Two Worlds Prehistory Contact E97

Two worlds: Prehistory,
contact, and the Lost

Colony
2 | Two worlds: Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony
Two worlds: Prehistory, contact, and
the Lost Colony
A "digital textbook"
Part one of LEARN NC's digital textbook for North Carolina History explores the natural and
human history of the state from the dawn of geologic time to approximately 1600 CE.
With the arrival of European explorers in the 1500s, two worlds collided in North Carolina.
Peoples that had lived here for thousands of years -- in a land that had existed for millions --
were changed forever, and the stage was set for a new era that would link the peoples and
cultures of Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
Designed for secondary students, this first module of our web-based "digital textbook"
combines primary sources with articles from a variety of perspectives, maps, photographs,
and multimedia to tell the many stories of early North Carolina:
• the geology, geography, ecology, and natural history of North Carolina
• the ways of life of native North Carolinians, from their arrival more than 9000 years ago
to their first contact with Europeans
• early European exploration of the Americas and Spanish efforts to plant a colony in North
Carolina
• England and the "Lost Colony" of Roanoke
• the effects of the "Columbian Exchange" of biology and culture between Europe, Africa,
and the Americas
Published by LEARN NC
CB #7216, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7216
http://www.learnnc.org
Copyright ©2008 LEARN NC
Except where otherwise noted this edition is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-
Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/.
This edition first published December 2008.
The original web-based version, with enhanced functionality and related resources, can be found at
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-twoworlds.
“Natural diversity” copyright ©2007 LEARN NC. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/.
“The natural history of North Carolina” copyright ©2007 LEARN NC. This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License. To view a copy of
this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/.
“The golden chain” copyright ©2000 Bruce Railsback. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/.
“First peoples” copyright ©2001 UNC Research Laboratories of Archaeology. All Rights Reserved.
“The mystery of the first Americans” copyright ©2008 LEARN NC. This work is licensed under a
“Shadows of a people” copyright ©2001 UNC Research Laboratories of Archaeology. All Rights Reserved.
“Peoples of the Piedmont” copyright ©2001 UNC Research Laboratories of Archaeology and LEARN NC.
All Rights Reserved.
“Peoples of the mountains” copyright ©2001 UNC Research Laboratories of Archaeology and LEARN
NC. All Rights Reserved.
“Peoples of the Coastal Plain” copyright ©2001 UNC Research Laboratories of Archaeology and LEARN
NC. All Rights Reserved.
“Maintaining balance: The religious world of the Cherokees” copyright ©1998 North Carolina Museum
of History. All Rights Reserved.
“Cherokee women” copyright ©1984 North Carolina Museum of History. All Rights Reserved.
“Native peoples of the Chesapeake region” copyright ©2006 Smithsonian Institution. All Rights
Reserved.
“The importance of one simple plant” copyright ©1998 North Carolina Museum of History. All Rights
Reserved.
“The process of archaeology” copyright ©2001 UNC Research Laboratories of Archaeology. All Rights
Reserved.
“Spain and America: From Reconquest to Conquest” copyright ©2007 LEARN NC. This work is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License. To view a
copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/.
“Where am I? Mapping a New World” copyright ©2007 LEARN NC. This work is licensed under a
“The De Soto expedition” copyright ©2007 The Chronicle of Higher Education. All Rights Reserved.
“Juan Pardo, the Indians of Guatari, and first contact” copyright ©1999 Salisbury Post. All Rights
Reserved.
“Spanish had many reasons for Pardo expedition” copyright ©1999 Salisbury Post. All Rights Reserved.
“Spanish empire failed to conquer Southeast” copyright ©1999 Salisbury Post. All Rights Reserved.
“England's flowering” copyright ©2007 LEARN NC. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
“Merrie olde England?” copyright ©2007 North Carolina Museum of History. All Rights Reserved.
“Fort Raleigh and the Lost Colony” copyright ©2007 LEARN NC. This work is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License. To view a copy of this
license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/.
“The search for the Lost Colony” copyright ©2007 LEARN NC. This work is licensed under a Creative
“The Columbian Exchange” copyright ©2008 John McNeill. All Rights Reserved.
“The Columbian Exchange at a glance” copyright ©2008 LEARN NC. This work is licensed under a
“Disease and catastrophe” copyright ©2008 LEARN NC. This work is licensed under a Creative
“The lost landscape of the Piedmont” copyright ©1999 Salisbury Post. All Rights Reserved.
“Introduction” copyright ©2007 LEARN NC. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
“Reading primary sources: An introduction for students” copyright ©2004 Kathryn Walbert. This work
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License. To view
a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/.
iv | Two worlds: Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
About this "digital textbook" 5
1 The land | 9
Natural diversity | 11
The natural history of North Carolina | 19
How the world was made | 27
The creation and fall of man, from Genesis | 29
The golden chain | 33
2 Native Carolinians | 35
First peoples | 37
The mystery of the first Americans | 41
Shadows of a people | 45
Peoples of the Piedmont | 51
Peoples of the mountains | 57
Peoples of the Coastal Plain | 61
Maintaining balance: The religious world of the Cherokees | 67
Cherokee women | 71
Native peoples of the Chesapeake region | 75
The importance of one simple plant | 79
The process of archaeology | 83
3 Spanish exploration | 91
Spain and America: From Reconquest to Conquest | 93

Where am I? Mapping a New World | 101
The De Soto expedition | 115
v
Juan Pardo, the Indians of Guatari, and first contact | 121
Spanish had many reasons for Pardo expedition | 129
Spanish empire failed to conquer Southeast | 131
4 From England to America | 135
England's flowering | 137

Merrie olde England? | 141
Fort Raleigh and the Lost Colony | 145
The search for the Lost Colony | 151
Amadas and Barlowe explore the Outer Banks | 157
John White searches for the colonists | 165
5 Contact and consequences | 171
The Columbian Exchange | 173

The Columbian Exchange at a glance | 179
Disease and catastrophe | 181
Smallpox | 187
The lost landscape of the Piedmont | 193
Appendix A. Reading Primary Sources: An Introduction for Students 197
Glossary 205
Bibliography 227
Contributors 229
Image credits 231
Index 243
vi | Two worlds: Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony

Acknowledgments
Two Worlds: Prehistory, Contact, and the Lost Colony could not have been developed without
the help of a great number of partners and contributors. The following organizations and
individuals contributed content to this edition. Their specific contributions are credited
where they appear.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention / U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services
• The Chronicle of Higher Education
Figure 1. We’d send everyone • J. R. McNeill, Georgetown University
flowers… but we’re a state • National Museum of the American Indian / Smithsonian Institution
agency. We don’t have that kind • The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.
of money. This page will have to
• North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Division of Archives and History
do. (Thanks to Bec Thomas
Photography for the virtual • North Carolina Museum of History
bouquet.) • Bruce Railsback, University of Georgia
• Research Laboratories of Archaeology, UNC-Chapel Hill
• The Salisbury Post
• UNC Libraries
In addition, we thank the many amateur and professional photographers who licensed
their work freely on the web for public use. They are credited individually where their work
appears.
STAFF
Editor
David Walbert
Associate Editor and Librarian

Emily Jack
Lead Teacher
Pauline S. Johnson, Mars Hill College
ADVISORS
Several people advised us on the textbook project. We regret that we could not take every
suggestion they offered, but hope that what we’ve produced lives up to their expectations.
Acknowledgments | vii
• Kevin Cherry, Senior Program Officer, Institute of Museum and Library Services, and
former Chair, Board of Directors, NC ECHO1
• Kim Cumber, Non-Textual Materials Archivist, State Archives of North Carolina
• Jackie Brooks, Ligon Middle School, Raleigh
• Vin Steponaitis, Director, UNC Research Laboratories of Archaeology
• Steve Davis, Research Archeologist and Associate Director, UNC Research
Laboratories of Archaeology
• Duane Esarey, UNC Research Laboratories of Archaeology
Notes
1. See http://www.ncecho.org.
viii | Two worlds: Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony

Two worlds: Prehistory, contact, and the Lost
Colony
Introduction
BY DAVID WALBERT
More than 9,000 years ago, the first humans arrived in what is now North Carolina. Their
ancestors had migrated from Asia to North America about 12,000 years ago across a land
bridge that had emerged when, during the last Ice Age, glaciers froze the oceans and sea
level dropped.
Or — wait a minute — maybe they didn’t. For half a century archaeologists agreed on
that version of events, but recently they’ve found evidence of human activity in South
America much earlier than that. Could humans have arrived in the Americas 20,000 years
ago? 30,000? Could they have arrived by boat rather than by land? Or could that new
evidence be wrong, and the older story correct after all?
• • •
The first Europeans to set foot in what is now North Carolina were a party of Spanish
explorers led by Hernando de Soto in the early 1540s. Strangers in a strange land, they
lacked accurate means of measuring their location or how far they had traveled, and they
left only written journals of their travels. In the 1800s, a researcher retraced De Soto’s route
and determined that he traveled through the Piedmont of North Carolina.
But hang on, again. In the last twenty years historians and archaeologists have
uncovered new evidence, and a newer version of De Soto’s trail takes him only through the
southwestern corner of the state, deep in the Appalachians. And the argument about where
he was, and when — and who he met, and how they lived — is far from over.
• • •
In the 1580s, the English had a try at planting a colony in North Carolina, on Roanoke
Island. Its governor, John White, sailed back to England for supplies, but was delayed there
when war broke out with Spain. By the time he returned to Roanoke, the colonists had
vanished, leaving only a word carved in a wooden post. He never found them, and neither
has anyone else. Historians, archaeologists, ethnologists, linguists, and storytellers have
This section copyright ©2007 LEARN NC. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-
Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/.
Introduction | 1
searched for their traces and developed theories, but without hard proof. Maybe the
colonists were all killed, or maybe they intermarried with the native residents of the Outer
Banks and became today’s Lumbee Indians. No one knows for sure.
The past is a mystery — to be solved

Often, the most interesting thing about the past is not what we know, but what we don’t
know — because what we don’t know gives us the opportunity to learn something new.
Historians, archaelogists, and other people who study the past — like researchers in any
field — continually uncover new evidence and develop new ways of thinking about the
topics they research. They construct the most accurate and complete version of events they
can — until they find still more evidence, and then they rewrite them again.
There are two responses you might have, on realizing just how little we actually know
about the past. The first is to say that history is a confusing mess. And that’s true; it is —
but so is the present, for that matter. Most things are a confusing mess until you take the
trouble to think them through. So that way of reacting to things doesn’t do anyone a lot of
good.
The second, and better, way to look at the past is as a mystery to be solved. Everybody
loves mysteries — but imagine how quickly CSI’s rating’s would plummet if they told you
in the first five minutes who committed the crime. Nobody would watch. Nobody would be
a historian, either, if we had all the answers already. It’s the not knowing that makes history
fun!
Traditionally in a secondary-school history course, students are given answers to
historical questions, usually in the form of a heavy textbook, and then asked to repeat those
answers on tests. Only later, if they study history in college — and maybe only if they study
it in graduate school — do they get to pose the questions for themselves, and answer them
the way historians would answer them.
We think you ought to be let in on the fun now. So this textbook is a little different.
Journeys into the past

The further back into the past we look, the less evidence remains, the more assumptions
we have to make about it, and the more creative we have to be in developing theories about
what actually happened. In this first part of our journey through North Carolina, you’ll
learn not only what scholars think the distant past was like, but why they think what they
think, and what they still don’t know. You can’t go out “into the field” and look for artifacts,
but you’ll learn how archaeologists work.
As we move closer to the present, you’ll be given the raw materials of history to
explore for yourself. Instead of just reading what it was like when Europeans and American
Indians met for the first time, for example, you’ll have the opportunity to read a first-hand
account of contact on the Outer Banks, and — with a little historical guidance — draw your
own conclusions.

Will this be more challenging than reading a single story and committing it to
memory? Sure. But let’s face it: It doesn’t really matter whether the first people arrived in
North America 12,000 years ago or 20,000 years ago. That information has no impact on
your life, today. It’s the process — the questioning, the discovery, the analysis — that
matters. It’s the process that’s fascinating. It’s the process that uncovers deeper truths, and
tells us things we need to know about ourselves.
And by taking part in that process, you may well find that all those names and dates
really do matter — because you’ll know the stories behind them, and you’ll have helped to
write them.
Introduction | 3
About this "digital textbook"
LEARN NC’s “digital textbook” for North Carolina history provides a new model for
teaching and learning. It makes primary sources central to the learning experience, using
them to tell the stories of the past rather than merely illustrating it. Special web-based tools
help you learn to read those sources and ask good questions of them. And because it’s on
the web, this textbook relies on multimedia whenever possible to supplement or even
replace text.
The sections that follow will tell you what to expect from this textbook and how to get
the most out of it.
Primary sources
Reading a single narrative book can give you the impression that history is just one story —
a list of names, dates, and events to be remembered and put in the proper order. Narrative
structure — that sense of what happened and when — is important in history, of course.
But telling just one story leaves out the experiences of a lot of people, and it’s those
personal experiences that make the past (like the present) so interesting.
Our solution is to let the past tell its own story whenever possible, by bringing primary
sources front and center. Primary sources are sources about the past produced by people
living at the time — such as letters, diaries, newspaper articles, photographs, drawings,
physical artifacts, and even (as we get closer to the present) audio and video recordings. By
exploring primary sources directly, you can be your own historian, and write your own
story about the past.
READING PRIMARY SOURCES

Documents from the past can be difficult to read, though. People writing letters, diaries,
and newspaper articles assumed a certain amount of background knowledge on the part of
their readers — background knowledge that a student today won’t have about that foreign
time and place. That’s why a traditional textbook gives you a straightforward story first, and
saves the primary sources for later.
To help you make sense of these sources, we’ve provided two kinds of comments.
About this "digital textbook" | 5

General comments
First, look in the right-hand column of the page to find general comments on the source.
These will tell you how the source fits into the bigger picture and give you a sense of what
to think about or look for as you begin reading.
Specific comments
Then, as you read, you’ll note that some words, phrases, and sentences are highlighted.
When you move your mouse over highlighted text, a comment will appear. (This requires
that your browser have Javascript. Otherwise, you can simply click on the highlighted text
to go to the comment.)
Sometimes these specific comments are simple definitions, explaining a word or
phrase that we no longer use. They may also provide detailed historial background such as
you’d find in a regular textbook. In many cases, they invite you to ask the kinds of
questions of primary sources that historians ask. As you read these sources, think about the
comments, and discuss them with your classmates, you’ll grow more comfortable working
with primary sources and develop your own historical methods.
Articles
Not all aspects of the past can be told easily through primary sources, so much of this
textbook consists of articles that tell stories or explain concepts. They include not only
essays intended for students but newspaper and magazine articles and materials developed
by museums and historic sites. To show you the many ways of thinking about the past,
they’re written from a variety of perspectives and in a variety of voices. We’ve also selected
articles that explain the process of exploring the past — how we know what we know, and
what we still don’t know.
IMAGES
In the left-hand column of these articles you’ll find photographs, maps, illustrations, and
other images that relate to the text. You can click on these images to see them full-size. To
learn more about what the image illustrates or about where it came from, you can click
“About the photograph.”
Glossary
Every textbook has a glossary, but ours is more like an integrated dictionary. We want you
to read “real” history written by and for adults, and to help you we’ve provided definitions
of hundreds of words that aren’t usually found in secondary texts. Words with a dotted blue
underline (such as megafauna) are defined; you can move your mouse over them to see a
quick definition, or click them to go to the full glossary.

Further reading
Every page of this textbook has a section in the right-hand column labeled “Learn More.”
Here, you’ll find links to related resources on LEARN NC and on the web — resources that
expand on the topics discussed in the textbook but that couldn’t be included in this format.
They include slideshows, video, “virtual field trips,” and popular articles. Your teacher may
ask you to read them, or you can explore them at your own pace.
Printing
You may find that you’d prefer to read offline, on paper — and we certainly understand.
Some of the functionality of this online edition can’t be copied to paper, of course, but a
PDF version is available for download and printing. Look under the “Print” header in the
sidebar of each page; you’ll find a PDF version of each page and, where possible, of the
entire module.
Help us improve!
If you enjoy this textbook or have comments or criticisms, please tell us what you think!
Use the contact form available from our website to send us an email. Because this textbook
is on the web, we can — and will — make improvements every year, and who better to help
us than the students who are reading it? A short note about what you liked or didn’t like or
a suggestion about what we could do differently will help future classes of students. Just
tell us your first name or initials, your grade, and what county you live in (or state, or
country if you’re outside North Carolina).
About this "digital textbook" | 7

8
1 The land
The land that we now call North Carolina existed before the people who
lived on it, and the events that shaped it took place before any human could
witness them. But one of the things that makes us human is our desire to
understand what we’ve never seen.
This chapter tells the story — multiple stories, actually — of how North
Carolina came to be. First we’ll take a birds’ eye view of the land, from the
mountains to the sea. Then we’ll see how geologists now believe the
features of North Carolina — the Appalachains and the Outer Banks, the
piedmont and the coastal plain — were formed over millions of years.
The chapter concludes with the creation stories of three peoples who would
come to live in North Carolina: the Cherokee, Europeans, and West
Africans. Think about what these stories might say about the people who
told and believed them. As you read each story, consider who created the
earth, and for what purpose. Why were humans created, and what did their
creator see as their proper relationship to the land? Later, when we meet
each of these peoples, remember their creation stories, and think about how
their beliefs might have influenced the relationship they took to the land of
North Carolina.
9
Natural diversity
BY DAVID WALBERT
North Carolina has within its borders the highest mountains east of the Mississippi River,
a broad, low-lying coastal area, and all the land in between. That variety of landforms,
elevations, and climates has produced as diverse a range of ecosystems as any state in the
United States. It has also influenced the way people have lived in North Carolina for
thousands of years.
Four “provinces”
Figure 3. The four geological provinces of North Carolina, with county

boundaries shown.
Geologists divide North Carolina into four provinces — regions with common features.
These four regions have unique landforms, soil types, and plant and animal communities.
From west to east, they are the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Piedmont, and the Coastal
Plain, which is divided into an Inner and an Outer Coastal Plain.
Remember, though, that although North Carolina’s eastern and western boundaries
are natural ones — the ocean and the Appalachian mountains — its northern and southern
boundaries are simply lines drawn on a map. No natural features mark the borders with
Virginia, South Carolina, or Georgia. The Coastal Plain, Piedmont, and mountains
continue up and down the east coast of the United States.
Figure 4. This map from the

U.S. Geologic Survey shows the
various geologic provinces of
the eatern United States,
including those that make up
the Appalachian Mountains.
Figure 5. In this true-color satellite image, the ridges of the Appalachians

appear as a coppery brown running from Georgia north into Pennsylvania
(and in fact into Canada, though you can’t see it in this photo). The Coastal
Plain runs along the coast; in North Carolina the Inner Coastal Plain appears
sandy. The Piedmont, running between the Coastal Plain and the mountains,
is green.
The Coastal Plain

The Coastal Plain is the easternmost region of North Carolina. From the Atlantic Ocean it
rises gently to the west, stretching as far as Raleigh and Fayetteville and covering about 45
percent of the state’s total land area.
At various times in the distant past (page 19), sea level was higher, and parts of the
Coastal Plain lay under the ocean. As the ocean retreated, it left sandy ridges across the
coastal plain that still remain — visible evidence of the old shorelines. The greatest of these
ridges is the fall line that separates the Coastal Plain from the Piedmont. When rivers
Figure 6. On Bear Island, the flowing to the sea reach the fall line or another escarpment formed by an ancient shoreline,
sand dunes of the coast meet
they form falls — hence the term. When European settlers arrived in North Carolina, they
the wetlands of the Coastal
Plain. could travel up the rivers by boat as far inland as the falls, but there they had to stop and
find another form of transportation. They often founded trading posts at the first falls of
rivers, which eventually grew into towns and cities. Those towns were linked by roads, and
today, I-95 follows the fall line along much of the east coast.

THE BARRIER ISLANDS
North Carolina’s barrier islands, including the Outer Banks, were formed (see
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/309) by ocean currents in a rising sea that deposited
sand along the coast. Because of these sand deposits, the waters off the barrier islands are
very shallow, making them dangerous to navigate. But just as the islands are built up,
waves and storms erode them, and rising sea levels threaten to swallow them entirely.
Hurricanes frequently close inlets between islands and open new ones through the sand —
so frequently that when the English first settled here, those inlets were in very different
places1 than they are today.
WETLANDS
Because the rocks of the Coastal Plain are soft, as rocks go, and its soil is sandy — and
because it lies so close to sea level — wetlands dominate the natural landscape. A wetland is
a region in which the soil is filled with moisture and is saturated or covered with water at
some time during each year. Had humans not drained much of the Coastal Plain, nearly all
the land east of I-95 would be wetland today.
The width of the Coastal Plain, its poor drainage, its warm temperate climate, and the
mix of habitats created by its history of being covered and uncovered by the sea have given
Figure 7. This tidal freshwater this region an incredible diversity of wetlands. North Carolina has more than forty different
marsh is one of many types of
types of wetlands2, each with unique communities of plants and animals! Wetlands filter
wetlands in North Carolina’s
Coastal Plain. sediment and pollutants from the water supply and provide crucial habitat for threatened
and endangered species of plants and animals, and federal laws now protect them from
development.
THE OUTER COASTAL PLAIN

The Outer Coastal Plain, or Tidewater, is the region along the coast, less than 20 feet above
sea level, where the forces of the tides still cause the water to rise and fall in rivers and
sounds. Here, wetlands take the form of estuaries, where fresh water from rivers mixes with
salt water from the sea. The Outer Coastal Plain extends only about 20 to 30 miles inland,
but it contains some of the state’s most interesting ecosystems3.
THE INNER COASTAL PLAIN
The Inner Coastal Plain is the land between this tidal region and the fall line. It rises some
300 feet above sea level as it moves west toward the fall line. The loose soils and warm
climate make the Inner Coastal Plain the state’s most productive agricultural region.
One of the best-known features of the Inner Coastal Plain is the Sand Hills, a large,
unusual deposit of sand far from the coast. Formed as sediment eroded from the Blue
Ridge and Piedmont and winds piled the sands into dunes, the Sand Hills were once
covered by now-rare longleaf pine savanna4 and still provide habitats for endangered
Figure 8. The Sand Hills are the species such as the red-cockaded woodpecker.
only natural habitat of the
predatory Venus flytrap.
The Piedmont
In the Piedmont — which means “foot of the mountains” — the land rises more rapidly,
forming rolling hills. Rivers flow more rapidly here, too, than in the Coastal Plain, which
makes travel by water more difficult. But because the rolling, wooded hills of the Piedmont
are easy to cross on foot and by vehicle, it provided both American Indians and early
European settlers with a natural corridor for transportation from Pennsylvania and New
York as far south as Georgia. Today, I-85 follows this corridor through the Carolinas.
The rock under the Piedmont is harder than in the coastal plain, and a great deal of
clay5 makes agriculture more difficult than in the Coastal Plain but provides raw material
for pottery; it is no coincidence that the potters’ community of Seagrove6 is located in the
Piedmont. Some of the rocks in the Piedmont contain valuable minerals — including gold,
which was discovered in Cabarrus County in 1799. These and other natural resources, as
well as the ease of transportation and the availability of fast-flowing rivers for water power,
made the Piedmont the center of North Carolina’s manufacturing and industry.
In some parts of the Piedmont, the underying rock is harder and slower to erode. As
Figure 9. The famous profile of
the land around these regions eroded, it left behind hills or low mountains called
Pilot Mountain in Surry County
was created when the land monadnocks7. The Uwharrie Mountains, Sauratown Mountains (including Pilot Mountain
around it eroded away. and Hanging Rock), South Mountains, Brushy Mountains, and Kings Mountain are all
monadnocks. Because these “lonely mountains” are higher above sea level and therefore
cooler than the surrounding land, they can provide habitats for plants and animals that are
not otherwise found east of the Blue Ridge.
The Blue Ridge Mountains

At its western edge, the Piedmont rises 1,500 feet above sea level, and the Blue Ridge
Mountains begin. The Blue Ridge Mountains are part of the great Appalachian chain that
stretches from northern Alabama all the way to southeastern Canada. North Carolina’s
mountains include Mount Mitchell, which at 6,684 feet is the highest peak in the eastern
United States.
The rapidly changing elevations of the Blue Ridge provide homes for a number of
different kinds of forests8. The average temperature declines about 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit
Figure 10. As spring comes to with each 1,000-foot increase in elevation above sea level — 22 degrees’ difference between
the Blue Ridge, the colors of
Asheville and Mount Mitchell, only eighteen miles away! This diversity means that almost
emerging leaves show the
incredible diversity of the half of all the higher plant species (such as trees and flowers) that occur in North Carolina
region’s trees. are found in the Blue Ridge, along with more than 350 species of moss, 2,000 species of
fungi, 67 species of mammals, and 50 species of salamander.
The Blue Ridge also includes a rare temperate rain forest, Jocassee Gorges9, along the
North Carolina-South Carolina border. Erosion has worn deep gorges between the
mountains where warm, moist air is trapped and condenses into rain. Some tropical
species of plants found in Jocassee Gorges are thousands of miles from their nearest
neighbors, in Central and South America.

Linking the state: River basins
Figure 11. North Carolina’s rivers link the Blue Ridge, Piedmont, and Coastal
Plain. This map shows the state’s river basins — the land drained by each of
its major rivers.
The regions of North Carolina are linked by one thing — water. Water falls as rain
everywhere in North Carolina, of course, but its path back to the sea begins on the highest
peaks of the Blue Ridge. There, rivulets of rainwater flow downhill and collect into tiny
streams, which merge into larger and larger streams and eventually become the state’s
rivers. These rivers flow out of the Blue Ridge and through the Piedmont, draining runoff
from more and more land as they go. By the time they reach the Coastal Plain, they are
broad and slow-moving. Near the coast they feed estuaries and other wetlands that
maintain delicate ecosystems.
The area drained by a single river into the sea is called a river basin (or, sometimes, a
watershed). The map above shows the state’s river basins. Not all of the rivers that flow
through North Carolina empty onto our coast; some flow further south into South Carolina
and Georgia, or west into Tennessee. Some also start farther north, in the mountains of
Figure 12. As rain falls in the Virginia. Because all parts of a river basin are connected by water, all life in a single river
mountains, it collects into basin is connected and interdependent.
streams and rivers that flow
downhill to the sea and drain
vast stretches of land. THE EASTERN CONTINENTAL DIVIDE
On the map you can also see a line running along the state’s western border, labeled “Blue
Ridge.” This marks the literal ridge of the mountains — the line of highest peaks. Rain that
falls to the east of this line flows east and forms rivers that empty into the Atlantic Ocean,
while rain that falls west of it flows west and south to the Gulf of Mexico. Because this line
divides the continent’s ecosystems, it is called the Eastern Continental Divide. (Along the
highest peaks of the Rocky Mountains, the Great Continental Divide divides land draining
into the Gulf of Mexico — and then, eventually, into the Atlantic — from land draining
into the Pacific Ocean.)
Figure 13. Continental divides of North America include the Great Divide, the
Northern Divide, the Eastern Divide, and the St. Lawrence Seaway Divide.
ON THE COAST: SOUNDS
Only one of North Carolina’s rivers empties directly into the Atlantic Ocean on the state’s
coast — the Cape Fear River, which empties near Wilmington and makes that city North
Carolina’s most important port. The other rivers that stay within North Carolina empty into
sounds — sheltered, shallow bodies of water between the barrier islands and the coast. The
Pasquotank, Chowan, Roanoke, and Alligator rivers empty into the Albemarle Sound; the
Neuse and Tar empty into the Pamlico Sound, and the White Oak empties into Bogue
Sound near Jacksonville. North Carolina’s sounds mix fresh water from rivers with salt
Figure 14. Most of North water from the sea, creating the second-largest system of estuaries in the United States
Carolina’s east-flowing rivers,
(after Chesapeake Bay).
including the White Oak, empty
into sounds along the coast.
Humans and the natural world

From the time the first humans settled in North Carolina — some 10,000 years ago —
their lives were shaped by the region’s geography. Mountains, rivers, wetlands, forests,
plains all determined what kinds of lives people could live in various places. And, in turn,
humans shaped the region’s environment — hunting animals, clearing forests, draining
wetlands, damming rivers — not only recently, but from the very beginning. North
Carolina’s history is in part the story of humans’ interactions with the natural world, and
understanding the natural world is the first step toward understanding that history.

On the Web
Maps of North Carolina
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/multimedia/?tag=north+carolina&media_type=map
LEARN NC's collection includes dozens of physical, political, and historical maps of North
Carolina.
Notes
1. See http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/john-lawson/2.2.
2. See http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/cede_wetlands.
3. See http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/cede_capefear.
4. See http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/cede_longleaf.
5. See http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/cede_piedclay.
6. See http://www.learnnc.org/bestweb/ncpottery.
7. See http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/cede_lonemts.
8. See http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/cede_forests.
9. See http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/cede_jocassee.
The natural history of North Carolina
BY DAVID WALBERT
The land that is North Carolina existed long before humans arrived — billions of years
before, in fact. Based on the age of the oldest rocks found on earth as well as in meteorites,
scientists believe that the earth was formed about 4,500 million years (4.5 billion years)
ago. The landmass under North Carolina began to form about 1,700 million years ago, and
has been in constant change ever since. Continents broke apart, merged, then drifted apart
again. As landmasses came together, the Appalachian mountains (and other mountain
ranges on the earth) were formed — and wind and water immediately began to wear them
Figure 15. 225 million years ago, down by erosion. After North Carolina found its present place on the eastern coast of North
the land that is now North America, the global climate warmed and cooled many times, melting and re-freezing the
Carolina lay near the equator in polar ice caps and causing the seas to rise and fell, covering and uncovering the Coastal
a supercontinent that scientists
call Pangaea.
Plain. Recent geologic processes formed the Sand Hills, the Uwharrie Mountains, and the
Outer Banks.
The first single-celled life forms appeared as early as 3,800 million years ago. It then
took 2,000 million years for the first cells with nuclei — simple bacteria — to develop, and
another 500 million years for multi-celled organisms to evolve. As life forms grew more
complex, they diversified. Plants and animals became distinct. Gradually life crept out from
the oceans and took over the land. Seed-bearing plants developed, then flowering plants,
and finally grasses. Animals developed hard exterior shells for protection, then interior
skeletons. Flying insects, amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and finally mammals
emerged. Sudden changes in climate caused mass extinctions that wiped out most of the
species on earth, making room for new species to evolve and take their places. The
Figure 16. This trilobite, which ancestors of humans began to walk upright only a few million years ago, and our species,
lived more than 500 million
Homo sapiens, emerged only about 120,000 years ago. The first humans arrived in North
years ago, is preserved as a
fossil in shale rock. Carolina just 10,000 years ago — and continued the process of environmental change
through hunting, agriculture, and eventually development.
To help you understand the vastness of the time scales we’re talking about, consider
this: If the history of our planet were condensed into a single day, humans would have
emerged just 2.3 seconds before midnight, and would have arrived in North Carolina two
tenths of a second before midnight — literally the blink of an eye. And if that last two tenths
of a second of human habitation were expanded into a full day, Europeans would have
arrived at 11:02 pm, and a student now in eighth grade would have been born at 11:58 pm!

Natural history at a glance
The history of all of these processes — geologic, climatic, environmental, biological — is
called natural history. Scientists have divided the natural history of the planet into chunks of
time called eons, eras, periods, and epochs. These chunks of time have names and
approximate dates that correspond to events in geologic or fossil records. As scientists find
new evidence, they revise these dates, and they don’t always agree on how to do so. The
science of natural history, like natural history itself, is an evolutionary process.
This chart summarizes the major events in North Carolina’s natural history. Dates are
listed in Mya (Million years ago).1
Eon Era Period Epoch Major events Start
c.
The climate stablized as the glaciers retreated, making
Phanerozoic Cenozoic Neogene Holocene 9000
agriculture possible. Human civilization emerged.
BCE
Many large mammals flourished, then became extinct.

Anatomically modern humans evolved.
The Sand Hills formed during this time. Streams eroded
the Piedmont and Blue Ridge, carrying sediment to the Coastal
Plain. There, water seeped through those sediments, carrying
heavier clay downward and leaving behind sands that were
piled into dunes by winds.
The polar ice caps melted, and the sea level rose more
than 300 feet above its present level. The resulting shoreline
can be seen today in an escarpment — a sharp drop-off — that
runs through Scotland, Hoke, and Cumberland counties. When
the seas receded, that sudden change in elevation caused rivers
to fall rapidly. The town of Cross Creek, which became
Fayetteville, would be located along this "fall line." 1.8
Pleistocene
About 1.7 million years ago, the present "Ice Age" began. Mya
As glaciers and polar ice caps re-formed, sea level fell, exposing
the Coastal Plain. Several periods of glaciation (the forming of
glaciers) and melting followed, with corresponding falls and
rises in sea level. A series of escarpments can now be seen at
various points on the Coastal Plain where the shoreline once
lay.
The glaciers began to recede for the last time about 18,000
years ago. The rising seas left a ridge above water, creating the
modern barrier islands.
Between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago, as the climate
warmed, North Carolina’s forests began to look as they do
today, with pine, spruce, and fir in the cooler Blue Ridge and
oak and hickory more common in the Piedmont.
Homo habilis, the first species of the genus Homo to which 5.3
Pliocene
humans belong, appeared. Mya

The land surfaces of the Blue Ridge and Piedmont now

appeared essentially as they do today. A dry climate with short
rainy seasons caused grasslands to flourish in the Piedmont.
Shallow sea covered the eastern half of the Coastal Plain, then
receded again.
Modern mammal and bird families became recognizable.

Grasses spread across the globe, and the first apes appeared.
23.0
Miocene The ocean retreated completely from the modern Coastal
Mya
Plain. Rapid erosion in the Piedmont was uneven, and left the
Uwharrie Moutains behind.
Animals, especially mammals, evolved rapidly and became

more diverse. Modern types of flowering plants evolved and
33.9
Paleogene Oligocene spread.
Mya
About 31 million years ago, the ocean advanced west as far
as present-day New Bern.
The first grasses appeared. Some of the first modern families of

mammals emerged, and primitive whales diversified. An ice cap
developed on Antarctica.
The crust under the Coastal Plain began to sink again, and 55.8
Eocene
the ocean pushed as far west as the modern Piedmont. The Mya
calcium-rich shells of microscopic algae sank to the ocean
floor, where over time they became limestone. By the end of the
Eocene, the seas had again retreated.
Early mammals diversified, and the first large mammals

appeared. The world’s climate was still tropical, but gradually
65.5
Paleocene began to cool.
Mya
By the end of the Paleocene, the entire Coastal Plain of
North Carolina was again above sea level.
Flowering plants proliferated, along with new types of insects that pollinate
them. Many new types of dinosaurs (e.g. Tyrannosaurs, Titanosaurs, duck
bills, and horned dinosaurs) evolved on land, as did modern crocodilians
(crocodiles and alligators). Modern sharks appeared in the sea. Primitive
birds gradually replaced pterosaurs.
The eastern portion of the modern Coastal Plain of North Carolina again 145
Mesozoic Cretaceous
lay under water, but the ocean receded late in this period. Elsewhere, the Mya
southern landmasses broke up, creating the continents of Africa and South
America as well as the southern Atlantic Ocean. The youngest ranges of the
Rocky Mountains formed.
At the end of the Cretaceus, 65 million years ago, a mass extinction
occurred, and the dinosaurs disappeared.
Conifers and ferns were common. Dinosaurs were diverse, including

sauropods, carnosaurs, and stegosaurs. Mammals were common but small. 200
Jurassic
The first birds and lizards appeared. Ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs were Mya
diverse in the oceans.

