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 Ante-Bellum North Carolina: A Social History Ante-Bellum North Carolina Guion Griffis Johnson xvi, 1- 935 p. CHAPEL HILL THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS 1937 Call number C917 J67a c. 18 (North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

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 Library of Congress Subject Headings English North Carolina -- Social life and customs. African Americans -- North Carolina -- Social conditions. North Carolina -- Social conditions. Women -- North Carolina -- Social conditions. North Carolina -- History. Plantation life -- North Carolina -- History. City and town life -- North Carolina -- History. Education -- North Carolina -- History. North Carolina -- Religion. Slavery -- North Carolina -- History. Social service -- North Carolina -- History. North Carolina -- Politics and government. Johnson, Guion Griffis, 1900- -- Interviews. 2002-02-28, Celine Noel and Wanda Gunther revised TEIHeader and created catalog record for the electronic edition. 2002-02-15, Natalia Smith, project manager, finished TEI-conformant encoding and final proofing. 2002-01-16 Melissa Meeks finished TEI/SGML encoding 2001-12-21, Apex Data Services, Inc. finished transcribing the text.

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 ANTE-BELLUM NORTH CAROLINA

The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, N. C.; The Baker and Taylor Company, New York; Oxford University Press, London; Maruzen—Kabushiki—Kaisha, Tokyo; Edward Evans & Sons, Ltd., Shanghai; D. B. Centen's Wetenschappelijke Boekhandel, Amsterdam.

TO Guy, Benton, and Edward

 ANTE-BELLUM NORTH CAROLINA A Social History BY GUION GRIFFIS JOHNSON CHAPEL HILL THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS 1937 COPYRIGHT, 1937, BY THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE SEEMAN PRINTERY, DURHAM, N. C., AND BOUND BY L. H. JENKINS, INC., RICHMOND, VA. PREFACE

THIS STUDY of the main currents of life and thought in North Carolina from the close of the Revolutionary period to the era of a new war is an attempt to describe the processes of social change. In the transition of a community of people from one philosophy of life to another, there are many gradations. All do not think alike or live alike. A few lead the way to a new order; but, long after the majority has fallen in line, a few still lag behind. This study is consequently a picture of the way the average North Carolinian lived his life between 1800 and 1860 with occasional details of the extremes to give emphasis to the whole.

In 1860 the average North Carolinian had seen many changes since the turn of the century. He had lived to see the results of the inventions of the steam engine and of the spinning-jenny. He had seen cables traverse his State from Virginia to South Carolina to bring news of the outside world by “lightning telegraph.” He had seen the stage coach give place to miles of railroads stretching north and south, east and west. He had seen property rights gradually give way to human rights at the polls, and he had seen the “eastern oligarchy” yield to “the unterrified democracy” of the West. He had seen the introduction of a public school system and the building of colleges. He had seen the State take a hand in the care of the insane, the deaf, and the blind. He had seen a convulsion of religious emotion at the opening of the century which added great numbers to the denominations and created new sects. He had seen the churches go out in the “waste places” seeking for members. In the field of medicine, he had seen the superstitious folk doctor gradually give ground to the trained practitioner. He had seen smallpox vaccine lessen the scourge of that dreaded disease and he had lived to see the introduction of chloroform, that “heaven-sent miracle.” He had seen the newspapers grow from puny sheets to organs of power and prestige. He had seen his State gradually acquire a native literature.

But he had seen other things as well. He had seen North Carolina drop from third to twelfth rank in the nation's population. He had seen his farm lands grow sterile from exhaustive methods of agriculture. He had seen his neighbors pull up stake and leave for more fertile regions in the South and Northwest. He had seen those left behind, bilious and despondent from malaria, fight against the competition of slave labor. He had seen the large planter growing more and more dependent upon slavery and slavery itself creating an ever increasing social problem as the black population grew in numbers. He had seen slavery become a great moral issue and insinuate itself into every phase of life. Of recent years each gale that swept from the North and West was bringing with it louder and louder imputations against the peculiar institution.

He had heard other echoes of reform. He had heard it said that the State should take a hand in caring for the poor unless it wished the poor eventually to smite it down. He had heard it said that the superior courts were inadequate and that the county courts ought to be abolished. He had heard that the State had the bloodiest criminal code in the nation, that it was unjust to hang a man for a crime when he might be sent to prison instead.

On all sides he heard people saying that the present generation was building a gingerbread civilization, that the youths of 1860 had become “extravagant and effeminate, fond of fine clothes and rich living, well-timed music and delicate women.” In the towns he saw sleek horses and handsome barouches, satins and hoop skirts; but on the small farms he still saw women laboring by day and by night, both in the house and in the field, to aid their husbands in feeding and clothing the family. Despite divorce suits and the agitation for larger property rights of the married woman, the wife's personality was still legally merged in that of the husband.

The average North Carolinian himself was confused by all this talk of reform and this malediction of the present generation. He went to church on Sunday, paid his taxes, and was at peace with the world. But he was at peace only so long as his taxes were low and he had enough left over from the sale of his crops to buy a few of those little luxuries which made life worth living. He had little time for reading; he acquired his knowledge through the ear, caught simultaneously without study and without trouble in the group at the crossroads store, talking over the news and the politics of the day, at church, at the muster-ground or tax-gathering, at the electioneering from the speeches of those who had been to Raleigh or to Washington. He sturdily supported the opinions which he gleaned and prided himself in the belief that he had evolved them out of his own wisdom.

This picture of North Carolina—a body politic emerging from the simplicities of the frontier to the complexities of civilized life—has cast long shadows, prophetic fingers pointing to the inevitable for a hundred years to come. The years between 1800 and 1860 shaped the future; it was a time of origins which still control many ways of life in North Carolina.

This study has been generously financed by the Institute for Research in Social Science of the University of North Carolina. It was planned originally as a study of “the newspaper press as a social force” under the direction of Gerald W. Johnson, at that time professor of journalism in the University of North Carolina, now editorial writer for the Baltimore Sun. Although this project has been greatly changed since Mr. Johnson first outlined it in 1924, it still retains something of his original plan. When it was decided to enlarge the study into a social history of the State, R. D. W. Connor, then professor of history in the University of North Carolina and now United States Archivist, gave many hours to discussion and suggestion and sympathetically guided the work during the first three years of research.

Many others have facilitated the research and organization of the study, patiently helping to uncover obscure data difficult to obtain, graciously improving the manuscript in style and perspective. Dr. A. R. Newsome, professor of history in the University of North Carolina, and Dr. C. C. Crittenden, secretary of the North Carolina Historical Commission, have read the entire manuscript and made many valuable notations. Dr. J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, director of the Southern History Collection in the University of North Carolina, Dr. Avery O. Craven, professor of history in the University of Chicago, Dr. T. J. Woofter, Jr., co-ordinator of rural research in the Works Progress Administration, and Dr. Jesse F. Steiner, professor of sociology in the University of Washington, have read Chapters I to VI. Dr. G. W. Paschal of Wake Forest College, Dr. Paul Neff Garber of the Duke University School of Religion, Miss Adelaide L. Fries, archivist of the southern province of the Moravian Church in America, Dr. S. M. Tenney, curator of the Historical Foundation of the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches, the Reverend Charles C. Ware, corresponding secretary of the North Carolina Christian Missionary Convention, and the Reverend A. S. Lawrence of the Chapel of the Cross have read Chapters XII to XV. The late Dr. B. U. Brooks of Durham read Chapters XVI to XXIV. Dr. J. S. Spurgeon of Hillsboro has read Chapter XXIV, Dr. A. C. McIntosh of the Law School of the University of North Carolina has read Chapters XXI and XXII, Mr. J. A. Warren of Chapel Hill has read Chapters XIV and XV. Professor Ernest R. Groves of the University of North Carolina has read Chapters VII and VIII, and Dean Elbert Russell of the Duke University School of Religion and Professor S. T. Emory of the University of North Carolina have read portions of chapters.

The materials used in this study have been obtained largely from North Carolina libraries, but the search for data has also led to such diverse sources as the Library of Congress and a farm-house attic in Texas. The librarians of the University of North Carolina and of Duke University have made their collections accessible for the purposes of this study. Miss Mary L. Thornton, librarian of the North Carolina Collection in the University of North Carolina Library, has been especially untiring in her assistance, as have Miss Elizabeth Hailey, assistant of the circulation department, Miss Georgia Faison, reference librarian, and Mrs. Lyman A. Cotten, in charge of the Southern Collection. Mr. B. E. Powell, reference librarian of Duke University, and Miss Katherine Hall, reference librarian of the University of Chicago, also have given valuable assistance. Dean R. B. House, Dr. A. R. Newsome, and Dr. C. C. Crittenden, who have served respectively as secretary of the North Carolina Historical Commission during the period of this research, and their assistants, Mrs. Susan T. West, Miss Sophie D. Busbee, and Mr. D. L. Corbitt, have greatly facilitated the collection of data. Miss Carrie L. Broughton, librarian of the North Carolina State Library, has patiently verified data, and Miss Pauline Hill, assistant librarian, has assisted in the location of materials. The late Marshall deLancey Haywood, Supreme Court librarian; Miss Nellie Rowe of the Greensboro Public Library; Miss Adelaide L. Fries of the Moravian Church Archives; Dr. S. M. Tenney of the Historical Foundation of the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches have all assisted in the location of materials in their care. Dr. and Mrs. J. S. Spurgeon of Hillsboro and Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Warren of Chapel Hill have discovered material in private hands and made it available for this study. During these tedious years of research, Dr. Howard W. Odum, director of the Institute for Research in Social Science, and Dr. Katharine Jocher, assistant director, have been sympathetically co-operative. Of Dr. Jocher's secretarial staff Mrs. A. E. Bevacqua has helped most with the details of the study. During the period of the collection of data, Miss Jessie Alverson typed many of the documents. To each of these and to many others, unnamed but nonetheless appreciated, I am deeply grateful. To my husband, Guy B. Johnson, I am especially indebted, for upon his sociological insight I have relied constantly.

