The European Settlement of North Carolina  

The following information is from "A Delicious Country: Yadkin Valley, 1670-1770," written by Jim Daniel and published by the Davidson County Historical Museum in 2006.  As other chapters become available online they can be accessed through 'Related Links' to the right. 

Nearly 40 years later in 1629, King Charles I granted to Sir Robert Heath a province lying south of present day Virginia. It incorporated all the territory to the current northern border of Florida, and was named Carolana. However, Heath, accused of “sleeping on the King’s commission,” did nothing at all with his grant. It would be many years before settlers would again return to what would become North Carolina.  

In 1607, between Raleigh’s failed efforts and Heath’s unexercised Carolana grant, another English attempt succeeded in planting a colony at Jamestown in Virginia. Like their predecessors at Roanoke Island, the Jamestown settlers went through times of famine and experienced near total elimination at the hands of hostile Native Americans; but unlike the “Lost Colony,” they managed to hold on.  

Back in England a period of political unrest was beginning that would end in the English Civil War, the execution of King Charles I, and the dissolution of the English Monarchy. With so much at home to occupy the minds of Englishmen, the Jamestown colony and a later settlement at Plymouth, Massachusetts were far from the center of attention. By 1660, when the English Monarchy was restored under newly crowned King Charles II, both colonies had become established.  

In 1663, as a token of thanks for aid in his ascendancy to the throne, King Charles II granted a newly defined province of Carolina to eight of his most influential supporters. The new territory, much like the Carolana province that preceded it, ranged from just below Virginia’s¹ southern border to just below the location of present-day Daytona, Florida. It had no western boundary, theoretically extending the Carolina province to the Pacific. The eight grantees were to manage and govern Carolina as a proprietary colony. They were called the Lords Proprietors.  

The first permanent settlers under the Proprietors² were perhaps those who settled at Charlestowne Landing at the junction of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers in 1670. Charlestowne prospered almost from the start. Soon thereafter a few small settlements sprang up in the Albemarle Sound area and along the lower Cape Fear, but the portion of Carolina that would eventually become the North State suffered a major geographic disadvantage. Unlike her southern sister, the northern part of Carolina had no large natural harbors like Charlestowne or the Chesapeake Bay. Indeed the Outer Banks, shifting shoals and shallow sounds presented a hazard to ship borne commerce.  

Both the Virginians and the Charlestonians began to seek trade with the Native Americans in the backcountry of the Carolinas, desiring their animal pelts and hides for export to England. In 1670, Governor Berkley of Virginia sent an expedition under German physician John Lederer to explore the Virginia and Carolina backcountry. Lederer visited the Yadkin Valley where he found a village of Saura Indians at the Trading Ford. A subsequent expedition in 1673 again found Saura at the Trading Ford. This latter expedition recorded the name of the River as the “Yattken.”  

The next notable journey into the Yadkin Valley came in 1701. John Lawson had been appointed Surveyor General of the Province of Carolina. He set out on a trip into the backcountry to view the resources and terrain. Approaching the Yadkin Valley from the south he noted the abundant plant and animal life and fertile soil, saying that it was "a delicious country; none that I ever saw exceeds it."³    

Lawson found a village of Native Americans at the Trading Ford⁴ as had Lederer and others, but these were not the Saura who had been found there earlier but the Saponi, another Siouan⁵ band. These Saponi were preparing to move to the east nearer the English settlements to avoid the bands of marauding Iroquois who came from the north to seek captives for slaves and wives.  

By 1710 it had become evident that the great size of the province and the lack of a blossoming economy in the northern portion were creating divisions that would lead to the official separation of the Province of Carolina into two separate colonies: North and South Carolina.  

To accomplish this change, the claims of the Lords Proprietors had to be dealt with. Of the Proprietors, only one chose not to sell his interest back to the Crown. The sole holdout, John Carteret, petitioned the King for a determination of the 1/8^th claim he still held. Eventually it was determined that rather than assign Carteret a percentage of the whole, he would receive title to a single contiguous tract in North Carolina encompassing all that land lying from the Virginia line to a line at 35 degrees, 34 minutes latitude.  

The Granville Tract’s southern boundary line is shown on this section of the John Collet Map of 1770. It can be found about ¾ of the way down the image, running from the right side through the “i” in “Yadkin” and extending to just beyond the Trading Path and Coldwater Creek. All of Davidson County lay within the Granville Tract, although Henry Eustace McCulloh owned some large tracts by prior claim.

Filling up the backcountry  

In the period between 1710 and 1746, little settlement occurred in North Carolina. Part of this inactivity can be blamed on the confusion surrounding the change from a Proprietary Colony to a Royal Colony, and to the issue of the Granville Tract.    

However, by the late 1740’s the pieces were in place for expansion. Both the Royal Governor and Earl Granville had ample incentive to encourage settlement of the backcountry. There were tracts of fertile land available and unlike the colonies to the north, there was little threat from the remnants of the Native American population, most of them having already moved out of the area.  

All that was needed was large numbers of potential settlers. Both the Royal Governors and Earl Granville’s agents set about finding them.  

Ad from a Belfast newspaper seeking passengers to North Carolina.

Notes: 

1 The Charter of 1663 left a gap between the northern boundary of Carolina and the southern boundary of Virginia. At the urging of the Proprietors an amended charter in 1666 closed that gap, adding the territory to Carolina. 

2 Some small groups from the Virginia colony had moved into the territory around Albemarle Sound as early as 1653 but they had no legal claim to the lands they took up. Noting the lawless makeup of many of the squatters, Virginia referred to the area as a “Rogue’s Harbor.”  

3 Lawson’s account of his journey, including extensive notes on the natural history of the area and on the Native Americans he encountered, was published in 1709 as “A New Voyage to Carolina...” It has been reprinted many times as “Lawson’s History of North Carolina.” Other 18th century authors, including William Byrd of Virginia, plagiarized Lawson’s detailed natural history. 

4 Dr. Joffre Coe excavated a site that is believed to be the village visited by both Lederer and Lawson. That site is located in the Linwood area. 

5 The Native American populations of early Carolina are grouped by the origins of their language. Those populations along the coast belong to an Algonkian group. The Tuscarora of the coastal plain and the Cherokee of the mountains belong to an Iroquoian group while the Catwaba, Saura, Saponi, Keyauwee, Eno, Ocaneechi, and others of the piedmont have a Siouan language heritage. This doesn’t mean that they were related to the Sioux of the Great Plains, only that they had commonality in the roots of their language. 

6 The line ended at this point as the commissioners responsible for it were so far beyond the current limits of settlement that they were no longer able to find supplies for themselves. The line was extended further west in 1753. 

7 “Quitrents” were a holdover from feudal times. They were fees paid in perpetuity to the grantor of the land in lieu of providing him labor or other services. Although the purchaser acquired title to the land, he was still obliged to pay quitrents each year. 

8 Royal Governor Gabriel Johnston complained that not only did Carteret have more than half the colony he had the better half. Johnston would be responsible for the governance and defense of Carteret’s tract but would have little income from it to defray the expenses.