As the North American continent drifted to the northwest, its trailing

edge sank under water, and the Atlantic Ocean formed between North
America and Africa. The shore was located near the present Outer Banks.
The Appalachians continued to erode, leaving the flat land that now
exists in the eastern Piedmont.
Dinosaurs appeared and became dominant, as did ichthyosaurs and

nothosaurs in the seas and pterosaurs in the air. The first mammals and
crocodilia (ancestors of crocdiles and alligators) also appeared.
As soon as they had formed, the Appalachians began to erode. Wind and 251
Triassic
rain wore away the rock and carried it as sediment to lower-lying land or to Mya
the sea. Meanwhile, the continents began to move apart again.
At this time, North Carolina probably lay near the equator, and had a
tropical climate in which a great diversity of life must have flourished.
Amphibians remained common but small. Reptiles, though, grew larger and
diversified. Beetles and flies evolved. A number of invertebrates that no
longer exist, such as trilobites, flourished in the oceans.
As the climate cooled, the scale trees, which had flourished in near-
tropical conditions, declined and nearly became extinct. Conifers thrived in
the cooler climates and dominated the forests.
By 260 million years ago, the Appalachian mountains were complete.
The resulting mountain range was 620 miles long, stretching from Canada,
Great Britain, Greenland, and Scandinavia all the way south to Louisiana, and
299
Paleozoic Permian the mountains were as high as the highest mountains in the world today.
Mya
Most likely, the tallest peaks were in what is now the eastern Piedmont and
Coastal Plain.
A mass extinction occurred 251 million years ago, marking the end of the
Permian period. Some 95 percent of life on Earth became extinct, including 75
percent of amphibian species and 80 percent of reptiles. No one knows why
this extinction occurred, but some scientists speculate that changing climate
and massive mountain building as the continents collided caused great
changes to the environment, in which highly specialized species could no
longer survive.
Winged insects spread, including very large species. Amphibians were

common and diverse. The first reptiles appeared.
About 320 million years ago, the North American and Euro-African
Carboniferous/ 318
continents collided, resulting in the last period of Appalachian mountain
Pennsylvanian Mya
building. The land under the Piedmont and Coastal Plain was also pushed
upward. The continents were united in a "supercontinent" that geologists call
Pangaea.
In wetland forests, ferns thrived and primitive trees called scale trees grew
more than 100 feet high. Their decayed remains became coal. The portions of
Carboniferous/ the Appalachian region where coal is mined today were then covered in such 359
Mississippian forests. Mya
Meanwhile, the first vertebrates appeared on land, in coastal swamps,
and early sharks were common in the oceans.

Plants took over the land. The first horsetails and ferns appeared, as did the
first seed-bearing plants, the first trees, and the first (wingless) insects. Fish 416
Devonian
were common and diverse. The first lungfish, which could breathe air, Mya
appeared, followed by the first amphibians.
The first vascular plants appeared — plants with specialized tissues for
conducting water and nutrients — along with the first plants on land. The
first millipedes appeared on land. Primitive fish, including the first fish with
jaws as well as armoured jawless fish, populated the seas. Sea-scorpions
444
Silurian reached a large size. Trilobites and mollusks were diverse.
Mya
As the continents of North America and Europe/Africa moved together,
more rock was pushed upwards, and over the next 100 million years, the
Appalachian mountains were formed. As the Appalachians rose, streams
carried sand and mud westward and filled the sea.
In the seas, invertebrates diversified into many new types, and the first tiny 488
Ordovician
vertebrates appeared. The first green plants and fungi appeared on land. Mya
The “Cambrian Explosion” saw a major diversification of life. Many fossils

survive from this time. The most modern phyla — the broadest groupings of
animals and plants — appeared, including the first chordates (ancestors of
vertebrates). Trilobites, worms, sponges, brachiopods, and many other
animals flourished, as did some giant predators.
542
Cambrian By this time, the eastern coast of North America lay somewhere in
Mya
middle Tennessee; except for islands and volcanoes, North Carolina was
under water. About 750 million years ago, the landmasses of North America
and Europe/Africa had begun moving towards each other again. The Kings
Mountain Belt was formed about 540 million years ago as the Piedmont
slowly moved into the rest of the continent.
The first fossils of multi-celled animals survive from this period. Very simple multi-celled life
forms called eukaryotes appeared as early as 1000 million years ago, and worm-like animals
and the first sponges by about 600 million years ago.
Neo- The land under North Carolina was pulled apart, and inland seas emerged. Island 1000
proterozoic volcanoes developed, first along the North Carolina-Virginia border, then in an arc from Mya
Virginia to Georgia. Rocks formed by those volcanoes extend today over a wide area of the
Piedmont and Coastal Plain. Fossilized tracks of primitive worms have been found in those
volcanic rocks, formed about 620 million years ago.
Proterozoic
Green algae colonies appeared in the seas.
Meso- About 1,300 million years ago, the first mountains were formed in North Carolina. Called 1600
proterozoic the Grenville Mountains, they eroded long ago, but rocks formed at this time lie underneath the Mya
Appalachians and are exposed in parts of the Piedmont and Coastal Plain.
As oxygen-producing bacteria proliferated, the atmosphere became oxygenic — filled with

Paleo- oxygen — for the first time. By about 1800 million years ago, the first complex single-celled life- 2500
proterozoic forms — cells with nuclei — emerged. Mya
About 1700 million years ago, the land that would become North Carolina began to form.

Simple single-celled life emerged as early as 3,800 million years ago. The first oxygen-producing bacteria
emerged — prior to this time, the earth’s atmosphere had much carbon dioxide and little oxygen. The oldest
miscroscopic fossils that have been found are about 3,400 million years old.
The landmass that would become North America began to form. Rocks that survive from this time show 3800
Archean
evidence of erosion by the first glaciers. As the earth’s liquid interior — the mantle — continued to move Mya
around its solid core, it created forces that shifted the crust — the thin, rigid surface of the earth. The crust
broke into plates that formed the basis of the first continents. Ever since, they have slowly moved around the
earth’s surface by a process called plate tectonics.
The earth formed about 4,500 million years ago, as a cloud of gas and dust gradually collapsed into the sun
and other bodies of our solar system. By 4,000 million years ago, the earth had a stable crust with oceans
and a primitive atmosphere, which probably consisted of water vapor, methane, ammonia, carbon dioxide, 4500
Hadean
and only a tiny amount of oxygen. Mya
The first life forms — probably self-replicating RNA molecules — may have evolved as early as 4,000
million years ago.
How do scientists know…

…the age of rocks and fossils?
Radioactive forms of certain elements such as carbon-14 and uranium-235 are not
chemically stable; they slowly decay into stable elements by radiating away particles.
Scientists have determined through experiment the rate at which these elements
decay. Based on the amount of radioactive material left in a rock, fossil, or artifact,
they can determine how long ago it was created. (You can read more about the dating
of artifacts in “The process of archaeology (page 83).”)
…the age of the earth?

The oldest rocks found on earth are 4.4 billion years old, so the earth must have
formed at least that long ago. The oldest rocks found in meteorites and brought back
from the moon are between 4.5 and 4.6 billion years old, and scientists use that figure
as an estimate of when the solar system was formed, and with it the earth.
…when water appeared on the earth?

Rocks found in Greenland have been found to be 3,800 million years old. The rocks
are metamorphic — they were changed by heat and pressure. That process can only
occur in the presence of liquid water, and so geologists estimate that by this time the
earth had oceans — and an atmosphere, because otherwise the oceans would have
evaporated.
…where the continents and oceans used to be?

In some cases, we can look at the fossil record. For example, if fossils of ocean-
dwelling animals are found on dry land, we know that when that animal lived, the land
must have been under water. When animals found on different parts of the globe have

similar ancestors, scientists may surmise that those parts of the earth were once
connected by land. Scientists can also determine how fast and in what direction the
earth’s plates are moving now, and use that information to develop theories about
what happened in the past.
…what the climate was like in the distant past?

During the Ice Age, glaciers left telltale signs in the rocks they covered. Sometimes
mineral deposits are laid down only in certain climatic conditions — for example, salt
deposits are laid down primarily when the climate is warm and dry (when water
evaporates most quickly). In other cases, the fossil record indicates that the earth (or a
particular location on it) must have been warm or cool.
…when various kinds of plants and animals appeared?

Based on dating of fossils, we know when various plants and animals lived. Often,
though, fossils are incomplete — they show only part of a species, and scientists have
to make educated guesses about the rest. And the fossil record itself is not complete —
we certainly haven’t found fossils of every life form that ever existed, or from the
entire period that a given life form existed. So while scientists know that certain
species existed at certain times, there is a tremendous amount they don’t know.
…how different species are related?

Scientists classify species based on their ancestry and evolution: Two species are more
closely related if they have a more recent common ancestor. The most obvious way to
guess that two species have a common ancestor is their morphology — what they look
like and how they are constructed. But relying on morphology alone can be dangerous,
because although dolphins and sharks look much alike, they are not even remotely
related — sharks evolved hundreds of million years ago from aquatic invertebrates,
while dolphins evolved much more recently from land-dwelling mammals. Sometimes
a complete fossil record shows stages in a species’ evolution, through which it can be
traced to a more distant ancestor. More recently, scientists have used DNA testing: by
comparing the genomes (genetic makeup) of two species, they can determine how
closely related the two species are.
On the Web
Geologic Time
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/
This online book from the U.S. Geological Survey, published in 1997, explains how geologic
time is organized and how scientists determine the age of fossils, rocks, and the earth.
This Dynamic Earth: The Story of Plate Tectonics

http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/
This booklet from the U.S. Geological Survey explains the theories of continental drift and plate
tectonics -- what scientists know, how they know it, and how these theories developed.

Ancient shorelines
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/cede_lgsandvol/2
North Carolina's ancient shorelines remain as long sandy ridges in the coastal plain.
How is coastal sand formed into barrier islands?

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/cede_smsandvol/2
Coastal sand is organized into barrier islands when three conditions are met: There is a supply
of sand sufficient to form islands; sea level is rising; and there are winds and waves with
sufficient energy...
Plate tectonics animation

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/multimedia/7152
This animated video demonstrates plate tectonics, illustrating how the continents may have
acquired their present configuration.
A New View of the Early Earth

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/science/02eart.html
Geologists are rethinking the old picture of what the earth looked like more than four billion
years ago. From the New York Times, December 2, 2008.
Notes
1. The structure of this table is borrowed from Wikipedia (see
http://www.learnnc.orghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time). The names and dates of
eons, eras, periods, and epochs are also from that page, which is in turn drawn from the time
scale agreed upon in 2004 by the International Commission on Stratigraphy. Most of the
information in the table is drawn from Fred Beyer, North Carolina: The Years Before Man, a
Geologic History (Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 1991).

How the world was made
A Cherokee creation story, as written down in the late 1800s.
BY JAMES MOONEY
From Myths of the Cherokee, Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American
Ethnology 1897-98, Part I [1900].
The earth is a great island floating in a sea of water, and suspended at each of the four
cardinal points by a cord hanging down from the sky vault, which is of solid rock. When
the world grows old and worn out, the people will die and the cords will break and let the
earth sink down into the ocean, and all will be water again. The Indians are afraid of this.
When all was water, the animals were above in Gälûñ’lätï, beyond the arch; but it was
very much crowded, and they were wanting more room. They wondered what was below
the water, and at last Dâyuni’sï, “Beaver’s Grandchild,” the little Water-beetle, offered to go
and see if it could learn. It darted in every direction over the surface of the water, but could
find no firm place to rest. Then it dived to the bottom and came up with some soft mud,
which began to grow and spread on every side until it became the island which we call the
earth. It was afterward fastened to the sky with four cords, but no one remembers who did
this.
At first the earth was flat and very soft and wet. The animals were anxious to get down,
and sent out different birds to see if it was yet dry, but they found no place to alight and
came back again to Gälûñ’lätï. At last it seemed to be time, and they sent out the Buzzard
and told him to go and make ready for them. This was the Great Buzzard, the father of all
the buzzards we see now. He flew all over the earth, low down near the ground, and it was
still soft. When he reached the Cherokee country, he was very tired, and his wings began to
flap and strike the ground, and wherever they struck the earth there was a valley, and where
they turned up again there was a mountain. When the animals above saw this, they were
afraid that the whole world would be mountains, so they called him back, but the Cherokee
country remains full of mountains to this day.
When the earth was dry and the animals came down, it was still dark, so they got the
sun and set it in a track to go every day across the island from east to west, just overhead. It
was too hot this way, and Tsiska’gïlï’, the Red Crawfish, had his shell scorched a bright red,
so that his meat was spoiled; and the Cherokee do not eat it. The conjurers put the sun
another hand-breadth higher in the air, but it was still too hot. They raised it another time,
and another, until it was seven handbreadths high and just under the sky arch. Then it was
right, and they left it so. This is why the conjurers call the highest place Gûlkwâ’gine
How the world was made | 27

Di’gälûñ’lätiyûñ’, “the seventh height,” because it is seven hand-breadths above the earth.
Every day the sun goes along under this arch, and returns at night on the upper side to the
starting place.
There is another world under this, and it is like ours in everything — animals, plants,
and people — save that the seasons are different. The streams that come down from the
mountains are the trails by which we reach this underworld, and the springs at their heads
are the doorways by which we enter, it, but to do this one must fast and, go to water and
have one of the underground people for a guide. We know that the seasons in the
underworld are different from ours, because the water in the springs is always warmer in
winter and cooler in summer than the outer air.
When the animals and plants were first made — we do not know by whom — they
were told to watch and keep awake for seven nights, just as young men now fast and keep
awake when they pray to their medicine. They tried to do this, and nearly all were awake
through the first night, but the next night several dropped off to sleep, and the third night
others were asleep, and then others, until, on the seventh night, of all the animals only the
owl, the panther, and one or two more were still awake. To these were given the power to
see and to go about in the dark, and to make prey of the birds and animals which must
sleep at night. Of the trees only the cedar, the pine, the spruce, the holly, and the laurel
were awake to the end, and to them it was given to be always green and to be greatest for
medicine, but to the others it was said: “Because you have not endured to the end you shall
lose your, hair every winter.”
Men came after the animals and plants. At first there were only a brother and sister
until he struck her with a fish and told her to multiply, and so it was. In seven days a child
was born to her, and thereafter every seven days another, and they increased very fast until
there was danger that the world could not keep them. Then it was made that a woman
should have only one child in a year, and it has been so ever since.
On the Web
The Big Myth
http://www.mythicjourneys.org/bigmyth/
The Mythic Imagination Institute offers an online an experiential learning tool called The Big
Myth. Flash animation is used to create an interactive format for telling creation stories from
around the world.
Cherokee North Carolina

http://www.cherokee-nc.com/
The website of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians provides information about the tribe’s
history, as well as current events and activities.

The creation and fall of man, from
Genesis
From the King James Bible, Genesis 1:1–2:9, 2:15–17, 3:1–24.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form,
and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it
was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and
the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the
waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were
under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And
God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place,
and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the
gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God
said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit
after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought
forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed
was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the
morning were the third day.
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day
from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let
them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was
Figure 17. The Garden of Eden, so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to
as depicted by Hieronymus rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to
Bosch in 1504.
give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the
light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning
were the fourth day.
And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath
life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God
created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth
abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was
good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the

seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth
day.
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and
creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast
of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon
the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over
all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created
man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he
them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and
replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the
fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the
face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it
shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every
thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for
meat: and it was so. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very
good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the
seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day
from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it:
because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in
the day that the lord God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field
before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the lord God had
not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there
went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. And the lord
God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;
and man became a living soul.
And the lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man
whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the lord God to grow every tree that is
pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and
the tree of knowledge of good and evil…
And the lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and
to keep it. And the lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden
thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat
of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die…
• • •
Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the lord God had made.
And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the
garden?

And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the
garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye
shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the
woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your
eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the
woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree
to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto
her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they
knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves
aprons.
And they heard the voice of the lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day:
and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the lord God amongst the
trees of the garden. And the lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art
thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked;
and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the
tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The
woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the
lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said,
The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
And the lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed
above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust
shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman,
and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in
sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall
rule over thee.
And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and
hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed
is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also
and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat
of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou
taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. Unto
Adam also and to his wife did the lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them. And
the lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and
now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
Therefore the lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from
whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of
Eden Cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree
of life.

The golden chain
A creation story told by the Yoruba of West Africa.
From Bruce Railsback, Creation Stories from around the World (see
http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/CS/CSIndex.html), Fourth Edition (2000).
As you read...
This creation story comes from the Yoruba people of Nigeria, Togo and Benin. In the religion of the Yoruba,
the supreme being is Olorun, and assisting Olorun are a number of heavenly entities called orishas. This
story was written down by David A. Anderson/Sankofa, who learned it from his father, who learned it from
his mother, and so on back through the Yoruba people and through time. For his version, see David A.
Anderson/Sankofa, The Origin of Life on Earth: An African Creation Myth (Mt. Airy, Maryland: Sights
Productions, 1991).
Long ago, well before there were any people, all life existed in the sky. Olorun lived in the
sky, and with Olorun were many orishas. There were both male and female orishas, but
Olorun transcended male and female and was the all-powerful supreme being. Olorun and
the orishas lived around a young baobab tree. Around the baobab tree the orishas found
everything they needed for their lives, and in fact they wore beautiful clothes and gold
jewelry. Olorun told them that all the vast sky was theirs to explore. All the orishas save
one, however, were content to stay near the baobab tree.
Obatala was the curious orisha who wasn’t content to live blissfully by the baobab tree.
Like all orishas, he had certain powers, and he wanted to put them to use. As he pondered
what to do, he looked far down through the mists below the sky. As he looked and looked,
he began to realize that there was a vast empty ocean below the mist. Obatala went to
Olorun and asked Olorun to let him make something solid in the waters below. That way
there could be beings that Obatala and the orishas could help with their powers.
Touched by Obatala’s desire to do something constructive, Olorun agreed to send
Obatala to the watery world below. Obatala then asked Orunmila, the orisha who knows the
future, what he should do to prepare for his mission. Orunmila brought out a sacred tray
and sprinkled the powder of baobab roots on it. He tossed sixteen palm kernels onto the
This section copyright ©2000 Bruce Railsback. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-
Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by-nc-sa/2.5/.
The golden chain | 33

tray and studied the marks and tracks they made on the powder. He did this eight times,
each time carefully observing the patterns. Finally he told Obatala to prepare a chain of
gold, and to gather sand, palm nuts, and maize. He also told Obatala to get the sacred egg
carrying the personalities of all the orishas.
Obatala went to his fellow orishas to ask for their gold, and they all gave him all the
gold they had. He took this to the goldsmith, who melted all the jewelry to make the links
of the golden chain. When Obatala realized that the goldsmith had made all the gold into
links, he had the goldsmith melt a few of them back down to make a hook for the end of
the chain.
Meanwhile, as Orunmila had told him, Obatala gathered all the sand in the sky and
put it in an empty snail shell, and in with it he added a little baobab powder. He put that in
his pack, along with palm nuts, maize, and other seeds that he found around the baobab
tree. He wrapped the egg in his shirt, close to his chest so that it would be warm during his
journey.
Obatala hooked the chain into the sky, and he began to climb down the chain. For
seven days he went down and down, until finally he reached the end of the chain. He hung
at its end, not sure what to do, and he looked and listened for any clue. Finally he heard
Orunmila, the seer, calling to him to use the sand. He took the shell from his pack and
poured out the sand into the water below. The sand hit the water, and to his surprise it
spread and solidified to make a vast land. Still unsure what to do, Obatala hung from the
end of the chain until his heart pounded so much that the egg cracked. From it flew
Sankofa, the bird bearing the sprits of all the orishas. Like a storm, they blew the sand to
make dunes and hills and lowlands, giving it character just as the orishas themselves have
character.
Finally Obatala let go of the chain and dropped to this new land, which he called “Ife”,
the place that divides the waters. Soon he began to explore this land, and as he did so he
scattered the seeds from his pack, and as he walked the seeds began to grow behind him,
so that the land turned green in his wake.
After walking a long time, Obatala grew thirsty and stopped at a small pond. As he
bent over the water, he saw his reflection and was pleased. He took some clay from the
edge of the pond and began to mold it into the shape he had seen in the reflection. He
finished that one and began another, and before long he had made many of these bodies
from the dark earth at the pond’s side. By then he was even thirstier than before, and he
took juice from the newly-grown palm trees and it fermented into palm wine. He drank
this, and drank some more, and soon he was intoxicated. He returned to his work of
making more forms from the edge of the pond, but now he wasn’t careful and made some
without eyes or some with misshapen limbs. He thought they all were beautiful, although
later he realized that he had erred in drinking the wine and vowed to not do so again.
Before long, Olorun dispatched Chameleon down the golden chain to check on
Obatala’s progress. Chameleon reported Obatala’s disappointment at making figures that
had form but no life. Gathering gasses from the space beyond the sky, Olorun sparked the
gasses into an explosion that he shaped into a fireball. He sent that fireball to Ife, where it
dried the lands that were still wet and began to bake the clay figures that Obatala had made.
The fireball even set the earth to spinning, as it still does today. Olorun then blew his
breath across Ife, and Obatala’s figures slowly came to life as the first people of Ife.

2 Native Carolinians
How we know what we know — or what we think we know — can’t be

separated from any story we tell about the people who lived in North
Carolina before contact with Europeans. We know that they have been here
since at least 9,000 BCE. We know that over thousands of years they
developed complex and diverse societies, cultures, languages, agriculture,
belief systems, and means of political organization. But because all that
remains of them is artifacts buried in the ground, the details of when,
where, and how people lived are lost or open to interpretation. When new
discoveries are made, our understanding of the past changes — often
dramatically.
In this chapter we’ll explore the archaeology and history of North Carolina
before Europeans arrived. The story of North Carolina’s native peoples
begins with their migration from Asia thousands of years ago. By the
sixteenth century CE, North Carolina was home to diverse peoples, and
we’ll look at the ways of life of several of those peoples in turn. Just as
important, we’ll consider the work of archaeologists — people who explore
the past through physical remains — and how our understanding of North
Carolinia’s first peoples continues to evolve.
35
First peoples
Excerpted and adapted from Intrigue of the Past, LEARN NC web edition, page 3.2
(see http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/intrigue/3.2).
PROVIDED BY RESEARCH LABORATORIES OF ARCHAEOLOGY
Thousands of years ago, Canada’s ancient landscape was stark and forbidding. Much of it
was buried beneath sheets of ice taller than the tallest city skyscraper. The air was frigid.
Snow and sleet pelted the ground in storm after storm. Even when the sun was shining,
Canada, like all northern countries, got little warmth from the sun’s rays. The cold’s grip
was too strong, and ice sheets, called glaciers, got thicker with each storm. In the places
where no glaciers existed (along the coasts and in the center of the country) wiry grasslands
waved in the steady winds. Herds of shaggy, heavy-coated animals grazed. This was the
time when the last Great Ice Age, known as the Pleistocene, hung over North America.
The Pleistocene epoch lasted from 2 million years ago to 8000 BCE. During the
Pleistocene, so much of the earth’s water was frozen in glaciers that the sea levels dropped.
Figure 19. The “first Americans”
crossed a land bridge from Asia
The glaciers formed because the climate stayed too cold for the snow and ice to melt. Most
at least 14,000 years ago. of the water the atmosphere could find to take up to make the snow and ice came from the
oceans. Very gradually, after giving up its moisture for so long and having no melt water to
replace it, sea levels fell. As the oceans got smaller, they shrunk away from the coastlines,
and newly exposed land felt the touch of air. Tough grass seeds lodged and grew; mosses
crept over the bare spots; small lakes formed, and animal herds found new homes.
Beringia was one of these places. When the sea levels dropped, a wide strip of land
was exposed between Alaska and Siberia, where the Bering Sea is today. Beringia was
exposed twice during the Pleistocene. The land bridge existed once between 50,000 and
40,000 years ago and again between 28,000 and 10,000 years ago. Each time the seas fell
away from Beringia, North America and Asia were joined by a vast, tundra-like land. Herds
of animals found homes there. Many of the herds were of very large animals called
megafauna. They included the mammoth, an enormous animal related to the elephant,
and a species of bison called Bison antiquus.
Figure 20. Ancient bison were The Paleoindians living in North Carolina by 9000 BCE were descendants of Asians
as much as 25 percent larger who followed and hunted the animal herds across Beringia. Archaeologists disagree about
than present-day bison.
when people first crossed Beringia, but most think they did so when the land bridge
formed the second time. Unknowingly, the Paleoindians came into a land no humans had
ever lived in before. Shadowing the herds, the people went south through the middle of
This section copyright ©2001 UNC Research Laboratories of Archaeology. All Rights Reserved.
First peoples | 37
Canada. There, a wide tundra-like path cut between two huge glaciers that covered the rest
of the country. Even though this path from Beringia through Canada was ice-free, its
nearness to the blue-tinged glaciers probably made the passage cold and difficult. Perhaps
some people wondered if they should go on; some may have turned back. However, for
those who continued, they saw changes in the landscape when they got to where the
United States border is now.
Nobody knows how long the journey took before the first Paleoindians reached North
Carolina. Nobody knows, either, the hardships or joys they faced. Because Paleoindians
lived so long ago, there is little left to tell us the story of their lives. Only traces of them
remain: a stone spear point here, a stone scraper there. But these artifacts, or things made
by people, are like the Paleoindians’ shadows projected into the earth; they create an image
of their past.
Shadows in the ground

Archaeologists learn about Paleoindians mainly from three kinds of physical evidence: the
distinctive stone spear points and stone tools the people made; the bones of the animals
that these people hunted and ate; and traces of the camp sites that they once inhabited.
The first scientific evidence archaeologists found about Paleoindians was not from
North Carolina; it came from 12,000-year-old sites out West, in places like Colorado and
New Mexico. In the early 1930s, at the Dent site in Colorado, a railroad foreman and a
Catholic priest were walking along a small gulley when they noticed animal bones and
stone spear points falling out of a bank. As the men examined the bones, they realized the
bones belonged to no animal they recognized, so they asked archaeologists to come take a
look. It didn’t take long for the investigating archaeologists to become excited. The bones
once formed the skeleton of a type of elephant called a mammoth that lived during the
Pleistocene. Was it possible, the archaeologists wondered, that ancient people used the
spear points to kill this immense 7-ton creature?
Blackwater Draw — a windswept, arid basin located between the small towns of Clovis
Figure 21. The Columbian and Portales in New Mexico—helped archaeologists answer this question. The site was
mammoth was one of many stratified, meaning it contained several different layers of soil deposited over a long period
species of megafauna — giant
of time. As archaeologists excavated each layer, they analyzed what they found. On the
animals — that became extinct
soon after humans arrived in bottom and oldest level, stone spear points were lying next to megafauna bones. The
North America. association was unmistakable, and it showed people used the spear points to kill
mammoths, along with other large animals, such as Bison antiquus. Because archaeologists
knew megafauna were extinct by the end of the Pleistocene, they could infer people hunted
at Blackwater Draw about 12,000 years ago.
Other kinds of physical evidence helped archaeologists understand that Blackwater
Draw was no hot desert when the Paleoindians visited there. By studying soils and plant
pollens from the site, archaeologists learned that Blackwater Draw was once a small Ice
Age pond surrounded by a lush grassland. The abundant grass and water attracted herds of
animals—and people, too. Perhaps, archaeologists hypothesized, Paleoindians speared the
mammoths and bison that got stuck in the pond’s mud when drinking. Then the people
butchered the large animals where they fell and died. Besides the spear points,
archaeologists found other tools suggesting this happened. Long, thin flint knives and

stone hide scrapers littered the area. Some archaeologists think there is even evidence for a
camp site with a hearth.
The spear points archaeologists found with the mammoth bones at Blackwater Draw
are very distinctive. Archaeologists called these artifacts Clovis points, naming them after
one of the nearby towns. For convenience, archaeologists also call the lifeway of the
Paleoindians who made the points the Clovis culture.
Clovis points are shaped like long, thin blades with a shallow channel, or flute, on
each side. The edges on both sides near the point’s base were dulled, probably to keep
them from cutting through the bindings with which the point was attached to the spear
shaft. Archaeologists are not sure about the flute’s purpose. Maybe it made it easier to
attach the point to the spear. Then again, maybe the flute was just a matter of style.
Whatever the case, the spear itself was most likely propelled using a spear thrower, or atlatl
— a wooden stick with a handle at one end and a hook at the other. The atlatl acts as a lever
that, in effect, extends the arm of the person throwing the spear. The hook engages the
back end of the spear as it is propelled forward with an overhand motion, like that of a
baseball pitcher. The atlatl, properly used, greatly increases the accuracy and force with
which a spear can be thrown.
Archaeologists can never know for sure why the Paleoindians who made Clovis points
Figure 22. A Clovis point. shaped them the way they did. The voices, minds, and reasons of people don’t exist in the
ground. Only their physical traces—their artifacts—do. One thing archaeologists are sure
of, however, is this: Clovis points are the earliest, indisputable evidence of people in North
and South America.
Figure 23. An atlatl, or spear

thrower.
North Carolina’s first peoples
North Carolina is a long way from New Mexico and other places with sites having Clovis
spear points associated with megafauna bones. Yet what archaeologists learn from these far
away places helps them infer when people first lived in North Carolina and what their lives
may have been like.
Clovis points—those earliest traces of people — were actually not discovered at Dent
and Blackwater Draw. For years before shovels sunk there, archaeologists all over the
country had collected them during surveys. But they were always on the ground’s surface.
Clovis points turned up in North Carolina, too. Farmers’ plows churned them up. They
tumbled out of stream banks. However, such Clovis points weren’t found in context with
other evidence. So archaeologists could not answer questions like: When were the points
made? Whose hands made them? What were they used for?
The Blackwater Draw excavations allowed archaeologists to place Clovis points found
everywhere else in North America in time. To do this, they used a technique called cross-
dating. Cross-dating means that if a style of point dated in one place is found someplace
else, then the point was probably made about the same time by people of the same culture.
This technique lets archaeologists infer that Clovis points found in North Carolina are as
old as those excavated from western sites. Dates from Blackwater Draw put Paleoindians
making Clovis points about 9500 BCE. This leads archaeologists to think Clovis culture
Paleoindians began arriving in North Carolina—as they did in many other parts of the
First peoples | 39
country—about that time. Losing some tools along the way, they crossed the Appalachians
and flowed onto the gently rolling Piedmont to begin human history in North Carolina.
These pathfinders walked into a land transforming itself. The Ice Age was ending, and
the transition to the Holocene, or modern, epoch was underway. Between 10,000 and
7000 BCE, the glaciers gradually melted and retreated to the Arctic. In North Carolina, the
warming air affected the plants and animals. Forests and other habitats changed as the
climate slowly became like it is today. Those early settlers confronted, thus, an
environment where megafauna were hard to find. Different kinds of animals faced the
hunters’ spears, and different plants were available to those who gathered them for food
and medicine. Even the coastline was altering because water from melting glaciers was
raising sea levels. Of course, the changes were not so quick the Paleoindians could see
them happening. The climatic shift was probably like trying to watch a flower bud bloom.
Before people came, North Carolina’s Ice-Age landscape had forests of cold-weather
adapted trees, such as jack pine and spruce. Called boreal, this kind of forest is in Canada
today. When boreal forests existed in North Carolina, parklands scattered through them.
Caribou and megafauna, such as mammoths, camels, and horses, grazed on the grasses.
Another elephant-like animal called the mastodon lived in the forests. Eastern megafauna
herds were probably not large like those in the West. Archaeologists think the grasslands
were too small here to support many of the large grazers. By the time Paleoindians arrived,
winters were more harsh and summers cooler and wetter than today, but the air was
Figure 24. The forests of the Ice
distinctly milder compared to earlier Pleistocene times. This allowed hardwood seeds to
Age survive today in North
Carolina only at the peak of the sprout, and stands of hickory, oak, birch, and elm had begun replacing the conifers. As
Blue Ridge, where high elevation these forests grew, they spread into the grasslands. This resulted in the caribou and
makes the climate much like megafauna having less to eat, and their numbers declined. Other kinds of animals,
that of Canada.
however, thrived in the deciduous forests. There were deer and bear; squirrels and rabbits;
raccoons and beavers.
The first Paleoindians exploring North Carolina faced these changing ecological
conditions. They adapted and stayed.
On the Web
Paleoindians and the Great Pleistocene Die-Off
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/nattrans/ntecoindian/essays/pleistocene.htm
Shortly after humans arrived in the Americas, the megafauna — very large animals, such as
mammoths — died out. Did human hunters drive them to extinction? This article by Shepard
Krech III of Brown University weighs the evidence.
The Archeology of Early North Carolina

http://www.ncmuseumofhistory.org/collateral/articles/F05.early.archaeology.pdf
This 2005 article published in Tar Heel Junior Historian explains what is known, and what
remains elusive, about the Paleo-Indian period in North Carolina.

The mystery of the first Americans
BY DAVID WALBERT
In the second half of the twentieth century, archaeologists agreed that those “first
Americans” migrated from Asia across Beringia and into North America between fourteen
and twenty thousand years ago. Recently, though, new evidence has come to light that has
led some archaeologists to doubt that theory and to suggest new possibilities.
Older than Clovis

In 1997, a group of prominent archaeologists visited a site at Monte Verde in southern
Chile to investigate a startling claim. Remains of an ancient camp had been found there:
artifacts made of stone, wood, and bone, part of huts that had been covered with animal
hides, and the preserved footprint of a child. The researchers who found them dated them
at 12,500 years old — older than the Clovis (page 37) cultures whose remains have been
found in the western United States. Some remains appeared even older than that. What’s
more, the artifacts suggested a way of life very different from that of the Clovis culture.
The findings raised serious questions about the standard view of humanity’s arrival in
the Americas. If the dating of these artifacts was correct, how early must humans have
crossed Beringia to have migrated all the way to southern South America by 12,500 BP
(before present)? Geologists believe that the ice-free corridor through central North
America did not open up until 13,000 years ago. Could these Monte Verde people have
arrived via a separate, earlier migration? Might they have reached South America by a
different route altogether? If so, what might that route have been?
The blue-ribbon panel examined the evidence and reached a unanimous verdict: the
Figure 25. This map of Chile site was, indeed, 12,500 years old. Some archaeologists disagreed with their findings, but
shows the Monte Verde site the search for remains of other pre-Clovis sites gained sudden legitimacy. Evidence has
outlined by a red circle.
since been found in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Mexico confirming that humans were
present in the Americas before the Clovis people arrived some 11,000 years ago.