G. G. J. Chapel Hill North Carolina CONTENTS PREFACE . . . . . vii I. COLONIAL ORIGINS . . . . . 3 Geographic Influence—Racial Composition—Extent of Settlement in 1790—Economic Conditions—Social Classes—Religion and Education. II. SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS . . . . . 20 Provincialism—Sectionalism—Conservatism—Individualism—Superstition. III. SOCIAL CLASSES . . . . . 52 Economic Basis—The Gentry—The Middle Class—The Yeomanry and Mechanics—The Poor Whites—The Movement toward Democracy—The Degradation of Labor. IV. RURAL LIFE . . . . . 80 Life on the Plantation—Ante-Bellum Fashions—Social Life on the Farm—Dance Frolics—The Country Tavern—The Crossroads Store and Merchant Mill—The Church, the School, and the Lodge—Militia Musters and Election Days—Country Fairs—Rural Sports. V. THE TOWN . . . . . 114 Locations—Town Portraits—Town Government—The Town Commission—Street Repairs—Protection against Fire—Town Markets and Town Halls—Public Celebrations—Funeral Ceremonies—Special Days. VI. TOWN LIFE . . . . . 151 Public Social Centers—Subscription Balls—Teas and Set Suppers—Benevolent and Literary Clubs—Lyceum Societies—Temperance Societies—City Guards—Music and Theatrical Societies—Sports—Summer Resorts. VII. COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE CUSTOMS . . . . . 191 Courtship Customs—The Coquette—The Engagement—The Marriage Ceremony—Extra-Marital Relations—Divorce and Alimony. VIII. FAMILY LIFE . . . . . 224 The Family Dwelling—The Ante-Bellum Woman—Housewifery—Woman's Legal Status—Woman as a Wage Earner—The Status of Children. IX. PUBLIC SCHOOLS . . . . . 259 Agitation—Early Free Schools—The Movement for Public Schools—Public Schools at Last—Calvin H. Wiley and the Common Schools. X. PRIVATE SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES . . . . . 283 Subscription Schools—Academies—Special Schools—The University of North Carolina—Denominational Colleges—The Education of Women. XI. EDUCATIONAL METHODS . . . . . 309 The Schoolhouse—School Equipment—The Curriculum—Grammar School Teachers—Academy Teachers—School Discipline. XII. RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS . . . . . 331 The Protestant Episcopal Church—Baptists—Methodists—Presbyterians—The Society of Friends—Lutherans—The German Reformed Church—Moravians—Disciples of Christ—Other Religious Groups. XIII. CAMP MEETING AND REVIVAL MOVEMENTS . . . . . 371 Antecedents of the Great Revival—The Coming of the Great Revival—The Great Revival Among the Methodists—The Baptists and the Great Revival—Revival Cycles—A Camp-Meeting Scene—Camp-Meeting Methods—The “Exercises”—The Psychology of the Revival—Camp-Meeting Disorders. XIV. CHURCH BENEVOLENCE . . . . . 410 Church Missions—Bible and Tract Societies—The Sunday School Movement—Poor Relief—Religious Work of Women—Religious Toleration. XV. THE CHURCH AND SOCIAL CONTROL . . . . . 434 The Meeting Houses—The Laborers in the Vineyard—Ministerial Education—Church Services—Keeping the Sabbath—Church Discipline—The Temperance Movement—The Church and Slavery. XVI. THE SLAVE SYSTEM . . . . . 468 The Slave Trade—Slave Labor—Typical Plantations—The Overseer. XVII. THE SLAVE CODE . . . . . 493 Plantation Discipline—The Slave Code—Slave Crimes—Slave Conspiracies. XVIII. THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE SLAVE . . . . . 522 Living Conditions—Slave Health—The Slave and His Money—Family Life—Education and Religion—Recreation. XIX. ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENT . . . . . 560 Some Anti-Slavery Views—Anti-Slavery Advocates—Colonization—Reaction against Abolition. XX. THE FREE NEGRO . . . . . 582 Distribution—Origin—Race Mixing—Manumission—Legal Status—The Free Negro as a Laborer—Notable Free Negroes. XXI. THE COURT SYSTEM . . . . . 613 The Magistrate's Court—The County Court—The Superior Court—The Supreme Court—The Movement for Reform—Reform in the County Courts—The Superior Court and Reform. XXII. THE CRIMINAL CODE . . . . . 644 Crimes and Punishments—The Movement for Reform—Imprisonment for Debt—Typical Crimes—Agitation for a Penitentiary—The Results of a Do-Nothing Policy—Public Executions—The County Jails. XXIII. THE CARE OF UNFORTUNATES . . . . . 683 Wardens of the Poor—Poor Tax—Care of the Poor—Poorhouses—Private Philanthropy—Charitable Societies—Orphans—Care of the Insane—The Deaf and the Blind. XXIV. SANITATION AND HEALTH . . . . . 717 Sanitation—Chills and Fevers—Summer and Winter Complaints—Smallpox—Other Communicable Diseases—Diseases of Women and Children—Surgery—Dentistry—The Faculty—Medical Therapy—Native Simples—Quackery—The Medical Board. XXV. THE NEWSPAPER AND PERIODICAL PRESS . . . . . 764 The Newspaper Press—Make-up and Contents—The News Policy—The Editorial Policy—The Periodical Press—Newspaper Finances. XXVI. THE INTELLECTUAL AWAKENING . . . . . 810 Broadsides, Almanacs, and Pamphlets—Book Printing—Religious Literature—Historical Writings—Biographies and Miscellaneous Writings—Ante-Bellum Wit—Fiction and Poetry—Retrospection. BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . 832 INDEX . . . . . 909 LIST OF TABLES Population by Nationalities in 1790 . . . . . 9 Population by Counties in 1790 . . . . . 14 Per Cent Increase of Population, 1790-1860 . . . . . 38 North Carolinians Living outside the State in 1860 . . . . . 40 Size of Farms in North Carolina in 1860 . . . . . 54 Slaveholding in 1790, 1850, and 1860 . . . . . 55 Per cent Distribution of Slaveholding in 1790, 1850, and 1860 . . . . . 56 Per Cent of Slaveholding Families in 1790, 1850, and 1860 . . . . . 56 Occupations in North Carolina, 1860 . . . . . 57 Labor Wage Scale in 1860 . . . . . 70 Size of North Carolina Towns, 1850 and 1860 . . . . . 114 Rate of Growth of Four Largest Towns in North Carolina, 1840, 1850, and 1860 . . . . . 117 Library Societies Incorporated before 1852-1853 . . . . . 166 Number of Illegitimate Children per Parent, 1800-1827 . . . . . 210 Number of Bastardy Cases in County Courts, 1801-1805, 1831-1835, and 1851-1855 . . . . . 211 Causes for Divorce, 1800-1835 . . . . . 221 Number of Free Persons per Dwelling, 1790, 1850, and 1860 . . . . . 227 Size of Families in 1790 . . . . . 251 Average Size of Free Families, 1790, 1850, and 1860 . . . . . 251 Size of Families in Slaveholding and Nonslaveholding Families, 1790 . . . . . 251 North Carolina Churches in 1860 . . . . . 369 Cases of Church Discipline, 1791-1860 . . . . . 450 Frequency of Trials at Wheeley's Meeting House, 1791-1860 . . . . . 453 Slave Interests of North Carolina Editors, 1850 . . . . . 566 Per Cent Increase of Free Negroes, 1790-1860 . . . . . 583 Offenses Heard in North Carolina County Courts, 1801-1805, 1831-1835, 1851-1855 . . . . . 658 Offenses Heard in Sixty-four North Carolina Courts, 1811-1815 . . . . . 659 Offenses Heard in Thirty-nine North Carolina Courts, 1839 . . . . . 660 Prosecutions in Sixty-four North Carolina Courts, 1811-1815 . . . . . 667 Prosecutions in Thirty-nine North Carolina Courts, 1839 . . . . . 670 Number of Children Apprenticed, 1801-1805, 1831-1835, 1851-1855 . . . . . 707 ANTE-BELLUM NORTH CAROLINA CHAPTER I COLONIAL ORIGINS

IT WAS 1849. The Gold Rush was on. Here and there a North Carolina farmer was selling out his little patch of land for a stake in far-off California. Like his brothers who had gone earlier to swell the tide of immigration that had peopled the Lower South and the Middle West, he had long since given up hope of prosperity in his native State. During this feverish time of clutching for the pot of gold which lay on the opposite side of a vast continent, the Raleigh Star dreamed of a day when North Carolina would smile to think that its people “ever supposed any land to be so happy and enticing as their good old State.”

“Let us indulge in a dream of the future and raise the curtain which hides coming events from us,” wrote the Star. Let us see North Carolina “opening highways, clearing out her rivers, improving her harbors, building railroads and turnpikes, and sending down the produce of her soil by lumbering car, or puffing steamboat, to the harbors which line her coast and are whited with the sails of the commerce of the world.”1

1 August 1, 1849.

Then, North Carolina will be able to keep her restless sons at home, and together her people will build up the great commonwealth of which the State gave promise at the close of the American Revolution.

Almost a hundred years earlier a North Carolina shipbuilder had also dreamed of a time when “this Thing Called Industry, or Labour, with the Produce of it” would make this “Government more valuable, and make the Commonalty a happy People.” It was 1746. William Borden had moved from Rhode Island to take up his trade on the coast of North Carolina. Instead of deep harbors and a brisk shipping trade, he found a sand-choked coast and a population paying tribute to neighboring colonies for want of a better system of navigation of their own. “Are not the Inhabitants [of North Carolina],” wrote William Borden, in an address to the people of his new home, “obliged to purchase all their foreign Necessaries at the very last and dearest Hand? When, perhaps, a Parcel of Goods or Merchandize have passed through the Expense of Navigation &c. in the neighboring Governments, and have passed through the Hands of many Merchants or Traders, and they have all had their Profits on them, and Living from them, then, perhaps, poor North-Carolina Planters have the Honour of eating, drinking, and wearing some of the riff-raff Remains, at a dear Rate: Pray, consider, then, what all this amounts to, but supporting Navigation and Trade in the neighboring Governments, at the Expence of the poor North Carolina Planters.”2

2 “An Address to the Inhabitants of North Carolina,” in W. K. Boyd (ed.), Some Eighteenth Century Tracts Concerning North Carolina, p. 72.

