9781422286050

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Atlantic: North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia

was now a British colony with a royal governor appointed by the king. By 1760, about 150,000 free people and 50,000 slaves lived in the colony. Like people in the other colonies, North Carolinians grew unhappy with the control Great Britain had over their lives. Some colonists, called Loyalists, wanted North Carolina to remain a British colony, but most wanted independence. In 1775, they joined with the other colonists in fighting the Revolutionary War, which lasted until 1783. The Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge in February 1776 was the first Revolutionary War battle to be fought

free of Europeans. Finally, in 1663, King Charles II divided Heath’s land among eight men called Lords Proprietors. Settlers arrived slowly, some bringing with them African slaves. By 1690, North Carolina had about 8,000 residents. The first permanent European town, Bath, was established in 1705. By 1712, North and South Carolina had developed separate governments. Great Britain began buying back the land it had given the Lords Proprietors. By 1729, it had bought out all but one of the Lords. The last one gave up his rights to the colony in a land swap in 1744. North Carolina

Did You Know?

When the English province of Carolina was divided into North and South Carolina in 1729, the border was supposed to run straight along the 35th parallel. But some- times nature got in the way, and surveyors guessed where the border should be, used boundary markers that were later destroyed, or simply gave up and stopped marking the border. Each of four surveys between 1813 and 1928 changed the bor- der. In the early 1990s, a new survey was started. As of 2014, the governments of North and South Carolina were close to agreeing to a final state border. Some peo- ple will suddenly be living in a different state without ever moving!