Kennewick Man
In July, 1996, two boaters stumbled across a skull on the banks of the Columbia River in
Kennewick, Washington. An archaeologist determined it to be the skull of a man who lived
9,200 years ago and died at the age of 45 by a projectile wound to the head. More
interestingly, the skull of Kennewick Man, as researchers called him, didn’t have the
features of modern American Indians, or of Paleoindians whose remains have been found
in the Americas. He seemed to have European features — a shocking finding, given
existing theories about the origins of the first Americans.
Research on Kennewick Man’s remains — including DNA testing — was interrupted
almost immediately. Northwestern Indian tribes claimed the remains as belonging to one
of their ancestors, and federal officials impounded the remains until a legal settlement was
reached. Not until in 2004, after years of legal battles, did a federal judge rule that research
could proceed.
It now appears that Kennewick Man resembled not Europeans but South Asians or the
Ainu people of Japan (who themselves have European features). But the long controversy
raised interest in the possibility that the first Americans had more than one origin.
Figure 26. Close-up images of
some of Kennewick Man’s
bones.
Great and small migrations

Most archaeologists still believe that most, if not all, of the first Americans arrived in a
relatively short time period. But the likelihood of one large-scale migration doesn’t
preclude the possibility of other smaller migrations, and there is still debate about how and
when that large-scale migration took place. Here are some of the problems and theories
that archaeologists continue to debate.
MASSIVE EXTINCTIONS
About 11,000 years ago, the megafauna of North America died out. Their extinction was
sudden in geological terms — they seem to have disappeared in as little as 500 years’ time.
Humans may have hunted them to extinction, but some archaeologists believe that small
numbers of people with primitive stone weapons simply could not have killed off all the
megafauna of two continents in so short a time. Another theory is that humans and their
dogs brought diseases that infected the continents’ megafauna — a disturbing
foreshadowing of the Columbian Exchange (page 173). Both theories point to a massive
human migration to the Americas about 11,000 years ago. But other research suggests that
a swiftly changing climate played a role, and that humans may not be entirely to blame.
GENETIC EVIDENCE
DNA testing has shown that modern American Indians are descended from people who
lived in East Asia, specifically in Siberia, thousands of years ago. Just how long ago is
debated — some evidence suggests that they left Siberia 30,000 years ago — but it seems
clear that most, if not all, of the first Americans came from Asia.

COASTAL MIGRATION
Archaelogists have supposed an ice-free corridor east of the Rocky Mountains through
which the Clovis people migrated to the western United States, but geologic evidence
suggests that corridor may not have existed — at least not until 11,000 years ago.
It may be that instead of moving through the interior of the continent, the first
Americans migrated down the west coast of the Americas, which would have been free of
ice much earlier than the interior. They may have done so as early as 14,000 years ago,
giving them time to reach Chile by 12,500 years ago. Some archaelogists have suggested
that these people may even have used boats to skirt the coastline. Human remains have
been found in a part of California that was an island in the Pleistocene, suggesting that
someone must have traveled there by sea.
This theory suggests a very different way of life for the first Americans — instead of
hunting megafauna, they would have relied on marine mammals for food. It also raises the
question of where the Clovis people came from, how they reached central North America,
and how they were related culturally to these coastal inhabitants.
COMPARING EARLY HUMAN REMAINS

A few researchers, finding similarities between the skulls of ancient humans in the
Americas and in Europe, have argued that some early Americans arrived from southern
Europe, moving up the coast of Europe, across Greenland, and into North America,
perhaps by boat. But (as mentioned above) the Ainu people of Japan are European in
appearance, and so similarities between early Americans and Europeans don’t rule out an
Asian migration. Brazilian archaeologists have also found remains of humans in South
America with features typically found among Africans or aboriginal Australians.
Comparisons of the features of early humans is complicated, though, by the fact that
skulls older than about 8,000 years are more diverse in appearance than modern skulls.
Some scientists argue that it is a mistake to use similarities and differences from this time
period to trace migration patterns.
A continuing search for answers

The question of where the first Americans came from, seemingly settled for decades, has
again become one of the most interesting questions in archaeology. There seems to be no
consensus on the horizon, and it will likely take decades of work by researchers in many
fields before the matter is settled — at least for another fifty years.
On the Web
New Answers to an Old Question: Who Got Here First?
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/featured_articles/991109tuesday.html
This 1999 article from the New York Times examines the controversy over the Monte Verde
findings.

Microbe's Map of Migration
http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Chumash/JCMicrobe.html
This 1999 article from the Washington Post explains how the JC virus, carried by all humans,
has be used to trace ancient migration patterns.
Kennewick Man Virtual Interpretive Center

http://www.tri-cityherald.com/kman/
News stories from the Tri-City (Washington) Herald, the Associated Press, and other sources,
plus photos, legal documents, and a timeline.
How and When Did People First Come to North America?

http://www.athenapub.com/10Dixon.htm
A more technical overview of current research, with maps, graphs, and references, by Dr. E.
James Dixon, University of Colorado, from the Athena Review (2002).

Shadows of a people
PROVIDED BY RESEARCH LABORATORIES OF ARCHAEOLOGY
Figure 27. A timeline of North Carolina’s past shows how long people have
lived here — and how short is the time since Europeans arrived!
People lived in North Carolina for more than 10,000 years before Europeans arrived.
During that time, change was constant. Between 14,000 and 10,000 years ago, the climate
slowly changed from an Ice Age to the warmer climate we know today. That change
overturned local ecology. In North Carolina, cold-loving boreal forests of jack pine and
spruce became groves of deciduous nut trees and long-needle pine. Large Ice-Age
mammals, such as the mastodon, died out. In their place, deer, bear, and other modern
animals thrived.
People adjusted to a changing environment by changing not just what they hunted
and gathered for food, but the tools they used. For example, as people came to use more
and different plants for food, they created additional tools, like grinding slabs to process
nuts and seeds.
Archaeologists identify four broad cultural periods in North Carolina before
Europeans arrived. These periods are called Paleoindian, Archaic, Woodland, and
Mississippian. Archaeologists constructed the story of each period by observing datable
artifacts and other traces people left and then making inferences about how they lived.
Generally, the transition from one period to another is marked by fundamental changes in
things like technology (tools, containers, etc.), economy (subsistence patterns, etc.), or
settlements.
Paleoindians
The Paleoindian period is the oldest known cultural period in North Carolina. In fact, it is
the oldest tradition for all of North and South America. The first Paleoindians crossed a
now-submerged land bridge between Alaska and Siberia during the last Ice Age.
Archaeologists have found evidence that Paleoindians were living in North Carolina
between 10,000 and 8000 BCE.
Paleoindians were nomadic hunters and gatherers who, in the last centuries of the Ice
Age, presumably used thrusting spears tipped with chipped stone points to kill prey. Other
tools included portable but useful items like stone hide scrapers, drills, and knives.
Paleoindians in the eastern U.S. occasionally hunted big game, such as now-extinct
mastodons and bison. But increasingly evidence suggests that most Paleoindians,
including those in North Carolina, ate a wide variety of smaller animals and used many
plants for food and medicines.
Figure 28. Hardaway spear point
from Stanly County, ca. 8500
BCE.
Archaic Indians
The Archaic period is the second oldest known lifeway across the continent. In North
Carolina, this tradition dates from 8000 to 1000 BCE.
Archaic Indians were direct descendants of Paleoindians. They, too, were wandering
hunters and gatherers who had no year-round villages. Instead, they lived in camps. Some
of these settlements, called base camps, were relatively large and served as a “home base”
for food-getting activities over a large area. Their shelters were probably tents made of
wooden poles covered with hides that could be quickly built and dismantled. Possessions
were few and portable.
Archaic Indians lived in a climate much like that of today, and were surrounded by the
same species of plants and animals that exist today (in other words, the Ice-Age flora and
fauna were gone). To hunt, Archaic people used a spear-throwing device called an atlatl,
which enabled them to propel spears farther and with more force. The white-tailed deer
was the main source of meat for Archaic people. They also ate a variety of wild vegetables
and fruits, and they harvested wild seeds from a variety of plants that grew near riverside
camps they regularly visited as they moved from place to place.
Over time, Archaic people adopted or developed new tools. They shaped grinding
Figure 29. Polished stone axe implements to process nuts from the spreading forests of deciduous trees and developed a
from Nash County, 3000–1000 technique to smooth and polish stone tools like axes. They carved bowls from steatite, a
BCE.
soft, soapy-feeling stone (also called soapstone). By the end of their 7,000-year period in
North Carolina, some Archaic Indians were making crude, fire-hardened clay vessels —
North Carolina’s first pottery. A few were also digging small gardens, throwing in saved
seeds from local seed-plants that grew around their camps.

Woodland Indians
The Woodland period in North Carolina began about 1000 BCE and ended by 1000 CE.
The Woodland was a time of pottery-making, semi-permanent villages, and horticulture.
Some people had adopted these practices in the late Archaic period, but by the Woodland,
they were widespread and common.
Woodland people gardened. They cultivated a variety of foods to supplement what they
obtained from hunting and gathering. In their gardens, they grew many of the native seed
plants their Archaic ancestors ate. Evidence suggests several of the local seed plants had
been domesticated by Woodland times. Specifically, some seeds’ shapes had become larger
and uniformly sized, indicating that the plants required human help to reproduce and
Figure 30. Pottery vessel from
Haywood County, ca. 300 CE.
grow.
The Eastern Agricultural Complex is what archaeologists call the group of native
plants that people cultivated in gardens. These include marsh elder, knotweed, sunflower,
maygrass, and goosefoot. Many archaeologists think these crops give strong evidence that
the practice of agriculture evolved independently in the Southeast.
Pottery-making became widespread and common at the start of the Woodland period.
Some archaeologists think it may have gone hand in hand with gardening and a more
settled life. The thinking goes that people needed clay vessels to cook and store food. The
more they gardened and the more bulky items they possessed, the more they stayed put. As
time went by, Woodland groups developed pottery with distinctive decorative and
manufacturing styles.
Yet while gardens were important, Woodland people apparently did not rely solely on
cultivated plants for food, and they did not stay in one place all year. Hunting and
gathering still provided most of what people ate. Fishing and shellfishing were becoming
important for some, especially coastal people. Even though Woodland Indians established
small villages of round houses on or near fertile floodplains ideal for gardens, they
periodically abandoned them. They spent weeks or months each year in seasonal camps,
strategically situated within their territories to harvest or collect the wild foods key to
survival. People timed the return to their semi-permanent village to the harvest of gardens.
As it did for people in earlier times, Woodland Indians’ technology reflected their
lifeway. Chipped stone or conch shell hoes for gardening appear in the sites archaeologists
study. So do net sinkers and the first evidence of the bow and arrow. Archaeologists find
triangular shaped points suited to tip arrows (not spears), literally pointing to a shift in
hunting technology.
Other evidence hints at how people organized themselves socially and politically.
Some groups buried a few of their dead in earthen mounds and placed beautiful, elaborate
items like pipes shaped as animals with them. Archaeologists think this special treatment
hints at privileged people. Most other Woodland groups across North Carolina, however,
buried their dead with few or no grave offerings, and may have been more egalitarian.
Mississippian Indians
The Mississippian period covers the span from 1000 CE until Europeans arrived and
colonized about 1650 CE. North Carolina’s Indian people had diverse cultures at this time,
and this can be documented not just from archaeological evidence. Direct contacts, along
with written accounts by early European explorers, chart three major linguistic and ethnic
Native American groups. Algonkian speakers lived in the Coastal Plain’s tidewater region.
Tribes speaking Iroquoian languages lived on the inner Coastal Plain and in the
Mountains. Siouan-speaking tribes occupied the Piedmont. Today, many of their tribal
names are familiar. The Tuscarora, Nottoway, Meherrin, and Cherokee are Iroquoian; the
Occaneechi and the Saponi are Siouan; the Lumbee emerged from various tribes finding
Figure 31. Pottery vessel from strength when they banded together.
Rockingham County, ca. 1200
Despite the diversity, North Carolina’s Native peoples between 1000 and 1650 CE
CE.
shared several characteristics. Chief among them was corn agriculture. As early as 200 CE,
a variety of corn had made its way across trade routes from the Southwest to the Southeast.
At first, Indian people grew it in their small gardens, along with squash and gourd, using it
as they did the other crops to supplement their diets. But by 1000 CE, full-blown corn
agriculture had taken hold. Small Woodland gardens gave way to larger fields and more
intensive food production. By 1200 CE, people were also planting beans, which came along
trade routes to North Carolina about then. When added to hills of squash and corn, beans
formed the final member of what is sometimes called “the three sisters.” Together, these
crops provided a stable food base.
North Carolina’s peoples were now primarily farmers. Where Woodland people used
gardens to supplement what they hunted, gathered, or fished, Mississippian people used
wild foods to supplement what they grew. Agriculture was dominant.
Not surprisingly, Mississippian populations increased, and people settled into
permanent villages. They were typically larger than Woodland villages, and most had food
storage facilities either above or below ground. House shapes varied according to region.
Coastal Plain and Mountain people built square or rectangular homes, while those in the
Piedmont constructed round houses. Some villages were strung-out hamlets while others
had houses clustered together. Some of these clustered villages had protective stockades
surrounding them. Constructed by putting posts side by side in a trench, the stockades
may have been for protection. Evidence of conflict exists, perhaps caused by pressures for
good agricultural soils.
Social structure was more varied and complex during the Mississippian period than it
presumably was in earlier times. Chiefdoms, hereditary rule, priesthoods, and rule by
consensus all existed in different places across North Carolina after 1000 CE. Ritual (or
ceremony) also varied; its hints are left in traces of art and architecture. People made
jewelry carved and etched from imported marine shell or bone, soft capes of turkey
feathers, clay pottery decorated with geometric swirls of lines. These were just a few of the
distinctive things people made besides their everyday tools like bone fish hooks and sewing
awls, stone arrow points, hoes, wood gravers, and hide scrapers.
In the Mountains and southern Piedmont, people built ceremonial centers whose
monuments were large earthen mounds topped with wooden buildings. In some, a few
people were buried. In other places, the ceremony associated with death was very different.
Ossuaries, or mass graves, were common along the coast. Some Algonkian groups

periodically buried community members in one grave, tending the bodies in charnel
houses supervised by priests until mass burial occurred. Other groups, like some Iroquoian
tribes living on the inner Coastal Plain, also had ossuaries at the edges of their villages. But
they only placed family members in the grave. Piedmont tribes, on the other hand,
preferred burying their dead singly in graves and often placed offerings with them.
Colonial and beyond

While the Mississippian period ends at 1650 CE, Native American society certainly didn’t.
It went through upheaval in tragic proportions as disease, warfare, and removal challenged
Indian life. Many tribes died out, their names left only in the names of modern towns or
rivers. Many other small ones lost their particular languages and habits as they joined
together in federations like the Catawba or Lumbee to preserve what was left of their
culture. But Native society is hardy. Today, more than 80,000 Indian people live in North
Carolina. They share this state and enrich its society by the contributions their ancestral
and current cultures make in terms as varied as the foods we eat, the medicines we take,
and the placement of towns.
Peoples of the Piedmont
Adapted from Intrigue of the Past by the UNC Research Laboratories of Archaeology,
LEARN NC web edition, page 3.5 (see http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/intrigue/
3.5).
Figure 32. At Town Creek Indian Mound, recreations of the town's original
structures stand in the town center. The major temple, shown here, sits atop
an earthen mound.
In the years between 1000 and 1200 CE, Native life in the north and central Piedmont
hadn’t changed much from prior Woodland times. People still lived in small hamlets
whose houses strung out along river and stream banks. At times, the hamlets sat empty
when people left to hunt and gather wild foods. But times were about to change. Around
900 CE, corn agriculture began. As a result, population began to grow, people began
gathering in larger villages, and conflicts erupted.
This section copyright ©2001 UNC Research Laboratories of Archaeology and LEARN NC. All Rights Reserved.

The Hogue site
On a bend in the Eno River near present-day Hillsborough are the remains of a small
hamlet that was occupied between 1000 and 1200 CE. Archaegologists call this site Hogue.
From the remains, it seems that Hogue had only a few houses, and archaeologists aren’t
sure how people built them. Dark stains (called postmolds or postholes) show where some
of the structures’ wooden support posts decayed. But the traces don’t make clear house
patterns. The best guess is that the Hogue homes were round.
LEARNING FROM GARBAGE

Throughout the hamlet, people dug round pits, each about two feet deep. When first made,
each pit was apparently used as an underground food cupboard. It was safe and hidden,
not just from animals, but from any humans from outside the village who might poke
about the hamlet when everyone was off on hunts and collecting trips.
However, as happens, pits eventually fell out of use. People then used them as
receptacles for trash. They swept in litter from cooking hearths and sweepings from village
and house floors. Archaeologists find pieces of broken pottery, animal bones, nut hulls,
broken stone tools, charcoal from fires, and any odd stone caught up in the sweepings.
Enough maize kernels and sunflower seeds turn up in the trash that archaeologists
think Hogue’s people were farmers. Probably, their fields weren’t big. The quantities of
charred acorns and hickory nuts and remains of deer, squirrel, and rabbits that
archaeologists found in the pits suggest people relied heavily on wild foods. Archaeologists
call this blend of grown and wild foods for subsistence a mixed economy.
DEALING WITH DEATH

Figure 33. An ancient storage pit Hogue gives archaeologists a glimpse at how Piedmont people living then dealt with death.
being excavated by
archaeologists. The tray in the
Hogue’s cemetery was small. Eight people lay buried there in round or oval graves. Hogue
background contains deer villagers arranged each body for burial by drawing the person’s knees up to the chest. They
bones, broken pottery, and put no offerings in the graves. But in some, large rocks were placed at the feet of the
other village “sweepings” found deceased. Why? Archaeologists don’t know.
in the pit.
Small hamlets like Hogue were sprinkled through the north-central Piedmont
between AD 1000 and 1200. Most sat on ridges bordering the narrow floodplains of small
rivers and streams. But a few exceptions, like Hogue, sat along major rivers. Because all
these hamlets have only scant traces of houses, artifacts, or other hints of daily life,
archaeologists think that few people lived in them. What’s more, people seemed to change
village locations every few years.
The Wall site

Throughout the Mississippian period, many peoples of the central Piedmont continued to
live in small hamlets like the one at Hogue. But in the northern Piedmont, by 1400, most
peoples lived in compact villages. One village that archaeologists have found is the Wall

site, located on the same bend in the Eno River as the Hogue site. It was occupied about
1600 CE.
Wall spread over more than an acre. Archaeologists have found remains of seven
round houses, each about 25 feet in diameter. They have also found outlines of a couple of
smaller buildings that may have been cribs or sheds for storing food. Wide, shallow pits are
sprinkled among the houses and cribs. From the pits’ design and because they contain
charcoal, ash, and remains of plant and animal matter used for food, we can guess that the
pits were hearths used to prepare feasts for community ceremonies. Surrounding the
entire village was a stockade, a wall made of upright posts. Whether people constructed it
for protection from enemies or to keep animals from stealing food is unknown.
A COMPACT VILLAGE
About 100 to 150 people probably lived at Wall, and archaeologists think that they lived
there for only twenty years. While they were there, they planted fields of corn, beans, and
probably squash in the rich soil along the Eno River. They gathered the wild fruits and
berries that rooted and grew in the areas they churned up around the plots. Seasonal
supplies of acorns, hickory nuts, and walnuts came from nearby forests. So, too, did their
main source of meat, the white-tailed deer. Other small mammals, turtles, fish, wild
Figure 34. Archaeological traces turkeys, and passenger pigeons added variety. The trash they left behind provides evidence
of a round house at the Wall of all these foods.
site. Small stakes mark
In earlier Piedmont villages, people buried their dead in cemeteries, but at Wall,
locations where posts once
stood.
graves were placed within or just outside homes. People sealed the graves with timbers or
large stones and made funeral offerings. They used shell beads to decorate burial
garments; sometimes, they strung the beads and put them on the deceased as jewelry. They
also put small clay pots of food in graves, perhaps to sustain the person’s journey to the
other world. And because food remains are found in the dirt used to fill some graves,
archaeologists think that feasting might have been part of their burial ceremony.
Wall villagers also had a distinct style of pottery. They decorated vessels with a design
archaeologists call simple stamped. This design consists of a series of parallel lines running
in one direction that people etched on a wooden paddle; the design was transferred on the
wet clay by striking the paddle against it.
Other villages
Was Wall typical of Piedmont villages in 1600? In some ways it was typical. Across the
Piedmont, people relied on agriculture as well as hunting and gathering for their food.
Houses were all about the same size, and burial sites were all similar, suggesting that this
society was fairly egalitarian — no one lived more grandly than anyone else.
In other ways, Wall was unique. Most Piedmont peoples still lived in smaller villages
that were more spread-out and less fortified. But over time, Piedmont villages were
becoming larger and more compact. Archaeologists can suggest two reasons for this
change. First, as small villages grew and spread out, people found themselves living farther
from the fields they farmed. Small family groups may have split off and formed compact
villages near their fields. Second, as farming became more important, larger villages may

have made agricultural work more efficient — people could better organize themselves.
They may also have found safety in numbers.
Town Creek Indian Mound and Pee Dee culture

In one site in the southern Piedmont, something different appears. Town Creek Indian
Mound, near Mt. Gilead in Montgomery County, is North Carolina’s most visible, and
most visited, archaeological site. Framed by a backdrop of tall pines, a reconstructed
stockade daubed with red clay surrounds grounds dominated by a flat-topped earthen
mound—what archaeologists call a platform mound. A square, thatched building whose
sides also glint with red clay sits on top of it. Steps carved in the mound’s eastern side lead
to the building. Where they begin, a rectangular area once flanked by open-sided, covered
buildings spreads out from the mound’s base. A tall pole is planted on one end, with a bear
skull resting on top. Nearby sit two other clay-sided and thatched buildings.
Town Creek is reconstructed from archaeological evidence. It sits on the west bank of
the Little River, upstream from where the river joins with Town Creek. A few miles
downstream, the Little River flows into the Pee Dee, which itself becomes the Great Pee
Dee River cutting south to empty into the Atlantic. With these river names, it’s no surprise
archaeologists called the culture of the people who lived in that Montgomery County spot
from 950 to 1500 CE the Pee Dee, and the site at which they gathered Town Creek.
WHO BUILT TOWN CREEK?
The name Pee Dee sometimes causes confusion. The archaeological Pee Dee culture was
named after the Great Pee Dee River. That river, in turn, was named after an Indian tribe
that lived there in the Colonial period (and still lives in South Carolina today). Although
they have the same name, the archaeological culture and the modern-day tribe are not the
same. The modern Pee Dee may or may not be descendants of the people who lived at
Town Creek.
Figure 35. The burial house was Exactly who built Town Creek is something archaeologists have been trying to sort out
a round, thatch-roof hut in since the mound was saved from plowing by archaeologist Joffre Coe in the 1930s. It’s an
which the Indians of Town unsettled and sometimes controversial topic. Was it people or ideas moving in that sparked
Creek buried their dead.
the Pee Dee culture? Some combination of the two? However the evidence finally answers
the questions, archaeologists agree on one thing. The Pee Dee culture was a local version of
the Mississippian tradition that shows up across the Southeast, from Georgia to eastern
Oklahoma.
CENTRAL TOWNS
Mississippian cultures included several traits found at Town Creek, including:
• temples and civic buildings set atop earthen platform mounds
• social and political hierarchies, with priests and chiefs
• religious symbolism artistically represented in jewelry and ritual items
• corn agriculture and a variety of ceremonies surrounding it

These kinds of binding habits tended to focus towns on ceremonial and political centers.
Town Creek was one such center. Apparently, Town Creek was the hub for a number
of Pee Dee villages in the southern Piedmont. Some are distant. Many are accessible by
water. One village, called the Payne site, is about 30 miles northeast of Town Creek.
Others, which archaeologists call Leak and Teal, are in Richmond and Anson counties.
From what they’ve learned through excavating the villages, some archaeologists think Pee
Dee culture people built Town Creek after some of the towns had been established.
PEE DEE CULTURE
Right now, the best guess is that the Pee Dee culture surfaced in North Carolina around
950 CE. People first started making distinctive pottery, decorating vessels with a unique
group of geometric stamped designs. Some were large urns used for burial — people of the
Pee Dee culture cremated some adults and infants and put their ashes in the large clay
urns.
The Pee Dee culture also had a distinctive architecture and intensive agriculture.
Houses and public structures were rectangular, a shape that sets them apart from the
Figure 36. Large urns were used round buildings used by other, contemporary Piedmont peoples. And, although they
for burial after cremation.
hunted, fished, and collected wild foods like everybody else, Pee Dee culture villagers were
mainly farmers of corn.
Presumably, the Town Creek ceremonial center was built only after a large enough
population had accepted and settled into Pee Dee culture life. Regularly, people from
surrounding villages congregated there for ceremonies.
On a lighter note, people from different towns and clans may have played competitive
games on the field near the mound’s base. Each summer, people celebrated the harvest of
early corn. Called the Busk, the ceremony signaled hope for a winter of filled granaries; it
was also a time of renewal when people swept out their homes to discard old clothes, pots,
and foods.
A FADING CULTURE
By 1400 CE, Town Creek’s importance as a ritual and ceremonial center for the Pee Dee
culture was fading. By 1600, Town Creek was a memory. During those 200 years, some
habits held. Cremations and urn burials were still done. The large, fertile fields
surrounding the old Pee Dee villages were still planted in corn, beans, and squash. The Pee
Dee River gave up its harvest of fish and mussels and the forests its fruits, deer, and other
game. But people stopped making rectangular houses, constructing instead oval-shaped
buildings. And they quit building mounds.
On the Web
Excavating Occaneechi Town: An archaeology primer
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/occaneechi-archaeology-primer/
Republished with permission from the Research Laboratories of Archaeology, the Archaeology
Primer uses photographs of the excavations at Occaneechi Town to introduce fundamental

concepts of archaeology. The primer provides an introduction to the methods of archaeology and
to some common types of artifacts, and prepares students to participate in an electronic
archaeological dig.
Clays of the Piedmont

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/cede_piedclay/235
Images of pottery and pottery fragments found at Town Creek

Peoples of the mountains
3.5).
A thousand years ago, trade routes cut through the mountains, stretching northwest to the
Ohio Valley and the Great Lakes regions and south toward the Gulf of Mexico and the
Georgia coast. Some cut west to Tennessee and then down to Alabama and Mississippi.
Traders brought goods as diverse as sea shells, copper, and various kinds of stone. Skilled
artisans sculpted these goods into dazzling ornaments: realistic copper fish and birds,
stone pipes with bowls shaped like beavers; conch-shell ornaments whose etched designs
varied from serpents to people with forked eyes. The symbols used by these artisans were
part of a religious tradition called Hopewell that linked people from a wide geographic
region.
In the mountains, as in the Piedmont, corn agriculture became more important
during the Mississippian period. More productive agriculture could support larger, denser
populations. It also provided opportunities for accumulating wealth that could be used to
Figure 37. Corn agriculture build alliances and loyalties or to inflict social debts. A few generations after corn
helped to support native agriculture intensified, social ranking and political centralization increased. The Mountain
populations in the mountains.
region was creating its own identity — an identity that archaeologists tie to the modern-day
Cherokee.
Pisgah and Qualla are the names archaeologists have given to Mississippian cultures
that were Cherokee ancestors. These names are based on collections of artifacts gathered at
key sites, but they also refer to the cultures those artifacts represent and to the peoples who
lived at those sites.
Pisgah peoples
The Pisgah folk lived between 1000 and 1450 CE. Two archaeological sites tell us a great
deal about Pisgah culture. The first, called Warren Wilson, is located on the grounds of
Warren Wilson College on the north bank of the Swannanoa River. The second, called
Garden Creek, is located near Canton. Both sites were villages, but Garden Creek also had
three earthen mounds. Earlier Woodland people had built the two smaller mounds. But it

was the Pisgah people who constructed the largest mound, building a village around it that
spread over five acres.
VILLAGE LIFE
Some Pisgah settlements were small, spread-out farmsteads, while others were large
villages of clustered houses. Most Pisgah settlements sat in floodplains where soil was
especially fertile. The exceptions were the short-term camps people made when hunting
and gathering wild foods. Almost all Pisgah settlements were concentrated in the eastern
and central parts of the Appalachian Summit region — the region of western North
Carolina where the Appalachian mountains reach their greatest height.
Figure 38. The Pisgah village at Some of the bigger villages had platform mounds. People first built a wooden structure,
Warren Wilson. maybe for ceremonies or burials. At some point, that building was destroyed or taken
down. A flat-topped mound of earth was piled over top of the remains of the building, and
a new wooden building was constructed on top. As buildings were destroyed and rebuilt,
the mound grew larger and larger. Only a few larger villages had these mounds.
Archaeologists think that villages with mounds were political and religious centers, with
smaller villages spaced out around them.
Pisgah houses were rectangular, measuring about 20 feet on a side. To build them,
people set side-by-side posts in holes and then wove branches between them. Wet clay,
sometimes with grasses mixed in, was smeared over the branches, which dried to create a
tight, secure dwelling. Some Pisgah houses had partitions for rooms, while others had
large, open interiors. All had thick, inside support posts holding the roof, which probably
was bark or thatch. And most dwellings had hearths lined with hardened clay collars sitting
in middle of the building.
In ways, Pisgah life by 1300 resembled life in much of the Piedmont. Pisgah people
had compact, stockaded villages. They had corn agriculture; probably half their food came
from fields of maize, beans, squash, and marsh elder. The rest came from wild foods. Deer
and bear provided meat, as well as skins for clothes and containers; the bones were shaped
into tools. Smaller animals, along with fish and turtles from rivers and streams added
variety. Each fall, people collected acorns, hickory nuts, walnuts, and butternuts. When the
season was right, they added fleshy fruits and berries.

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL RANK
But there are hints, particularly in burial customs, that Pisgah life was not egalitarian. For
the most part, the Pisgah buried their dead in graves either inside or next to their homes.
Many graves had offerings. But other burials around some houses did not. Archaeologists
think the different practices suggest some households had family members who ranked
above others. Some of the people could have been political leaders. Others may have been
religious leaders — priests or shamans, for instance, may have been buried with the
Figure 39. At Warren Wilson, objects they used or wore. Twenty-four people were buried in the mound at Garden Creek,
one pit contained 14,000 toad and about half of these graves had burial offerings, including strings of shell beads,
bones! The toads may have gorgets, and ear pins. People buried in mounds and those whose graves hold these
been used in medicine or for a
offerings may have held higher social rank than others.
feast.
The practice of building mounds also suggests that social and political life was
changing. Early in their histories, the Pisgah and Pee Dee peoples each built rectangular
public buildings called earth lodges because dirt was packed up around their sides. As these
buildings collapsed and were rebuilt on top of the mounded dirt, mounds grew. Some
archaeologists believe that the earliest earth lodges served as council houses for egalitarian
societies. Representatives met in them to make decisions based on consensus. But in the
mountains, the flat platforms elevated the homes of chiefs or priests. Chiefs inherited their
power, and they were buried in the mounds.
Qualla peoples
Around 1400, people in North Carolina’s southern Appalachians (and most of the western
third of the state) started making different kinds of pottery. Potters continued
experimenting with shapes and decorations. Soon they were turning out bowls with forms
no Pisgah potter had ever made. Because they rely on artifacts for their research,
archaeologists use this change in pottery styles to define a shift from Pisgah to a new
culture, which they call Qualla.
The Qualla people may have been more egalitarian than the Pisgah. They stopped
using platform mounds for chiefs’ houses and instead placed large townhouses on mound
summits. The townhouse, which could host several hundred people, was the focal point of
the community, and it was in this building that community decisions were made.
The Coweeta Creek site in Macon County is a Qualla village with a townhouse mound
site. In ways, the village was much like Pisgah villages. The Qualla styled their houses
identically. They were rectangular, averaging about 20 feet on one side; they had vestibule
entrances and interior supports surrounding a central, clay hearth. Qualla villages were laid
out much like Pisgah villages, and Qualla people also combined farming with hunting and
gathering. Houses clustered around a plaza and mound and were encircled by a stockade.
Villages were located in fertile soils by a source of water, and villagers ate corn, beans,
Figure 40. The townhouse at squash, pumpkin, and gourds along with deer, black bear, and other seasonal nuts and
Coweeta Creek. fruits.
The Qualla people often buried their dead in house floors, beneath or near the
hearths. They put offerings in some graves, such as shell beads, ear and hair pins, engraved

gorgets, and masks made from conch shells. A few people were buried near the townhouse
entrances. Presumably, these were important members of the community.
The Qualla lifeway endured into the time of European contact.
On the Web
Law Provides Few Protections for Indian Mounds
http://www.smokymountainnews.com/issues/04_07/04_25_07/fr_law_provides.html
This 2007 article from the Smoky Mountain News examines recent efforts to preserve Indian
mounds in Western North Carolina.

Peoples of the Coastal Plain
3.5).
When Europeans arrived in the late 1500s, North Carolina’s northern Coastal Plain was
home to two different cultures. Algonkians lived closest to the Atlantic edge, in the Outer
Coastal Plain or Tidewater. The term Algonkian isn’t a tribal name; it refers, rather, to the
family of languages spoken by tribes who lived from Canada to Carolina. Iroquoian
speakers — the Tuscarora, Meherrin, and Nottoway tribes — lived more inland, on the
Inner Coastal Plain. The Tuscarora generally lived from just south of the Neuse River to
where the Virginia border is today. The Meherrin and Nottoway stayed between the
Roanoke and Chowan Rivers.
Through their research so far, archaeologists have sorted out the political and social
boundaries of the various groups who lived in the north coastal region. Hints of their lives
prior to European contact survive in their old villages and camps. Based on the distinctive
items each group left, archaeologists call the Algonkian speakers Colington and the
Iroquoian speakers Cashie (pronounced ca-shy).
Colington peoples
Archaeologists rely on artifacts they find in the soil for their understanding of the past.
Fragments of pottery often survive, and so archaeologists categorize pottery-making Indian
cultures by how they made and decorated pottery. By 800, North Carolina’s coastal
Algonkians, whom archaeologists refer to as Colington peoples, were making pots
tempered with crushed shells and decorated with fabric impressions. Carved lines and
geometric patterns added flair to the rims. The pots included small, simple bowls; large,
hemispherical bowls, looking much like today’s wide-mouthed mixing bowls; and medium-
sized, cone-shaped bowls, whose bottoms stuck securely in hearth ash or sand.
Figure 41. Colington cooking The other Colington artifacts aren’t much different than those used by other
pot. contemporary groups in the state. They molded clay into pipes. They fashioned stone into
triangular arrow points, blades, tools for woodworking, and milling stones. They turned
bone and shell into hoes, picks, ladles, fish hooks, sewing awls, and punches. They also
carved bone and shell into jewelry, such as tubular beads and gorgets. Sometimes, people

used altogether different materials, such as freshwater pearls and copper, for adornment. A
panther mask archaeologists found may have been used for ceremony.
The Colington were the people Europeans first met and wrote about in North
Carolina. They had lived in the same general territory since about 800 CE, a territory that
spanned the Tidewater from southeastern Virginia into the northern half of North
Carolina, as far south as present-day Onslow County.
COLINGTON SOCIETY AND VILLAGE LIFE

Colington society — like that of most eastern Algonkians — revolved around chiefdoms,
formal religion, and a priesthood. Chiefdoms claimed distinct chunks of the Tidewater, and
their various territories scattered across the region. Politically similar to the Appalachians’
Qualla people, Colington chiefs apparently ruled democratically rather than autocratically.
While their power was nothing to trifle with and they could sway decisions with
persuasion, they generally governed by consensus. That is, they listened to and did what a
council of representatives from the chiefdom’s villages decided was best. The chief’s
village, which archaeologists call the capital village, was usually bigger than others in the
chiefdom, and it tended to be centrally located
within the claimed area.
The Colington Algonkians used several types of settlements, ranging from capital
villages, common villages, and seasonal villages and camps for specialized activities.
Capital villages were centers of political and religious activities. Smaller than capital villages,
common villages were those bound to and loyal to the chief. Apparently, most were seats of
farming with at least some people always there. Some were stockaded, but others were not.
The seasonal village, as its name implies, was occupied at certain seasons. On Colington
Island, for example, archaeologists found a place where people spent summers fishing and
collecting shellfish.
Figure 42. The diet of the
Archaeologists believe that each Colington chiefdom stretched over a territory that
Colington Algonkians included
turtles. could support the agriculture, hunting, gathering, and fishing needed to support a large
population. Most capital and common villages sat along sounds and estuaries, or on high
banks and ridges next to major rivers and their tributaries where sandy loam good for
agriculture existed. The water bodies, depending on what they were, also provided
shellfish, turtles and even alligators. The upland oak and hickory forests were sources of
nuts, game, and other resources.
Colington life was, in many ways, similar to other Indian groups across living across
North Carolina after 1000 CE. They had permanent, sometimes stockaded villages; they
had agriculture, but never stopped relying on wild foods. They fashioned distinctive
pottery. They traded and formed alliances. They had priests and chiefs, but they made
important decisions by consensus.