GEOGRAPHIC INFLUENCE

The geographic situation of North Carolina3

3 E. M. Douglas, Boundaries, Areas, Geographic Centers and Altitudes of the United States and the Several States, pp. 145-51, 248, 252, 254, 256; N. C. State Board of Agriculture, North Carolina and Its Resources, and North Carolina, the Land of Opportunity; Ebenezer Emmons, Geographical Report of the Midland Counties of North Carolina, Report of the North Carolina Geological Survey: Agriculture of the Eastern Counties, and Agriculture of North Carolina, Part II; W. C. Kerr, Report of the Geological Survey of North Carolina; Edmund Ruffin, Sketches of Lower North Carolina.

destined the Province to play a losing role in the competition for population and commerce.4

4 See R. D. W. Connor, North Carolina: Rebuilding an Ancient Commonwealth, 1584-1925, I, 3-25; J. S. Bassett, “The Influence of Coast Line and Rivers on North Carolina,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association, 1908, I, 58-61; P. B. Barringer, “Influence of Peculiar Conditions in the Early History of North Carolina,” Publications of the North Carolina Historical Commission, Bulletin No. 23, pp. 13-25; C. C. Crittenden, “The Seacoast in North Carolina History, 1763-1789,” North Carolina Historical Review (hereafter cited as NCHR), VII, 433-42; A. D. Murphey, “Memoir on the Internal Improvements Contemplated by the Legislature of North Carolina,” in The Papers of Archibald DeBow Murphey (ed. W. H. Hoyt), II, 105-95.

 Undoubtedly, the swift currents and the terrors of the reefs of Hatteras were influences in diverting colonization to the Chesapeake Bay after Sir Walter Raleigh's disastrous attempt on Roanoke Island in 1585. When settlement in North Carolina actually began, the absence of good harbors and the dangers of the sand bars off the coast impeded its colonization directly from Europe. The entire sea front, nearly 300 miles in length, is fringed by a series of narrow, shallow sounds which are separated from the ocean by a chain of sand dunes. These banks are occasionally pierced by narrow inlets, the changing character of which has been such as to make coastwise navigation at any point other than at the mouth of the Cape Fear River impracticable except for small vessels.

The presence of rocks, shoals, and falls in the rivers seriously obstructed their navigation, and the direction in which the rivers flow led the farmers along their banks to market their produce in Virginia or South Carolina. The Roanoke, one of the most important rivers in the State in the ante-bellum period, rises in Virginia, flows through a considerable portion of northeastern North Carolina, and empties into the Albermarle Sound. Virginia and North Carolina competed for the trade of the region watered by this river, Virginia usually being successful because of the reefs along Albermarle Sound. The Tar River rises near the Virginia line, and, running almost south, widens as it approaches the coast, taking on the name of Pamlico River. The tobacco and wheat which were raised on the upper branches of this river in Franklin, Granville, Warren, and Halifax counties were taken by wagon to Virginia in ante-bellum days. The Neuse River also has its sources near the Virginia line, and, running south, flows into Pamlico Sound. The tobacco, cotton, and wheat grown on the branches of the Neuse above Smithfield were taken by wagon to Virginia, while below Smithfield the river was used chiefly for transporting lumber and naval stores to New Bern.

The Cape Fear, like the Tar and the Neuse, rises near the Virginia line; but, unlike them, it empties into the Atlantic at a point accessible to ocean-going vessels. The river was navigable from Wilmington to Fayetteville and early became the principal channel of commerce in the State. The Yadkin, rising in the Appalachian region, flows east in Wilkes and Yadkin counties, then turns south and, after joining the Uharie, enters South Carolina as the Peedee. Produce raised along the upper branches of the Yadkin was frequently marketed in Virginia, while that of the lower Yadkin was taken to South Carolina. The Catawba rises near the Yadkin and also flows into South Carolina, becoming the Wateree and finally joining the Santee. The streams which form the Broad River unite in Cleveland County near the South Carolina line and flow into the Santee. Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina, were the markets for the region watered by the Broad River.

“Thus it has happened,” wrote Archibald D. Murphey, chairman of the Board of Internal Improvements in 1819, “that we have shipped from our own Ports not more than one-third of our Agricultural products; and even a considerable portion of our Staves, Lumber and Naval Stores, have been sent to other ports by the Dismal Swamp Canal, on one side; or by the Wackamaw, Little Pedee and Lumber Rivers, on the other. This unfortunate division of our trade produces many bad effects. It makes us appear a poor state in the union. It leaves us without markets at home: and thus we lose the profits upon our Commerce.”5

5 The Papers of Archibald D. Murphey, II, 142.

North Carolina is divided topographically into three nearly parallel belts, the coastal plain, the piedmont plateau, and the Appalachian region. The interregional isolation of these three areas has had an important influence upon the history of the State. The total land area of the present boundaries of the State is 48,740 square miles. Of this area the coastal plain constitutes nearly four-tenths and the piedmont region about five-tenths. During the period of settlement, the coastal plain region of North Carolina was more closely associated with the tidewater of Virginia and the piedmont of North Carolina with that of Virginia than were the coastal plain and the piedmont of North Carolina with each other.

The coastal plain was the first section settled in North Carolina. The region was especially adapted to hog raising and the production of corn and tobacco. This large unobstructed area, gently undulating except along the river courses, was covered with forests easily cleared by girdling the trees after the fashion learned from the Indians. The tendency was toward expansion. The method of agriculture demanded it, for the best crops were produced on virgin soil. Land freshly cleared of trees was planted in tobacco three years and then in corn. This superficial method of agriculture invited slave labor and at the same time exhausted the soil in a remarkably short time. The best low lands were worn out in about eight years and the less fertile in three. More forests were then cleared and the unprofitable acres left to revert to nature. The coastal plain also became the center of other industries, for the pine forests yielded lumber and naval stores. Communication between the sections of the coastal plain, however, was difficult because the region was interlaced by swamps and rivers.

The line of demarcation between the coastal plain and the piedmont plateau is roughly marked by the fall line of the rivers. The broad streams of the coastal plain become swift and difficult of navigation in the interior of the State. Moreover, the topography of the piedmont is such that communication in the early frontier days was chiefly along north and south lines. The piedmont, therefore, was settled not so much from the coastal plain as from the piedmont of Pennsylvania and Virginia. The gap of the Roanoke River was the road of entrance and the head streams of the Yadkin, the destination.

The soil of this area is more difficult of cultivation than that of the coastal plain, harder to clear of forest, but not so easily exhausted. It is better adapted to the growing of black tobacco, corn, cereals, and grasses. It was inevitable, then, that landholdings should be smaller and slave labor less profitable than in the coastal plain. When manufacturing industries began to develop in the State, it was in the piedmont that they appeared, for here was found the chief source of water power.

The third geographic zone is the Appalachian region, a rugged mountainous plateau which forms a narrow indented trough lying between the great arms of the Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge. In the colonial period the western boundary of Carolina was undefined. The charter of the Lords Proprietors had fixed the western limits as the South Sea, but in reality the claims of the Spanish and the French, as well as the Appalachian barrier itself, established the mountains as the extreme western limits of North Carolina almost to the revolutionary period.

The Appalachian region, springing suddenly to an elevation of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet above the piedmont plateau at its base, was the last section of the Colony to be settled. Even when the first serious attempt at settlement was begun in 1770 by James Robertson, he sought the fertile valley beyond the mountains rather than the narrow gaps of the Blue Ridge itself. Driven back by the approach of white settlers, the Cherokee Indians took their last stand in the fastnesses of the mountains, and it was not until their forced removal in 1836 that the entire Appalachian area was open to occupation by the whites.

The influence of geography upon the political and social character of North Carolina was early recognized by its inhabitants. It was offered by colonial governors as an excuse for the slow development of the Province. This influence was succinctly pointed out by the Board of Internal Improvements in a report to the General Assembly in 1833. Weary from unsuccessful attempts to devise a system of transportation for the State, the Board sorrowfully pointed to the causes of its failure:

There is in the State no commercial metropolis at which the interest of the community requires them to meet, and hence they are strangers to each other. The citizens of the West are familiar with the laws, the institutions, the politics and the towns of Tennessee, of South Carolina and Georgia. A few of them have visited New York and other eastern cities; but the individual is rare who possesses any accurate information with respect to Wilmington or Newbern. On our northeastern border, Virginia is much more extensively known to our citizens than the State which should be the great object of their affections; and on the south, an extensive intercourse with Augusta, Savannah and Charleston, transfers to these towns the attachments which should centre at home. . . . No one, who reflects for a moment on these facts, can be at a loss to discover the source of the sectional feelings and jealousies, which have so long distracted our public councils, and retarded our prosperity.6

6 Star, December 20, 1833.

 RACIAL COMPOSITION

Three race elements were to be found in colonial North Carolina: whites, Indians, and Negroes. The number of Indians in the Colony at the time the charter of 1663 was issued has been estimated at about thirty-five thousand.7

7 J. H. Rand, The Indians of North Carolina and Their Relations with the Settlers, James Sprunt Historical Publications, Vol. XII, No. 2, p. 8.

