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North Carolina
was first explored in early 1524 by Giovanni de Verrazano, with his ship
Daphine. He was an Italian working for France. He was looking for a shortcut
to Asia just like some other explorers like John Cabot, an English
explorer. The first place Verrazano stepped on was Cape Fear in North Carolina,
then he went north looking for the shortcut. He was also the first person
who explored New York and Rhode Island. Verrazano gave a good reputation
to North Carolina saying that it was a very good region. In 1526
Spaniards may have made an attempt to settle North and South
Carolina. That summer Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón led about 500
people and they made a settlement that may have been in the place
where Cape Fear empties into the Atlantic. They moved south because of
starvation and disease but still, people died. By October of that year
only 150 out of the original 500 people were still alive, these people
gave up and returned to Santo Domingo (now this city is part of the
Dominican Republic).
England realized that they better do something before Spain occupied all
the land like they did in Central and South America. Some English
people became very interested in the Americas. One of them was Walter
Raleigh. In the spring of 1584 Queen Elizabeth gave a charter to Raleigh
to build an American colony. Raleigh sent an expedition to find a good
site for his colony. Two ships departed to America under the command
of Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlow in April 1584. After two months, on
July 4, 1584 the ships approached North Carolina. The commanders
were very happy with what they saw, they wrote reports saying how wonderful
the land was. During the summer of 1584 the commanders held a ceremony
in which they claimed the present day US for England. They asked
the Indians North Carolina's name, the Indians didn't understand
the English and they responded "Wingandacon" meaning "You wear good clothes",
as a result the English called the place Wingand. After two months
of staying in North Carolina Amandas and Barlow departed for England,
around mid-August. By mid-September of 1584 the expedition was back
in England, there they gave the good news. The news caused excitement in
England and in the next few months Raleigh organized a group of people
to begin settling the new colony. In this period of excitement, Queen
Elizabeth knighted Raleigh, so from now on, he was supposed to be called
Sir Walter Raleigh. At the same date that the queen knighted Raleigh
she changed the name of the colony from Wingandacon to Virginia,
which means "Fresh or unspoiled". The Virginia at that time wasn't the
same size as the Virginia of today, at that time it included the Carolinas
and other States. Raleigh's first people that were going to be in
the first colony reached North Carolina's outer banks in late June 1585.
Raleigh planed that the settlement would be at Roanoke Island which was
just off the coast of North Carolina. Before they went to that Island
they visited several villages.
The Indians welcomed the new comers very well. One day, the Englishmen
found one silver cup of theirs missing, Sir Richard Grenville, who
was one of the leaders, assumed that the Indians stole the cup and
in revenge he did the most stupid and cruel act that helped doom the colony
turning the Indians against the Englishmen. He burned the whole village
and its cornfields.
The expedition finally reached Roanoke Island in late July 1585. Raleigh
and the people that came with him were prepared to do work, though
Grenville soon departed back to England. Ralph Lane was in charge
of the colony. Not everything went right for him, in fact, he was lacking
things like food. The Indians would have helped, but after knowing
what Englishmen did for a drinking cup, they didn't help. The Indian
Chief was going to destroy the island but Ralph Lane knew this and in late
spring 1586 he attacked and killed Roanoke' chief Wingina.
Ralph Lane went back to England, and soon the ships with supplies that
were sent by Raleigh arrived, posibly just a day after Ralph departed.
A few weeks after the supplies arrival, more supplies arrived, Grenville
arrived and brought with him a years' supplies for the colony. Nor did
Raleigh or
Grenville
find a sign of life from the people that they left before going to England,
the only thing that they did find were a settler and an Indian, both
dead. Grenville went back to England in 1586, he left 15 to 18 people
in the colony to see if they could survive, which was very probable. Next
year more settlers came. The colonists only found a skeleton out
of the 15 to 18 people that Grenvile left before going. A friendly
Indian told them that at least one settler was killed by the Indians and
the rest probably fled.
Among the new colonists that came in 1587, was George Howe who was killed
by the Indians in revenge for their murdered chief, Wingina. A few
days later, on August 13, 1587, Manteo, who was a Croatoan, adopted
the Christian faith, he was the first known Protestant Baptist in what
is now the U.S. Five days later, Elenor White Dare gave birth to
the first child in the colony, Virginia Dare, the first Christian
child born in the U.S.. Governor White faced many problems, the most important
was that the colony didn't have food and the Indians didn't want
to help because of the bad reputation of the Englishmen. White went
back and reached England in November of 1587, but before he left he told
the settlers that if for some reason they had to leave the city of
Raleigh, they were supposed to write their destination on the tree
near the fort, and if they were in danger, they were supposed to mark a
cross on top of it. He ran into some problems while in England, the
biggest one was that he couldn't do anything to help the new colony
because all the ships of England were being used to fight the Spanish armada.
Sir Francis Drake and other captains defeated the Armada in the summer
of 1588, but for reasons that aren't quite clear he couldn't come
back to the colony until 1590.
White reached the Roanoke Island in that summer of 1590, and found the
tree near the fort. It read "CROATOAN" which was the name of an Indian
tribe. He tried to go to that island were they lived, but a big storm
(in which seven people drowned), and lack of food and fresh water made
them go back to England. White died without knowing what happened
with the colony.
All of these bad things that happened prevented North Carolina from being
the site for the first English colony. The Colony of Virginia was
formed as the first permanent colony, please read Virginia Colony
for more information. Virginia was governed by a private company at first,
but then, in 1624 it became a royal colony. In 1625 King James died
and his son, Charles I, became the king. The King lopped off a huge
area south of modern day Virginia, it included the greater part of North
Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia and named it Carolana which
meaned "Land of Charles" in Latin. The King gave this piece of land
to Sir Robert Heath. The name Carolana was changed to Carolina in 1663.
In 1665, King Charles II enlarged the Carolina colony, from the present
day border of N. Carolina to border with Florida.
During the 1600s most of the people that lived in North Carolina were big
families and people with religious problems. The main crop was corn,
because the colonists ate almost all of the corn. Corn wasn't the
only crop though, beans, peas, potatoes, rice, sweet potatoes, and wheat,
also tobacco was something that the settlers grew a lot. The families
in this period did a great deal of trading with each other. Later
on North Carolina became a state in about 1653 and became the 10 Colony. |
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