BURIAL PRACTICES
The Colington people did, however, have a form of burial quite different from most other
North Carolina people living then. They, along with their Iroquoian neighbors, used
ossuaries, or communal burials, where the bones of many were placed in a large grave at
one time. Some ossuaries, such as ones along the Chowan River in Currituck County or at
Gloucester in Carteret County, had as many as 58 persons buried together — old and
young, male and female.
Apparently, the tradition of mass burials was part of a strong northern tradition that
made its way south to the Carolina coast. It brought with it not just a way to bury the dead,
but ways to prepare the dead for burial.
Colington communities had mortuary temples tended by priests. In the temples,
deceased people were kept until it was time for burial. It’s still unclear how often
ceremonies for mass burials occurred. It’s also unclear whether there were different
temples for political and religious leaders and for common people. And it’s not clear where
Figure 43. This engraving, based
on a painting made by John the ossuaries were in relation to the villages. It seems, but archaeologists aren’t sure yet,
White in the 1580s, shows an that the ossuaries were placed in cemetery areas on a village’s northern edge. Sometimes
Algonkian ossuary. offerings, such as shell beads or bone pins, accompanied the burials.
EUROPEAN CONTACT
By 1650, European expansion brought Colington life to an end. Many Algonkians died
from European diseases to which they had no immunity. In 1675, the remaining members
of the once-powerful Chowanoke tribe were put on a Gates County reservation. After the
middle of the eighteenth century, there is no more mention of these people in colonial
records.
Cashie
Iroquoian-speaking Tuscarora, Meherrin, and Nottoway tribes were the Colington
Algonkians’ neighbors after 800 CE. The Tuscarora lived in the Inner Coastal Plain,
forming a confederation of three tribes. Together, the Tuscarora tribes claimed the area
from the Roanoke to the Neuse rivers and the western estuarine border (or where the tide
meets river currents) to the fall line. The Meherrin and Nottoway lived farther north,
occupying the Meherrin and Nottoway river basins.
Archaeologists label the pottery these Iroquoians made as Cashie, and so this has
become the name for their culture and lifeway between 800 and 1750.

CASHIE VILLAGE LIFE
Archaeologists find many similarities in how the Colington and Cashie people lived. The
Cashie used the same kinds of tools and jewelry as the Colington. They located their
villages, farmsteads, and hunting or collecting camps in places to take best advantage of
what the territory offered. Some villages had stockades, while others were open. The Cashie
traded with the Colington for pottery, conch shells, and shell-bead jewelry.
Because the soil of the Inner Coastal Plain is the most productive in the state, Cashie
agriculture was not tied to floodplains, as it was in the Piedmont, Mountains, or Tidewater.
The Iroquoians settled on loamy uplands along streams, where the best soils were located.
The early European explorer John Lawson wrote descriptions of young men working hard
in fields of corn as well as hunting to provide food for their families. This practice of men
working fields was not just true of Iroquoian tribes, but of Tidewater and Piedmont groups
Lawson observed.
Figure 44. Conch shells were
important trade items for the What’s left of one small Cashie village sits by the Roanoke River at a site called
Cashie and the Colington. Jordan’s Landing. Although the Cashie village at Jordan’s Landing has not been completely
excavated, archaeologists can tell that it was stockaded, and its shape was oval. Near the
village are long ridges of fertile sandy loam, and a lush oak-hickory forest covers the ridge
above the river. Clearly, people chose this site with an eye to the nearby variety of wild
foods and arable land for agriculture. Food remains recovered at Jordan’s Landing show
the Cashie grew corn and beans. They ate hickory nuts and several kinds of animals: deer,
bear, raccoon, possum, and rabbit. Fish, turtle and terrapin, mussel, and turkey were also
eaten.
POLITICAL LIFE AND RANK

Like the Colington Algonkians, the Cashie Iroquoians typically buried people in ossuaries.
But apparently, Cashie ossuaries were family rather than community burials. Most have
only two to five people placed in them. Also, where Algonkian ossuaries tend to have few if
any grave offerings, the Cashie generally put tools such as bone awls and jewelry such as
shell beads in the graves. Some had so many offerings that archaeologists wonder if they
suggest social status or rank for the family buried there.
Besides this ceremonial difference, the Cashie organized their political life differently
than the Colington. Unlike the Algonkian’s Tidewater chiefdoms with its capital villages
and allegiances, each Iroquoian village was autonomous. European accounts tell of a
Tuscarora Confederacy composed of three tribes, but each seemed to retain political
independence.
OAK ISLAND
While the Algonkians and Iroquoians dominated most of North Carolina’s coast, small
tribes of Siouan-speaking people wedged in the southern corner below the Cape Fear River.
Two of them were the Waccamaw and Cape Fear tribes. Archaeologists draw them under
the cultural label Oak Island.
Oak Island — as a culture and way of life — is still a puzzle because little
archaeological work has been written up or done. Presumably, Oak Island Siouans were
more affected by goings-on in South Carolina than in North Carolina. Archaeologists think

this because the styles and techniques of their pottery were more like those to the south
than those to the north.
Yet Oak Island people, too, sometimes used ossuaries, especially in areas closest to the
borders with their Iroquoian and Algonkian neighbors. Presumably, they ate the same
foods, lived in the same kinds and sizes of villages, and used the same kinds of everyday
tools and jewelry that other coastal groups did.
Language families
While it is not surprising that Native Americans and Englishmen could not understand one another,
there were also language differences among North Carolina Indians. There were three language
families among the Native peoples of North Carolina at the time of European contact.
A language family can be defined as a group of related languages that have descended from a common
ancestral language. Language families exist all over the world. English is part of the Indo-European
language family, which arose between 5,000 and 8,000 years ago. At that time, the people living in
Europe or southern Asia spoke the ancestral Indo-European language. Over many years, as these
people moved to other parts of Europe and Asia, the structure, pronunciation, and vocabulary of the
Indo-European language began to change in each new location. Eventually, the ancestral Indo-
European language was replaced by a number of separate languages.
Like everywhere else in the world, North Carolina’s Indian peoples had considerable language
differences. Verbal communication could be difficult, especially across the language families. But
even tribes, such as the Cherokee and Tuscarora, who spoke dialects belonging to the same language
family, had to find ways to “talk” to one another. Some scientists think many Native North
Carolinians may have communicated using a simplified common language.
On the Web
Coastal Carolina Indian Center
http://www.coastalcarolinaindians.com/
The Coastal Carolina Indian Center website provides historical, archeological and genealogical
information about Indians of North Carolina’s coastal plain.

Maintaining balance: The religious
world of the Cherokees
BY KAREN RALEY
Reprinted by permission from Tar Heel Junior Historian 37, no. 2 (Spring 1998): 2–5,
copyright North Carolina Museum of History (see http://ncmuseumofhistory.org).
As you read...
T H E B E LI E F S Y S TEM S OF S OUTHEAS TER N I NDI ANS
Although the Indians of the Southeastern United States were quite diverse, many groups shared some of the
beliefs discussed in this article. The idea of an Upper and Under World, for example, was not unique to the
Cherokee, and a belief in the importance of balance in the natural world was common throughout the
region.
In the area we now call the United States, native peoples once depended on their natural
environment for survival. Of course, not all environments in North America were the
same, so many different cultures, languages, traditions, and practices developed, each
reflecting the different peoples’ relationships to their different environments. in spite of
this, some similarities existed among Native American religions.
One native culture that we know a great deal about is the Cherokees, or Ani’-Yun’wiya,
“the real people,” who lived for hundreds of years in parts of present-day Tennessee,
Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.
We know about the Cherokees partly because, in the 1880s, Cherokee elders in the
North Carolina mountains allowed a white man named James Mooney to observe and
record information about their culture. The Cherokee myths that Mooney gathered and
wrote down in English help explain the world1 of the Cherokees. These myths show that,
for the Cherokees, the world was primarily a relationship of proper balance.
This section copyright ©1998 North Carolina Museum of History. All Rights Reserved.

The Cherokee view of the world
To the Cherokees, the Earth was a flat disc of water with a large island floating in the
middle. The Earth hung by four cords — one each in the north, east, south, and west —
from a sky arch made of stone. This was the Middle World, where the plants, animals, and
humans lived.
Above the sky arch was the Upper World. This was where the guiding and protective
spirits of humans and animals lived. These spirits could move from the Upper World to
the Middle World and back to help the humans keep balance and harmony on the Earth.
Below the Earth was the Under World of bad spirits. Bad spirits brought disorder and
disaster. They could rise to the Middle World through deep springs, lakes, and caves. When
these spirits caused trouble, Cherokees called on the spirits from the Upper World to help
restore balance and harmony to the Middle World.
Balance in the environment

Everything in the Cherokee environment — from corn and tobacco to eagles, deer, and
snakes to fire and smoke to creeks and mountains — had an intelligent spirit and played a
central role in Cherokee myths as well as daily practices. Native peoples did not view
themselves as separate from their environment — they were a part of it.
Like other native peoples, the Cherokees did not try to rule over nature but instead
tried to keep their proper place within it. A healer might listen to the spirit of a plant to find
out what disease that plant could cure. A hunter might pray to the spirits of animals for
guidance and forgiveness.
In order to respect and cooperate with all of nature, the natives found ways to conserve
its parts. When Cherokees gathered medicinal plants in the forest, they harvested only
every fourth one they found, leaving the other three to grow undisturbed for a future use.
All of these practices contributed to the balance of their world. The Cherokees believed
that if the balance of nature was upset, everyone would have trouble. They feared a loss of
balance could cause sickness, bad weather, failed crops, poor hunting, and many other
problems. Humans were responsible for keeping the balance within themselves and
between the animals, the plants, and other people.
One of the myths Mooney collected, “The Origin of Disease and Medicine,” illustrates
the idea of keeping balance:
In the old days, the animals and plants could talk, and they lived together in harmony with
humans. But the humans spread over the earth, crowding the animals and the plants out of
their homelands and hunting and killing too much. The animal tribes called a council to
declare war on the humans. They each selected a disease to send to the humans that could
cripple them, make them sick, or kill them. When the plants heard what had been done to the
humans, they agreed this action was too severe and called a council of their own. They
agreed to be cures for some of the diseases the animals had sent.
In this myth, when the humans destroyed the balance of nature, the animals tried to regain
it. But they went too far, so the plants tried to restore the balance by stepping in and
helping the humans.

Cherokee religion
The Cherokees looked to the guiding and protective spirits of the Upper World to help keep
balance and harmony on the Earth. They also maintained order on the Earth by
participating in daily prayers, rituals, and seasonal ceremonies.
One ritual, called “going to water,” was performed on many occasions — at the new
moon, before special dances, after bad dreams, or during illnesses. Going to water cleansed
the spirit as well as the body. The ritual was performed at sunrise. Cherokee men, women,
and children would face the east, step into a river or creek, and dip under the water seven
times. When they emerged, they would be rid of bad feelings and ready to begin anew, with
a clear mind.
The annual Green Corn Ceremony also symbolized a fresh start. It was held each year
at harvest time. First, any unused corn from the previous year’s harvest was collected and
burned. Afterward, the town’s sacred council fire, which had been used for the past year,
was put out. A new fire was then started, and the community gave thanks and forgave each
other for all their quarrels and crimes of the past year (except murder). Finally, the women,
who were the farmers in the Cherokee culture, presented the first of the new year’s corn
harvest. A feast began, and so did a new cycle.
Native American peoples did not use a word such as “religion,” but, as you have read,
every part of their world had a sacred connection or religious meaning. Their ideas of
religion were everything to them. They believed the world should have balance, harmony,
cooperation, and respect within the community and between people and the rest of nature.
Cherokee myths and legends taught the lessons and practices necessary to maintain
natural balance, harmony, and health. Cherokee songs, dances, stories, artwork, tools, and
even buildings expressed the moral values of their culture. The Cherokee homeland and its
mountains, caves, and rivers also carried symbolic meanings and purposes.
European arrival and Christianity

The religion of the native peoples was so different from the Christian religion of the
Europeans that early explorers, settlers, and missionaries did not see native beliefs as a
religion. The white Christians did not understand, for instance, the sacred meanings
behind “going to water,” festivals of thanksgiving, or rituals for maintaining balance. These
native practices looked like childish magic and evil superstition to the Christian Europeans,
who usually regarded the natives as “savage heathens.”
Almost from the time the Europeans landed, they had tried to get the natives to
abandon their traditional, tribally held hunting grounds so they could have more land for
white settlement. After the Revolutionary War (1776–1783), the United States government
began to develop a “civilization” policy, which was intended to convert the natives to
Christianity and to pacify them.
During all this time, the Cherokees had allowed several different Christian
denominations to establish missions in their area. Some of the Cherokees accepted
Christianity. Many were eager to learn English and other skills the missionaries taught so
they could understand the white man’s world. They hoped that if they could read and

understand white documents, they could help fight the efforts of the whites in taking their
tribal lands.
But their hopes did not save the Cherokee Nation2. By the 1840s, almost all the
Cherokees had been removed to territories west of the Mississippi River — only about one
thousand remained in their old homeland.
In time, the New Testament of the Christian Bible was translated into Cherokee and
written in the Cherokee syllabary. Scriptures, hymns, and services also began to be spoken
in the Cherokee language. Still, communities blended older Cherokee values like respect
and sharing into the practices of their new Christian churches. Some of the traditional
Cherokee healers even became ministers or elders in Christian churches.
Today, about ten thousand Cherokees live in North Carolina. Most of them are
Christian, but traditional ideas can still be found in the use of traditional plants for healing,
dances that reinforce the Cherokee identity, references to some of the old sacred Cherokee
sites, and a festival that is held each year at Green Corn time.
On the Web
How the world was made
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-twoworlds/1672
This Cherokee creation story, written down in the 1800s, describes how the earth was created
from soft mud "when all was water."
Notes
1. World, in this sense, means not the physical world but the way people think about it — the set of
ideas and beliefs people hold that help them make sense of the world around them. Sometimes
this is also called a “worldview.”
2. By 1830, some of the Cherokee had already begun to create a new, modern society governed
much like the United States. This was the Cherokee Nation. Its leaders hoped that the residents
of this new nation would quickly adopt parts of the local white culture so the natives would not
risk removal.

Cherokee women
BY THEDA PERDUE
Reprinted by permission from Tar Heel Junior Historian 23, no. 3 (Spring 1984): 2–3,
As you read...
GE N D E R R O LES AM ONG S OUTHEAS TER N I NDI ANS
Although this article focuses on the Cherokee, matrilineal kinship relations — in which a person’s family
was only the family of his or her mother, and not of his or her father — were common among Indians of the
Southeastern United States. It was also common for women to grow crops, while men hunted and
conducted warfare. Nearly everywhere the English settled in America, these differences in gender roles —
the roles assigned by their culture to men and women — led to confusion and, in many cases, conflict.
Long before the arrival of the white man, women enjoyed a major role in the family life,
economy, and government of the Cherokee Indians. The Cherokees originally lived in
villages built along the rivers of western North Carolina, northwestern South Carolina,
northern Georgia, and eastern Tennessee. When white men visited these villages in the
early 1700s, they were surprised by the rights and privileges of Indian women.
Perhaps most surprising to Europeans was the Cherokees’ matrilineal kinship system.
In a matrilineal kinship system, a person is related only to people on his mother’s side. His
relatives are those who can be traced through a woman. In this way a child is related to his
mother, and through her to his brothers and sisters. He also is related to his mother’s
mother (grandmother), his mother’s brothers (uncles), and his mother’s sisters (aunts).
The child is not related to the father, however. The most important male relative in a
child’s life is his mother’s brother. Many Europeans never figured out how this kinship
system worked. Those white men who married Indian women were shocked to discover
that the Cherokees did not consider them to be related to their own children, and that
mothers, not fathers, had control over the children.
Europeans also were astonished that women were the heads of Cherokee households.
The Cherokees lived in extended families. This means that several generations
(grandmother, mother, grandchildren) lived together as one family. Such a large family
Cherokee women | 71
needed a number of different buildings. The roomy summer house was built of bark. The
tiny winter house had thick clay walls and a roof, which kept in the heat from a fire
smoldering on a central hearth. The household also had corn cribs and storage sheds. All
these buildings belonged to the women in the family, and daughters inherited them from
their mothers. A husband lived in the household of his wife (and her mother and sisters).
If a husband and wife did not get along and decided to separate, the husband went home to
his mother while any children remained with the wife in her home.
The family had a small garden near their houses and cultivated a particular section of
the large fields which lay outside the village. Although men helped clear the fields and
plant the crops, women did most of the farming because men were usually at war during
the summer. The women used stone hoes or pointed sticks to cultivate corn, beans,
squash, pumpkins, and sunflowers. Old women sat on platforms in the fields and chased
away any crows or raccoons that tried to raid the fields.
In the winter when men traveled hundreds of miles to hunt bears, deer, turkeys, and
other game, women stayed at home. They kept the fires burning in the winter houses,
made baskets, pottery, clothing, and other things the family needed, cared for the children,
and performed the chores for the household.
Perhaps because women were so important in the family and in the economy, they
also had a voice in government. The Cherokees made decisions only after they discussed an
issue for a long time and agreed on what they should do. The council meetings at which
decisions were made were open to everyone including women. Women participated
actively. Sometimes they urged the men to go to war to avenge an earlier enemy attack. At
other times they advised peace. Women occasionally even fought in battles beside the men.
The Cherokees called these women “War Women,” and all the people respected and
honored them for their bravery.
By the 1800s the Cherokees had lost their independence and had become dominated
by white Americans. At this time white Americans did not believe that it was proper for
women to fight wars, vote, speak in public, work outside the home, or even control their
own children. The Cherokees began to imitate whites, and Cherokee women lost much of
their power and prestige. In the twentieth century, all women have had to struggle to
acquire many of those rights which Cherokee women once freely enjoyed.
Color Quatie’s family

The black disc in the diagram below is Quatie, a Cherokee girl. Can you figure out which of
the people in the diagram belong to her family and color them in? Remember, in early
Cherokee culture the family unit was traced through the wives and not the husbands. The
major members in each family were the mothers, aunts, grandmothers, brothers, and
uncles, not fathers. After you color your choices, draw a big circle around all the people
who would live together in the same household. (Clue: This answer would include fathers.)
You can print a full-page version1 (PDF format), then check your answer (available at
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/multimedia/7267).

Figure 45.
Notes
1. See http://www.learnnc.org/lp/media/uploads/2007/11/cherokee-kinship-question.pdf.
Cherokee women | 73
Native peoples of the Chesapeake
region
By Gabrielle Tayac, Ph.D. (Piscataway) and Edwin Schupman (Muscogee), with
Genevieve Simermeyer (Osage). Edited by Mark Hirsch.
PROVIDED BY NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN AND

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
As you read...
N O R T H C A R O L I NA AND THE C HES APEAKE
The Indians of North Carolina’s coastal plain and piedmont regions in 1600 were part of the same broader
culture and system of trade as those living in present-day Virginia. The Roanoke and Croatan Indians
encountered by the first English settlers in North Carolina were closely related to the Indians of the
Chesapeake. So although today we don’t think of the Chesapeake region as extending into North Carolina,
northeastern North Carolina was culturally and geographically similar to the Chesapeake prior to
colonization — more similar, in fact, than it was to the North Carolina piedmont.
When you look at the pieces of our people scattered about, it doesn’t look like we have much.
But put together, we have a lot. We have a story to tell.
— Tina Pierce Fragoso (Nanticoke-Lenni Lenape), Philadelphia Inquirer, March 13, 2005.
This section copyright ©2006 Smithsonian Institution. All Rights Reserved. Original source available from National
Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution at http://www.nmai.si.edu/.

Every place in the United States of America has an ongoing Native American story, and our
nation’s capital is no exception. Washington, D.C. sits in the Chesapeake Bay region,
surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. For more than 10,000 years, Native peoples have
created thriving societies along the shores of numerous rivers that feed into the beautiful
and environmentally rich Chesapeake Bay. They lived in connection to the seasons and the
natural resources of the region. They settled in villages made up of wooden longhouses
inhabited by extended families. Labor was generally divided, with women responsible for
agriculture and men for hunting. Everyone cooperated in harvesting fish and shellfish
from bountiful rivers and estuaries. Throughout their histories these societies adapted to
difficult circumstances and unforeseen changes. Adaptability has been necessary for
survival of Native peoples and their cultures, even to the present day.1
When the English established their first American colony in Jamestown, Virginia, in
Figure 46. Engraving of the 1607, the Chesapeake Bay region included three major Native chiefdoms, systems of
American Indian town of government made up of a group of tribes under the influence of a central chief. The three
Pomeiooc, published in Thomas
chiefdoms included the Powhatan, the Piscataway, and the Nanticoke. Most of the tribes
Hariot’s 1588 book, A Briefe and
True Report of the New Found living in the Chesapeake Bay region belonged to one of these three chiefdoms, although
Land of Virginia. there were some tribes who kept their independence. [See map2.] The people spoke related
languages from a language family known as Algonquian. The central chiefs were men
selected from families that inherited and passed their leadership rights from generation to
generation. They usually lived in larger towns and oversaw a system of village
commanders, or weroances, who could be men or women. An elders council advised the
chiefs. The members of the council were called wisoes, and decisions were made in a
council house called the matchcomoco. Holy men — elders who conducted spiritual
ceremonies — also had a voice in the chiefs’ decisions. There were also “medicine men,”
who were tasked with physical and spiritual healing. Leaders called cockarouses assumed
command in times of war. The chiefs were unlike European kings or emperors; they were
expected to work like everyone else and usually made decisions in consultation with other
leaders.
Most of the Chesapeake Native tribes who have survived and continue to thrive today
descend from the Powhatan, Piscataway, and Nanticoke chiefdoms. The tribes that did not
originally belong to a chiefdom often became part of one in order to be afforded greater
protection from the colonists. Other independent tribes dispersed to various parts of the
continent, where they merged with other tribes. Centuries of dispossession from their
original lands have left far fewer Native tribes in the present than there were in 1607. [See
map3.] Yet, the people remain and so do many Powhatan, Piscataway, and Nanticoke
names on the landscape, evidence of the rich cultures that once inhabited the entire region.
The nature of the struggles facing Chesapeake Native peoples today has changed, but they
continue to live with the difficult legacy of colonial history.
Colonial Indian—White Relations

In some ways, the Jamestown colony served as the beginning of the United States of
America. It was also the place where some of the first policies towards Native Americans
were enacted. Many of the difficulties experienced by Chesapeake Natives were mirrored

over the centuries by other Native Americans as other white settlers moved across the
continent.
EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT AND CONFLICT
The Spanish were the first Europeans known to have explored the Chesapeake. In 1562, the
Spanish cartographer Diego Gutierrez recorded the Chesapeake Bay on a map. He called it
the “Bahia de Santa Maria.” Because they were looking for gold and found none in the
Chesapeake, the Spanish did not spend much time in the region. They did, however,
capture a number of young Powhatan boys during their expeditions. These incidents
usettled the Powhatans and raised concerns about future contact with Europeans.
The English arrived in 1607, forty-five years after the Spanish. Their colony,
Jamestown, was a business enterprise funded by the Virginia Company for the
Figure 47. Detail of 1562 map of purpose of finding gold. The English colonists were not adept at farming in the North
America by Diego Gutierrez, American soil and climate and lacked the skills for surviving in unfamiliar territory. Many
showing Bahia de Santa Maria died of starvation. During this early period, the Powhatan people took pity on the colonists
— the Chesapeake Bay.
and gave them food to help them survive.
Peaceful relations did not last long. At first, the Indians granted the English
permission to live on pieces of land within their territories. The English saw this as a right
to own and permanently occupy the land. For their part, Native people believed that the
newcomers had no right to permanently possess Native lands. In addition, Native people
sometimes left their villages to hunt, fish, or gather resources. Frequently, they returned to
their villages only to find the land occupied by colonists. The Powhatans grew increasingly
angry as the colonists took over more of their lands. When the English began raiding
Powhatan villages for food, sometimes killing women and children in the process, Native
leaders retaliated. A series of wars started in the Chesapeake Bay region that continued
through the seventeenth century.
LOSS OF LIFE
In the first 100 years of contact, the Powhatan, Nanticoke, and Piscataway
suffered severe loss of life. Although it is difficult to obtain precise population figures,
scholars estimate that the Powhatan chiefdom included about 12,000 people when
Jamestown was settled in 1607. Only 1,000 were left by 1700. The Piscataway chiefdom had
about 8,500 members at the time of English settlement, but only 300 remained by 1700.
Epidemic diseases were the primary cause of death. Native peoples had no immunity
to new illnesses, including smallpox, cholera, and measles, which the Europeans brought
to the Americas. Many tribes suffered huge losses — often, up to ninety percent of the
population was wiped out. Because diseases spread from person to person, some
communities were affected by European diseases transmitted by other Native peoples, and
many populations were weakened even before contact with European settlers. In 1608,
Chief Powhatan, who also was known as Wahunsenacawh, told the English explorer and
trader Captain John Smith how diseases had affected his people:
You may understand that I having seene the death of all my people thrice, and not any one
living of these three generations but my selfe…
— Travels of Captaine John Smith. NY: MacMillan, 1907.

Epidemics were not the only cause of death. Wars, loss of land, social upheaval, and disease
combined to devastate Native communities. Population losses weakened Native culture.
Oral tradition was critical for preserving cultural knowledge; when elders died, it was like
having entire libraries burn down.
TREATIES AND THE LOSS OF LAND
They gave us a piece of land that they termed as a reservation for the Piscataway people. They
put us there, with the idea that they would protect us forever, took all weapons away from us
and in turn gave them to a group of Indians who swore death to us, known as the
Susquehannas… We found out we couldn’t trust the Maryland colonists and our people fled.
— Chief Billy Redwing Tayac (Piscataway), 2002.
As more and more English colonists flooded into the Chesapeake region, Native peoples
lost more of their lands. These encroachments by the colonists led to violence, which the
English attempted to quell by establishing treaties with Native peoples. A treaty is an
agreement between two nations that becomes a law. In their treaties, the Powhatan,
Piscataway, and Nanticoke agreed to submit to English control in exchange for peace. The
English promised Native peoples rights to hunt in their territories and to fair treatment
under the law. The treaties also set aside smaller parcels of original Native territories so
that the Powhatan, Nanticoke, and Piscataway could live undisturbed by settlers. These
lands were called reservations, or “manors.”
While the treaties sounded good on paper, most of their provisions were not enforced.
English settlers moved onto reservation lands and restricted Native uses of non-reservation
lands. By the 1700s, Piscataway, Nanticoke, and Powhatan treaty rights were largely
ignored.
Figure 48. 1677 treaty between
Virginia and the Indians of the
region.
On the Web
We have a story to tell: Native peoples of the Chesapeake region
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/native-chesapeake/
Readings and lesson plans exploring the historical and ongoing challenges faced by the
American Indians of the Chesapeake Bay region, since the time of their first contact with
Europeans in the early 1600s.
Notes
1. A complete bibliography (see http://www.learnnc.orghttp://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/
native-chesapeake/bibliography) can be found at We have a story to tell: Native peoples of the
Chesapeake region (see http://www.learnnc.orghttp://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/native-
chesapeake/), from which this article is excerpted.
2. See http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/native-chesapeake/3.8.
3. See http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/native-chesapeake/3.8.

The importance of one simple plant
BY TERRY L. SARGENT
Reprinted by permission from Tar Heel Junior Historian 38, no. 1 (Spring 1984): 11,
Figure 49. Maize, which the Europeans came to call “corn,” has an ancient
and interesting history and plays central roles in many native myths and
legends. Its most important practical use was as meal. To make meal,

harvested maize was dried and then stored. As needed, the natives, and later
Europeans, too, used a mortar and pestle like this to grind, or “pound,” the
dried kernels into a powder that could be baked to make a variety of breads
or soaked to make grits. Mortars and pestles, which were commonly called
“corn pounders,” were used so frequently that they were usually kept by the
front door.
The natives of America could trace the history of maize to the beginning of time. Maize
was the food of the gods that had created the Earth. It played a central role in many native
myths and legends. And it came to be one of their most important foods. Maize, in some
form, made up roughly 65 percent of the native diet.
Maize and the natives

Besides its divine connections, the natives had practical reasons for using so much maize.
Maize was easy to grow. In fact, in this area, the plants grew and developed so quickly that
two crops could be grown in one season. In addition, the plant was easy to harvest, was not
too difficult to store in different forms, and had a variety of uses.
The natives stored most of the maize they harvested. They dried it by placing the
individual ears in the sun or hanging them in the air to dry. Nearly all of this dried maize
was then “shelled” — the kernels were removed from the cob. The natives ground these
dried kernels into meal or soaked them to make hominy. The kernels of some kinds of
maize could be popped over a fire.
The natives also ate ears of maize in the “green” from: raw and undried. The green
ears were roasted over fires or the kernels were cut off and cooked with beans and squash
(the other two of the Three Sisters) to make a dish called succotash.
Figure 50. Different parts of the The natives had many uses for the rest of the maize plant, too. They used the husks
maize plant could be used for that covered the ears to make baskets, mats, and moccasins. Green husks were used to
many different purposes. The wrap foods before they were placed in a fire for cooking. The silks, or “hairs,” had uses
natives used the husks, for
such as padding. Even the stalks of the plants could be hollowed out and used as containers
example, to make baskets, mats,
and moccasins. The Europeans for such foods as maple sugar and salt or for medicines.
used them to make brooms and
chair bottoms and to pad
mattresses and collars for draft
animals. Even today, maize, The “Three Sisters”
which we call “corn,” is used to
make more than a hundred The natives referred to maize as one of the “Three Sisters,” and they believed that the
products.
Three Sisters should never be separated. The other two “sisters” were squash or pumpkins
or gourds and beans. Reasons that the natives believed the Three Sisters should not be
separated undoubtedly originated in their myths and legends and stories that had been
passed down through time.
But practical reasons also existed for growing the sisters together. The stalk of the
maize plant was strong and tall. It could provide support for growing bean vines in search
of sunshine. Squash, gourd, and pumpkin vines grew thick around the base of the maize
stalks and helped control the growth of weeds and the loss of moisture in the mound.

European settlers come to know maize
When European settlers reached the New World, they found that the native peoples were
dependent on this strange-looking grain. The European settlers had brought their own
grains, which included wheat, rye, oats, and barley, with them. But they soon found their
grains did not grow as well in the American climate as they had at home in Europe. Nor
did they grow as well as the natives’ maize plants, which the newcomers came to call
“Indian corn.”
The settlers learned to cultivate Indian corn from their native neighbors, who were
growing large amounts of it. The newcomers even planted it using what they called the
Three Sisters method of planting. Colonial farmers soon found that Indian corn could be
grown with little skill or attention and quickly became very efficient at growing it. Some
farmers could produce twenty bushels of Indian corn per acre of land. A hundred bushels
of this life-supporting grain was enough to feed a family of six for a year.
Like the natives, colonial farmers also found that different parts of the plant had a
number of useful by-products and purposes. They used its stalk and leaves for livestock
feed. They used cobs to start fires and to fuel slow-burning fires. They used husks to make
brooms and chair bottoms as well as to pad mattresses and collars for draft animals.
Over the years, maize, Indian corn, or just plain “corn,” whatever you may call it, has
remained as important, versatile, and useful as it was to the natives and the first
Europeans.

The process of archaeology
Figure 51. Excavating an archaeological site.
Descriptions of North American cultures written by European colonists or explorers may

give archaeologists insights into how Native Americans made tools, what they ate, what
their villages and homes were like, along with other aspects of their life, such as rituals.
However, archaeologists use these sources cautiously when interpreting evidence. While
some early documents may contain accurate observations, the interpretations about the
meaning of what was observed can be wrong. Early European cultures were different from
those of Indian people, and the recorder may have misunderstood what he saw or heard.
Archaeologists use several processes to address questions about the past. They may
gather new data by conducting regional surveys to locate archaeological sites. Occasionally
sites are partially or completely excavated to address specific research questions or to

salvage information prior to disturbance by a development project. All data recovered are
thoroughly analyzed following scientific inquiry procedures before conclusions are
reached.
Archaeologists also reexamine data, such as artifact collections, site records, and
published reports from previously completed projects. New techniques may allow them to
learn from data and artifacts that have been curated for many years. Similarly,
archaeologists often revisit old data armed with increased knowledge about the past and a
new set of questions.
Archaeologists sometimes use experimental methods to help them understand how
people may have performed tasks in the past. For example, some archaeologists recreate
Figure 52. Clay pipe fragments
stone tools using manufacturing methods like those they think ancient peoples used. This
found at Occaneechi Town, near experimental process gives archaeologists a better understanding of how stone tools were
Hillsborough, North Carolina. made and how evidence for different manufacturing stages might appear in a site.
The following overview describes how archaeologists find and excavate sites, analyze
recovered data, and interpret the findings.
Finding sites
Archaeologists look for and sometimes excavate sites for two main reasons. First, they may
have a specific research question about the past that makes it necessary to search a certain
area for certain types of sites or to excavate a site. Second, sites may be endangered by a
development project or natural erosion, requiring archaeologists to salvage what
information they can before the site is destroyed. In both cases, archaeologists structure the
way they collect data so they can address a variety of research questions.
State and federal laws require that land use decisions take into account, among other
things, the effect of a project on archaeological and historical sites. These are commonly
called cultural resources. The laws apply to all federal and state lands, including those
administered by the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the military. They apply, too, to projects on
private land that use federal or state funds or that involve issuing a permit of some kind.
Any project that could disturb the land’s surface requires consideration of cultural
resources. Typically, the company or agency proposing the project pays for the
archaeological work.
To date, only a small fraction of the country (probably less than 5 percent) has been
systematically explored for cultural resources. Thus, the archaeologist’s first step is to
review existing records to see if the affected area has been examined already and if any sites
are recorded for it. In North Carolina, the Office of State Archaeology in Raleigh maintains
a central record for the state. The archaeologist may also check with colleagues based at
universities and Indian tribes within the project area to see if they have concerns or know
about areas of importance.
If an area has not been explored, the archaeologist conducts a survey. This is a
systematic examination of the land looking for sites. Typically, archaeologists search for
sites on foot, although aerial surveys are used to reveal sites that are invisible at close range
and where the terrain makes walking difficult. How they conduct the pedestrian survey
depends on the lay of the land. It may also depend on why the archaeologist is conducting a

survey. If, for instance, a new power line is due to cut a 20 mile straight swath 60 feet
wide, then archaeologists survey the straight line’s area. A reservoir, whose boundaries
snake within 400 square miles of several drowned rivers, needs a different approach.
Because archaeologists often cannot walk every inch of land, they search where experience
has taught them are likely places to find sites. Sometimes, they map out an area in sections
and survey a sample of sections.
Archaeologists use several tools to do surveys. These include clipboards and paper to
make notes; bags to label and contain samples of artifacts; geologic maps to learn about the
lay of the land and to record site locations; a compass for orientation; and a camera to
capture photographic records.
During a survey, archaeologists look for anything that is not natural to the area. They
are alert to things like a row of rocks (possibly the remnant of a wall), depressions or
mounds (buried structures), chips of stone (debris from stone tool manufacture), dark soil
(possible middens or garbage areas, hearths, or burned structures), and pottery sherds.
Because archaeologists want to know how people used resources in their environment,
information about where sites aren’t is also very important.
In the humid southeast, many sites are not visible on the ground’s surface. Often the
sites are buried, and archaeologists check eroded hills above stream banks and plowed
fields for evidence. In densely vegetated areas, archaeologists will sometimes dig a small
hole every 50 feet or so, sampling the area to see if evidence of buried sites shows up.
When they find a site, archaeologists make notes and record its location on maps.
Back in the laboratories, they give each site an identification number and fill out a site
form. Information about the vegetation, soil, elevation, and location is recorded on the
form, as well as a description of the site and the artifacts present. Any photographs are
attached, and a master map is made. The site is also evaluated for its information potential,
and a determination is made about whether or not the site has buried deposits.
Excavating a site
If the survey was performed because of a development project proposal, archaeologists will
recommend to the agency decision-maker what should be done about the cultural
resources. For sites with limited information potential, little additional work is needed. On
the other hand, archaeologists may recommend that sites containing important data or
having other significance (such as spiritual importance to Native Americans) be left
undisturbed or, in some cases, excavated. An effort is made to move a project to avoid
disturbing an important site, but sometimes that is not feasible.
If a site is to be excavated, archaeologists prepare a research design. This outlines what
questions the archaeologists will try to answer and the techniques they will use to excavate
and analyze the data. The agency or landowner that manages the land, the state
archaeologist, and archaeologists from either a university or a consulting firm will each
review the research design to assure it meets professional standards. A permit is required
to excavate on federal or state-owned lands.