Three important Indian groups were located here: the Tuscaroras on the seaboard, the Catawbas in the lower piedmont, and the Cherokees in the West. It is difficult to estimate the number of white inhabitants in North Carolina during the early colonial period. At the close of the proprietary period in 1729 the white settlers probably did not exceed 30,000,8

8 R. D. W. Connor, History of North Carolina, p. 143; North Carolina, I, 149-51.

 and the population was confined to the coastal plain. By 1760 the settlements extended to the base of the Blue Ridge. The English settlers had been reinforced by Scotch-Irish, Scotch Highlanders, Germans, a negligible number of French, Swiss, and Welsh, and an increasing number of Negroes. By 1790 the white population had reached 289,181. The proportion of the various nationalities in the white population is indicated in the following table:

POPULATION BY NATIONALITIES IN 17909 Nationality Number Per Cent of Total English 240,309 83.1 Scotch 32,388 11.2 German 8,097 2.8 Irish 6,651 2.3 French 869 .3 Dutch 578 .2 All Other 290 .1 Total 289,182 100.0

9 U. S. Census Office, A Century of Population Growth, p. 117. The basis for determining nationality as used by the Census Office was the indication of the name of heads of families. Cf. R. D. W. Connor, Race Elements in the White Population of North Carolina, p. 18.

Each group had its influence upon colonial society. The Indians10

10 John Lawson, History of Carolina, pp. 19-105, 277-390; John Brickell, Natural History of North Carolina, pp. 277-408; Rand, op. cit.; O. M. McPherson, “Indians of North Carolina,” Sen. Doc., 677, 63d Cong., 3d. Sess.; Connor, North Carolina, I, 40-61; V. W. Crane, The Southern Frontier, 1670-1732, Chaps. V-VII.

made certain contributions to the white culture, although they left no important ethnic influence upon the population. The English incorporated a few Indian words into their language and took over a few Indian myths and customs. They adopted the Indian method of clearing the forests and of planting corn. Their roads closely followed the Indian trading paths. They gained a knowledge of herbs and primitive medicines from their Indian neighbors.11

11 See J. W. Mahoney, The Cherokee Physician, or Indian Guide to Health, p. 16.

 Indian villages were places of refuge for Negro slaves and white criminals, and, as such, were constant sources of friction. The white settlers early attempted to enslave the Indian, but the difficulties of enslavement and the superiority of the Negro as a slave tended to restrict the process.

At the close of the revolutionary period, there were still several groups of Indians in North Carolina. Their stronghold was in the extreme West, but there were also a few in the central and eastern parts of the State. The Catawbas in Mecklenberg County were in 1784 “a melancholy picture of the singular and fatal ravages of the vices, with which they became contaminated from an association with their civilized neighbors.”12

12 Elkanah Watson, Men and Times of the Revolution, p. 258.

The Cherokees in the West continued to be a problem to the State even after their forced removal in 1836. In 1860 the Indian population of North Carolina numbered 1,158.

A few Negro laborers were brought into the Colony soon after the first permanent white settlement was made. In 1733 Governor Burrington estimated the number of blacks to be one-sixth of the total population. By 1790 this proportion had risen to one-fourth. It is possible to detect the concentration of the black population as early as 1755. The number of slaves listed at that time, although incomplete, indicates that slave labor was most profitable in the tobacco belt which was moving west along the Virginia boundary.13

13 Colonial Records of North Carolina (hereafter cited as CRNC). V, 575. For an analysis of slaveholding in colonial North Carolina see R. H. Taylor, Slaveholding in North Carolina: An Economic View, James Sprunt Historical Publications, Vol. XVIII, Nos. 1 and 2, pp. 9-19.

Here the plantation regime was developing with its distinctive economic and social organization. No estimate of the number of free Negroes can be determined accurately before 1790, when the number was 4,975. From that time the position of this class became increasingly important. Around the Negro there developed theories and social practices which bore significantly upon the whole of society.

The English, the Scotch, the Irish, and the Germans were the largest national groups composing the white race in the Colony.14

14 See Connor, Race Elements in the White Population of North Carolina.

The English made the first settlements in North Carolina and occupied the territory for almost a century without interruption, thereby fastening the English political and social institutions upon the Colony. English customs molded the form of local government, the system of judicature, and the whole body of legislation.

The character of the first permanent settlers in North Carolina has been much in controversy. Certainly the first to come were hunters from Virginia. Then came farmers in search of fertile land. Since 90 per cent of the landowners in Virginia during the Commonwealth period belonged to the yeomanry, it follows that those who overflowed into North Carolina must also have been largely of that social class.15

15 T. J. Wertenbaker, The Planters of Colonial Virginia, p. 83.

In 1669 the Albemarle Assembly passed two laws to encourage immigration which led Virginia to call the Albemarle “Rogues Harbour.”16

16 See Colonel William Byrd's opinion of North Carolinians in his Westover Manuscripts, pp. 27-28; W. K. Boyd (ed.), William Byrd's Histories of the Dividing Line Betwixt Virginia and North Carolina, p. 92.

 The first was a stay-law patterned from a Virginia law of 1642 and the other a law exempting new settlers from taxation for a year. Indentured white servants formed a part of the population, but the number in North Carolina seems to have been smaller than in Pennsylvania, Virginia, or Maryland.17

17 See C. A. Herrick, White Servitude in Pennsylvania; J. C. Ballagh, White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia; E. I. McCormac, White Servitude in Maryland; J. S. Bassett, Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina.

The Scotch inhabitants of North Carolina were both Highlanders and the so-called Scotch-Irish whose ancestors had been settled in Ulster beginning with the great migration of 1610. The Highlanders were the first of the Scotch to come to North Carolina in any considerable numbers. As early as 1729 a few of them had settled on the upper Cape Fear.18

18 Connor, History of North Carolina, pp. 143-61.

Ten years later, 350 landed at Wilmington under the leadership of Neill McNeill, of Kintyre, Scotland. The Highlanders continued to arrive even to the outbreak of the Revolution. They spread through the Cape Fear region and about 1746 laid out a town which came to be known as Fayetteville, one of the most important markets in colonial and ante-bellum North Carolina.19

19 S. A. Ashe, History of North Carolina, I, 266.

The Scotch-Irish landed principally at Philadelphia and poured into North Carolina along the piedmont road which led to the Yadkin River. As early as 1740 a few Scotch-Irish families were scattered along the Hico, the Eno, and the Haw rivers. After 1750 a steady stream flowed into the Colony. In 1751 Governor Gabriel Johnston of North Carolina reported to the Board of Trade that “Inhabitants flock in here daily, mostly from Pennsylvania and other parts of America . . . and some directly from Europe, they commonly seat themselves toward the West and have got near the mountains.”20

20 CRNC, IV, 1073.

Admirers of the Scotch-Irish have attributed to them most of the virtues which have appeared in North Carolina society. “They were the most efficient supporters of the American cause during the struggle for independence,” wrote the Reverend Eli W. Caruthers in 1842, “and they have done more for the support of learning, morality and religion than any other class of people.”21

21 Sketch of the Life and Character of the Reverend David Caldwell, p. 87. See also W. H. Foote, Sketches of North Carolina, pp. 120-24, 137-47; C. K. Bolton, Scotch Irish Pioneers in Ulster and America, Chap. XVI; L. H. Floyd, “Some Presbyterian Contributions to Education in North Carolina” (unpublished typescript), pp. 153-56.

Following the same route traveled by the Scotch-Irish, several thousand Germans also came into North Carolina between 1745 and 1775. Like the Scotch-Irish, they were thrifty and fervently religious, but instead of representing one communion as in the case of the Scotch, they were members of three different branches of the Protestant church: the Lutheran, the German Reformed, and the Unitas Fratrum, or Moravian Church.

The Lutheran and German Reformed settlers concentrated in the piedmont from the Haw River southwest through the Yadkin and Catawba river valleys, and the Moravians22

22 See A. L. Fries, Records of the Moravians in North Carolina, I, and “The Moravian Contribution to Colonial North Carolina,” NCHR, VII, 1-14.

settled at Wachovia in the present county of Forsyth. Both the Scotch and the Germans preserved their native customs for several generations. Gaelic and German were rapidly giving way to English by 1825,23

23 Mrs. Basil Hall, The Aristocratic Journey, p. 205; W. H. Gehrke, “The Transition from the German to the English Language in North Carolina,” NCHR, XII, 1-19; Carolina Watchman, September 9, 1847.

 but even in 1888 Jethro Rumple declared that the accent and idiom of “Pennsylvania-Dutch” might still be heard on the streets of Salisbury.24

24 History of Rowan County, North Carolina, p. 46.

 EXTENT OF SETTLEMENT IN 1790

North Carolina was but thinly settled except in certain favored areas even at the opening of the Revolution. By 1760 the piedmont had been settled to the base of the Blue Ridge. Ten years later James Robertson visited the fertile valley of the Watauga which lay beyond the Appalachian barrier and was preparing to lead a band of settlers there.25

25 A. W. Putnam, History of Middle Tennessee; or, Life and Times of General James Robertson, p. 18 et seq.

Yet all the land in North Carolina had not been taken up. The process of settlement, the nature of the soil, the topography of the Province made it inevitable that the settlers should spread out over a large area and that the average density of population per square mile should be low.

