New Voyages to Carolina: Reinterpreting North Carolina History
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New Voyages to Carolina This page intentionally left blank New Voyages to Carolina Reinterpreting North Carolina History EditEd by Larry E. Tise and Jeffrey J. Crow The University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill This book was published with the assistance of the Blythe Family Fund of the University of North Carolina Press and grants from Martin H. Brinkley and James W. Clark Jr. / North Caroliniana Society and William S. Price Jr. © 2017 The University of North Carolina Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Set in Miller by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003. Cover illustration: A manuscript field map of the Carolina coast sketched by Christoph von Graffenreid (1661–1743), founder of New Bern, in 1710. Reproduced with permission from Burgerbibliothek Bern Mss. Mül.466.ma. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Crow, Jeffrey J., author, editor. | Tise, Larry E., author, editor. Title: New voyages to Carolina : reinterpreting North Carolina history / edited by Larry E. Tise and Jeffrey J. Crow. Description: Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017013225| iSbN 9781469634586 (cloth : alk. paper) | iSbN 9781469634593 (pbk : alk. paper) | iSbN 9781469634609 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: North Carolina—Historiography. | North Carolina—History. Classification: LCC F253.2 .N49 2017 | ddC 975.6—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017013225 Contents Preface, ix Introduction, 1 Larry E. Tise and Jeffrey J. Crow An Uncompromising Environment: North Carolina’s “Land of Water” Coastal System, 14 Stanley R. Riggs and Dorothea V. Ames Voyages to Carolina: Europeans in the Indians’ Old World, 41 Michael Leroy Oberg and David Moore Intercolonial Conflict and Cooperation during the Tuscarora War, 60 Stephen Feeley The Conundrum of Unfree Labor, 85 Bradford J. Wood and Larry E. Tise Land Tenure as Regulator Grievance and Revolutionary Tool, 110 Carole Watterson Troxler Evangelical Geographies of North Carolina, 144 Charles F. Irons Money in the Bank: African American Women, Finance, and Freedom in New Bern, North Carolina, 1868–1874, 166 Karin Zipf Educational Capital and Human Flourishing: North Carolina’s Public Schools and Universities, 1865–2015, 194 Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore Linthead Stomp: Carolina Cotton Mill Hands and the Modern Origins of Hillbilly Music, 217 Patrick Huber Tar Heel Politics in the Twentieth Century: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Plutocracy, 241 Karl E. Campbell Defying Brown, Defying Pearsall: African Americans and the Struggle for Public School Integration in North Carolina, 1954–1971, 269 Jerry Gershenhorn It’s Easier to Pick a Yankee Dollar than a Pound of Cotton: Tourism and North Carolina History, 290 Richard D. Starnes Chasing Smokestacks: Lessons and Legacies, 316 James C. Cobb Failing to Excite: The Dixie Dynamo in the Global Economy, 332 Peter A. Coclanis A New Description of North Carolina, 354 Larry E. Tise and Jeffrey J. Crow Index, 391 Figures and Tables FigurES 1.1 A generalized geologic map of the North Carolina Coastal Plain, 17 1.2 Maps showing the location of the ocean shoreline at different time points, 21 1.3 Images showing the impact of hurricanes on the North Carolina coast, 23 1.4 Historic maps of the Roanoke Island coastal area, 28 1.5 Aerial photographs of the Nags Head village, 1932 and 1999, 32 1.6 Images showing the changing coastline of South Nags Head, 34 1.7 Topographic map of North Carolina’s “Land of Water,” 36 2.1 Indian towns visited by Juan Pardo’s second expedition in 1567–68, 43 3.1 Map of South Carolina military campaigns against the Tuscaroras, 1711–15, 62 4.1 U.S. Census map, 1860, showing percentage of slave inhabitants in every county in the South, 96 5.1 Plan of the camp and Battle of Alamance culminating the War of the Regulation, 1771, 112 6.1 Map of ethnic settlement patterns in North Carolina, c. 1800, 155 6.2 Map of various churches in North Carolina, c. 1800, 155 7.1 Headquarters of Vincent Collyer, superintendent of the poor, in New Bern, 1862, 169 7.2 Recorded complexions of female depositors to Freedman’s Savings and Trust, New Bern branch, 1869–1874, 173 7.3 Recorded gender and marital status of depositors to Freedman’s Savings and Trust, New Bern branch, 182 7.4 Recorded marital status and occupations of nonwhite female depositors to Freedman’s Savings and Trust, New Bern branch, 184 7.5 Recorded occupations of nonwhite female depositors from the countryside to Freedman’s Savings and Trust, New Bern branch, 186 8.1 Idealized campus for a community Rosenwald school, 1924, 205 8.2 Drawings of one- and two- teacher Rosenwald schools, 1924, 205 8.3 Architectural drawing of the east and west elevations, Simon G. Atkins High School, 1929, 210 8.4 Architectural drawing of the basement plan, Simon G. Atkins High School, 1929, 211 9.1 Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers, 1927, 223 10.1 Groundbreaking