Before the excavation begins, the directing archaeologist assembles a team of
excavators. This group may include geologists, botanists, historians, students, and trained
amateurs as well as archaeologists. The first step is to clear vegetation from the site and
establish a grid on the surface.
Establishing the grid is a key step. The grid is the primary way to maintain context,
which is the relationship artifacts and features have to each other. The process of
excavation destroys a site, and once it is dug, you can’t go back and do it differently.
Researchers of the future can study a site they never saw if good notes and maps are made
of the excavation. Recording context is the key to interpreting the site from records.
Figure 53. A portion of the
The grid is a Cartesian coordinate system. It is established and marked off in relation
Occaneechi Town excavation to a datum, which is a stable point of reference from which all measurements occur.
grid. Archaeologists set up the grid using a survey instrument (usually a transit), measuring
tapes, wooden stakes, and strings. Squares are marked on the ground using stakes for each
corner and string to connect them. Usually, squares are measured in meters, 1 or 2 meters
on a side. Each square has a unique identifying number based on its grid coordinates. A
map is made of the site on graph paper; the graph squares correspond to the squares on
the ground. Any artifacts, samples, or features (such as a hearth) that are found in a square
are labeled with its grid number and the depth below the ground surface at which they
were discovered. Sometimes, when there are distinct layers in the stratigraphy, the layer in
which an artifact is found is recorded also.
Using shovels, trowels, screens, and measuring tapes, archaeologists uncover a site
square by square. They move dirt slowly because they don’t know what they will be
uncovering, and they don’t want to destroy something by being in a hurry. The locations
where artifacts are found are carefully recorded. The excavated dirt is put through mesh
screens. Some are trays you shake back and forth so that the dirt falls through, and artifacts
are left on the screen. Others use water to push the dirt through a series of screens with
graduated mesh size.
During excavation, numerous maps, drawings, and photos are made. Each references
the grid location. Artifacts and various kinds of samples (animal bone, plant remains,
pollen, charcoal) are sent to specialists for analysis.
Once the excavation is completed, the site is usually back-filled with the excavated dirt.
This excavation procedure is followed regardless of whether archaeologists are doing
salvage work before a development project or doing basic research funded by universities
or foundations. If a development project spurred the excavation, the project would now be
authorized to proceed.
Figure 54. Student back-filling

Using the data
an excavation site.
Months after the excavation is finished, results of the analyses will be ready. Most people
do not realize that the time archaeologists actually spend excavating is the least time-
consuming aspect of their research. Processing samples and interpreting the data take
several times as long as excavation. Artifacts, records, and photos are turned over to a
university, public museum, or to the Indian tribe with jurisdiction after the analysis is
complete. Regardless of where they are stored, artifacts and information should be
available to future researchers, as well as for use in displays.

Tackling analysis, archaeologists make extensive use of computers and statistical data
analysis. Guided by their research questions, they compare new data with that derived from
other studies. They may use ethnographic analogy — studying modern groups of people
for clues about what archaeological patterns might mean or how artifacts might have been
used. Sometimes they experiment with replications to learn what methods of
manufacturing may have been used.
A strong professional ethic dictates archaeologists publish excavation results so that
the information is available to everyone. While publications have often been written in the
idiom of professional archaeology, there is a growing commitment by archaeologists to also
present information in ways the general public can read and learn from.
Dating archaeological samples

Archaeologists have two ways of placing events, sites, and artifacts in chronological order.
Relative dating orders things in relation to each other, but they are not anchored to a
calendar. Think of a trash can; items on the bottom were placed there prior to the items on
the top. Relative to each other, the items on the bottom represent older actions than those
on the top, but we don’t know what day or what year the trash can was filled.
Absolute dating establishes a calendar year for an artifact, site, or event. Prior to 1948,
absolute dates were mostly obtained by noting the presence of objects in sites whose age
was known from some other association. For instance, Greek pottery, whose age was
known from historical records in Greece, served to assign dates to other Mediterranean
sites having similar pottery but no other historical support. This kind of cross-dating
worked, too, for Roman coins in England, Egyptian beads in Europe, or Colonial coins in
Virginia. But this procedure is only as reliable as recorded history. Archaeologists had no
Figure 55. This photograph of a way to tell how old sites from earlier times were. Or, for that matter, how old historical sites
cut made by a bulldozer clearly were with no links to documentation.
illustrates how sediment is Since World War II, absolute dating techniques have been refined by the development
deposited in layers, with newer
of several methods. Among those archaeologists use are: tree-ring dating, radiocarbon
layers lying on top of older ones.
Archaeologists use these layers dating, obsidian hydration dating, and archaeomagnetic dating.
to establish relative dating. Radiocarbon dating (also called carbon-14 or carbon dating) is a method based on the
measurement of the radioactive carbon content of organic materials. Developed in 1948 by
two physicists, W. F. Libby and J. R. Arnold, the method was a byproduct of atomic
technology, and it had far-reaching consequences for archaeology.
The workings of the technique are simple. Archaeologist James Deetz explains the
method this way: The radioactive isotope of carbon (carbon-14) is produced in the
atmosphere when nitrogen atoms are bombarded by cosmic rays. This production is
constant, which means a constant ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 (the non-radioactive form
of the element) exists in the earth’s atmosphere. But carbon-14 is inherently unstable. In
time, it reverts to stable nitrogen-14 through the emission of a beta particle, and this is
where the link to dating comes in.1
Through respiration, living things (plant and animal) have a carbon-14 to carbon-12
ratio in their tissues identical to that found in the atmosphere. At death, however, the
organism no longer gets carbon from the air, and the amount of carbon-14 in its tissues
disintegrates due to beta particle radiation. This decay of carbon-14 occurs at a known rate.

Specifically, scientists learned that after 5,568 years, only half the original amount of
carbon-14 is left; after 11,136 years, only a quarter is left, and so on. Thus, the age of any
organic material, such as charcoal, wood, shell, or bone, can be calculated by measuring the
ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12.2
Sometimes archaeologists are reluctant to use radiocarbon dating. This is because the
method destroys the sample and requires a fair amount of material. For instance, about a
quarter-cup of charcoal is usually required for a carbon-14 date. If this is all the charcoal
archaeologists obtain from a site, or if they don’t find enough to do a standard carbon-14
date, they may hold onto the sample until more or additional evidence turns up.
Fortunately, a newer method of radiocarbon dating requires very little organic material—an
amount about the size of the head of a pin is enough. This method is done with an
accelerator mass spectrometer, and is called an accelerator date. But the downside to this
technique is that an accelerator date costs two to three times what a standard carbon-14 date
costs.
Obsidian hydration dating is based on the principle that all glass absorbs small
amounts of atmospheric moisture. Obsidian (volcanic glass) was frequently used by
ancient people to make tools. When they shaped a tool from an obsidian nodule, they
exposed a fresh surface as they chipped; this allowed the absorption of moisture to start on
an unweathered face. With time, a hydration rind developed on the obsidian, and the rate
of hydration can be determined. Therefore, by examining a thin slice of obsidian under a
microscope and measuring the width of the rind, the tool’s age can be calculated. Problems
exist with this technique, and it is not widely used. However, research continues and may
make obsidian hydration dating a more reliable method.
Archaeomagnetic dating is based on the fact that the earth’s magnetic poles have
changed location throughout time. The time and direction of the North Pole’s wanderings
is roughly known. In some instances, archaeologists can take advantage of this knowledge
to date sites, particularly those with well-baked clay floors, ovens, or kilns. This is because
some clays and clay soils contain tiny magnetic minerals that, when heated to a dull red
heat, become loosened and align with the magnetic north.3 When the soil cools, this
alignment is fixed in place. Archaeologists collecting cubes of burned earth from sites may
be able to correlate the magnetism of the sample with records of the earth’s magnetic field.
On the Web
Excavating Occaneechi Town: An archaeology primer
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/occaneechi-archaeology-primer/
Republished with permission from the Research Laboratories of Archaeology, the Archaeology
Primer uses photographs of the excavations at Occaneechi Town to introduce fundamental
concepts of archaeology. The primer provides an introduction to the methods of archaeology and
to some common types of artifacts, and prepares students to participate in an electronic
archaeological dig.
Why Is Radiocarbon Dating Important To Archaeology?

http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=24000

This website, provided by California State Parks, provides text to explain and diagrams to
illustrate the technique of radiocarbon dating.
Notes
1. Deetz, James, Invitation to Archaeology (Garden City, N.Y.: Natural History Press, 1967), 35–36.
2. Ibid.
3. Fagan, Brian M., In the Beginning: An Introduction to Archaeology. 8th ed. (New York: Harper
Collins, 1994), 122–124.

90
3 Spanish exploration
The Spanish were the first Europeans not only to reach the Americas but to
explore and settle the land that became North Carolina. Hernando de Soto’s
expedition in 1539–1542 took him through the Appalachians. Twenty-five
years later, Juan Pardo established a fort in the Piedmont that he hoped
would be the first outpost of a Spanish empire in North America. Spain’s
efforts to conquer the east coast failed, but for centuries they ruled Central
and South America as well as what is now the southwestern United States,
and their presence in Florida shaped English plans for colonization.
In this chapter we’ll look at the first European explorations and colonies in
the New World, beginning with Columbus and continuing with De Soto
and Pardo. We’ll weigh their interactions with, and impact on, native
populations. We’ll also consider the process of exploration itself — how
early explorers and mapmakers figured out where they were and told others
about their discoveries.
91
Spain and America: From
Reconquest to Conquest
BY DAVID WALBERT
In 1491, no European knew that North and South America existed. By 1550, Spain — a
small kingdom that had not even existed a century earlier — controlled the better part of
two continents and had become the most powerful nation in Europe. In half a century of
brave exploration and brutal conquest, both Europe and America were changed forever.
The Reconquista and the origins of Spain

In the 1400s, “Spain” as we think of it today did not exist. The Iberian peninsula, the piece
of land that juts out of southwestern Europe into the Atlantic Ocean, included three
kingdoms: Aragon, a small kingdom bordering France on the Mediterranean Sea and
focused on trade with Italy and Africa; Portugal on the Atlantic coast; and Castile, a large
rural kingdom in the middle. The southern part of Iberia, meanwhile, was under Muslim
rule, as it had been for centuries.
In the early 700s, Berber Muslims from North Africa, often called Moors, had
Figure 57. This map of the conquered nearly all of the Iberian Peninsula. Over the following seven and a half
kingdoms of the Iberian
Peninsula from 1270 to 1492
centuries, the Christian kingdoms to the north gradually retook control of the peninsula,
shows the kingdoms of Castile, and by 1300, Muslims controlled only Granada, a small region in the south of present-day
Aragon, and Portugal. Spain. But the Reconquista, or Reconquest, was not complete until 1492. In 1479, King
Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile married, uniting their kingdoms, and
thirteen years later their armies expelled the Muslims from Granada.
The Reconquista was a brutal conflict fueled in part by devotion to Christianity — not
just a war between kingdoms but a crusade against infidels. In al-Andalus — the Arabic
name for Muslim-controlled Iberia — Christians and Jews had significant religious
freedom. The Christian rulers to the north did not return the favor. The rulers of Spain’s
kingdoms found that their shared Christianity could unite them and set them apart from
the Muslims to the south. The men who fought in the Reconquista were convinced of their
superiority to their enemies who had rejected Christianity, and they developed rules of war

based on that superiority — including the right to enslave the people they conquered. Once
Spain was reconquered, Muslims and Jews were forced to convert to Christianity or be
expelled from Spain.
The long Reconquista tended to make the Spanish, and especially Castilians, not only
strongly devoted to Christianity but militaristic and romantic. Castile was an agricultural
society based on personal relationships, in which a person’s reputation and honor were
tremendously important. One historian writes that
Castilian men were tough, arrogant, quick to take offense, undaunted by danger and
hardship, and extravagant in their actions. They would suffer hunger, hardship, extremes of
climate, and still fight savagely against great odds.…Sixteenth-century Spaniards were
fascinated with herioc stories, the adventures of perfect knights, ceremonious and courtly
behavior, and strange and magical happenings.1
Finally, the Reconquista was driven by a desire for land and profit. Because kings in the
Middle Ages were not as strong or as wealthy as they would later become, most military
actions against the Moors were privately financed. Leaders of armies, since they had risked
their own money, won rights to conquered land and a share of conquered peoples’ wealth.
The reconquerers, in short, were the perfect men to cross a dangerous ocean and
Figure 58. King Ferdinand II of conquer a “New World” of dense uncharted forests, tropical diseases, and hostile heathens.
Aragon, and Queen Isabella of They were devoted to God, king, and queen; they were tough; and they were eager for
Castile.
wealth and glory. And after 1492, with the Reconquista complete, they were in the market
for a new crusade. Conveniently enough, Christopher Columbus gave them one.

Into the “New World”
In the late Middle Ages, Europeans were fascinated with the idea of Asia and its wealth.
Europeans and East Asians had long known of each other — Alexander the Great’s empire
had connected Greece and India in the fourth century BCE, and later, the Han Dynasty of
China and the Roman Empire traded regularly and exchanged a few diplomats. During the
Middle Ages, though, trade and travel between Europe and Asia stopped almost entirely.
The Crusades, in which Europeans fought to retake the Holy Land from Muslims,
brought them into contact with eastern cultures for the first time in centuries. They wanted
spices, silks, jewels, gold, and other luxury goods from China, India, and the East Indies —
the islands southeast of the Asian continent, including the modern nation of Indonesia.
Figure 59. Many books will tell But east Asia lay thousands of miles away, across vast deserts and the Himalaya
you that Europeans, lacking
Mountains, and the road from Europe to China was controlled by foreign rulers and by
refrigeration, needed spices to
preserve food or to cover up the middlemen who charged money to pass the goods along. As a result, by the time spices
taste of spoiled food. Maybe so, and other goods reached Europe, they were extremely expensive.
but it seems more likely that Portugal, which had completed its own Reconquest in the thirteenth century, was the
spices just taste good. Imagine
first European nation to try to trade directly with Asia. Under Prince Henry “the
a world without pepper,
cinnamon, cloves, allspice, Navigator,” the Portuguese began to explore the west coast of Africa. In 1488 Bartolomeu
nutmeg, or chiles, in which only Dias sailed all the way around the southern tip of Africa, the Cape of Good Hope, proving
herbs and a few spices like that there was an ocean route around the continent. In 1497, Vasco da Gama followed Dias’
caraway were available to
route, then sailed north and east to India — opening up the riches of Asia to Portugal.
season food! Given such a
bland diet, how much would you
be willing to pay for a little
COLUMBUS’ GREAT MISTAKE
cinnamon?
In 1492, Christopher Columbus, a sailor from Genoa (then an independent city-state in
northern Italy), convinced Isabella and Ferdinand to finance a voyage across the Atlantic to
Asia. Although it was widely accepted in Europe by this time that the earth was round,
scholars disagreed about the size of the globe. Columbus argued that the riches of China
and the East Indies lay only 2,400 miles to the west of Spain — making the Atlantic Ocean
about the width of the Mediterranean Sea — but most others said it was much farther.
For years, Columbus failed to persuade England, Portugal, Spain, Genoa, and Venice
to give him ships and men. Finally, the new monarchs of reconquered Spain, eager for new
sources of wealth and opportunities to spread Christianity, decided to give him a chance.
They named him governor of any new lands he discovered and promised him a ten percent
share in their wealth, sent him to sea — and, quite possibly, expected never to see him
again.
Columbus was wrong, of course — bold enough to sail thousands of miles into
uncharted waters, but completely mistaken in his geography. Asia lies more than 12,000
miles west of Europe, and had the Americas not been waiting in the middle, Columbus
would never have reached land. He reached the Bahamas instead, more or less where he
thought the East Indies should have been, and after three more voyages to the Caribbean
and the coast of South America he died in 1506 still believing he had been exploring
mainland Asia. But Columbus’ incredible (and lucky) mistake turned out to be one of the
most important events in the history of human civilization.

THE “COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE”
The world’s two great land masses — North and South America in the western hemisphere
and Europe, Asia, and Africa in the eastern hemisphere — had been isolated from each
other for 10,000 years. When the land bridge across the Bering Strait closed after the last
Ice Age, the Paleoindians of the Americas and their Stone Age counterparts in Asia were
cut off. In the hundreds of thousands of years before that, the two halves of the world had
evolved different animals, plants, and microbes.
Over the millenia, the human inhabitants of the “old” and “new” worlds developed
The Vikings briefly settled
vastly different cultures, languages, and religions; they found different ways of adapting to
Greenland and parts of eastern
Canada in about 1000 CE. But their different envinronments; and their bodies over hundreds of generations became
they didn’t stay long, and they resistant to the diseases of their different worlds. When the two great land masses were
didn’t spread word of their rejoined by European exploration, the resulting exchange of people, crops, animals, ideas,
discovery in Europe. There are
and diseases — called the “Columbian exchange” — changed both worlds forever.
also theories that Chinese
explorers found the west coast
of North America sometime
before Columbus’ journey, but if
the stories are true, the Chinese, Conquest by sword and germs
like the Vikings, returned home
without making an impact on Immediately, the Spanish set about conquering the world they had discovered. Within a
either continent. hundred years this small European nation had claimed the better part of two continents.
They relied on a combination of military superiority, occasional diplomacy, luck — and
their greatest ally, disease. Then, convinced that the peoples of the Americas were
uncivilized heathens, they set about destroying much of what they found.
THE CARIBBEAN
Columbus easily dominated the peoples of the Caribbean, who were for the most part
friendly and peaceful. They practiced advanced agriculture, traded extensively among the
islands, and had a great deal of leisure time. Columbus, believing he was off the coast of
India, called them “Indians” and hoped they would be faithful subjects of Ferdinand and
Isabella. But faithful subjects, to Columbus, would convert to Christianity and grow crops
that would make money for Europeans. In his journal, he wrote,
It seemed to me that they were a people who were very poor in everything. They go as naked
Figure 60. This painting depicts
Columbus’ arrival in the New as their mothers bore them, even the women, though I only saw one girl, and she was very
World. young. All those I did see were young men, none of them more than thirty years old.… They
do not carry arms and do not know of them, because I showed them some swords and they
grasped them by the blade and cut themselves out of ignorance.…
They ought to make good slaves for they are of quick intelligence, since I notice that they
are quick to repeat what is said to them, and I believe that they could very easily become
Chirstians, for it seemed to me that they had no religion of their own. God willing, when I
come to leave I will bring six of them to Your Highnesses so that they may learn to speak…2
To a European, a “civilized” person was someone who lived in a house, ate his meals at a
table — and, certainly, wore full clothes! These nearly naked people with no understanding
of metal weapons must have seemed incredibly primitive to Columbus and his men — like
something, perhaps, out of the Garden of Eden. If the people of the “Indies” were so poor

and uncivilized, Columbus believed he had every right to take their land and make them
into “servants.”
Slavery and smallpox
On Hispañola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Columbus tried to enslave
the indigenous Taino people to grow plant sugar cane, but an epidemic of smallpox and
other diseases wiped out the entire native population of the island — as many as two
million people.
Smallpox was endemic to Europe and Asia — it was common there, and over
thousands of generations people had built up a resistance to it. Even so, it was a fast-
spreading, deadly disease. As late as the eighteenth century, hundreds of thousands of
Europeans died of smallpox each year.3 But smallpox had never existed in the Americas,
and Native Americans had no immunity to it at all.
With the native population gone, the Spanish began to import slaves from Africa to
grow their sugar cane — beginning an institution that would create misery and profit in
Figure 61. Columbus’ legacy is a
the Americas for almost 400 years.
complicated one.
MEXICO
In 1519 Hernán Cortés arrived in Mexico from Cuba with 11 galleons, 550 men, and 16
horses — the first horses on the American continent. Within two years his conquistadores,
conquerors, had won control of the Aztec kingdom that spanned most of present-day
Mexico and Central America.
The Aztec empire, unlike the small tribes that dotted the Caribbean — and more than
Figure 62. This map shows the a little like Spain — was a complex state built on military conquest. Its emperor
extent of the Aztec empire
Moctezuma ruled with an iron fist from the great Aztec capital at Tenochtitlán. It seems
before its conquest by the
Spanish.
incredible that so few men could conquer so great an empire, but its centralized authority
— its vast territory was ruled by one man from a single city — actually made it easier to
conquer. Once the capital was taken and the emperor captured, the entire empire fell
under Spanish control.
Of course, the conquistadores had other advantages — some of them accidental. One of
Cortés’ soldiers had smallpox, and he started an epidemic that killed a third of the
population of the Aztec empire.
The Aztecs may also have mistaken Cortés for the deity Quetzalcoátl, or Plumed
Serpent, who according to prophesy would return from the east to reclaim his kingdom —
perhaps in 1519. When Cortés arrived — from the east, with fair skin, riding four-legged
creatures never before seen in Mexico, wearing shining armor and looking for all the world
like someone who wanted to reclaim a kingdom — Moctezuma feared that he might be
Quetzalcoátl and did not immediately meet him in battle. The delay gave Cortés the time
he needed to get a foothold.

SOUTH AMERICA
Like the Aztecs of Mexico, the Incas of Peru controlled a vast empire with great riches,
including the gold and silver the Spanish desperately wanted. The Incas maintained their
power by forcing conquered peoples to adopt their language and religion. To manage their
empire, they built a network of roads through the Andes mountains.
Also like the Aztecs, the Incas fell quickly to the Spanish. Francisco Pizarro landed in
Figure 63. Map showing the
Peru in 1530, and his small army with their steel weapons, armor, and horses dominated
extent of the Inca Empire in
South America. the Incas in battle. Disease had already spread south from Mexico and weakened the Inca
people. Pizarro captured the Inca emperor, Atahualpa, and quickly took control of the
empire. Within a few decades, the Spanish controlled most of South America.
Blood and gold

What Cortés and his men saw in Tenochtitlán horrified them. The many Aztec gods
demanded human sacrifice — to ensure that the sun would coninue to rise in the
morning, to grant fertility, or to guarantee a good harvest. The Aztecs fought wars with
neighboring peoples to capture victims for sacrifice. In the most famous ritual, the victim
was spread-eagled on a round stone atop a great pyramid while a priest cut out his heart
and offered it, still beating, to the god Huitzilopochtli.
The Spanish, more convinced than ever of their superiority, forced most of the people
of Mexico to convert to Christianity. Priests burned Aztec books and destroyed idols and
temples. Indigenous people were enslaved to work in gold mines. Disease reduced the
population of Mexico from more than 20 million when Cortés arrived in 1519 to about 2
million by 1600.
Meanwhile, the gold and other riches sent home to Spain financed one of the most
powerful empires in the history of the world. Spanish monarchs used this wealth to fight a
series of religious wars in Europe, including the attempted invasion of England by the
Spanish Armada. By the 1600s, Spain was easily the most powerful kingdom in Europe.
Bartoleme de Las Casas, a Spanish priest who witnessed the worst of Spanish cruelty,
had this to say in 1542 about the conquest of Mexico and the Caribbean:
Into this sheepfold, into this land of meek outcasts there came some Spaniards who
immediately behaved like ravening wild beasts, wolves, tigers, or lions that had been starved
for many days. And Spaniards have behaved in no other way during the past forty years,
down to the present time, for they are still acting like ravening beasts, killing, terrorizing,
afflicting, torturing, and destroying the native peoples, doing all this with the strangest and
most varied new methods of cruelty, never seen or heard of before, and to such a degree that
this Island of Hispaniola once so populous (having a population that I estimated to be more
than three million), has now a population of barely two hundred persons.…
Figure 64. Constantino As for the vast mainland [Mexico]… We can estimate very surely and truthfully that in the
Brumidi’s 1876 painting of forty years that have passed, with the infernal actions of the Christians, there have been
Bartolome de Las Casas and an unjustly slain more than twelve million men, women, and children. In truth, I believe without
Indian acquaintance.
trying to deceive myself that the number of the slain is more like fifteen million.…
Their reason for killing and destroying such an infinite number of souls is that the
Christians have an ultimate aim, which is to acquire gold, and to swell themselves with riches
in a very brief time and thus rise to a high estate disproportionate to their merits. It should

be kept in mind that their insatiable greed and ambition, the greatest ever seen in the world,
is the cause of their villainies. And also, those lands are so rich and felicitous, the native
peoples so meek and patient, so easy to subject, that our Spaniards have no more
consideration for them than beasts. And I say this from my own knowledge of the acts I
witnessed. But I should not say “than beasts” for, thanks be to God, they have treated beasts
with some respect; I should say instead like excrement on the public squares.…
The Indians began to seek ways to throw the Christians out of their lands.… And the
Christians, with their horses and swords and pikes began to carry out massacres and strange
cruelties against them. They attacked the towns and spared neither the children nor the aged
nor pregnant women nor women in childbed, not only stabbing them and dismembering
them but cutting them to pieces as if dealing with sheep in the slaughter house. They laid
bets as to who, with one stroke of the sword, could split a man in two or could cut off his
head or spill out his entrails with a single stroke of the pike. They took infants from their
mothers’ breasts, snatching them by the legs and pitching them headfirst against the crags
or snatched them by the arms and threw them into the rivers, roaring with laughter and
saying as the babies fell into the water, “Boil there, you offspring of the devil!” Other infants
they put to the sword along with their mothers and anyone else who happened to be nearby.
They made some low wide gallows on which the hanged victim’s feet almost touched the
ground, stringing up their victims in lots of thirteen, in memory of Our Redeemer and His
twelve Apostles, then set burning wood at their feet and thus burned them alive. To others
they attached straw or wrapped their whole bodies in straw and set them afire. With still
others, all those they wanted to capture alive, they cut off their hands and hung them round
the victim’s neck, saying, “Go now, carry the message,” meaning, Take the news to the
Indians who have fled to the mountains. They usually dealt with the chieftains and nobles in
the following way: they made a grid of rods which they placed on forked sticks, then lashed
the victims to the grid and lighted a smoldering fire underneath, so that little by little, as
those captives screamed in despair and torment, their souls would leave them.4
Las Casas spent most of his life fighting for the indigenous peoples of Central and South
America. He tried to build a settlement on the coast of Venezuela with farmers rather than
soldiers, worked to convert indigenous peoples by peaceful means, and argued for the
abolition of Indian slavery. His descriptions of the conquest horrified King Charles V and
his advisors, and the government agreed to limit the use and ownership of slaves — until
colonists in Peru threatened to revolt. Las Casas was never able to gain the fair treatment of
Central and South American Indians, but for his efforts he is remembered today as one of
the earliest proponents of human rights.
On the Web
Voyage of Exploration: Discovering New Horizons
http://library.thinkquest.org/C001692/
This website provides students with extensive information on explorers and their expeditions, as
well as early and modern navigation systems. Teachers can create online quizzes and track
student participation and progress. Students can post their own articles about explorers.
Looks Are Deceiving: the Portraits of Christopher Columbus

http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/admiral.html

This article, originally published in Visual Anthropology, explores the mystery of Christopher
Columbus's physical appearance. Since there were no portraits made during Columbus's
lifetime, the author uses portraits from three different time periods and cultures to create a
composite picture of this famous explorer.
Christopher Columbus: Extracts from Journal

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/columbus1.html
This website offers primary source material--portions of Columbus's own journal--as a way to
better understand the man and his 1492 voyage.
The Conquistadors
http://www.pbs.org/opb/conquistadors/home.htm
This website from PBS provides information on four conquistadors: Cortes, Orellana, Pizarro,
and Cabeza de Vaca. Students are asked to consider the methods they used and the effects of
their actions. A teaching guide is provided.
Notes
1. Hudson, Charles, Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun: Hernando de Soto and the South’s Ancient
Chiefdoms (Athens, Ga.: The University of Georgia Press, 1997), 8.
2. Columbus, Christopher and B. W. Ife (translator), Journal of the First Voyage (Diario del Primer
Viaje) (Warminster, England: Aris & Phillips Ltd.), 29–31.
3. Barquet, Nicolau and Pere Domingo, “Smallpox: The Triumph over the Most Terrible of the
Ministers of Death,” in Annals of Internal Medicine 127:8 (1997).
4. de Las Casas, Bartoleme and Herma Briffault (translator), The Devastation of the Indies: A Brief
Account. (New York: Seabury Press, 1974), 39–44.

Where am I? Mapping a New World
BY DAVID WALBERT
An old story tells of a group of blind men encountering an elephant. The first man feels the
elephant’s trunk and announces that the strange animal is a snake. The second man feels
the elephant’s leg and decides that it must be a tree. Another feels the tusk and says the
elephant is like a pipe, while still another feels its belly and declares it a wall.
Each of the blind men was wrong, of course — and yet each of them had a piece of the
truth, and by assembling all of their pieces, they could create an accurate picture of an
elephant.
Early European travelers to the Americas were like these blind men, exploring
portions of the continent and reporting bits and pieces of information back to Europe. Over
the centuries, mapmakers assembled these reports into maps that could be used for
navigation on the open seas, to direct ships to newly discovered lands, and to control the
lands they claimed.
Over time, explorers and mapmakers compiled an increasingly accurate
understanding of the Americas and of the world. To do so, they had to invent new tools for
mapmaking, embrace radical new ideas about the shape of the world, and discard
cherished beliefs. The story of European exploration of the world is as much a story of
science, mathematics, and art as of heroism and bravery.

The science of cartography
The key problem in cartography — the science of mapping — is that the earth is a sphere,
but a piece of paper is flat. If you could peel off the face of the earth like the skin of an
apple and press it flat, it wouldn’t make a rectangle, or a circle, or an oval — or any simple,
contiguous shape. The cartographer’s challenge is to determine how to represent the
spherical surface of the earth on a flat map while preserving key information about it.
The Greek mathematician Ptolemy (90–168 CE) was the first to develop a map using
lines of latitude and longitude and defining locations on a coordinate system. Islamic
Figure 65. This “cloverleaf” map mapmakers in the Middle Ages built on his ideas, and the Chinese also drew coordinate-
of the world, with Jerusalem at based maps to careful scale. But European maps represented the earth symbolically and
the center, was created in 1581. were drawn based on religion and philosophy, not exploration and accurate mathematics.
Only when Europeans discovered the Americas and wanted to exploit the wealth of the new
lands did they find a need to treat mapmaking more scientifically.
An ideal map should correspond to the earth’s surface in several ways:
• The sizes of regions on the map should be proportional to their sizes on the earth’s
surface.
• The shapes of regions on the map should resemble their shapes on the earth’s surface.
• Distances between points on the map should be proportional to the distances between
those points on the earth’s surface.
• The map should be contiguous — there shouldn’t be any interruptions in it. Just as
any two points on the earth’s surface can be connected by a line, someone should be
able to draw a line between any two points on the map.
The problem is that achieving all four of these goals is only possible if you make a globe.
How to make a flat map that accurately represents the earth’s features?
THE MERCATOR PROJECTION

In 1569, the Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator created a map using
a mathematical formula to “project” points on the earth’s surface onto a map based on
their latitude and longitude. His formula — called the Mercator projection — became the
standard means of making maps for navigation, because the directions of the compass
corresponded to directions on the map. North, east, south, and west were straight lines on
paper, just as they are on the earth’s surface.

Figure 66. Gerardus Mercator’s 1569 map of the world.
The problem with the Mercator projection is that it distorts areas and distances. The North
and South Poles are stretched all the way across the top and bottom of the map, and
regions to the far north and south appear much larger than they actually are. This isn’t a
problem for navigation — Google Maps uses a Mercator projection even today — and the
distortion is negligible for small maps (say, of North Carolina). But it can give a false
impression of the relative sizes of various countries and continents. For example,
Greenland is larger than Africa! Cartographers have developed a number of other
projections with various advantages and disadvantages, but the Mercator projection is the
vision of the earth that most of us have in our heads more than four centuries later.
For sixteenth-century sailors and mapmakers, the problem with the Mercator
projection was that it was ahead of its time technologically. You’ll note that Mercator’s
map, despite its careful mathematics, isn’t very accurate — because explorers didn’t know
where they were! As a result, they couldn’t report accurate information about the features
of the lands they explored, and they couldn’t use a Mercator-projection map effectively for
navigation. For maps to become really useful, three problems had to be solved: sailors
needed to be able to determine their direction, their latitude, and their longitude to a great
degree of accuracy.
Finding a way on the seas

The first people to venture out to sea in boats stayed close to shore and navigated by
landmarks. Once in the open ocean, though, they had to invent ways of determining where
they were and what direction they were headed.