For instance, Moore County, whose area in 1810 was about 490,000 acres, contained 300,000 acres which were sand hills or pine barrens. The northern section of the county, watered by Deep River and its branches, contained four-fifths of the entire population of the county. The density of this section was reckoned at twenty-two persons per square mile, while the density of the remainder was only two and one-fourth persons per square mile.26

26 A. R. Newsome, “Twelve North Carolina Counties in 1810-1811,” NCHR, VI, 282.

Many acres in North Carolina at the opening of the nineteenth century were still unoccupied and even unclaimed. Cumberland County, which contained the chief home market for the entire back country, was still recording land entries in its county court.27

27 See MS in Cumberland County Court Minutes, 1805-1808.

Elkanah Watson, who had traveled several times throughout North Carolina, wrote that the State was thinly settled except in favored spots. In October, 1777, he traveled from Edenton on Albemarle Sound to New Bern on the Neuse and from there to Wilmington, seeing only few signs of habitation. “The dreariness,” he said, “was scarcely relieved by the appearance of a house except a few miserable tar burners' huts.”28

28 Op. cit., p. 38 et seq.

 In 1784 and 1785 he traveled from Edenton northwest to Murfreesboro. Warrenton was just “emerging from the forest” and the sections around the head waters of the Neuse and Tar rivers were “new and thinly settled.” William Attmore, a merchant of Philadelphia, who more than once visited the most important towns of the State, wrote in his journal of 1787 that the State had a scattered and frontier population.29

29 Journal of a Tour to North Carolina, 1787, James Sprunt Historical Publications, Vol. XVII, No. 2.

In 1790 the density of population in the State was 8.1 persons per square mile.30

30 U. S. Census Office, op. cit., p. 58.

The distribution of population by counties and by geographic areas is indicated by the following table:

POPULATION BY COUNTIES IN 179031     NUMBER OF COUNTIES     Scale of Population Total Coastal Plain Piedmont Mountain 15-16,000 1   1   14-15,000 1 1     13-14,000         12-13,000 2 1 1   11-12,000 1   1   10-11,000 5 2 3   9-10,000 4 2 1 1 8-9,000 4 1 1 2 7-8,000 7 2 4 1 6-7,000 6 4 2   5-6,000 14 9 5   4-5,000 4 4     3-4,000 4 3 1  

31 Ibid., p. 199. The population for Caswell, Granville, and Orange counties was taken from the county tax lists.

In 1790 Rowan, in the piedmont, was the only county in the State containing a population of more than fifteen thousand. The back country, which began in most instances with the piedmont and included three-fifths of the total area of the State, contained twenty-four counties as compared to twenty-nine in the coastal plain. Although nineteen of the western counties and only thirteen of the eastern counties contained a population of more than six thousand, the density of population was higher in the coastal plain than in the back country.

 ECONOMIC CONDITIONS

In a region thus sparsely settled the average prosperity of the inhabitants was necessarily low. Those who produced a surplus found difficulty in disposing of it because of the lack of convenient markets. Planters living near the mouths of the rivers might, by the purchase of sea-going vessels, transport their commodities to the West Indies or to northern markets with the assurance of a reasonable return. Plantations so situated usually had private wharves where the produce was loaded.32

32 Brickell, op. cit., p. 10.

Occasionally a planter accumulated a considerable fortune.33

33 Attmore, op. cit., pp. 16-17, calls attention in 1787 to the rise of John C. Stanly of New Bern from a debtor's prison in Philadelphia to a condition of affluence in North Carolina. “He has a large Wharff and Distillery near his house; upon Neuse River side of the Town—and a fine plantation with sixty slaves thereon.”

 But most of the inhabitants lived, as one traveler observed, “scantily in a region of affluence.”34

34 Watson, op. cit., p. 255.

 Industries were limited, towns small, and each farm an economic unit. In 1790 sixty-nine per cent of the families in North Carolina owned no slaves, while the average number of slaves per slaveholding family was 6.29. In Warren County, however, where there was considerable concentration of slaves due to the predominance of tobacco culture, eleven slaveholders in 1790 owned more than fifty slaves.35

35 Taylor, op. cit., p. 19.

Throughout the colonial period the price of tobacco was uncertain and the fluctuations were accompanied by economic distress. The production of naval stores was usually profitable, but life in the pine forests was hard and primitive. Stock raising and farming were the chief occupations of the settlers. The raising of stock was, in fact, the most profitable pursuit of those living in the back country, for the woods provided forage and the cost of transportation to market was negligible.

Specie, which is rare in all frontier countries, was especially scarce in North Carolina because the Province had no considerable commercial town.36

36 C. L. Raper, North Carolina, A Study in English Colonial Government, pp. 125-47.

Barter was used extensively until 1712 when the first paper money was issued. But even with the appearance of paper currency, barter continued for many years to be the prevailing method of exchange. By act37

37 CRNC, IV, 291-92.

 of assembly which was allowed by the Lords Proprietors in 1715-1716, seventeen commodities were assigned legal tender values: tobacco, Indian corn, wheat, cheese, raw buck and doe skins, dressed buck and doe skins, tallow, leather, beaver and otter skins, wildcat skins, butter, feathers, tar, pitch, whale oil, beef, pork. The act was in operation with slight modifications until the middle of the century. The legal ratios, however, fluctuated throughout the period. At times the average market rate in terms of sterling was three to one.38

38 Ibid., III, 185.

 The various issues of paper currency sanctioned by the General Assembly also depreciated greatly in value.39

39 C. L. Raper, “The Finances of the North Carolina Colonists,” North Carolina Booklet, VII, 84-104.

 Some of the planters and merchants, in the absence of coin, issued bills of credit of their own which passed as currency. In the middle of the eighteenth century the due bills of William Borden, a shipbuilder on New Port River in Carteret County, circulated widely and were known as “Borden's Script.”40

40 See Borden's plan for the rehabilitation of monetary affairs in North Carolina in his “Address to the Inhabitants of North Carolina,” in Boyd, Some Eighteenth Century Tracts, pp. 65-100.

 On the eve of the Revolution, Alexander Schaw, a North Carolina loyalist, writing to Lord Dartmouth, said of the monetary condition of the colony: “There is no specie in the province and there never was a person who could command a sum of any consequence even of their paper currency. Nothing in the stile of a banker or money merchant was ever heard of.”41

41 E. W. and C. McL. Andrews (eds.), Journal of A Lady of Quality, p. 281.

 SOCIAL CLASSES

Even in the early days of the frontier, life had its social distinctions. There were the great and the lowly. In general, colonial society was divided into four classes: the gentry, the yeomanry, the indentured servants and poor whites, and the Negroes. The highest social group was that of the large landholders, professional men, and public officials.42

42 See Connor, History of North Carolina, Chap. XII; T. J. Wertenbaker, Patrician and Plebeian in Virginia.

Bringing with them ideas of class distinction from the Old World, they insisted upon a recognition of superiority in the New World. In documents such as wills, deeds, and county court records, signatures may be found followed by such terms as “gentleman,” “esquire,” “planter.” Members of this group were usually well educated and cultured. Miss Janet Schaw, a Scotch “lady of quality” who visited North Carolina on the eve of the Revolution, found some ladies in Wilmington who “would make a figure in any part of the world,” but the gentlemen, she lamented, knew no “nice distinctions.”43

43 Andrews, op. cit., pp. 154-55.

 Although critical and suspicious of the colonists, Miss Schaw, nevertheless, admitted that the people of Wilmington lived “decently,” and added that “tho' their houses are not spacious, they are in general very commodious and well furnished.”

Small farmers made up by far the largest single social group in the Province. They worked the land with their own hands, knew few conveniences, and were contented to subsist on corn and pork “in the most slovenly manner.”44

44 Ibid., p. 153.

They took pride in the title of yeoman and those who could write attached the title to their names in all their public dealings. On holidays, at militia musters, and during court week they usually flocked to town where they drank deep and played hard. Cockfighting, horse racing, and wrestling were their favorite sports, and in these they indulged with great enthusiasm. On such occasions “many genteel people” were “promiscuously mingled with the vulgar and debased,” bets ran high, and the amusement often terminated in fighting.45

45 Watson, op. cit., pp. 261-62.

 When yeomen fought, the battle usually continued until one antagonist succeeded in twisting a forefinger in a side-lock of the other's hair, and with a dextrous thrust of the thumb scooped out his opponent's eye. The eye might be saved, however, if the beaten man bawled out “King's curse” in time.

The class next below that of the yeomanry was composed of indentured white servants.46

46 Bassett, Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina, pp. 75-86.

It was made up of convicts sold as punishment for petty crime or for political offenses, of women and children kidnapped in London or other English ports, of colonial dependent children, and especially of those who voluntarily sold their services in payment for passage to the New World. The term of service for those under sixteen years of age brought from Europe was five years.47

47 Laws of North Carolina, 1741, reprinted in State Records of North Carolina (hereafter cited as SRNC), XXIII, 62, 191. The law of 1741 stated no specific term of years, but left the matter to an agreement between master and servant.

 Dependent orphans or illegitimate children of white parents were legally known as apprentices but actually they were in the same social class as indentured servants. They served their masters from the time of apprenticeship to the age of maturity, which was fixed at eighteen for the girl and twenty-one for the boy.48

48 Ibid., p. 581, Act of 1762, Chap. V, sec. xix.

 Until 1737 or later, the indentured servant was able, if he chose, to enter the class of small farmers shortly after his freedom, for by the Concessions of 1665 and of 1681, the Lords Proprietors offered Christian servants at first forty and then fifty acres of land at the end of their servitude.49

49 CRNC, I, 334; Brickell, op. cit., p. 268; Raper, North Carolina, p. 78. Cf. T. J. Wertenbaker, The First Americans, pp. 25-26.

At the bottom of the social scale stood the Negro. It was possible for the white man by diligence and hard work to pass from one social class to that next above; but the cultural development of the Negro, the color of his skin, and the laws of the Province operated to keep him at the bottom.

 RELIGION AND EDUCATION

The religion of the gentry in the coastal plain was, for the most part, that of the Church of England, although the Baptists and Quakers also had a stronghold in this region. In the back country were to be found Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Lutherans, and Moravians. The colonial governors were never able to obtain the legislation necessary for the proper support of the Church. In fact, the quarrel over a vestry act acceptable to the Crown left the clergy without support, and it was not until Governor Tryon's administration in 1765 that conditions began to improve. Even then, support of the Established Church was to be short-lived, for the Constitution of 1776 forbade the “establishment of any one religious Church or Denomination in this State in Preference to any other.”

The history of education in North Carolina is closely related to that of religion. For more than a century the preachers of North Carolina were also the school teachers. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel made the first attempt to establish schools in the Colony. The first teacher to come to North Carolina, about whom any record has been found, was Charles Griffin, a lay reader of the Established Church. In 1705 he opened a school in Pasquotank County.

The Colony also had a few academies. New Bern Academy was incorporated in 1767; and an academy at Edenton in 1770.50

50 See E. W. Knight, Public School Education in North Carolina; C. L. Coon (ed.), North Carolina Schools and Academies: A Documentary History.

