USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: The Federal Period 1783-1860, Volume II > Part 7
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In the meantime a genuine expansion of territory was tak- ing place through the removal of the Cherokee Indians. At the close of the Revolution the Cherokees still occupied all the land now in the bounds of the state west of the Blue Ridge excepting the territory northeast of a line approximately half- way between Asheville and Burnsville, which had been ceded by the Indians to the state in 1777. The further elimination of the Indians became a function of the Federal Government after the adoption of the Articles of Confederation. In 1785 by the Treaty of Hopewell considerable territory west of the Great Smokies, and also a large tract in the French Broad region, were ceded. To this was added in 1791 a triangle ex- tending west and northwest of Asheville to the Clinch River,
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
and in 1798 another triangular strip in the region of Hender- sonville and Waynesville. In 1819 about half of the remain- ing lands occupied by the Cherokees were ceded, and in 1835 a last cession, including all the land the Cherokees then occu- pied, was negotiated.
Contemporary with the policy of removal was the rise of the national spirit among the Cherokees. After the treaty of 1819 the Indians who remained adopted a republican form of government and a written constitution, their capital being located at New Echota, Georgia. By 1835 there were 3,644 Cherokees in North Carolina. The treaty of that year pro- vided that a limited number of Indians might remain and become citizens of the United States, but this clause was stricken out by President Jackson. There now followed a sad and pathetic chapter of Indian history. Although practically all the Cherokees protested against the removal treaty of 1835, an army of 7,000 men was sent to enforce the treaty. Forts or stockades for collecting the Indians were erected, among which were Fort Montgomery near Robbinsville, Fort Hambric at the present site of Hayesville, Fort Delaney at Old Valleytown, and Fort Butler at Murphy. Against con- centration and removal there was resistance. Leadership was taken by Old Man Tsali (Charley). He, his brother, his three sons and their families were arrested and taken to a stockade at the junction of the Tuckaseegee and Little Tennessee ~ rivers. There they fell upon their captors, killed four of them, and made their escape. General Scott, convinced that the escaped Indians could not be recaptured by the whites, and also fearing their influence, offered a compromise by which Utsali, Chief of the Cherokees, and 1,000 of his followers might remain in North Carolina provided Old Man Tsali was delivered up. Either by voluntary action or seizure by Utsali, Tsali was secured and executed. Official documents in con- firmation of the compromise do not exist; but many Indians were allowed to remain and in 1846 their rights were recog- nized by treaty, an annual allowance of $3.20 per capita being granted. To protect their rights William H. Thomas was appointed Indian Agent. For them he purchased five towns, Bird-town, Paint-town, Wolf-town, Yellow-hill, and Big Cove.
VIRGINIA
INDIAN REMOVAL FROM NORTH CAROLINA
Ridge
Mountains.
NORTH! 1785
CAROLINA
1791
Asheville
Great
Waynesville
1777
Robbinsville
Webster 1708
Hendersonville
1836
18/9
Murphy
SOUTH CAROLINA
GEORGIA
WRH.
TENNESSEE
Smoky.
-
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
In these the Indians lived a civilized life with a constitution framed for them by Thomas. Charles Lanman in 1848 made the following comment on Cherokee life :
About three-fourths of the entire population can read in their own language, and, though the majority of them understand English, a very few can speak the language. They practice, to a considerable ex- tent, the science of agriculture, and have acquired such a knowledge of the mechanic arts as answers them for all ordinary purposes, for they manufacture their own clothing, their own plows, and other farming utensils, their own axes, and even their own guns. Their women are no longer treated as slaves, but as equals; the men labor in the fields and their wives are devoted entirely to household employ- ments. They keep the same domestic animals that are kept by their white neighbors, and cultivate all the common grains of the country. They are probably as temperate as any other class of people on the face of the earth, honest in their business intercourse, moral in their thoughts, words, and deeds, and distinguished for their faithfulness in performing the duties of religion. They are chiefly Methodists and Baptists, and have regularly ordained ministers who preach to them on every Sabbath, and they have also abandoned many of their more senseless superstitions. They have their own court and try their crim- inals by a regular jury. Their judges and lawyers are chosen from among themselves. They keep in order the public roads leading through their settlement. By a law of the state they have a right to vote, but seldom exercise that right, as they do not like the idea of being identified with any of the political parties. Excepting on festive days they dress after the manner of the white man, but far more pic- turesquely. They live in small log houses of their own construction, and have everything they need or desire in the way of food. They are, in fact, the happiest community I have yet mnet with in this southern country.1
In 1862 Washington Morgan was sent by Gen. Kirby Smith to enlist the Cherokees in the Confederate cause, but Colonel Thomas persuaded them to join a Legion under his command. About 400 responded, and were used as scouts and home guards. They participated in a number of minor battles, notably at Baptist Gap, Tennessee, in September, 1862. The Confederate Government made the same financial allowance for the Indians as the Federal Government had made. After the war, in 1868, the Cherokees adopted a con- stitution at Cheowee, Graham County. Titles to land amount- ing to 50,000 acres were established by litigation, and in 1875 the Department of Indian Affairs assumed guardianship.