DIRECTION
The magnetic compass was invented in China in the eleventh century, but was first used
for navigation by Europeans in the thirteenth century. Until that time, direction at sea
could be determined only by the position of the sun and stars — making navigation
impossible if the weather was poor. At first, the compass was only a magnetized pointer
floating in a bowl of water. By about 1300, the “dry compass” was in use — a free-floating
pointer in a closed box, with a “wind rose” showing the cardinal directions of north, south,
east, and west.
But magnetic north isn’t true north — the north magnetic pole of the earth is not the
geographic north pole. Worse, the earth’s magnetic field is constantly changing, and
Figure 67. Replica of a wind rose deposits of iron ore can throw off compass readings. The difference between magnetic
from one of the earliest
north and true north is called magnetic declination or magnetic variation. The first charts of
European nautical charts.
magnetic declination were not developed until the early eighteenth century, and only then
did the magnetic compass become a reliable tool for navigation on the open sea.

LATITUDE
Latitude and longitude are The sun and constellations follow a specific path through the sky that changes with the
measured in degrees, with 360 time of year and the observer’s distance from the equator, or latitude. By measuring the
degrees in a circle. For more
precision, there are 60 minutes
angle of certain stars above the horizon, an experienced navigator could determine his
in a degree and 60 seconds in a latitude. In the northern hemisphere, Polaris, the “North Star,” is the best star by which to
minute. A degree of latitude is navigate, because it is circumpolar — it is in a direct line with the earth’s axis, above the
approximately 69 miles, and a North Pole. As a result, it always appears due north in the sky, and its angle above the
minute of latitude is
approximately 1.15 miles. A
horizon is the same as the observer’s degree of latitude. Mariners could also measure the
second of latitude is altitude of the sun at noon to determine their latitude.
approximately 0.02 miles, or The ancient Phoenecians (about 1000 BCE) had sufficient understanding of
just over 100 feet. astronomy to navigate by the stars, but measuring the altitude of a star was difficult. By the
time Europeans began exploring the world, several tools were in use to aid in sighting
stars.
• The simplest tool was the cross-staff, which had two arms, one to be pointed at the
horizon and one to be pointed at a star or the sun. The angle between the two arms
gave the altitude of the star. Because the navigator had to point one arm of the staff
toward the horizon manually, errors were common.
• The astrolabe, invented by the Greeks in the first or second century CE and used by
Figure 68. The mariner’s Europeans for navigation in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was a simple brass
astrolabe was the navigation
tool of early European explorers.
ring, graduated in degrees, with a rotating arm for sighting the sun or a star. It was
designed to be suspended from a ring so that it would hang vertically and clearly show
the direction of the horizon. it But the astrolabe was hard to stabilize on a rocking
ship, and errors of four to five degrees were common — quite a lot, when you
consider that there are only about thirty degrees of latitude between London and the
Caribbean!
• The sextant, invented around 1730, uses a pair of mirrors to sight the horizon and the
sun or a star. The use of mirrors compensates for the motion of the ship, and makes
the sextant accurate to 10 seconds of latitude — about 1,000 feet.
LONGITUDE
Figure 69. The sextant, invented
in the eighteenth century, Longitude was another matter. For a long time, there was no way to determine longitude
allowed far greater accuracy — the distance a ship had traveled east to west. Sailors had to calculate how far east or west
than previous navigation tools. they had sailed by measuring the ship’s speed, then multiplying by the time they had been
traveling. Since they knew their change in latitude, and the total distance they had traveled,
they could calculate their longitude.

The problem was that until the late eighteenth century, portable clocks were not
accurate enough to make precise calculations possible. Even the best clocks of the time
probably lost 10 minutes a day, which added up quickly on a long sea voyage. The search
for a way to measure longitude was really a search for a way to measure time.
Measuring speed was hard enough. Originally, sailors used “dead reckoning” — they
A knot is defined today as one
simply estimated their speed and distance traveled based on experience. In the sixteenth
nautical mile per hour. A
nautical mile is slightly larger century the chip log, a crude speedometer, was invented. Sailors tied knots at regular
than a mile, and corresponds intervals in a lightweight rope, tied a weight to the end so it would drag in the water, and
roughly to one minute of tossed the end overboard. The pilot counted the knots that were let out during a specific
latitude.
period of time, and this told him how fast the ship was moving. (The speed of a ship on
water is still referred to as “knots”!)
The most accurate way to determine longitude was to keep a clock set to the time at
home port, then note what time solar noon occurred on that clock. At noon at any point on
the earth’s surface, the sun will reach its maximum altitude — something sailors could
easily note (assuming the sky wasn’t cloudy). If local noon occurred at 1 pm on their clock
from home, for example, they knew they had traveled one “hour” west — 1/24 of the way
around the globe, or 15 degrees.
Measuring longitude was so important to trade that several nations offered prizes to
the first person to invent a chronometer that could keep accurate time at sea. John
Harrison, an Englishman, won the British prize in 1765 for a marine chronometer that was
accurate to one-tenth of a second per day. When James Cook circumnavigated the globe in
the 1770s, his calculations of longitude based on Harrrison’s chronometer were accurate to
within 8 miles!
Exploring and explaining new lands

In the 1500s, then, when Europeans set out to explore the Americas, they had neither
sextants nor accurate chronometers, and their compasses’ readings were often misleading.
Their measurements of latitude were inaccurate, and their measurements of longitude
were barely more than guesses. No wonder, then, that we would find their maps next to
useless today!
How, then, did they find their way and make their maps? Like the blind men meeting
the elephant, they had to feel their way around.

SIGNS OF LAND
The first challenge at sea was simply finding land. From the journals of Columbus’ first
voyage, we can learn how sailors reckoned which direction land might lie, and how close
by. (Often called the “Great Navigator,” Columbus used dead reckoning, not celestial
navigation, on his voyages. As a result, his measurements of latitude were consistently
incorrect.) Birds normally seen near land, floating weeds, and weather could all be signs
that land lay nearby — often inaccurate signs, as the crew learned.
Figure 70. Pelicans seemed a

Sunday, 9 September. Sailed this day nineteen leagues1, and determined to count less than
sure sign of land — but the the true number, that the crew might not be dismayed if the voyage should prove long. In the
birds met by Columbus’ crew night sailed one hundred and twenty miles, at the rate of ten miles an hour, which make
may themselves have been lost thirty leagues. The sailors steered badly, causing the vessels to fall to leeward toward the
at sea. northeast, for which the Admiral reprimanded them repeatedly.
Friday, 14 September. Steered this day and night west twenty leagues; reckoned
somewhat less. The crew of the Nina stated that they had seen a grajao2, and a tropic bird, or
water-wagtail, which birds never go farther than twenty-five leagues from the land.
Sunday, 16 September. Sailed day and night, west thirty-nine leagues, and reckoned only
thirty-six.… Here they began to meet with large patches of weeds very green, and which
appeared to have been recently washed away from the land; on which account they all judged
themselves to be near some island, though not a continent, according to the opinion of the
Admiral, who says, “the continent we shall find further ahead.”
19 September. Continued on, and sailed, day and night, twenty-five leagues,
experiencing a calm. Wrote down twenty-two. This day at ten o’clock a pelican came on
board, and in the evening another; these birds are not accustomed to go twenty leagues from
land. It drizzled without wind, which is a sure sign of land. The Admiral was unwilling to
remain here, beating about in search of land, but he held it for certain that there were islands
to the north and south, which in fact was the case and he was sailing in the midst of them.
His wish was to proceed on to the Indies, having such fair weather, for if it please God, as the
Admiral says, we shall examine these parts upon our return. Here the pilots found their
places upon the chart: the reckoning of the Nina made her four hundred and forty leagues
distant from the Canaries3, that of the Pinta four hundred and twenty, that of the Admiral
four hundred.
8 October. Steered west-southwest and sailed day and night eleven or twelve leagues; at
times during the night, fifteen miles an hour, if the account can be depended upon.… The
weeds appeared very fresh. Many land birds, one of which they took, flying towards the
southwest; also grajaos, ducks, and a pelican were seen.
Tuesday, 9 October. Sailed southwest five leagues, when the wind changed, and they
stood west by north four leagues. Sailed in the whole day and night, twenty leagues and a
half; reckoned to the crew seventeen. All night heard birds passing.
Thursday, 11 October. Steered west-southwest; and encountered a heavier sea than they
had met with before in the whole voyage. Saw pardelas4 and a green rush near the vessel.
The crew of the Pinta saw a cane and a log; they also picked up a stick which appeared to
have been carved with an iron tool, a piece of cane, a plant which grows on land, and a
board. The crew of the Nina saw other signs of land, and a stalk loaded with rose berries.5
JOURNALS AND RECKONING

Once on land, explorers estimated their daily mileage on foot. Since a chip log didn’t work
on land, estimates of mileage were less accurate than on the ocean. Cartographers in

Europe drew maps based on explorers’ accounts, and you can imagine that if the account
was not written clearly or with sufficient detail, the resulting map would have been nearly
useless.
Sometimes a cartographer accompanied a voyage. An accomplished artist could draw a
reasonable representation of a shoreline as he traveled along it, but he would be hampered
by his inability to measure precisely where he was.
Imagining America
Given the difficulties faced by cartographers, it took hundreds of years, dozens of
expeditions, and countless maps before an accurate picture of the North American
continent emerged.
AMERICA, NOT ASIA

Christopher Columbus and other early explorers believed they were reaching Asia when
they struck land west of the Atlantic Ocean — in part because they were unable to measure
longitude, in part because they were uncertain how big Asia really was. Seeing only small
islands, peninsulas, and short coastlines, they had no reason to think they were not in
Southeast Asia and Indonesia.
In 1499 and 1502, Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian merchant, accompanied two voyages
that explored the east coast of South America. That continent, he discovered, extended
much farther south than previously thought — and much farther south than Asia.
Accounts of his voyages attributed to him were published in Europe, and in 1507, Martin
Waldseemüller produced a world map showing a new continent of “America.”
Figure 71. Martin Waldesmüller was the first cartographer to identify America
as a separate continent, and named it after Amerigo Vespucci. Published in
1507, his twelve-panel wall map, the Universalis Cosmographia, was also one
of the first European maps to show latitude and longitude.

Waldesmüller’s map shows clearly the extent of Europeans’ knowledge at this time. Look
carefully for the lines of latitude, which are not straight — remember, this is decades
before Mercator — but curve upward. The shapes of known landmasses are clearly
recognizable. Europe and the Middle East look pretty good. Africa looks right, because
Portuguese sailors had explored its entire coastline, though North Africa, which was better
known, is bigger than it should be. Southeast Asia stretches too far south, though, and the
islands of Indonesia are too large, too spread out, and difficult to identify if you’re used to
looking at modern maps.
America is the interesting part of this map. If you look closely, you can identify
Florida, Cuba and the other islands of the Caribbean, the Yucatan Peninsula and the coast
of Mexico, Panama, and the east coast of South America. As in Indonesia, the islands are
drawn too large. Most of North America is a guess, or blank. And the continent is far too
narrow: Europeans hadn’t gotten very far inland yet. They didn’t know how big America
was, and they hadn’t yet found the Pacific Ocean.
WHERE’S THE PACIFIC?
In 1513, Vasco Núñez De Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama, the thin strip of land that
connects North and South America. The isthmus runs from east to west, and so Balboa’s
party traveled south across it. When he saw the Pacific Ocean on the other side, Balboa
named it Mar del Sur, the South Sea, and claimed possession of both the ocean and all
adjoining lands in the name of the Spanish crown.
Figure 72. Panama is the
What Europeans wanted, though — despite the riches of the Americas — was a sea
narrowest part of the American
continent between the Arctic
route to Asia. In 1519 Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer in the service of Spain,
and Cape Horn. sailed west in an attempt to reach the Spice Islands of Indonesia. Reaching the Americas,
he sailed south along the coast of South America until he found Cape Horn at the
continent’s southernmost tip. Near the Cape, a strait cuts through the tip of South
America, and it is named the Strait of Magellan after him. He continued his journey
northwest across the Pacific to the Philippines, where he was killed. His crew continued
west, rounding the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa, and the survivors
returned to Spain three years after their departure, completing the first known
circumnavigation of the globe. Their voyage of 43,400 miles gave Europeans a clearer
sense of just how big the earth was.
It was now possible to sail west or east from Europe to reach Asia, but both routes
required long voyages around southern continents. Was there an alternative?
THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE

The English and French, eager for routes to Asia they could call their own, sent explorers to
find a “northwest passage” around or through the North American continent. In 1497, John
Cabot sailed in search of a westward route to Asia and landed in eastern Canada, thinking
he had found the northeastern coast of Asia. In the late 1500s Martin Frobisher searched
for a route around the north coast of North America, exploring the Canadian Arctic, but
failed to find a navigable route.

Figure 73. Sebastian Münster’s map of the New World, first published in
1540, popularized the idea of a “Sea of Verrazano” splitting the North
American continent.
In 1524, Giovanni da Verrazano sailed for France in search of a northern route to the
Pacific, and became the first European to explore the coast of North Carolina. He landed
near Cape Fear, sailed south along the coast of South Carolina, then headed north again.
Finding the Outer Banks, he thought that the water on the other side was open ocean —
surely, thought Verrazano, “the oriental sea between the west and north. Which is the one,
without doubt, which goes about the extremity of India, China and Cathay [East Asia].” In
fact he had discovered the Pamlico Sound, but back in Europe, mapmakers began to draw
North America as being split by the “Sea of Verrazano”, with a narrow land bridge on the
Figure 74. John Farrer’s 1651 east coast connecting the northern and southern parts. As late as 1651, a map of Virginia
map of Virginia showed the showed the Pacific Ocean as only a ten-day march away.
Pacific Ocean lapping at the
western foothills of the
Explorations continued through the 1700s. Jacques Cartier explored the Saint
Appalachian Mountains. Lawrence River in the sixteenth century, hoping it would lead to the Pacific. In 1609,
Henry Hudson discovered the bay that bears his name and sailed up the Hudson River as
far as Albany before giving up his search. Further explorations of the Canadian coast in the
1790s convinced the English that there was no navigable route around Canada — the sea
route would lie too far north, in icy waters. When Lewis and Clark, exploring North
America by land in 1804–1806, found the Great Divide — the line through the Rockies
from which rivers flow east or west, but not from one side to the other — the dream of a
navigable northwest passage finally died.

Figure 75. By the 1790s, North America had been mapped fairly accurately,
except for the northernmost reaches of Canada. Note, though, the
optimistically labeled “River of the West” that would seem to connect the
Mississipi with Puget Sound.
There is a real Northwest Passage — northwest around Canada, through the Arctic Sea,
The Northwest Passage
and out into the Pacific through the Bering Strait. But the Arctic waters are studded with
continues to attract explorers
and adventurers. In the fall of icebergs where they are open at all, and navigating it eventually became, for the British, a
1997, French sailor Sébastien matter of pride rather than practicality. Repeated expeditions in the nineteenth century
Roubinet6 completed the first failed. The Northwest Passage was not conquered by sea until 1906, when the Norwegian
navigation of the Northwest
explorer Roald Amundsen threaded his way among the islands of northern Canada.
Passage by a ship without an
engine in a single season. Amundsen’s journey lasted three years, and though heroic, was impossible to replicate
with a commercial vessel. But by this time it made no difference. Two years earlier, work
had begun on the Panama Canal. When it opened in 1914, the canal joined the Atlantic and
Pacific oceans and made the quest for a westward passage to Asia finally obsolete after
more than 400 years.

The shape of things to come
In most of North America today, it is impossible to get truly, completely lost. Every gas
station sells local area maps. Detailed maps of every heavily inhabited part of the world are
available from any computer with an internet connection. Cars increasingly have built-in
GPS navigation. Even hikers in wilderness areas carry accurate maps, compasses
adjustable to local magnetic deviance, and handheld GPS systems!
With all of these tools at our disposal, it’s easy to look at early maps of the New World
and simply laugh. But considering the challenges early explorers and mapmakers faced,
what’s amazing is that they found their way around at all — and that they communicated
their discoveries to others as well as they did.
Figure 76. With the aid of On the Web

information from satellites and
complex mathematical Navigational methods at the time of John Cabot
projections, today’s maps show http://www.heritage.nf.ca/exploration/navigate.html
great detail and precision.
This article from Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage explains the various tools European
explorers used in the 1500s.
The mathematics of the Mercator projection

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/MercatorProjection.html
Wolfram MathWorld provides this detailed look at the trigonometry behind Mercator's
innovation.
Map Projections
http://www.colorado.edu/geography/gcraft/notes/mapproj/mapproj_f.html
Created by Peter H. Dana of the University of Texas, this site provides an overview of the many
ways to project the surface of the spherical earth onto a flat map.
Notes
1. A league is an old measurement of distance, usually about three and a half miles. It originally
meant the distance a man could walk in an hour’s time, making it a useful measurement for
land travel — if a highly variable one, since different people obviously walk at different paces. It
was standardized in various times and places, but different people in different countries may
have measured it differently. Columbus, as you can see from this entry in his journal, reckoned
the league as four miles.
2. Presumably a kind of seabird.
3. The Canary Islands are a Spanish possession off the northwest coast of Africa. They became an
important port for sea traffic across the Atlantic.
4. Seabirds. Pardela is the Spanish name for petrels or shearwaters.
5. Excerpt from Columbus’ journals is from the Medieval Sourcebook (see

http://www.learnnc.orghttp://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/columbus1.html), made
available online by Fordham University.

6. See http://www.babouche-expe.eu/home.html.

The De Soto expedition
16th-Century de Soto expedition offers scholars a look at earliest encounters
between two civilizations
By Ellen K. Coughlin. Copyright 2007, The Chronicle of Higher Education. Reprinted

with permission.
As you read...
D R E A M S O F C ONQUES T
De Soto set out in 1539 to conquer North America for Spain. He failed in that goal, and died of a fever on the
banks of the Mississippi. But he was the first European to explore the interior of North America, and he had
a tremendous impact on the peoples he met only briefly. The diseases his men carried left epidemics in
their wake, breaking down the complex societies he found. Just what those societies were like, and exactly
the impact De Soto had on them, is still being debated — as you will learn from this article.
T R A C I N G D E SOTO’S F OOTS TEPS

In 1939, the United States De Soto Expedition Commission presented a report to Congress that established
De Soto’s route through the Southeast. Since that time, more detailed topographical maps have been
developed, and archaologists have learned far more about sixteenth-century Southeastern Indians. The
more recent research described in this article has has created a more accurate — if still not perfect — “De
Soto Trail.”
This section copyright ©2007 The Chronicle of Higher Education. All Rights Reserved.

Figure 77. This Romantic painting, created in 1847, envisions de Soto's 1541
encounter with the Mississippi River and the Indians who lived nearby.
In March 1540 the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto reached the territory of the Ichisi, in
what is now central Georgia. Surprised by the approaching strangers, the Ichisi chief sent
an emissary to de Soto’s party with three blunt questions: Who are you? What do you want?
Where are you going?
The Indians’ bewilderment is easily understood: These were the first Europeans they
had ever seen.
The 500th anniversary of the voyages of Christopher Columbus has prompted an
unprecedented examination of just such encounters. Researchers have long been
interested in the native cultures of the Americas and how they were changed by the first
Europeans and Africans to reach their shores. But the added public attention and financial
support inspired by the Columbus quincentenary, to say nothing of important advances in
history and archaeology, have encouraged a burst of new research in the last decade or so
into the whole of what scholars call the “early contact” period.
“It’s a wonderful period, where we’re undergoing a quantum leap in our knowledge,”
says Jerald T. Milanich, curator in archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

De Soto’s expedition through the southeastern United States in 1539–43 was one of the
earliest of the early contacts between Europeans and native peoples. Research on the
expedition has contributed in no small way to the “quantum leap” in our understanding of
the age.
In a cluster of related projects that have drawn on an unusual cross-fertilization
between historical and archaeological research, a group of scholars in the Southeast is
attempting to plot the route that de Soto took, as a way of understanding the “social
geography” of the native societies he met. The work on the de Soto expedition offers a
revealing snapshot of the growing body of research on the earliest encounters between the
civilizations of Europe and the Americas.
De Soto’s march, through territory then known as “La Florida,” was the first major
European expedition into the interior of the Southeast — and one of the earliest anywhere
into the country’s interior. De Soto’s men were the first, and possibly the last, Europeans to
see the great Indian chiefdoms of what archaeologists call the “Mississippian period.”
Figure 78. 1791 engraving of Four major historical documents — three of them written by men on the expedition
Hernando de Soto. — and a fragment of a fifth tell the story of de Soto’s journey.
Hoping to find the riches that other Spanish explorers had discovered in Central and
South America, de Soto landed in May 1539 near Tampa Bay, Fla., with about 600 men, a
few hundred horses, packs of dogs, and a large herd of pigs. The army set out north and
west through Florida. Along the way, as it did along its entire route, the expedition
encountered a variety of native societies. Sometimes the encounters were peaceful,
sometimes violent. Periodically, the expedition would stop for a few days’ or weeks’ rest;
each winter they set up camp for several months. Typically, as they moved on, de Soto’s
army took native men and women along as slaves or aides.
From Florida, the expedition moved north through what is now Georgia and the
Carolinas, west into Tennessee, back down through northwestern Georgia, and into
Alabama where, at a town called Mabila, de Soto’s army and local Indians engaged in a
fierce battle in which some 2,500 natives perished. From there, de Soto’s party headed
northwest into Mississippi and Arkansas.
In the spring of 1542, de Soto died of a fever. His army then set out to find a land route
through Texas to Mexico, but dwindling supplies forced them to turn back. In June 1543
they set out down the Mississippi River in seven boats, which sailed into the Gulf of Mexico
six weeks later with 311 surviving Spaniards and an unknown number of Indian slaves. No
gold or other riches had been found.
A defining characteristic of the research on the de Soto expedition has been an
unusual degree of cooperation between historians and archaeologists, who have been
making use of advances in each other’s discipline both to foster and to confirm research in
their own.
Major work on identifying the actual route de Soto took has been done over the last
decade by Charles Hudson, a professor of anthropology and history at the University of
Georgia, and his graduate students. The project was inspired, he says, by the idea of linking
archaeological knowledge with the historical record.
“In the late 70’s, some of us realized that history and prehistory had never been
connected in the Southeast,” says Mr. Hudson. “This meant that prehistorians were
working away in isolation from historians and social anthropologists, and whole bodies of
information existed in isolation from each other.”

De Soto was a natural to penetrate that isolation, he says: “The de Soto expedition was
the first occasion that native peoples of the Southeast entered the historical record.”
Advances in both history and archaeology enabled Mr. Hudson and his students to
reconstruct the de Soto route. The chronicles of de Soto’s own expedition lack the precise
geographical information that would allow researchers to pin down the location of the
places he visited. But by cross-referencing those narratives with other, lesser-known
documents of later expeditions to some of the same places, Mr. Hudson and his colleagues
were able to corroborate certain legs of the journey. That, in turn, allowed them to
speculate with greater certainty about other parts.
At the same time, Mr. Hudson was able to take advantage of information that
archaeologists had amassed about where different native societies were located in the years
before the Europeans arrived.
“De Soto not only encountered people, he encountered wildernesses, and some of
them were vast,” Mr. Hudson says. “Some of the most important pieces of evidence are
where people were not living.”
Despite some impressive detective work, Mr. Hudson acknowledges that there is not a
single spot along the route that can be ascertained with absolute certainty.
A number of archaeologists, however, profiting partly from Mr. Hudson’s work, have
identified sites that come close. The place about which they are most certain is the main
town of the Apalachee territory, near present-day Tallahassee, Fla., where de Soto and his
army spent the winter months of 1539–40.
“It is the only solid, no-kidding-the-Spanish-stood-on-this-spot site on the de Soto
route,” says Charles R. Ewen, a research administrator at the Arkansas Archaeological
Survey, who helped direct the excavation of the site, known as the Martin site, in 1987.
The Spanish may have been at Apalachee, but did de Soto himself stand on that spot?
Mr. Ewen is pretty sure he did, and the evidence that he and his colleagues put together is
indicative of the kind of interdisciplinary detective work that has marked the research on de
Soto.
In addition to the Indian artifacts and remains of Indian architecture at the site, he
says, an abundance of early-16th-century artifacts helps to place Spanish explorers at
Apalachee at the right time. Archaeologists have found Spanish pottery and jars, links of
chain mail, copper coins, colored chevron beads, and one tubular blue glass bead known as
a “Nueva Cadiz” after a town in Venezuela where identical ones have been found. Even
though only one such bead was found at the site, Mr. Ewen says it is an important
“marker” — an artifact whose date and place of origin are so firmly established that it can
“bracket a site pretty tightly.”
Figure 79. Close-up image of
It is possible, Mr. Ewen says, that the Spanish artifacts are at the site as a result of an
chain mail, which was used to
make armor. earlier, unsuccessful expedition into the region by Panfilo de Narvaez. But researchers also
found the archaeological equivalent of a smoking gun: the upper jaw of a pig, an animal
not native to the area. Archaeologists know, from the historical documents, that de Soto
had a herd of pigs with him. Narvaez, whose company was starving by that time, very likely
did not.
Another site with evidence nearly as convincing — no pig jaws — is known as Tatham
Mound, in west central Florida. According to Jeffrey M. Mitchem, who directed the
excavation of the mound in 1985 and 1986, archaeologists uncovered the buried remains of

several hundred native people, plus hundreds of glass and metal beads, silver and gold, a
piece of armor plate, and other Spanish artifacts.
“The beads were absolutely, positively early 16th century,” says Mr. Mitchem, an
archaeologist at the Arkansas Archaeological Survey and an assistant professor of
anthropology at the University of Arkansas.
A key to the identification of the mound as a de Soto site, however, was the discovery
of two bones with evidence of wounds inflicted by an edged metal weapon, such as a sword
or a halberd.
Artifacts, Mr. Mitchem notes, always carry a degree of uncertainty, because they are
transportable; beads, especially, could easily have been traded from one native group to
another.
“But cut bones argue for face-to-face contact,” he says. “There was definite physical
contact with the Spaniards.” And, while once again Narvaez is a suspect, he is known from
the historical record to have stuck close to the Florida coastline. Tatham Mound is fairly far
inland, where de Soto is thought to have gone.
“Bioarchaeological” evidence like the cut bones has proved to be a key piece of the de
Soto puzzle. Robert L. Blakely, an associate professor of anthropology at Georgia State
University, recently completed a six-year project analyzing bone fragments from what is
known as the King site, which in the early 16th century was an Indian village in the
chiefdom of Coosa, in northwest Georgia.
Many of the bones show evidence of wounds from edged metal weapons, Mr. Blakely
says. While the weapons were definitely not indigenous, he says, they could have been used
by Indians who got them from the Spanish. But the placement of the wounds, mostly on
the victims’ heads and legs, points to the Spanish: Trained in European combat methods,
Mr. Blakely says, Spanish warriors would most likely have attacked those areas on the body
that, on a European opponent, were least heavily armored.
The combination of evidence, Mr. Blakely says, has yielded “90-per-cent agreement”
that the King site was a stop on de Soto’s route.
Other spots along de Soto’s route remain a mystery. Archaeologists would love to find
the site of the battle at Mabila, in Alabama. And although the expedition spent two years in
Arkansas, no sites there have been firmly established, possibly because by then the Spanish
were running out of things to leave behind. A bit of tantalizing evidence in the form of a
glass bead and a brass bell suggests that the Parkin site in eastern Arkansas may have been
a place de Soto visited called Casqui, but that’s all the researchers have found so far.
Despite what might look like a fixation on de Soto’s itinerary, the larger purpose of the
research on his expedition is to acquire a firmer understanding of the native societies of the
early 16th century and how they were affected by what is called the Spanish entrada.
“Once we began doing this,” says Mr. Hudson of the University of Georgia, “what
began to emerge was a social geography of the 16th-century Southeast.”
Archaeologists have identified the period in the American Southeast from A.D. 1000
to the time of the first contact with Europeans as the “Mississippian period” — an age in
which there was a significant reordering of Indian society. The native peoples became
farmers and organized themselves politically into chiefdoms. They built large earthen
mounds, which are considered a distinguishing characteristic of the period.
The Spanish entrada interrupted the evolution of the Mississippian culture. Historical
and archaeological research on the de Soto expedition has helped give scholars a pretty

good idea of what the native societies were like in the 1540’s. After he went through, there
were no further significant explorations of the area for more than a hundred years — at
least none of which there are historical records.
By the late 17th century, says Mr. Hudson, when French explorers came down the
Mississippi River and the British began to work their way south, “the whole social
geography has changed.”
It appears to have changed differently in different places, however. One of the
questions that researchers are investigating is how much the native societies may have
devolved before the Spanish arrived. In some places, it seems quite certain that the
Europeans disrupted a flourishing culture.
“I think it is very clear from the de Soto narratives that the Mississippian societies
were in full swing when the Spanish went through,” says Mr. Milanich of the Florida
Museum of Natural History. “It was the European presence that brought about the
changes.”
A different pattern is evident elsewhere. Jay K. Johnson, a professor of anthropology at
the University of Mississippi, says signs in that region point toward an earlier devolution of
the Indian societies.
“In Georgia and Florida, de Soto ran into complex societies with chiefs who had
power, who could give de Soto women or delegate aides to accompany the expedition,” Mr.
Johnson says. “But I’m finding evidence in Mississippi that a shift to less complex societies
had already happened.”
Whatever the precise state of the Southeastern native societies before or after de Soto
traveled through, no one doubts that his expedition had a dramatic impact on the
civilization he encountered.
“In a lot of ways, it was the most important historical event in the southeastern United
States,” says Mr. Ewen of the Arkansas Archaeological Survey. “For de Soto it was a failure
— big time. But it marked the beginning of the end for the native inhabitants.”

Juan Pardo, the Indians of Guatari,
and first contact
By Geitner Simmons. Originally published in the Salisbury Post, Salisbury, N.C.
1999
A 400-year-old secret lies undisturbed beneath the waters of the Yadkin. It is a secret about
Rowan’s earliest recorded history, about events that predate the county’s founding by
nearly two centuries. It is a secret about the first documented Christian missionary success
in the Southeastern interior, indeed, in all of North America.
It is a secret about Indians — the Guatari, who lived in an influential settlement near
Trading Ford and were led by a female chief.
It is a secret about Europeans — Spanish explorers led by Captain Juan Pardo who
came through the North Carolina Piedmont with grand hopes of creating a powerful
empire.
The Guatari welcomed the Spanish to their village in early February 1567. On that
chilly winter day, the New World and the Old World came face to face on the banks of the
Yadkin, and Rowan’s documented history officially began.
The Spanish arrival in Rowan preceded that of the “Lost Colony” settlers on North
Carolina’s Roanoke Island by 20 years.
Go to the state archives in Raleigh, and a copy of a Spanish document from 1569 offers
this description of the Rowan County area and the Yadkin River at the point of first
European contact in 1567:
It is a rich land… a land of mountain ridges and flat tracks of arable land, good for all the
crops of the world.… Next to this place passes a very full river.… They say that any sort of ship
could sail more than 20 leagues up this river.
Pardo himself wrote of Guatari, which was the name of the Indians as well as their village:
“This land… is one of the good lands that exists in the world.”
Such descriptions impressed Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, governor of La Florida, the
sprawling Spanish colonial territory that, according to Spain, included the entire Southeast
and all of the Atlantic coast. Menéndez was so taken by descriptions of Guatari that he
intended it to be the site of his personal agricultural estate — a 5,500-square-mile domain
promised him by the Crown.
This section copyright ©1999 Salisbury Post. All Rights Reserved.

But the Spaniards’ ambitious dreams quickly withered in Southern soil. And the
native tribes, beset by European-borne epidemics of smallpox and other diseases, faced
sweeping disruptions in their way of life. The Guatari would eventually leave the Yadkin
area and ultimately take on a new identity.
Similarly, the colonial records noting the Spanish presence at Guatari became quietly
submerged beneath the waters of history. Unknown in the United States for centuries, the
documents would eventually be discovered — though detective work by American
archaeologists would not work out an accurate route for Pardo’s Southeastern expedition
until the 1980s.
Four centuries after Pardo’s men braved heat and cold on a 900-mile route through
the Carolinas and Tennessee, the one-time village of Guatari is itself submerged — literally
— beneath the waters of High Rock Lake. Archaeologists have never excavated the Guatari
site — its exact location hasn’t been pinpointed — though digs at Trading Ford in the
1940s did turn up intriguing hints about Indian life in precolonial times. So, while much
of the Guatari story is known, much remains hidden.
The secret still lies beneath the Yadkin.
Beginnings of empire
The story of the Pardo expedition begins in a most peculiar place and with a most peculiar
question:
What are U.S. Marines doing playing golf?
That question can be answered by going to Parris Island, S.C. There, the Marine
Corps operates not only its well-known basic training center but also its own golf course.
Just past the rough at the eighth hole lies a series of trenches.
Those trenches aren’t part of Marine war games, however. They’re archaeological
excavations, and they contain the ruins of Santa Elena, the capital city of Menéndez’ La
Florida.
Digging at the site began two decades ago, and over the years archaeologists have
found the remnants of forts, a plaza and a vineyard. In the 1570s, 400 people — craftsmen,
bureaucrats, soldiers, slaves — lived there, struggling to re-create a self-sufficient
European-style community under painfully daunting conditions.
It was from Santa Elena that Pardo and his company of 125 soldiers headed out on
Dec. 1, 1566, to explore the Southeastern interior.
A “primary concern”
Over a two-year period, Pardo made two expeditions inland. He started and ended at Santa
Elena and followed the same basic route: north through central South Carolina following
the Catawba-Wateree River into the North Carolina Piedmont, then west into the
Appalachians and back. The first expedition lasted from Dec. 1, 1566 to March 7, 1567; the
second, from Sept. 1, 1567 to March 2, 1568.

Menéndez had specifically charged Pardo to head west and build a road to Zacatecas,
Mexico, site of a major silver mine for the Spanish empire. The Spanish incorrectly
thought they could arrive at Zacatecas after several days’ travel over the Appalachians. But
Pardo found it necessary to head north first, toward Indian settlements, because the
expedition had to rely on the Indians for food. And Pardo and his men needed plenty of
energy, since they would walk the entire way without using pack animals.
“Food was a primary concern of the conquistadors,” says Tim Burke, who studies
Spanish colonial expeditions as part of a 16th century re-enactment group in Bradenton,
Fla. “Like their counterparts in European armies, in the New World the conquistadors lived
off the land, or more particularly off those who worked the land.… An army on the march
could rarely afford to stop and hunt, even with the plentiful wildlife available in 16th
century North America.”
Spanish soldiers trekking across North America were typically issued the following
ration initially, Burke says: two pounds of ship’s biscuit (“what the American Civil War
would call hardtack”) and a pound of cheese. That might be supplemented by dried meats
or fruit, or perhaps beans or peas. Documents state that Pardo’s expedition took along
biscuit, cheese and wine.
In short supply
After they depleted their initial stocks, Spanish explorers in the 16th century routinely
demanded food from the Indians. The main items taken were corn, beans and squash.
“Meat of any kind seems to have always been in short supply,” Burke says. “When they
could get meat, these extremely Catholic Spaniards seem to have ignored the prohibition of
eating meat on Friday.”
After leaving Santa Elena, Pardo and his men first marched northward through a
string of Indian settlements in South Carolina along the Catawba-Wateree River. The most
influential settlement was Cofitachequi, near present-day Camden.
When the Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto had passed through South Carolina 26
years earlier, he and his men regarded Cofitachequi as one of the most memorable tribes
they encountered. Blessed with stores of freshwater pearls and a city that included an
impressive ceremonial mound, the settlement of Cofitachequi was then ruled by a female
chief. De Soto tried unsuccessfully to take her hostage, though he did capture the chief’s
niece.
When Pardo’s company marched through the same area in the 1560s, Cofitachequi’s
power was substantial but diminished from De Soto’s time.
At all the Indian settlements, Pardo, following standard Spanish practice, gave a
prepared speech to the Indians, explaining that the Spanish emperor claimed the territories
and that Christian belief would now take root in the land. Over the course of the 1500s, the
stylized ceremony in which Spanish leaders presented this requerimiento, or notification,
became a standard scene throughout the New World, from Piedmont woodland to
Peruvian mountains, from Nicaraguan jungles to Arizona desert.
Pardo also instructed the Indians to build houses for later use by the Spanish and to
lay up stores of corn exclusively for Spanish use.