Writing of conditions in North Carolina during the Revolution, Elkanah Watson said: “Perhaps no State had at that period performed so little to promote the cause of education, science and arts, as North Carolina. The lower classes of that region were then in a condition of great mental degradation.”51

51 Op. cit., p. 253.

 Children of the gentry had been educated at home by their mothers, taught by tutors, or less frequently were sent to school in Britain, but the majority of inhabitants were neither educated nor had a great thirst for knowledge.52

52 “Edgecombe County,” MS in Thomas Henderson Letter Book; Newsome, op. cit., p. 88.

Nearly every planter had a small collection of books.53

53 See S. B. Weeks, “Libraries and Literature in North Carolina in the Eighteenth Century,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association, 1895, pp. 171-224.

Extant wills and inventories show these to have numbered from twenty-five volumes to more than five hundred. A few planters and professional men had considerable libraries. Samuel Johnston, at one time governor of the State, had at his plantation, Hayes, probably the largest library in the Colony. It contained more than a thousand volumes and included standard works on philosophy, law, history, political science, medicine, and theology.

Aside from their libraries, the colonists had little to read unless they subscribed to the gazettes of South Carolina or Virginia. The first press54

54 See C. C. Crittenden, North Carolina Newspapers Before 1790, James Sprunt Historical Studies, XX, No. 1; S. B. Weeks, The Press of North Carolina in the Eighteenth Century.

in North Carolina was set up at New Bern in 1749 by James Davis, but the first newspaper probably did not appear until 1751.55

55 D. L. Corbitt, “The North Carolina Gazette,” NCHR, II, 84-85.

 During the Revolution, four presses were operated in North Carolina at different times: one in Halifax and one in New Bern, a third with the army of Cornwallis, and a fourth with the army of General Greene. After 1785 the number of papers began to increase more rapidly.

Since the press was not established until the middle of the eighteenth century and even then was not a medium for the communication of much local news, the colonists had to depend chiefly upon letters for information. The first regular post route established in North Carolina seems to have begun operation in 1770 and to have delivered mail about once a month.56

56 CRNC, VIII, 3-4; C. C. Crittenden, “Means of Communication in North Carolina, 1763-1789,” NCHR, VIII, 376.

Yet even at the opening of the nineteenth century letters were most frequently sent by travelers. The percentage of illiteracy, however, was so high that this limited service worked no hardship on the majority of the inhabitants.

Social conditions at the opening of the nineteenth century still bore the marks of a frontier community. The Revolution had been a time of civil war. The advancement of socializing forces which was well under way in 1770 was interrupted, and readjustment was just beginning in 1800.

 CHAPTER II SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS

THE TRIP in 1840 over the newly completed railroad from Weldon in Halifax County to Wilmington on the coast was a humiliating experience to a North Carolinian. He was “certain to have his feelings wounded at the sneering remarks of scoffers and witlings as they defamed the Old North State for her poverty of soil and primeval style of log cabins,” wrote a state-proud Tar Heel to the Fayetteville Observer in 1856. “Sixteen years ago, I passed over the road, and as I heard the carping, captious remarks of travellers . . . I blushed, and dared not vindicate our State fame, so greatly were the odds against her.”1

1 September 1.

On every hand were sterile pine barrens, acres of sickly weeds or riotous masses of honeysuckle, cabins weathered and beaten by the pulsation of generation after generation of grubbing poverty. A swarm of barefooted children with only a shift to their backs played in the hog wallow at the door. In the distance were the toiling bodies of father and mother, bent indifferently over hoe or ax.

Thirty years after joining the Union, North Carolina had sunk into vegetative indolence. “She has become, voluntarily, the tributary to other states,” mourned “Aristides” in the Western Carolinian of November 14, 1820, “and has habitually yielded to their pretentions, until she is viewed with that contemptuous indifference which a want of personal dignity never fails incurring. . . . She is ignorant of her own resources and passive under the neglect and obloquy of her sister states.”

When Governor Swain made a stirring speech to the Legislature of 1833, in which he likened the State to Rip Van Winkle, he was but using a figure of speech long a “pleasant sarcasm” among the newspapers of the nation. During her heavy slumber she has, like Rip Van Winkle, “grown poor and ragged,” wrote the New York Evening Star, “from permitting her native energies and strength to lie for so protracted a period dormant and unemployed.”2

2 Quoted in Raleigh Star, December 27, 1833.

In 1845 Governor Graham was still reminding the Legislature that it had done little to elevate the national character of the State. “We cannot delude ourselves with the belief, that our advancement in prosperity and wealth, has equalled that of most of our sister States, . . . Such has been the flow of emigration, that our population has not yet doubled its number at the first Federal census in 1790. . . . The inlets on our coast have undergone no change for the better; but few of our rivers have undergone in navigation, though all have obstructions, and that extended tract of country lying between this capital and the Blue Ridge, and north-west of the Cape Fear, comprehending more than one-third of our whole territory, population and taxable wealth, enjoys but little better facilities of transportation than when it was traversed by the baggage wagons of hostile armies, in the midst of the Revolution.” Humanitarian reforms “have as yet no foundations among us; and although a Common School system has been commenced, a surprisingly large part of our people are yet destitute of the first rudiments of education.”3

3 North Carolina Standard, January 8, 1845.

By 1851, however, the Raleigh Register could write: “A change in our Legislative halls, manifested during the last two sessions of the Assembly, might lead to the hope, that Old Rip may wipe the dew out of his eyes and wake up to a sense of his real dignity. . . . Nothing checks us but our own indifference in gaining an equal footing with other States not more favored than our own.”4

4 August 9.

And the Tar Heel who was painfully chagrined on his trip from Weldon to Wilmington in 1840 could write in 1856, “Less than sixteen days ago in passing over the same route, my State pride was exalted in listening to encomiums on the style of buildings and crops of grain and fruits and grass that met the eye, as the steam horse sped along its iron track.”

But North Carolina had so long been the target of newspaper ridicule that when Frederick Law Olmsted, a New York journalist, came to estimate the character of the slave states in 1856 he placed North Carolina at the bottom of the list. Pointing out that one-fourth of the native white adults could neither read nor write, he said:

North Carolina has a proverbial reputation for the ignorance and torpidity of her people; . . . I do not find the reason of this in any innate quality of the popular mind; but, rather, in the circumstances under which it finds its development. Owing to the general poverty of the soil in the Eastern part of the State, and to the almost exclusive employment of slave labor on the soils productive of cotton; owing, also, to the difficulty and expense of reaching market with bulky produce from the interior and western districts, population and wealth is more divided than in the other Atlantic States; industry is almost entirely rural, and there is but little communication or concert of action among the small and scattered proprietors of capital. For the same reason, the advantages of education are more difficult to be enjoyed, the distance at which families reside apart preventing children from coming together in such numbers as to give remunerative employment to a teacher.5

5 A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States in the Years 1853-1854, p. 366.

For more than a century, the State's public men had been pointing out the same facts. “Our wide extent of territory and sparseness of population, together with those geographical disadvantages which prevent that speedy interchange of sentiment between one portion and another of the people, enjoyed by other states, renders it necessarily very slow in collecting, and, therefore, in expressing, the public sentiment of our State,” declared Robert Strange at a Southern Rights Meeting in Wilmington in 1850. “This slowness of expression has been usually attributed to some peculiarity in the people themselves, involving the imputation of Boeotian stupidity or phlegmatic indifference. Never was there greater error.”6

6 North Carolina Standard, March 27, 1850.

Although there was cause for North Carolina's poor reputation abroad, perhaps no State in the Union was exposed to such extravagant misrepresentations. Instead of being “deficient in moral, physical, and intellectual resources,”7

7 Raleigh Register, February 20, 1829.

the State was merely a land-locked, agricultural province exhibiting the usual characteristics of such a region: provincialism, sectionalism, conservatism, individualism, and superstition.

PROVINCIALISM

“It is a singular circumstance, that North Carolina, with a wider sea coast8

8 It is presumed that the Board of Internal Improvements had reference to the length of the shore line of the mainland. In 1833 the extent of the North Carolina shore line was exceeded by that of Florida and Louisiana. On the Pacific coast, the shore line of California exceeds that of North Carolina and the shore line of Washington is approximately the same length as North Carolina's.

than any State in the Union, and the fifth in extent of territory and in population, has less commerce and fewer important towns than any of her Atlantic sisters,” reported the Board of Internal Improvements to the Legislature in 1833. “The effect which this condition has produced upon the prosperity of the State and the character of its citizens is apparent.”9

9 Star, December 20, 1833.

 Any region without a large commercial town to tie together the common interests of its people and to focus the rays of fashion and science is necessarily provincial.

The most striking feature of North Carolina's transportation10

10 Sec C. C. Crittenden, “Overland Travel and Transportation in North Carolina, 1763-1789,” NCHR, VIII, 239-57.

problem was the fact that various sections of the State were more isolated from one another than from neighboring States. For instance, as late as 1850 a large part of western and southwestern North Carolina found a market in Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina; while the northern and parts of the eastern and central sections sent produce to Richmond, Petersburg, and Norfolk, Virginia. Under such circumstances, it was difficult for the public men of the State to unify State enterprise or to obtain a concert of action. When legislators met they bristled with sectional prejudices and frittered away their time over small issues. Vexed with session after session of the General Assembly which did “nothing for the honor and advantage of the Old North State,” the Fayetteville Observer said bitterly in the issue of January 25, 1843, “We think it will be acknowledged that never were $40,000 of the public money more uselessly expended, . . . than in paying a set of young men ‘fresh from School,’ and of old men, some of whom are greener still, for the ‘child's play’ in which they have been engaged for the nearly 70 days past.”

