Power Point to Accompany Carolina K-12’s lesson
“Slavery, Naval Stores and Rice Plantations
in Colonial North Carolina”
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Vasquez d Ayllon, 1526
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In 1526, Vasquez de Ayllon, a Spanish conquistador and
explorer tried to start a Spanish colony near the Cape Fear
region of present day North Carolina.
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He and 500 colonists settled around the mouth of the Peedee
River in today’s defined South Carolina.
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Ayllon’s 500 settlers included several enslaved Africans.
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The colony failed due to sickness, starvation, Civil War among
the colonists, Native American attacks, and an alleged revolt of
the enslaved Africans.
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The 150 surviving Spanish colonists abandoned the colony,
sailing back to Hispaniola. The slaves remained and likely
merged with local Natives.
Roanoke Island, NC
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During the years Sir Walter Raleigh
attempted to colonize North Carolina
(1584-1590), Sir Francis Drake furnished
NC with its first permanent black
inhabitants.
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Drake, an adventurer, acquired numerous
prisoners during a raid on the West Indies
in 1585-1586. Among these prisoners
were a group of “Negro slaves.”
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When Drake sailed to relieve the Ralph
Lane Colony on Roanoke Island in 1586,
he freed the black captives. They most
likely merged with the local Indian
population of Roanoke Island.
From Virginia to Carolina
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In 1619, around 20 Africans (from the West Indies) were
brought to Virginia’s Jamestown settlement. They were
exchanged for food and supplies.
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Permanent settlement of Carolina began in the 1650s, when
settlers from Virginia pushed down into present-day North
Carolina.
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By 1663, over 500 Virginia settlers had made North
Carolina’s Albemarle region their home. It is likely many
brought slaves with them.
Carolina’s Lords Proprietors
set the stage for Slavery
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In 1663, after his restoration to the English throne, Charles II granted
the eight Lords Proprietors a huge tract of land south of Virginia
(which is present day NC).
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Four of the proprietors were members of the slave trading company,
the Royal African Company. The Lords Proprietors sought easy
profits and recognized that a slave colony in Carolina held the
greatest financial promise.
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In 1663, the proprietors encouraged slavery by promising settlers that
they would be given land for every slave brought to the colony.
“…the Owner of every Negro-Man or Slave, brought
thither to settle within the first year, all Men Negro’s,
or slaves after that time, and within the first five years,
ten acres, and for every Woman-Negro or slave, five
acres.”
Carolina’s Lords Proprietors
set the stage for Slavery
•
Early on, the status of those enslaved was written into law:
“Every freeman of Carolina, shall have
absolute power and authority
over his negro slaves,
of what opinion or religion soever.”
Carolina’s Fundamental Constitutions,
Article 110; 1669
North Carolina Slavery Grows Slowly
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Slavery was slow to grow in North Carolina due to the area’s
treacherous coast and lack of good harbors.
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While some slaves had been shipped directly from Guinea to North
Carolina as early as the 1680s, most of the colony’s slave trade came
overland from Virginia or South Carolina.
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A majority of the 70,000-75,000 slaves who entered South Carolina
between 1735 and 1775 were again exported, with Georgia and
North Carolina being the principal destinations.
…“Great is the loss this Country has sustained in not being
supply’d by vessels from Guinea with Negroes; in any part of the
Province the people are able to pay for a ships load; but as none come
directly from Africa, we are under a necessity to buy, the refuse
refractory and distemper’d Negroes, brougth from other governments.”
~Governor George Burrington, 1733
North Carolina Slavery Follows
Agricultural Patterns
The distribution of slaves in North Carolina followed agricultural patterns.
Where tobacco, rice, naval stores, and grain flourished, slaves performed
the labor.
— Before 1730 most slaves in North Carolina lived in the tobacco-growing
region of the colony’s northeast (Albemarle region).
— Large populations of slaves existed in Northampton, Halifax, and Warren
counties, where on the eve of the American Revolution 40-60% of
households owned slaves.
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North Carolina Slavery Follows
Agricultural Patterns
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Compared to North Carolina, slavery and plantation life expanded
rapidly in South Carolina (which became a colony in 1712) due to it’s
better accessibility.
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The number of blacks in the colony of North Carolina was estimated at
800 in 1712.
South Carolina on the other hand had 4,100 slaves as of 1708; by 1720
the number of slaves there grew to 18,000 – more than 3 times the
number of whites!
During the 1720s, South Carolinian planters moved north into North
Carolina’s Lower Cape Fear region and established rice- growing and
naval stores industries.
— Bringing slaves to do the hard labor, the Lower Cape Fear region
became the highest concentrated area of slaves.
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It may have grown slowly, but it grew…
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Between 1730-1767, North Carolina’s black population grew from
approximately 6,000-40,000.
By the American Revolution, slavery was firmly entrenched in North
Carolina. As the institution grew, North Carolinians searched for means
to regulate slaves’ behavior and ensure a stable work force.
Though North Carolina never developed a full-fledged plantation
system similar to those of South Carolina and Virginia, it did follow
social, economic, and legal paths that firmly established slavery in the
colony by the mid-eighteenth century.
In 1790, 31% of all Tar Heel families owned slaves.
In Lower Cape Fear rice and pitch and tar industries, and tobaccoproducing areas of the northern piedmont, slave holdings were
increasingly concentrated on large plantations.
By 1771 62% of slaves in North Carolina lived on plantations with 10 or
more slaves.
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North Carolina, on the other hand, had a large Quaker
population that was opposed to slavery.
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Even though the slave population was small, Quakers
established regular religious meetings for slaves and urged
slaveholders to treat them well.
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In 1770, Quakers sought the prohibition of slavery, which
was not to become a reality until almost 100 years later.