilford
Court House in March 1781.
The
United States
Constitution drafted in 1787 was controversial in North
Carolina. Delegates meetings at Hillsboro in July 1788
initially voted to reject it. They were persuaded to change
their minds partly by the strenuous efforts of
James Iredell and
William Davies and partly by
the prospect of a Bill of Rights. Meanwhile, residents in
the wealthy northeastern part of the state, who generally
supported the proposed Constitution, threatened to secede if
the rest of the state did not fall into line. A second
ratifying convention was held in Fayetteville in November
1789, and on November 21, North Carolina became the twelfth
state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
North
Carolina adopted a new state constitution in 1835. One of
the major changes was the introduction of direct election of
the governor, for a term of two years; prior to 1835, the
legislature elected the governor for a term of one year.
North Carolina's current capitol building was completed in
1840.
James K. Polk, who was
president of the United States from 1845 until 1849, was
born in North Carolina. Andrew
Jackson, who was president of the United States from
1829 until 1837, was most likely born in South Carolina, but
is sometimes also claimed as a native of North Carolina.
As a
plantation state, North Carolina had a long history of
slavery. In the fraught election of 1860, North Carolina's
electoral votes went to Southern Democrat
John C. Breckinridge, an
adamant supporter of slavery who hoped to extend the
"peculiar institution" to the United States' western
territories, rather than to the Constitutional Union
candidate, John
Bell, who carried much of the upper South. Yet North
Carolina (in marked contrast to most of the states that
Breckinridge carried) was reluctant to secede from the Union
when it became clear that Republican
Abraham Lincoln had won the
presidential election. In fact, North Carolina did not
secede until May 20, 1861, after the fall of
Fort Sumter and the secession of
the Upper South's bellwether, Virginia.
North Carolina was the last of the eleven Confederate states
to leave the Union.
Many North
Carolinians, especially yeoman farmers who owned few or no
slaves, felt ambivalently about the
Confederacy.
Draft-dodging, desertion, and tax evasion were common during
the Civil War years. The Union's naval blockade of Southern
ports and the breakdown of the Confederate transportation
system took a heavy toll on North Carolina residents, as did
the runaway inflation of the war years. In the spring of
1863, there were food riots in North Carolina (as well as
Georgia).
North
Carolina was readmitted to the Union in 1868, after
ratifying a new state constitution and the Fourteenth
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Its government was
"redeemed" by Southern Democrats in 1870. After the
Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871
went into effect, the U.S. Attorney General,
Amos T. Akerman, vigorously
prosecuted Klan members in North Carolina. Anti-Klan efforts
by Governor William W. Holden,
combined with other controversies, led to his impeachment
and removal from office in 1871.
Andrew Johnson, who became
president of the United States following Lincoln's
assassination in the spring of 1865 and remained in office
until succeeded by Ulysses S.
Grant in 1872, was born in North Carolina.
Post-war economic development
During the
late 19th century, North Carolina's Piedmont region
developed a cotton textile industry,
based in close-knit company towns. The introduction of
manufacturing helped to diversify North Carolina's
overwhelming agricultural economy.
On December
17, 1903, the Wright brothers
made the first successful airplane flight at Kitty Hawk,
North Carolina.
In the
early 20th century, North Carolina launched both a major
education initiative and a major road-building initiative to
enhance the state's economy. The educational initiative was
launched by Governor
Charles Aycock in 1901; supposedly, North Carolina built
one school per day while Aycock was in office. The state's
road-building initiative began in the 1920s, after the
automobile became a popular mode of transportation. During
the early decades of the 20th century, North Carolina became
the site of several major U.S. military installations,
notably Fort Bragg.
North Carolina since the New Deal
In the
period since the 1930s, North Carolina's reputation as an
educational and manufacturing center has continued to grow.
During World War II, North
Carolina supplied the U.S. armed forces with diverse
manufactured goods, including more textiles than any other
state in the nation. North Carolina also became known for
its excellent universities. Three major institutions compose
the state's
Research Triangle: the
University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill (chartered in 1789 and greatly
expanded from the 1930s on),
North Carolina
State University, and Duke
University (rechartered in 1924).
Another
major theme of North Carolina history in the era since the
New Deal has been racial
desegregation. The sit-in
that began at the Woolworth's lunch counter in
Greensboro on
February 1, 1960, sparked a wave of copycat sit-ins across
the American South. The Greensboro sit-in continued
sporadically for several months until, on July 25,
African-Americans were at last allowed to eat at
Woolworth's.
In 1971,
North Carolina's third
state constitution
was ratified. A 1997 amendment to this constitution granted
the governor veto power over most
legislation.
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