Even before 1800 a few public men saw the necessity of binding together the different sections of the State if the provincial outlook of its people was ever to give way to a common interest in the State as a whole. Such a goal could never be reached until the farmers could find accessible markets within the State for their produce. In 1812 that idealist and fervent North Carolinian, Archibald D. Murphey, urged such a course upon the General Assembly. Under his influence, the General Assembly did open the State purse beginning with 1815 and let out small driblets for river improvement, but the returns from such a reluctant policy were negligible.11

11 W. K. Boyd, History of North Carolina: The Federal Period, 83-100; Connor, North Carolina, I, 484-94; C. C. Weaver, Internal Improvements in North Carolina Previous to 1860.

Murphey had dreamed of a complete system of inland transportation which would connect every portion of the State. The Roanoke River and its tributaries would have had an outlet through Albemarle Sound. The Tar and the Neuse would have been connected and given an outlet through Ocracoke Inlet. The Yadkin and the Catawba would have been joined to the Cape Fear with its outlet at Wilmington. The rest of the State would have been connected with these water routes by a system of turnpikes and thus the State would have become an economic unit.12

12 Papers of Archibald D. Murphey, II, 103-53.

Whatever such a system might have meant to the prosperity of the State, the magnitude of the undertaking was clearly beyond the capacity of the Legislature to realize. It was not until the beginning of the railroad era13

13 C. K. Brown, A State Movement in Railroad Development, pp. 15-148.

in 1836 that Murphey's dream was even partly accomplished. Two years after the building of the first American railway, President Joseph Caldwell of the University of North Carolina wrote a series of newspaper articles called “The Numbers of Carlton” in which he urged North Carolina to build a railroad from Beaufort to the Tennessee line. For the first time public sentiment was aroused. In 1834 the Legislature chartered the Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad Company, but work on the road did not get well underway until 1837 when the Legislature under Governor Edward B. Dudley's influence gave financial support to the company. In 1840 the road was formally opened. It covered a distance of 161 miles and connected Wilmington on the coast with Weldon, a point on the Roanoke River near the Virginia line.

Once having committed itself to a policy of State aid, the Legislature went steadily forward with the work. In 1838 it gave assistance to the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad Company which had been chartered in 1835. By this route the State capital was connected with the Greenville and Roanoke Railroad in Virginia and indirectly with Petersburg. The Legislature of 1848 chartered the North Carolina Railroad Company with a capital stock of $3,000,000, two-thirds of which was to be subscribed by the State. The course of the road was from Goldsboro on the Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad to Charlotte, by way of Raleigh and Salisbury. By 1856 the road had been completed, a distance of 223 miles, proudly called “the longest railroad in the world.” There now remained the task of connecting East with West. In 1852 the Legislature chartered the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad Company to connect Beaufort Harbor with Goldsboro, and the Western North Carolina Railroad Company to connect Salisbury with the French Broad River within the vicinity of Asheville. By 1860 the Atlantic and North Carolina line had been completed and the Western road to within five and a half miles of Morganton. In 1854 the Legislature chartered a company to build a railroad from Wilmington to Rutherfordton by way of Charlotte, and by 1861 the line had been extended out of Wilmington as far as Rockingham. By the close of the period North Carolina had a total of 889 miles of railroads, constructed at a cost of $167,709,793.

The effect of the system upon the people and upon the State's reputation abroad was immediate. “Those who fail to see and appreciate the enterprize and talents of ‘Old Rip,’ as some do most scandalously call her, must themselves be sound asleep,” said the Danville, Virginia, Reporter, in 1845. Is it nothing to have one of the longest railroads in the Union?14

14 Quoted in Star, November 19, 1845.

In the first year that the Wilmington and Weldon railroad was opened to traffic, the farmers within its reach were able to rush their wheat to Petersburg to take advantage of a temporary rise in price.15

15 Boyd, History of North Carolina, p. 236.

 No longer need the farmers' crops moulder in granaries at home because of the high cost of getting them to market. From one end of the State to the other, the people thrilled to “the echoes of thundering wheels” and to the promise of prosperity which the reverberation held out.

“Whose heart would not beat with quickened vibration at the idea of meeting his brethren from all parts of the State at Raleigh, in 12, in 24 hours! for either religious, political, or other purposes,” cried the Asheville Messenger in 1852. “What poor man could not then visit his friends and relatives, and make life more social and endurable. We now pay $40 to get to Raleigh and lose ten days.” When the Western Railroad is completed we will “lose three and pay $12!” Look at our markets that will be built up; the impetus that will be given to erect manufactories which will attract capital at home and abroad; the inducement that will be held out to labor; the incentive that we will have to improve our crops and our stock!16

16 “Railroad to the Mountains,” quoted in Star, November 24, 1852.

The railroads, however, still left a large portion of the State with no better transportation facilities than it had during the Revolution. Of the important towns only Charlotte, Salisbury, Morganton, Rockingham, Greensboro, Raleigh, Goldsboro, Wilmington, and New Bern had railroad connections. In 1850 more than half of the State was still dependent on the old four-horse wagon system for transportation over a distance of from fifty to four hundred miles to market.17

17 J. D. B. DeBow, Industrial Resources of the Southern and Western States, II, 174 n.

As late as 1870 Greenville, South Carolina, was still the town within easiest reach of Haywood County and neighboring sections.18

18 W. C. Allen, Centennial of Haywood County, p. 35.

Had North Carolina connected its railroad system to the rest of the State by a system of public highways the picture of prosperity which the Asheville Messenger drew in 1852 might actually have been realized and the spirit of localism which stalked the land might have given way sooner to one of laudable State pride. The Legislature did actually give some aid in the building of public highways, but the amount spent was insufficient to build roads which would stand the wear of more than a few years. The famous system of plank roads which Fayetteville built to connect that town with points in the West was popular for a decade after 1848, but the roads were profitable for only a few years.19

19 Boyd, History of North Carolina, pp. 350-52; “Plank Roads,” North Carolina Standard, September 3, 1851.

The Legislature of 1850 chartered companies to build roads out of Charlotte, Concord, Salisbury, Asheville, Oxford, and Wilmington; and the Legislature of 1852 chartered forty-one plank road companies.

The road system of the ante-bellum period made transportation along the public highways often difficult and uncertain. Supervision of roads, ferries, and bridges was under the jurisdiction of the county courts.20

20 Revised Code of North Carolina, enacted by the General Assembly at the session of 1854 (prepared and published in 1855, and hereafter cited as Revised Code, 1855), Chap. CI. See also C. K. Brown, The State Highway System of North Carolina, Chap. I.

Each court annually appointed overseers of public roads who were alloted portions of convenient length to keep in good order. These overseers, who were not compelled to serve more than one year in three, acted without remuneration but were liable to fine if they refused to serve or if they neglected to perform their duties when appointed. All white males between the ages of eighteen and forty-five and free Negro males and male slaves between the ages of sixteen and fifty were subject to work as hands under the direction of the overseer.

The upper classes substituted slave labor for their personal service or paid the fine of one dollar a day imposed on those refusing to work. This forced labor was a source of bitter complaint but in most instances the inhabitants preferred it to a money tax. The result was that the county roads were usually in need of repair; bridges were built slowly, and ferries established only where the streams were so deep as to make fording dangerous.

In 1800, for instance, a wagon from Chatham County on its way to New Bern with two hogsheads of tobacco fell into the river while crossing the bridge over the Neuse at Kinston and the driver and three horses were drowned. “This accident,” wrote the Raleigh Register, “was owing to the very shameful state of the bridge, the planks covering which, lying aslant and loose, gave way. How can those who have the charge of public bridges acquit themselves for suffering them to remain in such a state?”21

21 February 11, 1800.

In 1802 when Congress was preparing to extend the great northern and southern stage mail through North Carolina, a congressman wrote home hastily, “If a little more attention were paid to the roads and bridges on the main line, it would tend greatly to the advantage and credit of the State.”22

22 Ibid., March 30, 1802.

 In October, 1834, the Hillsborough Recorder declared that wagoners between that town and Fayetteville found the roads so bad that they were forced to leave a part of their loads on the way and that all returned from the trip with broken-down horses.23

23 Quoted in Fayetteville Observer, October 14, 1834.

 In 1846, however, when Professor Elisha Mitchell of the State University examined for the Legislature the main road from Raleigh west through Salisbury and on to Asheville, he reported that the system of local road police answered very well except in places where the nature of the soil made road building difficult. But he strongly urged the State to build a main turnpike west to attach the interest of the western people to North Carolina. “An intelligent gentleman in the western part of the State,” wrote Professor Mitchell, “remarked to me that as things now are he has less to do with people on the northern side of the Albemarle Sound than with those on some of the remotest regions of the globe.”24

24 “Report of E. Mitchell on Turnpike,” MS in Legislative Papers of North Carolina, December 3, 1846.

The poor mail facilities within the State, especially before 1820, also contributed toward its internal isolation. The bad condition of the roads was partly responsible for the poor mail service but it was a fact, often complained of by leading citizens of the State, that the people themselves were indifferent as to whether they received mail and consequently would not demand better postal service of Congress. In 1800 North Carolina had sixty-eight post offices serving her sixty-one counties.25

25 Report of the Postmaster General in Return of the Whole Number of Persons within the Several Districts of the United States, report of the second census, 1800, made by the U. S. Census Office.

At that time the most frequent mail service was three times a week. The first mail stage from the North running as far south as Augusta, Georgia, was begun in 1803 and passed through Raleigh, causing the Raleigh Register to rejoice that “the means of diffusing information” was so much greater than “the contracted limits of a few years since.”26

26 February 15, 1803.

 The first six-day service in the State was begun in 1813 as an experiment during the remainder of the war with Great Britain. By 1820 Raleigh was receiving a daily mail from the north and south and had a connection with some points in Western North Carolina as often as three times a week. By 1826 mail stages were penetrating the West. The first mail stage between Salisbury and Lincolnton was established in that year and all the mail carried at one trip instead of being left to accumulate in the post office at Salisbury. Sometimes packages had been left behind as long as two weeks because the saddle bags were too small to contain them.

