The earliest evidence of human occupation in North Carolina dates back 10,000 years, found at the
Hardaway Site. North Carolina was inhabited by
Carolina Algonquian,
Iroquoian, and
Siouan speaking tribes of Native Americans prior to the arrival of Europeans. King Charles II granted eight lord proprietors a colony they named Carolina after the king and which was established in 1670 with the first permanent settlement at Charles Town (Charleston). Because of the difficulty of governing the entire colony from Charles Town, the colony was eventually divided and North Carolina was established as a
royal colony in 1729 and was one of the
Thirteen Colonies. The
Halifax Resolves resolution adopted by North Carolina on April 12, 1776, was the first formal call for independence from Great Britain among the American Colonies during the
American Revolution.
On November 21, 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the
United States Constitution. In the run-up to the
American Civil War, North Carolina declared its
secession from the
Union on May 20, 1861, becoming the tenth of eleven states to join the
Confederate States of America. Following the Civil War, the state was restored to the Union on July 4, 1868. On December 17, 1903,
Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully piloted the world's first controlled, sustained flight of a powered,
heavier-than-air aircraft at
Kitty Hawk in North Carolina's
Outer Banks. North Carolina often uses the slogan "First in Flight" on state
license plates to commemorate this achievement, alongside a newer alternative design bearing the slogan "First in Freedom" in reference to the
Mecklenburg Declaration and Halifax Resolves. (Full article...)
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Detail of a 1770 map of North Carolina by John Collett depicting the locations of Fort Dobbs, the Yadkin and Catawba Rivers, and Salisbury.
Fort Dobbs was an 18th-century fort in the
Yadkin–Pee Dee River Basin region of the
Province of North Carolina, near what is now
Statesville in
Iredell County. Used for frontier defense during and after the
French and Indian War, the fort was built to protect the
American settlers of the western frontier of North Carolina, and served as a vital outpost for soldiers. Fort Dobbs' primary structure was a
blockhouse with log walls, surrounded by a shallow ditch, and by 1759, a
palisade. It was intended to provide protection from French-allied Native Americans such as the
Shawnee raids into western North Carolina.
The fort's name honored
Arthur Dobbs, the Royal Governor of North Carolina from 1755 to 1765, who played a role in designing the fort and authorized its construction. Between 1756 and 1761, the fort was garrisoned by a variable number of soldiers, many of whom were sent to fight in
Pennsylvania and the
Ohio River Valley during the French and Indian War. On February 27, 1760, the fort was the site of an engagement between Cherokee warriors and Provincial soldiers that ended in a victory for the Provincials. (Full article...)
Image 16Map of North America by
Vesconte Maggiolo after an earlier map made on the Verrazzano expedition of 1524. The narrow isthmus of land separating "Tera Florida" from "Francesca" is the
Outer Banks of North Carolina.
Cape Fear is labeled "C. de la Forest". (from History of North Carolina)
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