1 Letters from the Alleghany Mountains, p. 94.
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
In 1889 the Eastern Band of Cherokees was incorporated under the laws of North Carolina "with all the rights, fran- chises, privileges and powers incident and belonging to cor- porations under the laws of the State of North Carolina."
Of antiquarian interest, and also reflecting the rise of a sense of patriotic pride, was the process of locating the capi- tal, constructing the state house, and the contract for a statue of Washington. In 1779 the legislature appointed a committee to select a location in Johnston, Wake or Chatham counties for a permanent capital. In 1781 choice was fixed on Hills- boro and the public building at Newbern was ordered to be sold. However in the summer of 1781 David Fanning and his band of loyalists raided Hillsboro and captured Governor Burke and other state officials. Hillsboro was now too near the centre of military operations for safety, and at the next session of the legislature the resolution making it the capital was rescinded. During the next few years sessions of the legislature were held at Halifax, Tarboro, Smithfield, Fayette- ville, Newbern, Salem and Wake Courthouse. The Hillsboro Convention of 1788, along with the consideration of the Fed- eral Constitution, was authorized to "fix on the place of an unalterable seat of government." So pressing was the other business of the convention that the details of location were left to the legislature with the general direction that the capital be located within ten miles of a place chosen by the convention. Balloting for the locality was then undertaken. The competing sites were Tarboro, Smithfield, Fayetteville, Newbern, Hillsboro, the fork of the Haw and Deep rivers, and the Hunter plantation in Wake County. On the third ballot the Wake County location received a majority of the votes. But not until 1791 did the legislature undertake to carry out the mandate of the convention. Then a commission was ap- pointed to purchase land and lay off a capital city. The com- mission met late in March, 1792, and after a week's investiga- tion decided on the Joel Lane plantation. In April a deed was procured for 1,000 acres for which the state paid £1,378, North Carolina currency, equivalent on face value to $3,445. Plans for a city were drawn up, surveys were made, and at the next session of the legislature the work of the commission
THE FIRST STATE HOUSE, BURNED IN 1831 From a rare old painting in the Hall of History at Raleigh
Colonial residence, Roland, M. built by Joel Line
W. G. Randall, 1900
RESIDENCE OF JOEL LANE
Vol. II-6
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
was confirmed and the name Raleigh was given the projected city. Sometime in 1792 the cornerstone of a state house was laid in Union Square; two years later the building was com- pleted, being constructed of brick and having a dome, a ro- tunda, and broad hallways. Between 1819 and 1822 porticoes were built and a coat of stucco was added.
In the meantime a sense of public spirit pervaded the legislature of 1815, and a resolution was adopted instructing the governor to "purchase on behalf of the State a full length statue of General Washington." No limitation was set on the price, and after prolonged correspondence on the part of Governor Miller, it was decided to follow the advice of Thomas Jefferson and to place the contract with the Italian artist Canova, and that he should be guided as far as possible by Cerrachi's bust of Washington. In 1821 the work was completed, for which the artist received $10,000. The statue was sent to America on board the United States Ship Colum- bus. It was landed at Boston, transhipped by a coast wise vessel to Wilmington, thence up the Cape Fear River by boat to Fayetteville, and across country from Fayetteville to Raleigh, arriving at destination on December 24th.