Hostilities
Few Indian groups in the Carolinas acted in a threatening way toward Pardo’s party.
Existing documents do describe several exceptions, however.
In one instance, a group of Indians in southern South Carolina rebelled against
Spanish demands for food and canoes. While Pardo was to the north, soldiers from Santa
Elena attacked the Indians and gave them no quarter1. In another case, a contingent of
Spaniards Pardo stationed near present-day Morganton sided with one group of Indians
against their rivals and engaged in a battle. Pardo himself later withdrew from Satapo, a
village in eastern Tennessee, after receiving warnings of a planned massed Indian attack.
De Soto’s expedition of 1539–43 had used calvary effectively against Indian warriors on
a series of occasions. Pardo’s expedition had no mounted fighters, though the soldiers were
armed with crossbows and a primitive firearm called an arquebus. Pardo encouraged a
positive reception from the Indians by offering their village leaders gifts of metal tools such
as axes, chisels and knives.
“Pardo was just lightly equipped and was part of a colonizing effort,” says Charles
Hudson, a University of Georgia archeologist who has written books on both the Pardo and
De Soto expeditions.
Spanish explorers from earlier times, such as De Soto and the conquistadors
Francisco Pizarro in Peru and Hernán Cortés in Mexico, had been aggressive and often
ruthless. Those explorers had been “the first guys on the land,” Hudson says. “They were
using every sort of force they felt was legitimate, whereas Pardo was really more
conciliatory. He was giving out gifts and trying to build positive relationships. It was more
of a diplomatic effort.”
“I have no reason to think that Pardo was a nicer guy than De Soto and the others,”
Hudson says. “It was just that the times and the nature of what was going on were
different.”
It was in Pardo’s interest to take a diplomatic approach in dealing with the Indians,
says Paul Hoffman, a historian at Louisiana State University who has translated the Pardo
expedition documents. “I have little doubt that Pardo could have fought his way into the
interior, or used De Soto-like tactics,” Hoffman says, “but that would have defeated his
purpose: explore and live off the land.”
Maneuvering
Records do indicate that Pardo’s men took a small number of Indians captive. So, while
Pardo pursued a diplomatic approach with the natives, Hudson says, Indian leaders
probably understood that behind the Spaniard’s conciliatory words lay the clear possibility
of coercion.
Throughout Pardo’s expedition, in fact, the Spanish and the Indians constantly
maneuvered to maximize their influence with each other. To what extent each side
shrouded its true agenda with deception is impossible to determine at a distance of four
centuries.

The first Indian settlement Pardo visited in present-day North Carolina was Otari, at
present-day Charlotte. The Spanish then headed north along the Catawba River and
stopped at the Indian village at Yssa, near Denver, in Lincoln County. “There I found many
chiefs,” Pardo later wrote, “and a great number of Indians to whom I made the customary
speech and they remained under the dominion of His Holiness and of His Majesty.”
The Spanish next turned toward the mountains. At the foot of the Blue Ridge
Mountains, they camped at Joara, an Indian settlement at an important crossroads north of
present-day Morganton. Pardo could see that snow had fallen on the mountains, so he
decided against trying to press westward. The Spanish built a small fort, which they
christened Fort San Juan.
Pardo left a garrison of 30 men under the command of Sergeant Hernando Moyano
de Morales.
“A very full river”

Turning eastward amid the winter chill, Pardo and his entourage re-entered the Piedmont
and stayed briefly at villages at Guaquiri (Hickory) and Quinahaqui (Catawba), where Pardo
gave his usual presentation to the Indian chiefs.
To cross the Catawba River, the Spanish may have used Indian canoes instead of
trying to ford it. In any case, the Spanish, numbering about 95 soldiers, entered what is
now western Rowan County and proceeded toward the Yadkin.
In early February 1567, Pardo arrived at Guatari. For the first time, the waters of the
Yadkin gleamed before him.
“It is a good land,” recorded Pardo’s notary for the second expedition, Juan de la
Bandera. “Good houses and humble, round huts as well as very large and very good huts
are to be found in all the settlements.… Next to this place passes a very full river.”
A female chief known as Guatari Mico held power in the settlement — the first time
Pardo had encountered a female leader among the Indians. Guatari Mico was said to have
39 chiefs subservient to her.
The Indians, including local leaders, turned out at Guatari in impressive numbers.
More than 30 chiefs, headed by Guatari Mico, assembled at the river settlement to greet the
Spanish travelers.
One of those lesser chiefs, Orata Chiquini, was a woman. The Spanish used the terms
cacique, mico and orata to describe various kinds of chiefs they encountered on their travels.
Pardo and his men stayed at Guatari for 15 or 16 days. The settlement was the
easternmost point the expedition visited in North Carolina. Pardo ended his visit when a
messenger from Santa Elena arrived and said Pardo needed to return to the capital.
Menéndez feared the French would retaliate for the Spanish slaughter of French Protestant
settlers on the Florida coast, and he wanted Pardo’s men to provide military
reinforcements.
Before Pardo left, he directed that his chaplain, Father Sebastian Montero, a lay
missionary2, remain at Guatari to instruct the Indians in Christian teachings. Four soldiers
also remained with Montero, who was later described as tireless in his religious duties
among the Indians.

Visit by chiefs
Pardo arrived in Santa Elena in March 1567, about a month after leaving Guatari. Six
months later, at Menéndez’ order, he led a second expedition into the interior. His train of
about 120 soldiers followed the same basic route he’d used before.
While Pardo was in Otari on his second journey, Guatari Mico and Orata Chiquini, the
two female chiefs he’d met earlier, visited him, accompanied by two of the soldiers he’d left
in Guatari. As translated by Guillermo Rufín, a captured Frenchman who served as
translator for Pardo, the two cacicas said that with the aid of the 39 subsidiary chiefs a
wooden house had been built in Guatari for the Spanish, as Pardo had commanded the
previous winter. The Guatari had also filled two storerooms with corn for the Spanish, they
said.
The cacicas signaled their obedience to the Spanish Crown by saying an Indian word,
“Yaa.” This was the common way Southeastern chiefs publicly expressed subservience to
the Spanish emperor or to a superior chief. Pardo presented the two female leaders with an
axe as a gift.
In late 1567, Pardo made his second visit to the Rowan area. On Dec. 14, according to
Bandera’s account, Pardo and his men camped in an “uninhabited place” probably near the
present Rowan-Iredell county line. The next day they arrived at Guatari.
Building a fort
The Spanish commander “was well received by the cacicas of the place,” Bandera wrote. “As
soon as he arrived, he treated with the cacicas through Guillermo Rufín, interpreter, that
they should command to come to the village all the caciques, their vassals, so that they could
help him build a fort… The cacicas made the ‘Yaa,’ letting it be understood that they were
very content to do it thus.”
On Dec. 16, several chiefs arrived, though they did not appear until late in the
morning. Pardo gave many of them a variety of metal tools as well as necklaces, mirrors
and red taffeta, all of which pleased them. Initial construction work on the fort lasted five
days. Pardo had the work proceed quickly in case he was called back to Santa Elena.
When no summons from the capital arrived, Pardo ordered that more substantial
work be done on the fort. The Indians and Spanish built four tall corner structures of thick
wood and dirt, Bandera records. The Spanish and Indians also constructed high walls
made of poles and dirt; this was the same wattle and daub method Indians used to make
their houses. Construction of the fort was completed on Jan. 6, 1568.
Pardo named the structure Fort Santiago, after the patron saint of Spain. He
designated a corporal, Lucas de Canizares, to command a group of 16 soldiers at the fort.
Canizares took a formal oath to have the soldiers treat the Indians well, which Menéndez
had made a particular priority for Pardo’s second expedition.
Pardo also gave the Indian settlement a new name: Salamanca, after a Spanish city
that housed the country’s most prestigious university.
With the fort established, Pardo, accompanied by about 63 soldiers, took leave of
Guatari for the final time. Bandera’s account is straightforward: “On Jan. 7, 1568 … the

captain, Juan Pardo, with his company continuing his return departed on this day from the
city of Salamanca which in Indian language is called Guatari, returning toward Aracushi,”
a settlement in northern South Carolina.
Ten days after leaving Guatari, Pardo had occasion to see the Yadkin-Pee Dee River a
second time. Taking a detour from their basic route, he and his men visited Ylasi, an
Indian settlement near present-day Cheraw, S.C., just south of the state line. The Yadkin-
Pee Dee flows nearby. The documents give no indication that the Spanish realized it was
the same river they’d known at Guatari.
Traces
“If the people of the Southeastern chiefdoms had built stone houses that could have
survived the centuries,” archaeologist Charles Hudson writes, “their place in the history of
the early South might not have evaded scholars for so long. But the building materials of
the Southeastern chiefdoms were impermanent: earth, wood, cane, bark, thatch and clay.”
So it is with Guatari, the Indian village now known to be Rowan’s earliest recorded
settlement. The “very large and very good huts” described by Bandera in the 1560s have
long since crumbled and returned to the earth.
The jewelry that Guatari Mico and Orata Chiquini likely wore, the axes, chisels and
mirrors that Pardo distributed to the chiefs at Guatari — all remain undiscovered.
Lost, too, is the sizeable inventory of ammunition left at Fort Santiago — some 51
pounds of lead balls for the soldiers’ guns.
Even the word “Guatari,” symbol of a once-proud people, has lost all meaning for
residents of Rowan.
Miles to the west of Rowan, at the foot of the Blue Ridge, archaeologists are now
exploring the former settlement of Joara — in 1567 the site of Fort San Juan, today a farm
owned by Pat and James Berry. Over the past decade, digs at the Berry site have revealed
the largest group of Spanish artifacts in the Southeastern interior. At the site of Guatari,
however, the waters of High Rock Lake quietly blanket the area, barring scientists from
entry.
Beneath the surface of the Yadkin, the “very full river” where Spanish explorers and
the Guatari Indians first met four centuries ago, a mystery lingers.
The waters of the Yadkin continue to move forward, and they still hold onto their
secret.
On the Web
Dig finds evidence of Spanish fort
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/1760
Near Morganton, North Carolina, archaeologists are excavating what they believe to be the
remnants of Juan Pardo's outpost at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The 16th-
century outpost, known as Fort San Juan, disappeared after Indians burned it to the ground.

Notes
1. To “give no quarter” is a phrase that means “to show no mercy.”
2. A lay missionary is one who does not belong to the clergy or formal ministry.

Spanish had many reasons for Pardo
expedition
1999
What spurred the Spanish to set up a territorial capital on the South Carolina coast in the
1560s and launch Juan Pardo’s expedition into the Southeastern interior?
The reasons range from the self-serving (protecting an enormously profitable silver
mine) to the spiritual (converting the Indians to Christianity) to the anxious (reducing the
capital’s population to lower the demand for food).
Santa Elena, the capital the Spanish founded in 1566 on what’s now Parris Island, was
the latest in a long line of attempts by the Spanish to establish viable colonial settlements
in the Southeast. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, the Spanish governor in the Southeast, had
founded St. Augustine in Florida in 1565. Spain’s previous colonization efforts in Florida,
Georgia and South Carolina had all proven failures, going back to the 1520s.
Yet, the Spanish remained interested in controlling North America, in part because
they sought to protect the sea routes between the Americas and Europe. Spain used those
routes to transport vast sums of silver mined from newly conquered areas in Mexico and
Peru — silver that provided the Spanish empire with an extraordinary source of wealth.
Pirates from Spain’s main European rival, France, routinely robbed Spanish vessels of
much of their cargo, however.
One way to solve the problem, the Spanish believed, was to establish a road linking
Santa Elena to the primary Mexican silver mine, at Zacatecas. The silver could then be
transported overland and shipped directly across the Atlantic, avoiding the pirate-plagued
Caribbean.
Unfortunately for the Spanish, their knowledge of North American geography was
quite limited, despite the fact that a Spanish navigator had accurately mapped the Gulf of
Mexico as early as 1519.
Pardo “was supposed to build a road from Santa Elena to the Spanish silver mines at
Zacatecas,” says Robin Beck, a North Carolina native and graduate student in archaeology
at Northwestern University studying the Pardo expedition. “The Spanish believed the mine
was only a few days’ travel over the Appalachian Mountains.”
But while Menéndez and other officials thought that only 780 miles separated Santa
Elena and Zacatecas, the actual distance was 1,800 miles.
Spanish had many reasons for Pardo expedition | 129

Menéndez, renowned in the 1560s as Spain’s most experienced naval commander,
hoped to establish a series of fortified coastal cities and build a strong naval presence along
the Atlantic coast. He and other leading Spanish colonists hoped colonization would
further additional goals:
• Finding precious metals and perhaps diamonds.
• Expanding the Spanish monarch’s domain.
• Gaining lands and noble titles for themselves.
• Finding the Strait of Anián, the legendary passageway to the Pacific.
In an age when religious questions often provoked heated argument and even war, the
Spanish also sought to bring Catholicism to the Indians. Menéndez’ plans, says historian
Paul Hoffman of Louisiana State University, amounted to “an extensive vision that he
thought would make him wealthy as well as save many souls.”
After Menéndez had signed a contract with the Crown for his colonization effort, the
Spanish discovered that Huguenots — Protestant settlers from France — had already set
up a settlement on the Florida coast. In 1565 Menéndez, arriving with colonists and soldiers
from Spain, oversaw an attack on the French settlement and coolly ordered the slaying of
most of the male colonists, in part out of anti-Protestant zealotry.
Philip II, the Spanish monarch who also ruled the powerful Hapsburg empire, later
voiced approval of the executions less because the Huguenots were colonial rivals than
because they were, in Philip’s eyes, religious heretics.
A year earlier, the Spanish had captured a boy from the French colony, Guillaume
Rouffi. The Spanish renamed him Guillermo Rufín and put him to work as a translator.
Rufín later served as Pardo’s translator with the Indians, including at Guatari.
One last goal for Menéndez was to relieve the food shortage in Santa Elena. Once
Pardo arrived in Santa Elena as part of military reinforcements and received his orders to
head into the interior, Menéndez directed him to take about half his men with him. As a
result, the Pardo expedition reduced the pressure on the capital’s meager food supply.
Food shortages were a universal problem for virtually all the early European
settlements on the Atlantic coast. The same scenes of colonists coping with hunger — and
demanding food from nearby Indians — repeated themselves across the Southeast, the
Middle Atlantic states and New England.

Spanish empire failed to conquer
Southeast
1999
Juan Pardo’s expedition erected six forts in the Southeastern interior, including one at
Guatari. Most of them seem to have fallen in short order.
That result wasn’t surprising. The forts — Guatari (Trading Ford), Joara (Morganton),
two in the Appalachian Mountains and two in South Carolina — were isolated, lightly
garrisoned in most cases, dependent on the Indians for food, and prone to trigger Indian
resentment.
Most of the forts had apparently fallen by 1568. The forts at Guatari and Joara may
have lasted longer than most of the others. In his own written account of his expedition, for
example, Pardo took full responsibility for establishing the forts at Guatari and Joara, but
he explicitly noted that others in his expedition had jointly supported creation of forts in
the mountains. Pardo may have been trying to shift the blame for the fall of those forts,
says Charles Hudson, a University of Georgia archaeologist who has written extensively on
the expedition.
“Leaving those guys in those little garrisons in the midst of those really tough
individuals — I can’t imagine they lasted very long,” Hudson says. “Did they pick them off
one at a time, did one community get fed up with them, or was there a general uprising?
There’s not any way to answer that at all.”
The soldiers were “forced guests” who likely drew the ire of their Indian hosts in a
number of ways, says Paul Hoffman, a historian at Louisiana State University. The Spanish
would have demanded food, and in some cases, Indian women. There would have been
friction with some Indians over status.
“What little evidence we have suggests they wore out their welcome,” Hoffman says.
Ghost
The predicament facing Pardo’s soldiers was reminiscent of the situation faced a century
earlier by a figure well-known to most Spanish soldiers: Pedro Carbonero. In the 1400s,
Carbonero, a Spanish military officer fighting to expel the Moors from Spain, led his men

deep into Moorish territory. The Moors killed the entire Spanish contingent, including
Carbonero.
To Spanish soldiers, the name “Pedro Carbonero” thereafter embodied the idea of a
military venture that had overextended itself and ended in disaster. Pardo’s soldiers who
manned the interior forts may have felt haunted by Carbonero’s ghost.
Father Juan Rogel, a Jesuit, wrote from Havana in July 1568 that five of the
Southeastern forts had fallen. He placed the blame on the Spanish soldiers’ lust for Indian
women. Spanish harassment of Indian women would complicate the Spanish conquest of
North America for two more centuries.
One solution was offered by the chief of the Catawba Indians in 1701, according to
English explorer John Lawson: Whenever European visitors entered the Catawba
settlement, the chief would offer them Indian women he kept as prostitutes.
When the Pardo expedition was organized, the Spanish territorial governor had
specifically ordered that the soldiers leave the Indian women alone. Pardo had reiterated
that point at Guatari when he put Lucas de Canizares, a corporal, in charge of Fort
Santiago, the Spanish fort completed in January 1568.
Santiago was the patron saint of Spain. Spanish soldiers regarded him as the exemplar
of the Christian warrior.
Jaime Martínez, a Spanish colonist, wrote that demands for food by the Pardo soldiers
triggered Indian hostilities. Martínez apparently based his conclusion on statements by
Juan Martín de Badajoz, whom Martínez said had escaped from one of the interior forts
and passed through miles of forests and brambles to reach Santa Elena, the Spanish
territorial capital at what is now Parris Island, S.C.
A curiosity stands out about the fort at Guatari: It’s a confirmed fact that Sebastian
Montero, the Spanish missionary there, returned alive and eventually sailed home to Spain.
Why wasn’t he killed? What happened to the 16 soldiers left to garrison the fort? When
exactly did Montero leave Guatari?
Existing documents provide no answers.
A list of rations survives from Santa Elena, and notations alongside some of the names
indicates which men were killed by Indians. The list does not indicate which soldiers
served at which forts, but it does show that the soldiers manning one of the mountain forts,
at the Indian settlement of Chiaha, were all killed.
Under attack
The Spaniards’ dreams for a Southeastern empire crashed against painful reality in the
years following Pardo’s expedition. An Indian uprising in South Carolina in 1576 led to
evacuation of Santa Elena, whose residents fled south to St. Augustine. One victim of the
first Indian attack was Hernando Moyano. He had been a sergeant on Pardo’s trip, eager to
find precious metals. For a time he had commanded the fort at Joara.
The Spanish returned and built a new fort at Santa Elena in 1577, re-establishing the
capital. But the challenges remained formidable.
While Indian resistance remained determined, the English government under
Elizabeth I stepped up pressure on Spanish forces in the Southeast. Sir Francis Drake led a

successful naval assault on St. Augustine in 1585. He intended to attack Santa Elena as a
follow-up but wound up missing the harbor.
Spanish authorities decided in 1587 that they lacked the military capacity to adequately
defend Santa Elena. So, the Spanish themselves torched the settlement and sailed to St.
Augustine. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, the territorial governor who had ordered the Pardo
expedition in 1566, didn’t live to see the abandonment. He had died in 1574.
The Spanish empire later achieved successes in California and maintained power
throughout Latin America for centuries. But its area of control in the American Southeast
shrank to include only Florida and the Gulf Coast area.
Manipulators
In the 1600s and 1700s, England would conquer most of the Southeast. Spearheading the
drive against the Spanish was a set of savvy, wealthy trader/planters in South Carolina who
had a powerful combination of traits Juan Pardo and his Spanish contemporaries never
mastered: sharp trading skills, wide-ranging organizational talent, and a cynical ability to
manipulate the Indians by drawing them into the European trading network.
When necessary, the English traders, masters of their own private empires,
demonstrated a cold reliance on brute force. The Spanish, reeling, had no choice but to fall
back.
Many reasons can be cited for the collapse of the Spanish empire in the Southeastern
interior.
The Hapsburg Empire, of which Spain was a part, stood in the late 1500s as a classic
example of imperial overstretch. The empire was often waging war on multiple fronts in
Europe. French and English ships attacked Spanish ships and ports in the Caribbean, often
with great success. Despite the enormous flow of silver and gold into Spanish coffers from
the New World in the 1500s, the empire declared bankruptcy not once but twice. Spain’s
colonial endeavors in the 16th century Southeast were a money-losing enterprise for the
empire, the same as they were in the American Southwest during the same period.
Funds and soldiers that the empire could have used to aid the conquest of the
Carolinas and other parts of the Southeast were directed instead toward European problem
areas, most notably the Netherlands. There, the Spanish waged a ferocious, decades-long
campaign to retain control — and ultimately failed.
Possibilities
So, the great opportunities that seemed to stand before the Spanish empire for much of the
16th century gradually slipped away. There was a time, however, when the possibilities
seemed endless.
Many landmarks in North America received Spanish names early in the 1500s from
Spanish explorers, from Rio Espiritu Santo (the Mississippi River) to Bahía de Santa María
(Chesapeake Bay) to Cabo de las Arenas (Cape Cod). Spain’s imperial ambitions stretched
completely up the Atlantic seaboard and across the continent to the Pacific. For a time in

the mid-1500s, it looked as if Spain, with its awesome war machine, just might conquer
whatever it set out to claim.
To this day, 400-year-old Indian paintings of Spanish soldiers on horseback are still
visible on a canyon wall in Arizona, a testament to that imperial vision.
In 1663, Henry Hilton, an English navigator in the employ of planters from Barbados,
sailed into the Port Royal region on the South Carolina coast. Hilton Head Island gets its
name from him.
Hilton landed at an island the English called Port Royal. A century earlier, the Spanish
had another name for it: Santa Elena.
When Hilton stepped onto the beach at Port Royal, nearly a century had passed since
Juan Pardo had ventured from the island into the Southeastern interior, and 76 years since
the Spanish had burned Santa Elena in their final evacuation. Hilton moved forward and
scrutinized the landscape. Indians had resettled there. They greeted him.
A number of them spoke Spanish.
In the plaza of the Indian village, he found one other, decades-old remnant of the
Spanish occupation. Just outside the Indians’ main lodge, as if standing guard against the
forces of eternity, stood a large wooden cross.
On the Web
Spain Makes a Stand
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/digs-mar06.html?c=y&page=1
This 2006 Smithsonian Magazine article describes how archeologists discovered Fort San Juan,
one of the settlements established by conquistador Juan Pardo.

4 From England to America
After Spain gave up its effforts to control territory as far north as North
Carolina, England, which was envious of Spain’s wealth and power, had a
try at colonizing the New World. This chapter tells the story of England’s
first attempts — bleak failures that hardly suggested the success of the
colonies that could come later, in the seventeeenth and eighteenth
centuries.
We’ll start with two perspectives on England at the end of the sixteenth
century. First, the good news: England was on the rise, becoming more
proud and powerful than ever before under Queen Elizabeth I. Then, the
bad news: life in “Merrie Olde England” was pretty rotten for most people!
As you read, ask yourself whether the two articles contradict each other. Can
a nation be proud and powerful while so many of its people are miserable?
Then we’ll look at the colony on Roanoke Island — the famous “Lost
Colony” that disappeared without a trace and has fascinated people ever
since. You’ll read the story of the Roanoke settlement and the reports of
three of the men who tried to make it a success, the explorers Amadas and
Barlowe and Roanoke’s governor, John White. Ask yourself what the
English could — or should — have done differently. Could they have
planned better, or were there lessons they had to learn the hard way? Was
135
there hope for Roanoke, or was the Lost Colony simply doomed from the
start?

136
England's flowering
Excerpted from Fort Raleigh National Historic Site brochure, provided by the
National Park Serivce (see http://www.nps.gov/). Adapted and with further content
added by David Walbert.
The reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558–1603) was one of the high-water marks of English
history. After the troubled years under her sister Mary I — known as “Bloody Mary” for her
religious persecutions — the English welcomed the spirited, intelligent, and strong-willed
Elizabeth. England had long been a small, somewhat static nation, coveted by the European
powers and castigated by the Pope as a hotbed of Protestantism. Now there was a sense of
possibilities, of national purpose, under the young queen.

The Tudors and English Protestantism
The Protestant Reformation was At the end of the Middle Ages, England was a small nation on the fringe of Europe. In the
a movement in Europe in the 1400s, England had fought a long war with France, called the Hundred Years War. Its
sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries by which many people
economy was poor, many people were hungry, and the “Black Death” — repeated
and countries gradually broke epidemics of the bubonic plague — killed millions in the century after it arrived in the
away from the Catholic Church, 1340s.
which in the Middle Ages had In the midst of this turmoil, the authority of the English kings was fading. Two
been Western Europe’s only
church. Most people think of
competing houses — families with claims to the throne — fought a civil war, called the
the Reformation as beginning War of the Roses. Henry Tudor emerged from the War of the Roses as king, and as Henry
with Martin Luther’s 95 Theses VII, he worked to restore peace and prosperity and to strengthen the power of the throne.
— criticisms of the Catholic He also tried to forge an alliance with Spain by marrying his son, Arthur, to Catherine of
Church — in 1517, although
discontentment with the church
Aragon, the daughter of the Spanish King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.
had been growing for several Arthur died young, and Henry VII’s second son succeeded him as Henry VIII. When
decades. Henry VIII became king in 1509, he married his brother’s widow Catherine. But Henry
and Catherine had only one child in eighteen years of marriage — a daughter, Mary. Henry
The Catholic Church resisted needed a son to succeed him as king, and he blamed Catherine for the lack of an heir. In
attempts by reformers to set up
1533, he had the Archbishop of Canterbury — the highest authority of the Catholic Church
their own churches, and
Catholic kings fought wars in England — declare his marriage to Catherine invalid, and married Anne Boleyn.
against countries that converted The Pope responded by excommunicating Henry — banishing him from the Catholic
to Protestantism. These battles Church. At this time, Catholicism was the religion of nearly all of Western Europe — not
culminated in the Thirty Years’
just the official religion but the only religion permitted. The Protestant Reformation had
War (1618–1648). In England,
conflict between Protestants barely begun; it had taken root only in a few small areas where a ruler supported it.
and Catholics led to civil war in Elsewhere, the Catholic Church reigned supreme, and the Pope’s word was law.
the seventeenth century. Excommunication meant that Henry VIII was no longer a legitimate ruler.
Henry VIII, though, was not inclined to take anyone else’s word as law. He separated
England from the Catholic Church and created the Church of England. The Church of
England had the same structure as the old Catholic Church, but instead of the Pope at its
head, it had the king of England — Henry himself.
By declaring England a Protestant nation and by annulling his marriage to Catherine,
Henry made England and Catholic Spain enemies and set the stage for religious conflict
within England that would last until the late 1600s. His daughter Mary, who like her
Spanish mother was Catholic, took the throne in 1553 as Queen Mary I, and she married
Prince Philip of Spain. Again, England was launched into bloody civil war and a period of
religious oppression. At this time Europeans assumed that a nation would be one religion
or another, and the English fought one another over whether England would be Catholic or
Protestant.

The Golden Age
Figure 81. The family tree of the House of Tudor shows how complicated the
royal succession could become.
In 1559 Mary died, and because she had no children, her half-sister Elizabeth — daughter
of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn — succeeded her. Elizabeth affirmed England’s
Protestantism and set up a conflict with Spain. But she reestablished the authority of the
crown and led England into an era of peace and prosperity that some historians call the
“Golden Age” of England.
Elizabeth’s radiant dress, sparkling court, and adroit advisors set the tone for the
period, and her personality helped give the nation a strong self-image: dynamic yet stable,
where ventures and reputations rose and fell with dizzying speed while the machinery of
government ground on. Hers was a rule of benevolent authoritarianism, and her shrewd
and sensitive handling of people earned total loyalty from her advisors and early
compliance from Parliament. She felt no need for a standing army in the “French fashion.”
The aristocracy’s grand homes changed from fortified castles to open manors, reflecting
their owners’ confidence in the stable social order and in the state’s ability to defend them.
That strength also benefited the common people, who took pride in England’s growing
international prestige and enjoyed an improved standard of living. Elizabeth’s reluctance to
indulge in petty wars and her shrewd financial management kept the Crown on a sound
Figure 82. Nicholas Hilliard’s financial footing for most of her rule. The old feudal system had faded, and the economy
1585 portrait of Queen Elizabeth. was opening up, with a new middle class of merchants searching for investments and
expanded markets for the products of England.
So with new strength and self-confidence, England turned outward, and began to
make the sea its own. The nation finally had the means and the will to challenge Spain’s
and Portugal’s dominance of world exploration and exploitation. To that end “privateers”
served an important function. Their private fleets were supposed to raid only the shipping

of official enemies, but during the cold war with France and Spain, the ships of both
countries were fair game.
Sir Francis Drake’s circumnavigation of the world (1577–1580) was also the most
famous English privateering voyage. He looted Spanish shipping and, by flouting Spain’s
claims to monopoly in the Americas, proved the weakness of its empire.
Successful sea captains weren’t the only ones to find Elizabeth’s favor. Under her rule,
England enjoyed a flowering of the arts, especially literature. During her reign, William
Shakespeare gained renown for his plays and sonnets; Francis Bacon wrote important
essays promoting science and progress; Edmund Spenser wrote his epic poem The Fairie
Queene about Queen Elizabeth; and Philip Sidney became famous for his poetry. Their
names commanded as much respect as those of explorers and soliders such as Walter
Raleigh and Francis Drake.
England and Spain

In the 1580s, Protestant England’s rivalry with Catholic Spain flared into open war. King
Philip II of Spain — who had been married to Elizabeth’s sister Queen Mary — wanted to
stop England’s harrassment of Spain’s colonial possessions and fleets and to prevent
England from threatening Spanish power on the continent of Europe. In 1588, he sent a
fleet of ships to invade England. That fleet has become known as the Spanish Armada, and
it is famous mainly for being an utter disaster for Spain.
In May 1588, 130 ships carrying 25,000 men left Spain for the Spanish Netherlands
Figure 83. The defeat of the (now Belgium and Holland), where they were to pick up an additional army of 30,000. But
Spanish Armada, as depicted by bad weather blew the armada off course, and English ships prevented them from reaching
Philippe-Jacques de
port. On August 8, the English fleet defeated the Spanish in battle and forced the armada
Loutherbourg in 1796.
up the coast of Scotland, where it had to sail all the way around Britain before returning
home. Only half the men and ships of the original armada returned safely to Spain.
The defeat of the armada kept the Spanish army out of Britain, but it was not a
resounding victory for England. The war between England and Spain continued until the
end of Elizabeth’s reign, when her successor James I signed a peace treaty with Philip III.
It prevented England from fully supporting its first American colony at Roanoke and
delayed further attempts at colonization until 1607. The war cost both nations greatly, and
Spain won most of its remaining battles. But the reign of Elizabeth I marked a turning
point in European history. By the end of the seventeenth century, Spanish power was in
decline, and England’s had begun to rise.
On the Web
Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603)
http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/eliza.htm
This website provides insight into the life of Queen Elizabeth I through her own poetry,
speeches and letters; essays and articles about her; a gallery of images of her; and a list of
resources where students can learn more.

Merrie olde England?
BY CHARLES CARLTON
Reprinted by permission from Tar Heel Junior Historian 24, no. 2 (Spring 1985): 5-7,
Figure 84. This Elizabethan house illustrates the plaster-and-timber buildings

common throughout England at that time.

Setting sail from the Old World
Even by jumbo jet it is a long way from England to eastern North Carolina, but the trip is
short indeed when compared to that of the Elizabethans who sailed to the same area 400
years ago. One Wednesday last spring I stood in the British Museum in London looking at
the Roanoke exhibition, which will be coming to Raleigh next year. Just three days later I
was with a party of Tar Heel Junior Historians at Manteo, visiting the sites of Fort Raleigh,
the first English settlement in North America, and the Elizabeth II. This small ship, a
reconstructed sailing vessel based on Elizabethan shipbuilding designs, vividly illustrated
Figure 85. The Elizabeth II, at what those first English colonists endured to come to this country. Space was cramped and
Roanoke Island Festival Park in
living conditions were neither private nor comfortable. There were no bunks, hammocks,
Manteo.
or cots, and the rat-infested journey lasted at least two months. Women and children had to
stay below deck for most of the voyage, because the crowded deck area barely had room for
the working sailors — and none at all for playing children or sightseers. Elizabethan sailors
often resented having to carry passengers, too, when they could have been out raiding
Spanish merchant ships for gold or other treasure. Looking at the Elizabeth II, I wondered
what had prompted those 115 brave souls to leave England and risk the dangers of both an
ocean voyage and a New World.
While none of the eighty-nine men, seventeen women, and nine children who made
the journey left written accounts of why they went, two sorts of forces must have compelled
them. First there was the push out of England, and secondly there was the pull attracting
them to the New World.
Without doubt conditions in England could be hard. Famine brought periodic
starvation to a population that already endured hunger as a common companion. Younger
sons of the more prosperous middle class often had to seek employment away from their
families or local communities because the eldest son of an English family inherited all the
property from his father’s estate. There was no land or wealth left over for younger sons.
Some of the “lost colonists” may have come from England’s middle class and perhaps were
Figure 86. Beggars and the
willing to leave England for this reason.
unemployed fared poorly in Landless laborers who worked for aristocratic landowners had an even tougher time,
Elizabethan England. The law particularly during the winter when they faced long months of hunger. Many resorted to
ordered them to be “grievously
poaching game from a landowner’s estate in order to feed their families. If they were
whipped” for begging. A second
offense meant hanging. The
caught the punishment was swift and hard. With no chance of owning land in England, the
beggar shown above is on his thought of the rich land in the New World probably seemed very attractive.
way to the gallows, pictured at Conditions for poor people in towns were even more desperate, for there was no
the extreme left.
welfare system for the less fortunate as we know it. Beggars, for instance, could be whipped
until their backs were bloody. Jobs were few, pay was uniformly low because of public laws
that existed then, and the chance for earning a better life was nearly impossible.