By 1835 Raleigh had two daily mails, one from the north and the other from the south; a mail service from Greensboro, New Bern, and Tarboro three times a week; from Oxford twice a week; and from Roxboro and Haywood once a week.27

27 Ibid., November 17, 1835.

With the building of railroads the mail was carried by train, but long after the ante-bellum period it was still delivered by a carrier on horse-back in many sections of the State.

Newspapers constantly complained even to 1860 of the failure of the mails to arrive according to schedule.28

28 Ibid., March 16, 1809. “We were yesterday again disappointed in not receiving any mail from the northward, the stage arriving without the mail. We are sorry to state, that these failures are very frequent, and except means be taken to insure greater regularity in the conveyance of the mail, it will be of no avail that plans are formed for increasing the expedition in the running of the mail-stages.”

Usually the failure was due to swollen streams or impassable roads. In the issue of December 26, 1820 the Western Carolinian of Salisbury complained that “the bare appearance of a cloud above the horizon” was sufficient to interfere with the weekly mail service. William White, the Raleigh postmaster, thought that no State in the Union or at least none of the old States was as poorly provided with mail service in 1851 as was North Carolina.29

29 The Papers of Thomas Ruffin (ed. by J. G. deR. Hamilton), II, 316.

 He attributed this fact to the apathy of the people and urged that a movement be started to procure a daily mail west as far at least as Greensboro if not to Salisbury.

The improvement of the transportation system in the State greatly increased the use of the mails. Postmaster White of Raleigh estimated in 1851 that the movement to build a railroad to Asheville had increased the mail to the western towns by 20 per cent.30

30 Ibid.

The decreases in the postal rates also greatly encouraged the use of the mails. Letters which had formerly cost 18¾ cents to be sent from Asheville to Raleigh cost only 10 cents in 1860.31

31 The postal rates in 1823 “for single letters composed of one piece of paper” were as follows: any distance not exceeding 30 miles, 6 cents; over 30 and under 80 miles, 10 cents; over 80 and under 150 miles, 12½ cents; over 150 and under 400 miles, 18¾ cents; over 400 miles, 25 cents. Letters composed of two sheets of paper were charged with double these rates. See Colin McIver, The North Carolina Register and United States Calendar, p. 73. It was not until 1845 that Congress changed the basis of postal rates from the number of sheets which the letter contained to the weight of the letter. In that year the charge became 5 cents a half ounce for any distance up to 300 miles and 10 cents a half ounce for any greater distance anywhere in the United States except the Pacific coast.

 In 1853 the postmaster of Fayetteville estimated that the cheaper postal rates had more than doubled the use of the mails. One daily mail to Wilmington, he said, contained more letters, newspapers, and periodicals than passed in a month through the Fayetteville office to the South in 1818 on the great northern and southern route.32

32 Fayetteville Observer, April 18, 1853.

 Yet private conveyances were still being used extensively for sending mail even after 1860.

The coming of the telegraph in 1848 also helped to break down the isolation of the State.33

33 Ibid., January 4, 1848.

The line ran from Virginia through Raleigh and Fayetteville. From that time the leading newspapers of the State began to carry telegraphic news, and as the years advanced toward 1860, the newspapers themselves began to play a more important role as a medium of communication. In 1849 a correspondent of the Raleigh Star called attention to the influence which the press had exerted in the development of the State, declaring that the local newspapers had done much to advance “the enterprise, prosperity and independence of our people.”34

34 “Sinceritas,” in the issue of May 23.

In 1810 there had been only ten newspapers published in the State. By 1850 this number had increased to fifty-one, but at no time during the period was the circulation of any State paper very large.35

35 Infra, pp. 805 et seq.

Most of the editors complained of being able hardly to keep alive on the patronage received.36

36 Greensboro Patriot quoted in Carolina Watchman, May 30, 1850.

 Nevertheless, the total circulation of local periodicals in 1850 was one for every three white adult males.37

37 Report of the U. S. Census Office, The Seventh Census of the United States: 1850, pp. 299-300, 324. The total circulation was 36,839 while the total number of males over 20 years old was 120,781.

 At the same time one in every four adult white males could neither read nor write, while 29 per cent of the total white adult population was illiterate.38

38 Ibid., pp. 299-300, 316-17.

The majority of the people in the State had few contacts with the outside world; they did not come in touch with advanced ways of living and thinking; and provincialism was the inevitable result. Traveling was fashionable among the upper classes who used malaria and ill health as an excuse to make frequent trips to the North as well as to the resorts in Piedmont and Western North Carolina; among the lower classes, however, there was practically no traveling except to carry produce to market. It often happened that a person lived and died without ever having gone beyond the bounds of his native county.

The experience of being in Washington as United States congressman had a broadening effect upon John H. Bryan, a prominent ante-bellum lawyer. In the first few weeks of his residence in Washington he thought the society of New Bern superior to that of the capital city, but after a few months he came to regard his home town as a “confined circle” and wrote to his wife that the great advantage of travel and residence in a place like Washington was “to enlarge and inform the mind, to emancipate it from the shackles of habit & prejudice which a constant residence in a village like ours very frequently imposes upon it.”39

39 MS in John H. Bryan Papers, February 10, 1828.

 SECTIONALISM

The sectional character of life in ante-bellum North Carolina was as pronounced as its provincialism. Indeed, her public men often declared that sectionalism was at the root of the State's do-nothing policy and responsible for the backwardness of the people. “Too long has North Carolina been rent assunder by sectional jealousies and paltry local feuds,” lamented fourteen of the State's ablest men in 1833 at a public meeting in Raleigh on internal improvements.40

40 Star, August 2, 1833.

“Sectional feelings and jealousies” have always “distracted our public councils and retarded our prosperity,” declared a committee reporting to the Legislature later in the same year.41

41 Ibid., December 20, 1833.

 “All are trying to elevate themselves,” wrote home Charles B. Shepard in despair during his first term in the Legislature in 1832. “Local parties are struggling to gain ascendency & none, not one, wisely endeavouring to raise the character of N. C., to bring to light her vast resources, & to enrich & honor her people.”42

42 MS in John H. Bryan Papers, November 24, 1832.

 The Legislature, said Frederick Blount in 1834, “has always been controlled by a few little demagogues who live in fear of a loss of personal popularity in their native districts.”43

43 Ibid., February 16, 1834.

Sectionalism had characterized North Carolina society since the first adventurers pushed beyond Albemarle Sound and settled on the Pamlico. As the Neuse and Cape Fear regions were settled, they, too, became separate sections with separate interests. They quarreled over land patents, representation in the provincial assembly, and over the location of the seat of government.44

44 Connor, North Carolina, I, Chap. XIV; Ashe, op. cit., I, Chaps. XIX, XX, XXI.

These jealousies continued through the revolutionary and federal periods and on into the ante-bellum period.

The location of the seat of government at Raleigh had been a sore point with the sections around Edenton, Wilmington, and Fayetteville. In 1804 when the Raleigh boarding houses advanced their prices as the session of the General Assembly opened, an indignant representative from Cumberland County moved that the Assembly “adjourn from this place and meet at the town of Fayetteville.”45

45 Raleigh Register, November 22, 1804.

No sooner had the capitol burned in 1831 than the question of locating the seat of government had to be settled again. “. . . if the Cape Fear men . . . should next session be assured of the seat of government being fixed at Fayetteville,” wrote Richard Dobbs Spaight, senator from Craven County, in December, 1831, “they would give up everything else.”46

46 MS in John H. Bryan Papers, December 19, 1831.

The location of the county seats was contested with almost as much bitterness as was the location of the state capital. The General Assembly usually tried to get around these local quarrels by requiring that the courthouse be situated as nearly as possible in the exact center of the county, but the records of the General Assembly are crowded with such controversies throughout the ante-bellum period. The settlement of boundary lines, the control of navigable streams, the erection of bridges and ferries, the composition of the county courts, all were subjects which led to sectional disputes within a county. A conflict between upper and lower Pasquotank, which resulted “after sundry political contests,” finally degenerated about 1808 into a quarrel over the possession of a ferry across Pasquotank River.47

47 MS in Legislative Papers, 1808.

In Wayne County a contest between two factions arose over the position of clerk of the county court.48

48 “Wayne County,” MS in Thomas Henderson Letter Book; Newsome, op. cit., pp. 306-7.

To make certain of the office, one faction obtained the appointment of nine new justices of the peace whose vote could be depended upon. Some time previous to the sitting of the court, the question arose as to what business should be transacted first when the court should meet. Those who had the ascendency in court insisted that it was necessary to proceed at once to the appointment of a clerk, while the group to whom the new justices were attached was equally insistent that they be qualified first so that they might vote in the election. The latter faction, fearing the strength of the opposing group, assembled their new justices at the courthouse shortly after midnight of the date set for the meeting. As one of the acting justices began to administer the oath to the new members, their opponents who had been on watch, opened battle. The lights were extinguished, and “some other Business done not strictly characteristic of a Court of Judicature.” The result was the formation of two courts and the appointment of two clerks who at once entered suit for the possession of the office. The case was settled, but the discord continued, creating “lasting and deep-rooted animosities” tending “very much to sour society.”49

49 Ibid., p. 307.

The most apparent sectionalism in the State in the ante-bellum period was that which existed between the eastern and western counties. The interests of the sections were divergent. They did not grow the same crops or market their produce at the same towns. In the eastern counties there was a concentration of slave labor, while in the West free labor predominated. The East was settled chiefly by the English, while in the West there was a large proportion of Scotch and German settlers who still retained many of their native customs.

The poor transportation system in the State kept the two sections apart so that even during the ante-bellum period the people never really came to know one another. In 1833 his hosts in the East had filled Henry Barnard with such fearful tales of Western North Carolina that the young New Englander, after leaving Charlotte for Morganton, at once began to fear for the safety of his watch and purse.50

50 Henry Barnard, “The South Atlantic States in 1833,” Maryland Historical Magazine, XIII, 344-49.

As late as 1856 an Easterner wrote patronizingly in the Raleigh Register of his visit to the West:

The people who inhabit