one governor was placed over both settlements, but it was found necessary to appoint a deputy for North Carolina, and finally in 1712 again to allow her a governor of her own. So long as the intervening territory was a wilderness no effort was made to define the boundary line. The first steps were taken in that direction just after the close of the proprietary period in 1729, but the work was not completed until 1815.[1]
The first permanent English colony in North Carolina was established at Albemarle on the Chowan river about 1660 by people from Virginia. The colony grew rapidly, and at the close of the colonial period (1776) the population numbered approximately 300,000, including English, Scotch, Scotch-Irish, Swiss, French Protestants, Moravians, and about 40,000 negroes. According to Dr Weeks “the earliest settlers . . . were not religious refugees, . . . they came to the province not from religious but economic motives.”
The proprietary period (1663–1729) was a turbulent one, in spite of the supposedly peaceful influence of the Quakers. Six out of sixteen governors or deputy-governors were driven from office between 1674 and 1712, and there were two uprisings which have been deemed worthy of the term rebellion. The first under John Culpeper in 1677 was primarily economic in character, the chief grievance being the payment of an export duty on tobacco. It was evidently influenced by the recent uprising in Virginia under Nathaniel Bacon. The insurrection of dissenters (1708–1711), which was headed by Thomas Carey, who was deputy-governor while the trouble was brewing, was in opposition to the establishment of the Church of England; it was ultimately unsuccessful, the Church was established in 1711, a law was passed which deprived Quakers of the privilege of serving on juries or holding public office, and the establishment was continued until the War of Independence. A war with the Tuscarora Indians, in 1711–1713, resulted in the defeat of the Indians and the removal of the greater part of the tribe to New York, where they became the sixth nation of the Iroquois confederacy.
North Carolina did not join South Carolina in the revolution of 1719 (see South Carolina), but remained under proprietary rule until 1729. In that year an act was passed by parliament establishing an agreement with seven of the Lords Proprietors for the surrender of their claims to both provinces. They were allowed £17,500 for their rights and £5000 for arrears of quit rents. Lord Carteret refused to sell and continued to hold a one-eighth undivided share until 1744, when he gave up his claim in return for a large strip of land in North Carolina lying between latitude 35° 34′ and the Virginia line (36° 30′). So that while the king was governmental head of the whole of North Carolina from 1729 to 1776 he was, after 1744, territorial lord of only the southern half. The political history during the royal period is, like that of the other colonies, the story of a constant struggle between the representatives of the people and the representatives of the crown. The struggle was especially bitter during the administrations of the last three royal governors, Arthur Dobbs (1684–1765), William Tryon (1729–1788) and Josiah Martin (1737–1786). There were disputes over questions of government, of commerce, of finance and of religion. The ship which brought stamps and stamped paper to Wilmington in 1766 was not permitted to land, and the stampmaster was compelled by the people to take an oath that he would not exercise the functions of his office. Through the vigilance of Governor Tryon, however, the Assembly was prevented from sending delegates to the Stamp Act Congress. The colonists were also angered by the attempt to enforce the acts of trade and navigation and by the parliamentary statute of 1764 forbidding the issue of bills of credit; and the Scotch-Irish among them in particular were aroused by the repeal of an act of 1771 allowing Presbyterian ministers to perform the marriage ceremony and of another act of the same year for the establishment of Queen’s College in Mecklenburg county for Presbyterians. In the “back country” extortionate fees, excessive taxes, and the oppressive manner of collecting them brought about a popular uprising, known as the Regulation, which centred in Orange and Anson counties, but was strong also in Brown, Edgecombe, Johnson, Granville and Halifax counties. Hermon Husband (c. 1724–1795) was the chief agitator of measures for relief, but, since, as a Quaker, he discouraged violence, the cause was left without a recognized leader. Governor Tryon manifested no sympathy for the oppressed and sought only the thorough suppression of the disturbance, which was organized in the spring of 1768 by Regulators, “for regulating public grievances and abuses of power.” The Regulators agreed to pay no more taxes until satisfied that they were in accordance with law, and to pay nothing in excess of the legal fees. Violence speedily followed; the local militia was called out, but since only a few would serve the only means found to quiet the people was an alleged promise from the governor that if they would petition him for redress and go to their homes he would see that justice was done. In reply to their petition the governor denied that he had made any promise in their behalf; and in September he had at his command a military force of 1153, about one-fourth of whom were officers. Although the Regulators assembled to the number of about 3700 they were not prepared to withstand the governor’s force and again submitted without bloodshed, there being only a few arrests made. In the following year the Regulators attempted to elect new members to the assembly and petitioned the newly-elected house. But as little had been accomplished when the superior court met at Hillsboro, Orange county, in September 1770, the Regulators became desperate again, whipped the chief offender, Colonel Edmund Fanning, and demolished his residence. These riotous proceedings provoked the second military expedition of the governor, and on the 16th of May 1771, with a force of about 1000 men and officers, he met about twice that number of Regulators on the banks of the Alamance, where, after two hours of fighting, with losses on each side nearly equal, the ammunition of the Regulators was exhausted and they were routed. About fifteen were taken prisoners, and of these seven were executed. This insurrection was in no sense a beginning of the War of Independence; on the contrary, during that war most of Tryon’s militia who fought at Alamance were Patriots and the majority of the Regulators, who remained in the province, were Loyalists.
In August 1771 Governor Tryon was succeeded by Governor Josiah Martin, who was soon engaged in spirited controversies with the assembly on questions pertaining to taxes, the southern boundary, and the attachment of property belonging to non-residents. So complete became the breach between them that in 1773 the royal government had nearly ceased to operate, and in 1774 the governor was deserted by his hitherto subservient council. The first Provincial Congress met at Newbern on the 25th of August 1774 and elected delegates to the Continental Congress. When the governor learned that a second Provincial Congress was called to meet in April 1775 he resolved to convene the assembly on the same day. But the assembly, the members of which were nearly the same as those of the congress, refused to interrupt the meeting of the congress, and in the next month the governor sought safety in flight, first to Fort Johnson on the Cape Fear below Wilmington and then to a man-of-war along the coast. On the 31st of May 1775 a committee representing the militia companies of Mecklenburg county passed a series of resolutions which declared that the royal commissions in the several colonies were null and void, that the constitution of each colony was wholly suspended, and that the legislative and executive powers of each colony were vested in its provincial congress subject to the direction of the Continental Congress; and the resolutions requested the
- ↑ Between 1735 and 1746 the southern boundary was first definitely established by a joint commission of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. The line was resurveyed in 1764, and in 1772 was extended; parts of the line were resurveyed under acts of the assembly of 1803, 1804, 1806, 1813, 1814 and 1815, and by an act of 1819 the last extension, to the Tennessee line, was confirmed and established. According to the charter the northern boundary was to be the line of 36° 30′, but the surveys (of 1728, 1749 and 1779) were not strictly accurate, and the actual line runs irregularly from 36° 33′ 15″ at its eastern to 36° 34′ 25·5″ at its western end. The boundary between North Carolina and Tennessee was surveyed in 1799 and 1821.
