History:<\/h2>\n
North Carolina was inhabited for thousands of years by succeeding cultures of prehistoric indigenous cultures. \u00a0Before 200 AD, they were building earthwork mounds, which were used for ceremonial and religious purposes. \u00a0Succeeding peoples, including those of the ancient Mississippian culture<\/a> established by 1000 AD in the Piedmont, continued to build or add on to such mounds. \u00a0In the 500\u2013700 years preceding European contact, the Mississippian culture built large, complex cities and maintained far-flung regional trading networks.<\/p>\n Historically documented tribes in the North Carolina region include the Carolina Algonquian-speaking tribes of the coastal areas, such as the Chowanoke<\/a>, Roanoke, Pamlico<\/a>, Machapunga<\/a>, Coree<\/a>, and Cape Fear Indians<\/a>, who were the first encountered by the English; the Iroquoian-speaking Meherrin<\/a>, Cherokee<\/a>, and Tuscarora<\/a> of the interior; and Southeastern Siouan tribes, such as the Cheraw<\/a>, Waxhaw<\/a>, Saponi<\/a>, Waccamaw<\/a>, and Catawba<\/a>.<\/p>\n Spanish explorers traveling inland in the 16th century met Mississippian culture people.\u00a0 Captain Juan Pardo<\/a> built Fort San Juan<\/a> and left a contingent of 30 men there, while Pardo traveled further, and built and garrisoned five other forts. \u00a0He returned by a different route to Santa Elena on Parris Island, South Carolina, then a center of Spanish Florida. \u00a0In the spring of 1568, natives killed all but one of the soldiers and burned the six forts in the interior, including the one at Fort San Juan. Although the Spanish never returned to the interior, this effort marked the first European attempt at colonization of the interior of what became the United States.<\/p>\n In 1584, Elizabeth I granted a charter to Sir Walter Raleigh, for whom the state capital is named, for land in present-day North Carolina, which was then part of the territory of Virginia.\u00a0 It was the second American territory which the English attempted to colonize. \u00a0Raleigh established two colonies on the coast in the late 1580s, but both failed. \u00a0The fate of the “Lost Colony” of Roanoke Islan<\/a>d remains one of the most widely debated mysteries of American history. \u00a0Virginia Dare<\/a>, the first English child to be born in North America, was born on Roanoke Island on August 18, 1587.<\/p>\n As early as 1650, settlers from the Virginia colony moved into the area of Albemarle Sound. By 1663, King Charles II of England<\/a> granted a charter to start a new colony on the North American continent; it generally established North Carolina’s borders. He named it Carolina in honor of his father Charles I.\u00a0 By 1665, a second charter was issued to attempt to resolve territorial questions. \u00a0In 1710, owing to disputes over governance, the Carolina colony began to split into North Carolina and South Carolina. The latter became a crown colony in 1729.<\/p>\n English indentured servants<\/a> were overwhelmingly the largest immigrant group before the Revolution.\u00a0 As the flow of indentured laborers to the colony decreased with improving economic conditions in Great Britain, planters imported more slaves, and the state’s legal delineations between free and slave status tightened, effectively hardening the latter into a racial caste. The economy’s growth and prosperity was based on slave labor, devoted first to the production of tobacco.<\/p>\n Throughout the Revolutionary War, fierce guerrilla warfare erupted between bands of pro-independence and pro-British colonists. \u00a0The English and Highland Scots of eastern North Carolina tended to remain loyal to the British Crown<\/a>, because of longstanding business and personal connections with Great Britain. The English, Welsh, Scots-Irish, and German settlers of western North Carolina tended to favor American independence from Britain.\u00a0 In some cases the war was also an excuse to settle private grudges and rivalries.\u00a0 The American victory at Kings Mountain gave the advantage to colonists who favored American independence, and it prevented the British Army from recruiting new soldiers from the Tories.<\/p>\n On November 21, 1789, North Carolina became the twelfth state to ratify the Constitution.<\/p>\n Planters owning large estates wielded significant political and socio-economic power in antebellum North Carolina, which was a slave society. \u00a0They placed their interests above those of the generally non-slave-holding “yeoman” farmers of western North Carolina.<\/p>\n During the antebellum period, North Carolina was an overwhelmingly rural state, even by Southern standards. \u00a0In 1860 only one North Carolina town, the port city of Wilmington, had a population of more than 10,000. \u00a0Raleigh, the state capital, had barely more than 5,000 residents.<\/p>\n In 1860, North Carolina was a slave state, in which one-third of the population was enslaved. \u00a0This was a smaller proportion than in many Southern states. The state did not vote to join the Confederacy until President Abraham Lincoln called on it to invade its sister state, South Carolina, becoming the second-to-last state to officially join the Confederacy. \u00a0North Carolina was the site of few battles, but it provided the Confederacy with at least 125,000 troops, which is far more than any other state did. \u00a0North Carolina also supplied about 15,000 Union troops.<\/p>\n North Carolina consists of three main geographic regions: the Atlantic coastal plain, occupying the eastern portion of the state;<\/p>\n the central Piedmont region,<\/p>\n and the Mountain region in the west, which is part of the Appalachian Mountains.<\/p>\n North Carolina is bordered on the south by South Carolina and Georgia, to the west by Tennessee, to the north by Virginia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n North Carolina ranked forty-first out of fifty states plus the District of Columbia for median household income. \u00a0North Carolina had the fourteenth highest poverty rate in the nation at 17.6%. 13% of families were below the poverty line.<\/p>\n The state has a very diverse economy.\u00a0 The state leads the region in industry and agriculture.\u00a0 Charlotte<\/a>, the state’s largest city, is a major textile and trade center. \u00a0Science, technology, energy, and math (STEM) industries in the area surrounding North Carolina’s capital have grown 17.9 percent since 2001, placing Raleigh-Cary<\/a> at No. 5 among the 51 largest metro areas in the country where technology is booming.<\/p>\n North Carolina is the leading U.S. state in production of flue-cured tobacco and sweet potatoes, and comes second in the farming of pigs and hogs, trout, and turkeys.\u00a0 North Carolina also ranked second in the production of Christmas trees.<\/p>\n While North Carolina’s urban areas have enjoyed a prosperous economy with steady job growth, low unemployment, and rising wages, many of the state’s rural counties have suffered from job loss, rising levels of poverty, and population loss as their manufacturing base has declined.<\/p>\n Transportation systems in North Carolina consist of air, water, road, rail, and public transportation including intercity rail via Amtrak and light rail in Charlotte. \u00a0North Carolina has the second-largest state highway system in the country as well as the largest ferry system on the east coast.<\/p>\n North Carolina’s airports serve destinations throughout the United States and international destinations in Canada, Europe, Central America, and the Caribbean. \u00a0In 2013 Charlotte Douglas International Airport<\/a> ranked as the 23rd busiest airport in the world.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/07\/Mississippian-Culture-300x198.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
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Geography:<\/h2>\n
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Economy:<\/h2>\n
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Transportation:<\/h2>\n
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