Ten years later the Canova statue was practically. de- stroyed in a fire which consumed the state house. A new capi- tol had to be built. After delay due to sectional rivalry and the question of constitutional reform, $50,000 were appro- priated for the work in November, 1832. The next year $75,000 were appropriated, and in 1834 supervision of the structure was given to David Paton, a Scotch architect then residing in New York. Under his direction the existing splen- did edifice was really planned and constructed, the work being completed in 1840 at a total cost of $530,000.
CHAPTER V SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS, 1800-1836
THE FUND FOR INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS-THE AGRICUL- TURAL FUND-THE LITERARY FUND
For over three decades after 1800 adverse criticism of social and economic conditions characterized all descriptions of life in North Carolina. A conviction of stagnation and decline rather than progress impressed those who had at heart the public welfare. For the justification of this feel- ing a few statistics are ample evidence. When North Caro- lina entered the Federal Union in 1789, it ranked third among the states in population; from 1800 to 1820, it stood fourth; by 1830 it had dropped to fifth. From 1790 to 1830 the slave population showed a greater percentage of increase than the white. Land valuation in 1833 showed a decline compared with that of 1815, although more acres were. entered. Textile products as late as 1810 surpassed those of Massachusetts, but by 1830 the industrial revolution in the latter state gave it precedence by a wide margin, while agriculture overshad- owed all other economic activities in North Carolina. Thou- sands left the state to find new homes in the Northwest or in other parts of the South.
Among the influences contributing to this situation was that of trade and commerce. Easy exchange of domestic products was impossible; in fact, the North Carolina farmers and merchants were to a large extent dependant on distant markets. Trade relations were determined by geography. Nature divides the state into three distinct sections. First, extending from the coast inland about 100 miles is an undulat- ing, nearly level plane, which embraces two-fifths of the state's total area. Along the western border of this plain runs a
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
granite ledge which marks the fall line of the eastern rivers; extending beyond for 200 miles is a wide table land, rising from a low altitude in the east to 1,500 feet at the foot of the Blue Ridge. Further westward, between the Blue Ridge and the Great Smokies, lies a mountain plateau.
This sectionalism of nature was reinforced by racial and economic influences. The eastern belt was colonized mainly by Englishimen from the other colonies who sought better land in the alluvial valleys of tidewater Carolina, Gradually an extensive agricultural life, based on slave labor, developed. The middle and western belts were settled mainly by Scotch- Irish and Germans who migrated from Pennsylvania or from South Carolina. There the slave system developed much more slowly than in the eastern belt. The manufacturing im- pulse was strongly in evidence. Hats were made of various material. Hides were tanned, the state ranking fourth in the number of tanneries in 1810. Other products were wagons and farm implements for which iron was secured from bloom- eries. The surplus grain was distilled and North Carolina liquors were known far and wide in the South. Each family also had its own loom, wheel, and cards. The mountain sec- tion, between the Blue Ridge and the Great Smokies, was in a more primitive condition than the other sections. Its de- velopment was interwoven with the removal of the Cherokee Indians, consummated by a series of treaties between 1777 and 1835. Its industrial life resembled that of the piedmont plateau.
