Colonial North Carolina

Relates the history of the Colony of North Carolina from its founding by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1585 to its statehood in 1789.

In this book, Lindley S. Butler traverses oft-noted but little understood events in the political and social establishment of the Carolina colony. In the wake of the English Civil Wars in the mid-seventeenth century, King Charles II granted charters to eight Lords Proprietors to establish civil structures, levy duties and taxes, and develop a vast tract of land along the southeastern Atlantic coast. Butler argues that unlike the New England theocracies and Chesapeake plantocracy, the isolated colonial settlements of the Albemarle—the cradle of today's North Carolina—saw their power originate neither in the authority of the church nor in wealth extracted through slave labor, but rather in institutions that emphasized political, legal, and religious freedom for white male landholders. Despite this distinct pattern of economic, legal, and religious development, however, the colony could not avoid conflict among the diverse assemblage of Indigenous, European, and African people living there, all of whom contributed to the future of the state and nation that took shape in subsequent years. Butler provides the first comprehensive history of the proprietary era in North Carolina since the nineteenth century, offering a substantial and accessible reappraisal of this key historical period.

Traces North Carolina's growth and development from early exploration to the formation of a state government.

A revised edition of the popular paperback first published in 1975, Society in Colonial North Carolina describes day-to-day life in the state before the American Revolution. The volume discusses such topics as homes, furnishings, education, health, recreation, religion, transportation, town life, marriage, and death and includes a new chapter titled "Servitude and Slavery."

This extensive study in historical geography exhibits a precise understanding of the physical environment of pre-revolutionary North Carolina and skillfully interprets this environment in terms of mid-eighteenth century culture. Merrens is the first author to effectively examine the relationship between geographical factors and to analyze it for the entire colonial period. Originally published in 1964. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Over the course of the eighteenth century, race came to seem as corporeal as sex. Kirsten Fischer has mined unpublished court records and travel literature from colonial North Carolina to reveal how early notions of racial difference were shaped by illicit sexual relationships and the sanctions imposed on those who conducted them. Fischer shows how the personal and yet often very public sexual lives of Native American, African American, and European American women and men contributed to the new racial order in this developing slave society. Liaisons between European men and native women, among white and black servants, and between servants and masters, as well as sexual slander among whites and acts of sexualized violence against slaves, were debated, denied, and recorded in the courtrooms of colonial North Carolina. Indentured servants, slaves, Cherokee and Catawba women, and other members of less privileged groups sometimes resisted colonial norms, making sexual choices that irritated neighbors, juries, and magistrates and resulted in legal penalties and other acts of retribution. The sexual practices of ordinary people vividly bring to light the little-known but significant ways in which notions of racial difference were alternately contested and affirmed before the American Revolution.Fischer makes an innovative contribution to the history of race, class, and gender in early America by uncovering a detailed record of illicit sexual exchanges in colonial North Carolina and showing how acts of resistance to sexual rules complicated ideas about inherent racial difference."

Provides an introduction to the history, government, economy, resources, and people of the South Carolina Colony. Includes maps, charts, and a timeline.

Originally published in 1960, this paperback is the most popular title ever published by the Historical Publications Section and has never gone out of print. It contains a separate chapter about Blackbeard, which includes information on the infamous buccaneer's flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge. Also included are an appendix listing seafaring bandits who were active in North Carolina, a listing of other books about pirates, and a glossary of nautical terms pertinent to piracy.