for the Hanes Research Laboratory, Research Triangle Park, 1960, 257 11.1 Political cartoon about the Pearsall Plan, c. 1956, 273 12.1 President Franklin D. Roosevelt en route to the opening performance of The Lost Colony, 1937, 299 13.1 Political cartoon of “Hodges Raiders, ” c. late 1950s, 320 14.1 Map of manufacturing- plant closings in North Carolina, 2003–4, 342 15.1 William Churton map of the Granville District, 1768, 368 15.2 Collier Cobb map of North Carolina, 1880, 378 tabLES 1.1 Drainage history of North Carolina’s Coastal Plain pocosins: Three centuries of swampland development, 30 7.1 Recorded gender of depositors to Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company, New Bern branch, 167 7.2 Recorded occupations of nonwhite female depositors to Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company, New Bern branch, 180 7.3 Recorded occupations of nonwhite female New Bern residents who were depositors to Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company, New Bern branch, 1869–1874, 181 9.1 North Carolina mill hands who made hillbilly music recordings, by hometown, 1925–1942, 220 Preface The inception of the book began in 2010 as a valedictory testimony of three historians who had served as directors of the then Division of Archives and History in the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources for nearly four decades: Larry E. Tise (1975–81), William S. Price Jr. (1981–95), and Jeffrey J. Crow (1995–2012). Over the years they had collaborated on nu- merous conferences and symposiums charting North Carolina’s vast history. In 1979 Crow and Tise coedited essays from one of those conferences titled Writing North Carolina History (University of North Carolina Press). That book provided the first comprehensive view of North Carolina’s historical literature. In the intervening years, however, the growth and expansion of works on the state’s history have gone far beyond the benchmark established in 1979. The three colleagues believed it was time for a new assessment that reflected the diverse studies appearing annually in books, journals, and in- creasingly on the Internet. One symposium could not encompass the broad new historical litera- ture that has appeared since the 1970s. The three collaborators determined to hold four conferences across the state to attract as many participants as possible. With a small planning grant from the North Carolina Humanities Council, the three collaborators invited six other scholars of North Carolina history to meet in the fall of 2010 and to help identify principal themes and subjects for consideration. The historical community in North Carolina and across the nation re- sponded enthusiastically to the plans for the conferences. Many historians living and working outside the state had used North Carolina’s extraordi- nary research facilities to research and write books, articles, and essays that focused on North Carolina’s experience as the locus for their explorations. Despite limited budgets, six state universities stepped forward to host and underwrite the conferences. The inaugural conference, titled “The First North Carolina,” took place at East Carolina University in February 2012. The second conference, titled “The Old North State,” was held on the cam- puses of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Caro- lina Central University in October 2012. The University of North Carolina at Asheville and Western Carolina University jointly hosted the third confer- ence, titled “The Cultural Roots of North Carolina,” which met in Asheville in November 2012. The fourth and final conference, “The Tar Heel State,” re- ix ceived a warm welcome from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in February– March 2013. In the end, forty- five scholars made resentationsp at the four conferences. In addition, the Historical Society of North Carolina, the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association, and the then Office of Archives and History in the North Carolina Department of Cultural Re- sources provided critical financial and logistical support for the conferences. From the beginning the three organizers planned to produce a book that would grow out of the numerous presentations. But the organizers were also determined that the eventual book would in no way have the characteristics of published proceedings. Rather, they hoped to identify topics and themes that emerged from conference deliberations that might become components of a new narrative of North Carolina’s history. Fortunately the conferences were filled with persuasive presentations and lively discussions, proving that the North Carolina story was ripe for a thorough retelling. Narrowing the many stimulating ideas that the conferences produced and organizing them into a manageable set of essays proved challenging. All who attended the conferences recognized that the vibrant scholarship of the past four decades offered an opportunity to rethink North Carolina history, to develop new themes and tropes, to depart from past verities, and to chart an outline for a new narrative history.