Now the economic development of these distinct sections was checked by the condition of transportation and trade. There was no market within the state at which staples could be exchanged or the products of other states procured. This fact is explained by the river systems. Of the large streams which reach the ocean, only the Cape Fear empties directly into the Atlantic; but the sand bars obstruct its mouth, and beyond these lie the southernmost part of Smith's Island, known as Cape Fear, and Frying Pan Shoals. "Together these stand for warning and for woe; and together they catch the long majestic roll of the Atlantic as it sweeps through a thousand miles of grandeur and power from the Arctic
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
towards the Gulf. It is the playground of billows and tem- pests, the kingdom of silence and awe, disturbed by no sound save the sea-gulls' shriek and the breakers' roar. Imagina- tion cannot adorn it. Romance cannot hallow it. Local pride cannot soften it. There it stands today, bleak and threaten- ing and pitiless."1 Hence Wilmington never developed a trade commensurate with the resources of the southeastern part of the state. The other navigable rivers of the east, the Roanoke, the Tar, and the Neuse, reach the ocean through Ocracoke Inlet, which is too shallow to float any except small craft, and the danger of wreckage was so great as to make the cost of lighterage and insurance very high. Consequently the important trading centers of Eastern Carolina were Petersburg and Norfolk, Virginia. Long distances and poor roads to these places helped to make prices high. Illustrative of the hardship imposed on commerce is a report to the legis- lature in 1827 by citizens of Northeastern Carolina :
Your memorialists believe that the annual exports of the products of our country through Ocracoke were not overrated when estimated at five millions of dollars, requiring for their transportation and actually employing two hundred thousand tons of shipping. They find, from calculations carefully made and compared, that the charge on these vessels for lighterage and detention at the Swash, averages one dollar per ton, and amounts annually to two hundred thousand dollars; that the additional rate of insurance, because of the risk of detention at the Swash averages three-quarters of one per cent, and amounts, on the exports and imports, to seventy-five thousand dollars, and on the vessels, to sixty thousand dollars per annum. This annual tax of three hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars upon the naviga- tion of our section of the country, independently of the minor evils, the vexations and difficulties of which will readily be perceived, cannot but enhance the rate of freight or the cost of conveyance to market. The price of freight from Norfolk and Wilmington to the West Indies is from twenty to twenty-five per cent less than from the ports de- pendent on Ocracoke Inlet; which difference on bulky articles, such as lumber, staves and shingles, amounts to thirty and forty per cent of their original value. The freight and charges on articles shipped coast wise for reshipment to their places of consumption, amount, on naval stores, to twenty-five per cent, on cotton, to between ten and fifteen per cent, and on staves, to fifty per cent of their original value.2
1 Davis, Early Settlement of the Cape Fear.
2 Quoted from Report of the Board of Internal Improvements, 1833.
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
However, the section which suffered most on account of its trade routes was the west, the region extending from the eastern fall line to the Tennessee boundary. The general course of its larger rivers is southeast, the Yadkin and Cataw- ba flowing into South Carolina while the swift mountain streams empty into the Tennessee or the Ohio. Trade routes therefore led to Charleston or Greenville, South Carolina, Augusta, Georgia, Knoxville, Tennessee, or even Philadel- phia. The long journeys to these markets were made in schooner wagons. Whiskey, distilled from the surplus corn crop, was peddled on the way or exchanged for manufactured articles. The high cost of some of the necessities of life is illustrated by the price of salt, which was $1.50 per bushel in Iredell, a western county, about $1 above the market price at tidewater. Worst of all, in case of crop shortage in one section, there was no good route by which staples could be imported from another part of the state or abroad, and ac- tual suffering often ensued. Thus in 1826 a crop failure in Eastern Carolina drove the price of corn to $7, and that of flour to $8 per barrel, and subscriptions for relief of the suffering people were opened.3 Twenty years later a similar crop failure occurred in the western counties; there was a plentiful harvest in the east, but no means of cheap and easy transportation.
The conditions here outlined had an important bearing upon the conduct of business. Writing in 1819 Murphey said :
"Having no commercial city in which the staples of our soil can be exchanged for foreign merchandise, our Merchants purchase their goods and contract their debts in Charleston, Petersburg, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. Part of these debts are discharged by shipments of produce; the balance in cash. Once in every year the state is literally drained of its money to pay debts abroad. Our Banks not being able to do as extensive business by Bank credits as is
3 Niles' Register, Aug. 26, 1826. In 1825 corn worth 44 or 46 cts. per bushel in Baltimore brought $1.25 in Wilmington, and flour worth $4.75 in Baltimore brought $8.00 in Raleigh. Ibid., July 23, 1825.
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
done in large commercial cities, are compelled to issue and throw into circulation their notes to meet the demands of ·commerce. These notes collected in immense numbers in other States are returned upon our Banks for specie; and the Banks are compelled not only to curtail their discounts and press their dealers that they may call in their notes; but upon emergencies to suspend specie payment. The conse- quence is that their notes depreciate, and merchants having to make remittances to other States, sustain the most seri- ous losses." 4
Equally serious was the effect of trade conditions on the development of public spirit. Separated from one another, the people of each section viewed all state problems from the angle of self-interest. Said the Board of Internal Improve- ments in 1833:
"The citizens of the west are familiar with the laws, the institutions, the politics and the towns of Tennessee, of South Carolina and Georgia. A few of them have visited New York and other eastern cities; but the individual is rare who pos- sesses any accurate information with respect to Wilmington or Newbern. On our northeastern border, Virginia is much more extensively known to our citizens than the state which should be the object of their affection; and on the south, an extensive intercourse with Augusta, Savannah, and Charles- ton transfers to those towns the attachments which should center at home. He was wiser than man who said, 'Where our treasure is, there will our heart be also.' No one who re- flects for a moment on these facts, can be at a loss to dis- cover the source of the sectional feelings and jealousies which have so long distracted our public councils and retarded our prosperity."
Closely related with trade and commercial conditions was the state of agriculture. Long distance to markets reduced profits and made the prices of manufactured goods high. Equally important were wasteful methods of tillage and the neglect of soil improvement. In primitive times vast forests stretched in every direction; trees, when they died and fell,
4 Memoir on Internal Improvements.
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
made a deposit of rich vegetable matter, furnishing a natu- ral nourishment for seed. The white immigrants selected the most promising spots, cleared the timber, loosened the soil, and raised abundant crops. Then as the natural fer- tility was exhausted, the land was abandoned for a new tract that was likewise deforested and brought under cultivation. Wrote a critic of agricultural methods in 1822:
"This process has been going on till most of the tracts whose situation and soil were most favorable to agriculture, have been converted into old fields, and in our search after fresh ground to open, we are driven to seek inferior ridge land, such as our ancestors would have passed by as not worth cultivating. * But the time has not come, or is not far distant, when our old fields must be again brought under cultivation. " 5
Among the by-products of this agricultural condition, two were preeminent. One was speculation, the result of the ever present desire for new virgin lands. It was estimated in 1833 that nine-tenths of the farmers were anxious to sell their landed property. The other was a steady flow of population to other states in search of new homes. "Go in any neighborhood," reported a legislative committee in 1833, "and inquire of the seniors or heads of families, how many children they have raised, and in what state they do reside, and in nine cases out of ten, the answer will be, 'I have raised some six or eight children; but the major por- tion of them have migrated to some other state,' and adds the parent, 'I am anxious to sell my land, to enable me to follow them.' " " Agriculturally, North Carolina before 1830 well deserved its reputation as the "Ireland of America."
Another influence which retarded progress was ignorance. Illiteracy hung like a pall over all sections of the state. In 1810 Jeremiah Battle wrote that two-thirds of the people in Edgecombe County could read, but only one-half the males and one-third of the women could write .? "It is a notorious
5 Mitchell, Agricultural Speculations.
6 Committee on Internal Improvements.
See Coon, Documentary Hist. of Public Education in N. C., I, p. 68.
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
fact," wrote an Edgecombe citizen in 1824, "that many of our farmers of wealth and character, nay, even many of our instructors and clergy, are notoriously deficient in Or- thography, and Reading and Writing, and the commonest rules of vulgar arithmetic." 8 In 1838 a Presbyterian min- ister estimated that "we have probably 120 thousand chil- dren between the ages 5 and 15 years, who are destitute of common school education." 9 In the same year a legislative report on education pointed out "that those who have mixed much with the people of our State know that there is an average of nearly half of every family, who have received no education and who are as yet unprovided with the means of learning even to read and write." 10 In 1825 a writer in the Western Carolinian declared that the "dullness and in- capacity which is permitted to enter our legislative hall, and disgrace us even in the national representation, and our for- mer tame subserviency to the interest of another State, evince most unequivocally the mental debasement of a large portion of our population."11 Toward education there was apathy, even hostility, among the masses. "I have been placed in circumstances, and there are few I fear who have not been similarly situated," wrote Dr. Joseph Caldwell, President of the University, in 1832, "where it would be dangerous to the election of a candidate to have it thought that he had any pretensions to information or culture, at least beyond a bare capacity to read. And some miserable being, to secure the great object of his ambition, has front- lessly presented it as a sure and glorious passport to suc- cess over the head of a rival, who was so unfortunate as to have had some education, that he belonged to the class of the ignorant, with whom the greater part considered it their glory to be ranked." 12
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