The promise of the New World
The dawn of the age of exploration gripped people’s imaginations and caused many
adventurous men and women, unhappy with life in England, to dream of travel. Whatever
the reasons encouraging people to leave England, the New World offered the promise of a
fresh start without the problems of the old country. Many colonists, particularly the
soldiers in Ralph Lane’s 1585 settlement, came with the narrow goal of plunder and
immediate wealth. But what made the last Roanoke colony of 1587 unique among all the
other settlement attempts by European countries at that time was the determination to
send families to farm and improve the land. These were people who came to stay in the
New World, rather than adventurers seeking quick wealth before returning to England.
Figure 87. A 1552 school seal Simply, the colonists came to build another, better England. All who came prized the
from Louth Grammar School in
promise of 500 acres of land offered by Sir Walter Raleigh. This represented a huge farm
England bears the motto “Spare
the rod and spoil the child.” by the standards of the crowded England they left behind. But they never forgot that they
Elizabethans regarded children were Englishmen. They felt a deep sense of patriotism, a love of their ruler Queen
as small, troublesome adults Elizabeth I, a determination to stop the expansion of Spanish influence, and a missionary
who had to be disciplined firmly
zeal to convert the Indians who lived in the New World to true Christianity — which being
and frequently.
Englishmen they accepted as the teachings of the Church of England.
Those who came brought high expectations, for they had been told that the area was a
land of milk and honey. Its streams and waters were full of fish, its forests teeming with
game, its Indians friendly, and its climate so mild and soil so fertile that crops grew as
easily as weeds. No settler in this goodliest land could ever fail to prosper.
Time proved such promises cruelly false. Hunger afflicted the settlers in the New
World, just as in the old. The colonists still fought among themselves despite their best
intentions, and they fought with many of the Indians as well. Eventually the 1587 colony
disappeared. This was the last English attempt to found a permanent colony in the New
World in the sixteenth century. Success would not come to the experiment until the
beginning of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. But what about those men, women, and
children left behind on the edge of a new continent? When all hopes of rescue or
reinforcements had faded, did they still think the gamble had been worthwhile? Perhaps
the pioneers lost heart and believed they had failed. Yet today, four hundred years later,
looking around the state and nation they helped to create by being the first English to try
and live here, we realize how important their contributions really were. Their example kept
the dream of colonization alive and brought a new generation of English-men and women
to America twenty years later who cemented England’s claim to the New World.
Figure 88. Country women in

Elizabethan England worked
hard in their homes and on
farms. This woman wears a
muffler — a kerchief worn over
part of the face to protect it
from the sun and wind.

Fort Raleigh and the Lost Colony
Excerpted and adapted from Fort Raleigh National Historic Site brochure (see
http://www.nps.gov/archive/fora/raleigh2.htm) with additional content by David
Walbert.
Figure 89. Fort Raleigh has been reconstructed, but the fate of Roanoke's
settlers remains a mystery.
Two settlements
After the changes wrought by four centuries, it is not easy to imagine the America seen by
the small band of settlers who gained for England a foothold in the New World. They had
left behind the comfortable limits and familiar rhythms of European civilization for a
boundless and unpredictable world in which vigilance, courage, and endurance were
needed just to survive.

Their colony on Roanoke Island played a part in a broader historical event: the
expansion of the known world. In the century after Columbus’ voyage had put a new
continent on the map, Europe’s seagoing nations rushed to participate in the discoveries to
claim part of the prize. England was something of a latecomer to the race for the New
World. By the time the English began to send out voyages of exploration, Spain was already
entered into what is now Florida and Mexico. English privateers had been sailing to the
North American coast since 1562, slave-trading and preying on Spanish shipping loaded
with royal loot from Mexico. No one, though, had seriously considered a colony in North
America until 1578, when Sir Humphrey Gilbert, armed with a charter from Queen
Elizabeth “to inhabit and possess…all remote and heathen lands not in actual possession of
any Christian prince,” made the first two attempts to reach Newfoundland. After he died
on the second voyage, Sir Walter Raleigh, his half-brother, decided to carry on the venture,
Figure 91. Statue of Sir Walter and obtained a similiar charter from the queen. Reports from his expedition in 1584 sang
Raleigh in London, England. the praises of the rich land, and by the middle of the following year, England had made its
first tentative move to transplant English culture to foreign soil. The new colony was called
“Virginia,” after the Virgin Queen.
England’s motives for settling the New World ranged from the mercenary to the
idealistic. One of the primary spurs, at least for Raleigh, was the prospect of an ideal base
for forays against French and Spanish shipping. Publicist Richard Hakluyt conjured up
visions of gold and copper mines and cash crops, which fit neatly with Gilbert’s plan to put
“needy people” to work there. The anticipated Northwest Passage was another strong lure.
Finally, like Spain’s efforts to make the New World Catholic, England wanted to spread the
new Protestant religion among the “savages” — to claim the land for God and Queen,
although not necessarily in that order. In a sense the two settlements at Fort Raleigh
represented England’s schooling in establishing a colony. The first was more like the
Spanish operation — militaristic, dependent on the home country, and exploitative of the
Native Americans. The second was intended to be a permanent colony, with women and
children, fewer soldiers, and a sounder agricultural base. Although all of the settlers who
were to have built “The Cittie of Raleigh” disappeared, their dream of an English home in
the New World was realized twenty years later at Jamestown.
Hopeful explorations
On April 27, 1584, Captains Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe left the west coast of
England in two ships to explore the North American coast for Sir Walter Raleigh. The party
of explorers landed on July 13, 1584, on the North Carolina coast just north of Roanoke
Island, and claimed the land in the name of Queen Elizabeth. Barlowe wrote that the land
they found was
very sandie and low toward the waters side, but so full of grapes as the very beating and
surge of the Sea overflowed them, of which we found such plentie, as well there as in all
places else, both on the sand and on the greene soil on the hils, as in the plaines, as well on
every little shrubbe, as also climing towards the tops of high Cedars, that I thinke in all the
world the like abundance is not to be found.

Three days later they were met by Granganimeo, brother of Wingina, chief of the Roanoke
Island Indians, who had perhaps heard the Englishmen’s guns, which they had fired soon
after landing. They traded with the Indians for several days and invited them aboard their
ships. Then Amadas, Barlowe, and seven of their men accomapanied Granganimeo to
Roanoke Island, where the Indians entertained the Englishmen in their palisaded village.
The Indians, Barlowe said, were “gentle, loving, and faithfull,” and the island was “a most
pleasant and fertile ground, replenished with goodly Cedars, and divers other sweete
woods, full of Corrants {grapes}, flaxe, and many other notable commodities,” as well as
plenty of fish and game. The earth seemed to bring forth “all things in aboundance, as in
the first creation [the Garden of Eden], without toile or labour.” Roanoke seemed the
perfect location for an English colony.
But Amadas and Barlowe had landed in the middle of summer, when the Indians had
Figure 92. John White, who plenty of food to share, and the Roanoke Indians, having never seen white men before,
accompanied Lane and
Grenville to Roanoke in 1586,
were as fascinated by the explorers as the explorers were by them. The report Amadas and
explored the Chesapeake region Barlowe took back to Raleigh would turn out to be overly optimistic. They also took back
and reported back what he two Roanoke Indians, Wanchese and Manteo, so that Raleigh could meet the native people
found. This illustration, based for himself, learn more about them, and make plans for his settlers to live among them.
on one of White’s paintings,
shows an Algonkian Indian
Wanchese and Manteo went willingly – the Roanoke Indians, like the English, wanted
village probably much like the friendly relations and to learn more about these strange new people. They returned to
one on Roanoke Island. Roanoke in 1587 with the second group of settlers from England.
The first colony: Harsh lessons

After Captains Amadas and Barlowe returned in 1584 from their expedition to the New
World with reports of “a most Pleasant and fertile ground,” Sir Walter Raleigh had little
trouble getting the Queen and a number of other investors to back his colony. In the spring
of 1585, 500 men — 108 of them colonists — set sail for Virginia in seven ships
commanded by Raleigh’s cousin, Sir Richard Grenville. After weeks of searching (and
privateering), they found, with the help of nearby Indians, a fertile, well-watered, and
defensible spot on Roanoke Island. Ralph Lane was named Governor of the colony, and the
settlers immediately set to work in building a fort for defense against the Spanish.
Although the colonists established a trading relationship with the Indians, they soon
realized that, with the coming of winter, providing for themselves would not be easy. Many
supplies had been lost when one of the ships ran aground, and since they cultivated little
land, the colonists soon grew dependent on the Indians, cadging food and robbing their
fish traps. But as winter deepened, the Indians had less food to spare, and in any case were
growing tired of trinkets. Disenchantment set in, especially after measles and smallpox
brought by the settlers began to kill the Indians.
By 1586 the colonists were anxious to relocate. Lane had concluded that the site wasn’t
suitable as a privateering base, and tales of Indian gold and a possible northwest passage
were circulating. So in late winter Lane took a party up Albemarle Sound. Chief Wingina
saw a chance to rid himself of the demanding colonists. He told inland tribes that Lane
planned to attack them, so they deserted their villages, depriving Lane’s party of food. But
Lane made it back to the colony, and by late spring there were open battles. When a
member of a friendly tribe warned Lane that Wingina planned an assault on the island,

Lane arranged for a parley with Wingina and other Indian leaders. But at a prearranged
signal, the English opened fire. Wingina was killed and beheaded.
A week later Sir Francis Drake’s privateering fleet was sighted. His offer of the ship
Francis was readily accepted, because Grenville, due by Easter with supplies, had never
arrived. Lane knew that “it was unlikely that he would come at all,” as his ships would
probably be pressed into service against the Spanish. With the Francis, the colonists could
return to England after Lane had finished his explorations. But a storm forced the ship,
loaded with supplies and several of the colony’s most responsible members, to leave the
harbor and sail for England. Demoralized, Lane and the colonists decided to leave with
Drake.
Two days later a supply ship sent by Raleigh arrived. Grenville himself finally arrived
two weeks later, only to find a deserted settlement. After searching the island, he left 15
men to guard the settlement until a new group of colonists could be recruited.
The Lost Colony: A silent “cittie”

By 1586, Raleigh was already planning another colony in Virginia. This one would be more
ambitious, with its own coat of arms and the title, “Cittie of Ralegh.” It would be agrarian
rather than militaristic, less an adventure than a commitment. Raleigh’s decision to locate
it on the lower end of the Chesapeake Bay was prompted by Lane’s report of friendly
Indians and a good natural harbor. The inclusion of 17 women and 9 children among the
110 colonists would make this a long-term, self-perpetuating settlement. Instead of wages,
each settler was deeded a 50-acre plot, thereby giving him a stake in the undertaking. John
White, the artist who had accompanied the first voyage, was appointed Governor, to be
aided by 12 assistants.
Figure 93. The Roanoke When the three ships sailed in May of 1587, the plan was to stop briefly at Roanoke
colonists had agreed to carve a
Island to resupply Grenville’s party. But when they arrived in July, the pilot Fernandez
Maltese cross above the name
of their destination if they were insisted that it was too late in the summer to go further, and the colonists were left at
forced to leave because of Roanoke. It wasn’t an auspicious beginning. They had already failed to pick up salt and
danger. fruit in Haiti, and the Indians’ hostility had not cooled since the first group had left. They
had attacked the men left by Grenville, White reported “We found none of them sauing
onely we found the bones of one of those fifteene.” Through Manteo, who had visited
England and was appointed “Lord of Roanoke” by the English, White arranged a peace
conference, but a misunderstanding of the date made poor relations worse. Thinking the
Indians had rejected their offer, the colonists attacked what they mistakenly thought was a
hostile village, killing one Indian. After the incident the two cultures coexisted uneasily.
White’s burdens were lightened when his daughter gave birth in August to Virginia
Dare, the first English child born in the New World. A week later, however, he was forced
to return to England for badly needed supplies. But upon arrival, his ship was pressed into
service against the threat of the Spanish Armada, the massive fleet that King Philip II of
Spain was preparing to send against England. All White could do was petition the Queen
through Raleigh and wait.
Finally, in 1590, he got passage on a privateering voyage. As the party stepped ashore,
there was no sign of the colonists except the letters “CRO” carved on a tree. When they
approached the settlement, there was only silence. The houses had been taken down and a

palisade constructed, on one post of which was carved “CROATAN,” the name of a nearby
island. The colonists had agreed on this kind of message if they had to leave Roanoke, but
there was no Maltese cross, the signal that trouble had forced their departure. White’s
armour lay rusting in the sand, indicating that the colonists had been gone for some time.
He wanted to sail to Croataon, but low provisions, the loss of sea anchors in a storm, and
privateer’s impatience prevented them from stopping there. Raleigh made several attempts
to locate the colonists between 1590 and 1602, but no trace was found. Their fate will
probably never be known. It is likely that they were attacked by Indians, and those not
killed were assimilated into the local tribes.
J O H N WH I T E ’ S V I S I ON OF AM ER I C A
John White, who accompanied Lane and Grenville to Roanoke in 1586, explored the Chesapeake
region and reported back what he found. In 1588, Thomas Hariot published A Briefe and True Report
of the New Found Land of Virginia, which included engravings by Theodor DeBry based on White’s
watercolors. These depictions of the landscapes and residents of North Carolina provided Europeans
with some of their earliest notions of what the North American continent looked like.
You can browse a selection of Debry’s engravings in LEARN NC’s multimedia library.
Figure 90. "A Cheiff Lorde of
Roanoac," based on John
White's original watercolor.
On the Web
Thomas Hariot's account
http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/hariot/
Thomas Hariot, a member of the 1685 expedition, wrote A Briefe and True Report of the New
Found Land of Virginia as a kind of advertisement for America and Raleigh's colony. It includes a
description of the land, native peoples, and natural resources colonists could expect to find.

The search for the Lost Colony
BY DAVID WALBERT
Figure 94. In this outdoor theater on Roanoke Island, Paul Green’s drama
about the Lost Colony has been staged every summer for seventy years.
No one knows what happened to the “Lost Colonists” of Roanoke Island — but that has
only made their story more interesting. Over the past 400 years, historians, archaeologists,
storytellers, and outright liars have developed a number of theories about the vanished
settlers.
History and archaeology

THE LUMBEE
It seems likely that some, if not all, of the colonists went to live among the native peoples of
the Outer Banks. John White believed that they had gone to live with the Hatteras (Croatan)
Indians under Manteo. Many Lumbee now living in Robeson County believe that they are

descended in part from the Roanoke colonists and the Hatteras Indians. They cite their
light complexions, blue eyes, and names that are the same as the names of the Roanoke
colonists. Some historians and anthropologists agree that this is likely true, but there is no
hard evidence. Some attempts are now being planned to use DNA testing to determine
whether the Lumbee are, in fact, descended from the Lost Colonists.
A “YOUNG MAYDE” IN THE CHESAPEAKE

Twenty years after the Roanoke colonists disappeared, settlers at Jamestown heard reports
that they were living nearby in the Chesapeake region. In 1612, William Strachey, the first
secretary of Jamestown colony, wrote a history of that colony caled History of Travaile into
Virginia Brittania, in which he related a story he had heard about the fate of the Roanoke
colonists. According to this story, some of the colonists had fled northward and lived
peacefully for twenty years with the Chesepian (Chesapeake) Indians. Shortly before the
Jamestown colonists arrived in Virginia, though, Chief Powhatan, the ruler of most of the
tribes of that region, had “miserably slaughtered” the English and Chesepian. But Strachey
also heard that seven colonists escaped the massacre, including a “young mayde.” Since
Virginia Dare would have been in her early twenties, some people believe that she was the
young maid, or girl, whom Strachey mentioned.
TWO FACTIONS
Some historians combine these two theories and argue that the colonists divided. Most
went north toward the Chesapeake, where they had originally intended to settle. The rest
were left behind to wait for John White, but eventually abandoned the fort and went to live
among the Croatan. Recent evidence — long-lost documents in a Spanish archive — shows
that they didn’t last long: In June, 1588, a Spanish raiding party arrived in Roanoke but
found the settlement already deserted.

Legend, drama — and hoax
THE WHITE DOE
Some stories of the Lost Colony are more fanciful. In one legend that still endures in
eastern North Carolina, Virginia Dare becomes a white doe. The White Doe: The Fate of
Virginia Dare, a long narrative poem written by Sallie Southall Cotten in 1901, tells the story
of the young English girl growing up among the Croatan Indians, taking the name
Winona-Ska. A handsome young chief, Okisko, wants to marry her, but a jealous conjurer
turns her into a white doe. With the help of another conjurer Okisko tries to turn her back
into a human girl, but through a twist of fate the doe is killed.
In the Land-of-Wind-and-Water
Roamed the Red Man unmolested.
While the babe of Ro-a-no-ak
Grew in strength and wondrous beauty;
Figure 95. Sculptor’s
interpretation of Virginia Dare Like a flower of the wildwood,
as an adult, at the Elizabethan Bloomed beside the Indian maidens.
Gardens in Manteo, N.C. And Wi-no-na Skâ
they called her,
She of all the maidens fairest…1
Cotten’s poem isn’t widely read or remembered today, but the legend of the white doe
persists, and people occasionally report seeing a ghostly white doe on Roanoke Island.
AN OUTDOOR DRAMA
In 1937, Paul Green, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright from North Carolina, wrote a play
called The Lost Colony telling the story of the Roanoke settlement. Green’s “outdoor
drama,” set on a massive scale and filled with symphonic music, was designed to be
performed outdoors on Roanoke Island itself. The play was an exuberant celebration of
America’s origins designed to lift people’s spirits during the Depression, and the theater in
which it was performed was built as a project of Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress
Administration that created jobs for the unemployed. The Lost Colony is still peformed each
summer in the theater at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site.
THE VIRGINIA DARE STONES

In 1937, a twenty-one-pound quartz stone was found in a swamp 60 miles west of Roanoke.
On one side was a cross and the instruction “Ananias Dare & Virginia went hence Unto
Heaven 1591.” On the other were carvings that, when deciphered by faculty at Emory
University, were a message from Eleanor Dare to her father, John White, that the colony
had fled inland after an Indian attack.
Father soone After yov

goe for Englande wee cam
hither / onlie misarie & Warre—
tow yeere / Above halfe DeaDe ere tow

yeere more from dickenes beine fovre & twentie /
salvage with message of shipp unto us / smal
space of time they affrite of revenge rann
al awaye / wee bleeve yt nott yov / soone after
ye salvages faine spirts angrie / suddiane
murther al save seaven / mine childe—
ananias to slaine wth mvch misarie— /
bvrie al neere fovre myles easte this river
vppon smal hil / names writ al ther
on rocke / putt this ther also / salvage
shew this vnto yov & hither wee
promise yov to give greate
plentie presents
E W D2
The story told by the stone matched some of the details of Strachey’s account, and a
number of academics were taken in, including the president of the American Antiquarian
Society and the vice-president of Brenau College in Georgia. During the next three years,
nearly forty more stones were found in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
Together, they told a story of the colonists’ journey through the southeast, ending in the
death of Eleanor Dare in 1599.
The timing of the discovery, exactly 350 years after the English settlement of Roanoke,
made the “Virginia Dare Stones” a perfect story, and the media jumped on it. In 1941,
though, an article in The Saturday Evening Post revealed the “discoverers” of the stones to
have staged an elaborate hoax.3 Paul Green pointed out that the story told by the stones
seemed to have borrowed the character of Eleanor Dare stright from his play. The stones
were quickly forgotten by most people, although a few have continued to believe in them.
On the Web
Virginia Dare and the Lost Colony: Fact and legend
In 1587, a group of British citizens set up a colony on Roanoke Island in hopes of establishing
the first permanent English settlement in the New World. The colony's governor sailed to
England and returned three years later to find the rest of the colonists had vanished. Myths and
legends have arisen attempting to explain the mystery of the Lost Colony. In one legend, the
governor's granddaughter is transformed into a white doe by a jealous Indian witch-doctor.
Rumors of the Lost Colony in Jamestown

William Strachey, first secretary of the Jamestown colony, wrote a history of that colony in 1612.
In it, he mentioned several rumors about the fate of the colonists who had disappeared from
Roanoke twenty years before.
America's Lost Colony: Can New Dig Solve Mystery?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/03/0302_040302_lostcolony.html

This 2004 article published in National Geographic News examines the mysterious disappearance
of the Lost Colony and recent archeological interest in excavating new sites on Roanoke Island.
Lost Colony Search Goes on Centuries Later

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-09-22-lostcolony_N.htm
This 2007 USA Today article reports on recent archeological interest in exploring the Dismal
Swamp for clues to the disappearance of the Lost Colony.
Notes
1. Sallie Southall Cotten,
The White doe: the fate of Virginia Dare: an Indian legend (see
http://www.learnnc.orghttp://digital.lib.ecu.edu/historyfiction/item.aspx?id=cow) (Philadelphia:
J. B. Lippincott Company, 1901), p. 42.
2. This transcription is taken from Haywood J. Pearce, Jr., “New Light on the Roanoke Colony: A
Preliminary Examination of a Stone Found in Chowan County, Norht Carolina.” The Journal of
Southern History 4:2 (May 1938), pp. 149–150.
3. Boyden Sparkes, “Sparkes Dubunks Stones,” The Saturday Evening Post, April 26, 1941.

Amadas and Barlowe explore the
Outer Banks
From Arthur Barlowe, The First Voyage to Roanoke, 1584.
As you read...
T H E G A R D E N OF EDEN
At times, Barlowe makes Roanoke sound like a paradise. Food is bountiful, the weather is pleasant, and the
people are kind and loving. In fact, Roanoke sounds a little like the Garden of Eden, where no one has to
work for food and everyone lives in peace. To Barlowe and other Europeans of his time, Eden was a real
place, and readers of his account would have thought of Eden as well.
A LI T T LE E N G L AND
At the same time, Barlowe describes Roanoke Indian society in English terms. Their ruler is a “king” — a
word we might use generically but which for Englishmen of this time meant an absolute monarch who ruled
by the grace of God. The men and women who accompany the king’s brother and his wife are “noble” and
“of the better sort” — the equivalent, apparently, of English nobility. And Barlowe repeatedly comments on
how respectful the Indians were to their “King, Nobilitie, and Governors.”
While it’s true that the Indians of the Chesapeake region had powerful chiefs who were born into
positions of authority, Indian society was not rigidly divided into noble and common, as English society was.
Barlowe, like most European explorers, interpreted Indian society based on his own experience. If some
aspect of Indian society resembled that of England, he assumed that it must be exactly as it was in England.
Q UE ST I O N S TO C ONS I DER
As you read Barlowe’s account, ask yourself:
• What assumptions is Barlowe making about the Indians? Why might he be seeing the Indians as he
did?
• Are those assumptions reasonable?
• How might they have led to misunderstandings that created problems later on? For example, what
were the risks of thinking of the Indians as innocent, like Adam and Eve? What were the risks of
misunderstanding their social and political organization?
• How do you imagine the Indians interpreted these same events?
Original source available from UNC Libraries / Documenting the American South at http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/
barlowe/barlowe.html.

The second of July we found shole water, wher we smelt so sweet, and so strong a smel, as
if we had bene in the midst of some delicate garden abounding with all kinde of
odoriferous flowers, by which we were assured, that the land could not be farre distant: and
keeping good watch, and bearing but slacke saile1, the fourth of the same moneth we
arrived upon the coast, which we supposed to be a continent and firme lande, and we
sayled along the same a hundred and twentie English miles before we could finde any
entrance, or river issuing into the Sea. The first that appeared unto us, we entred, though
Figure 96. Amadas and Barlowe not without some difficultie, & cast anker about three harquebuz-shot within the havens
probably landed near Nags mouth on the left hand of the same: and after thanks given to God for our safe arrivall
Head.
thither, we manned our boats, and went to view the land next adjoyning, and to take
possession of the same, in the right of the Queenes most excellent Majestie2, and rightfull
Queene, and Princesse of the same, and after delivered the same over to your use,
according to her Majesties grant, and letters patents, under her Highnesse great seale3.
Which being performed, according to the ceremonies used in such enterprises, we viewed
the land about us, being, whereas we first landed, very sandie and low towards the waters
side, but so full of grapes, as the very beating and surge of the Sea overflowed them, of
which we found such plentie, as well there as in all places else, both on the sand and on the
greene soile on the hils, as in the plaines, as well on every little shrubbe, as also climing
towardes the tops of high Cedars, that I thinke in all the world the like abundance is not to
be found: and my selfe having seene those parts of Europe that most abound, find such
difference as were incredible to be written.
We passed from the Sea side towardes the toppes of those hilles next adjoyning, being
but of meane higth, and from thence wee behelde the Sea on both sides to the North, and
to the South, finding no ende any of both wayes.4 This lande laye stretching it selfe to the
West, which after wee found to bee but an Island of twentie miles long, and not above sixe
miles broade. Under the banke or hill whereon we stoode, we behelde the vallyes
replenished with goodly Cedar trees, and having discharged our harquebuz-shot, such a
flocke of Cranes (the most part white), arose under us, with such a cry redoubled by many
ecchoes, as if an armie of men had showted all together.
This Island had many goodly woodes full of Deere, Conies, Hares, and Fowle, even in
the middest of Summer in incredible abundance.… We remained by the side of this Island
two whole dayes before we saw any people of the Countrey: the third day we espied one
small boate rowing towardes us having in it three persons: this boat came to the Island
side, foure harquebuzshot from our shippes, and there two of the people remaining, the
third came along the shoreside towards us, and wee being then all within boord, he walked
up and downe upon the point of the land next unto us: then the Master and the Pilot of the
Admirall, Simon Ferdinando, and the Captaine Philip Amadas, my selfe, and others rowed
to the land, whose comming this fellow attended, never making any shewe of feare or
doubt. And after he had spoken of many things not understood by us, we brought him with
his owne good liking, aboord the ships5, and gave him a shirt, a hat & some other things,
Figure 97. Engraving of and made him taste of our wine, and our meat, which he liked very wel: and after having
American Indians fishing, based viewed both barks, he departed, and went to his owne boat againe, which hee had left in a
on John White’s drawings. little Cove or Creeke adjoyning: assoone as hee was two bow shoot into the water, hee fell
to fishing, and in lesse then halfe an houre, he had laden his boate as deepe as it could
swimme, with which hee came againe to the point of the lande, and there he divided his
fish into two parts, pointing one part to the ship, and the other to the pinnesse: which, after

he had, as much as he might, requited the former benefites received, departed out of our
sight.
The next day there came unto us divers boates, and in one of them the Kings brother,
accompanied with fortie or fiftie men, very handsome and goodly people, and in their
behaviour as mannerly and civill as any of Europe. His name was Granganimeo, and the
king is called Wingina, the countrey Wingandacoa, and now by her Majestie Virginia. The
manner of his comming was in this sort: hee left his boates altogether as the first man did
a little from the shippes by the shore, and came along to the place over against the shipes,
followed with fortie men. When he came to the place, his servants spread a long matte
upon the ground, on which he sate downe, and at the other ende of the matte foure others
of his companie did the like, the rest of his men stood round about him, somewhat a farre
off: when we came to the shore to him with our weapons, hee never mooved from his
place, nor any of the other foure, nor never mistrusted any harme to be offered from us,
but sitting still he beckoned us to come and sit by him, which we performed: and being set
hee made all signes of joy and welcome, striking on his head and his breast and
afterwardes on ours to shew wee were all one, smiling and making shewe the best he could
of al love, and familiaritie. After hee had made a long speech unto us, wee presented him
with divers things, which hee received very joyfully, and thankefully. None of the company
durst speake one worde all the time: only the foure which were at the other ende, spake one
in the others eare very softly.
The King is greatly obeyed, and his brothers and children reverenced6: the King
himself in person was at our being there, sore wounded in a fight which hee had with the
King of the next countrey, called Wingina, and was shot in two places through the body,
and once cleane through the thigh, but yet he recovered: by reason whereof and for that hee
lay at the chief towne of the countrey, being sixe dayes journey off, we saw him not at all.
After we had presented this his brother with such things as we thought he liked, wee
likewise gave somewhat to the other that sat with him on the matte: but presently he arose
and tooke all from them and put it into his owne basket, making signes and tokens, that all
things ought to bee delivered unto him, and the rest were but his servants, and followers. A
day or two after this, we fell to trading with them, exchanging some things that we had, for
Chamoys, Buffe, and Deere skinnes: when we shewed him all our packet of merchandize,
of all things that he sawe, a bright tinne dish most pleased him, which hee presently tooke
up and clapt it before his breast, and after made a hole in the brimme thereof and hung it
Figure 98. An Indian elder or
chief wearing copper
about his necke, making signes that it would defende him against his enemies arrowes: for
ornaments. those people maintaine a deadly and terrible warre, with the people and King adjoyning7.
We exchanged our tinne dish for twentie skinnes, woorth twentie Crownes, or twentie
Nobles: and a copper kettle for fiftie skins woorth fifty Crownes. They offered us good
exchange for our hatchets, and axes, and for knives, and would have given any thing for
swordes: but wee would not depart with any. After two or three dayes the Kings brother
came aboord the shippes, and dranke wine, and eat of our meat and of our bread, and liked
exceedingly thereof: and after a few dayes overpassed, he brought his wife with him to the
ships, his daughter and two or three children: his wife was very well favoured, of meane
stature, and very bashfull: shee had on her backe a long cloake of leather, with the furre
side next to her body, and before her a piece of the same: about her forehead shee had a
bande of white Corall, and so had her husband many times: in her eares shee had bracelets
of pearles hanging downe to her middle, whereof wee delivered your worship a little

bracelet, and those were of the bignes of good pease. The rest of her women of the better
sort had pendants of copper hanging in either eare, and some of the children of the Kings
brother and other noble men, have five or sixe in either eare8: he himselfe had upon his
head a broad plate of golde, or copper, for being unpolished we knew not what mettal it
should be9, neither would he by any means suffer us to take it off his head, but feeling it, it
would bow very easily. His apparell was as his wives, onely the women weare their haire
long on both sides, and the men but on one. They are of colour yellowish, and their haire
black for the most part, and yet we saw children that had very fine aburne and chesnut
coloured haire.
After that these women had bene there, there came downe from all parts great store of
people, bringing with them leather, corall, divers kindes of dies, very excellent, and
exchanged with us: but when Granganimeo the kings brother was present, none durst
trade but himselfe: except such as weare red pieces of copper on their heads like himselfe:
for that is the difference betweene the noble men, and the gouvernours of countreys, and
the meaner sort. And we both noted there, and you have understood since by these men,
which we brought home, that no people in the worlde cary more respect to their King,
Nobilitie, and Governours, then these doe. The Kings brothers wife, when she came to us,
as she did many times, was followed with forty or fifty women alwayes: and when she came
into the shippe, she left them all on land, saving her two daughters, her nurse and one or
two more.10 The kings brother alwayes kept this order, as many boates as he would come
withall to the shippes, so many fires would hee make on the shore a farre off, to the end we
might understand with what strength and company he approched.11
Their boates are made of one tree, either of Pine or of Pitch trees: a wood not
commonly knowen to our people, nor found growing in England. They have no edge-tooles
to make them withall: if they have any they are very fewe, and those it seemes they had
twentie yeres since, which, as those two men declared, was out of a wrake which happened
upon their coast of some Christian ship, being beaten that way by some storme and
outragious weather, whereof none of the people were saved, but only the ship, or some part
of her being cast upon the sand, out of whose sides they drew the nayles and the spikes,
Figure 99. This engraving shows and with those they made their best instruments. The manner of making their boates is
how the Indians of the Outer thus: they burne downe some great tree, or take such as are winde fallen, and putting
Banks made dugout canoes. gumme and rosen upon one side thereof, they set fire into it, and when it hath burnt it
hollow, they cut out the coale with their shels, and ever where they would burne it deeper
or wider they lay on gummes, which burne away the timber, and by this meanes they
fashion very fine boates, and such as will transport twentie men. Their oares are like
scoopes, and many times they set with long poles, as the depth serveth.
The Kings brother had great liking of our armour, a sword, and divers other things
which we had: and offered to lay a great boxe of pearle in gage for them: but we refused it
for this time, because we would not make them knowe, that we esteemed thereof, untill we
had understoode in what places of the countrey the pearle grew: which now your
Worshippe doeth very well understand12.
He was very just of his promise: for many times we delivered him merchandize upon
his word, but ever he came within the day and performed his promise. He sent us every
day a brase or two of fat Bucks, Conies, Hares, Fish and best of the world. He sent us
divers kindes of fruites, Melons, Walnuts, Cucumbers, Gourdes, Pease, and divers rootes,
and fruites very excellent good, and of their Countrey corne, which is very white, faire and

well tasted, and groweth three times in five moneths13: in May they sow, in July they reape,
in June they sow, in August they reape: in July they sow, in September they reape: onely
they cast the corne into the ground, breaking a little of the soft turfe with a wodden
mattock, or pickaxe; our selves prooved14 the soile, and put some of our Pease in the
ground, and in tenne dayes they were of fourteene ynches high: they have also Beanes very
faire of divers colours and wonderfull plentie: some growing naturally, and some in their
gardens, and so have they both wheat and oates.
The soile is the most plentifull, sweete, fruitfull and wholesome of all the worlde:
there are above fourteene severall sweete smelling timber trees15, and the most part of their
underwoods are Bayes and such like: they have those Okes that we have, but farre greater
and better. After they had bene divers times aboord our shippes, my selfe, with seven more
went twentie mile into the River, that runneth towarde the Citie of Skicoak, which River
they call Occam: and the evening following wee came to an Island which they call Roanoak,
distant from the harbour by which we entred, seven leagues: and at the North end thereof
was a village of nine houses, built of Cedar, and fortified round about with sharpe trees, to
keepe out their enemies, and the entrance into it made like a turnepike very artificially;
when wee came towardes it, standing neere unto the waters side, the wife of Granganimo
the Kings brother came running out to meete us very cheerfully and friendly, her husband
was not then in the village; some of her people shee commanded to drawe our boate on
shore for the beating of the billoe: others she appointed to cary us on their backes to the dry
ground, and others to bring our oares into the house for feare of stealing16. When we were
come into the utter roome, having five roomes in her house, she caused us to sit downe by
a great fire, and after tooke off our clothes and washed them, and dryed them againe: some
of the women plucked off our stockings and washed them, some washed our feete in
warme water, and she herselfe tooke great paines to see all things ordered in the best
maner shee could, making great haste to dresse some meate for us to eate.
After we had thus dryed ourselves, she brought us into the inner roome, where shee
set on the boord standing along the house, some wheate like furmentie, sodden17 Venison,
and roasted, fish sodden, boyled and roasted, Melons rawe, and sodden, rootes of divers
kindes and divers fruites: their drinke is commonly water, but while the grape lasteth, they
drinke wine, and for want of caskes to keepe it, all the yere after they drink water, but it is
sodden with Ginger in it and blacke Sinamon, and sometimes Sassaphras, and divers other
wholesome, and medicinable hearbes and trees. We were entertained with all love and
kindnesse, and with much bountie, after their maner, as they could possibly devise.
sassafraWe found the people most gentle, loving and faithfull, voide of all guile and
treason, and such as live after the manner of the golden age.18 The people onely care howe
to defend themselves from the cold in their short winter, and to feed themselves with such
Figure 100. A depiction of the meat as the soile affoordeth: there meat is very well sodden and they make broth very sweet
Golden Age from Greek and savorie: their vessels are earthen pots, very large, white and sweete, their dishes are
mythology, painted by Pietro da wooden platters of sweet timber: within the place where they feede was their lodging, and
Cortona in the 1630s.
within that their Idoll, which they worship, of whome they speake incredible things. While
we were at meate, there came in at the gates two or three men with their bowes and
arrowes from hunting, whom when wee espied, we beganne to looke one towardes
another, and offered to reach our weapons: but as soone as shee espied our mistrust, shee
was very much mooved, and caused some of her men to runne out, and take away their
bowes and arrowes and breake them, and withall beate the poore fellowes out of the gate

againe19. When we departed in the evening and would not tary all night she was very sorry,
and gave us into our boate our supper halfe dressed, pottes and all, and brought us to our
boate side, in which wee lay all night, remooving the same a prettie distance from the
shoare: shee perceiving our jealousie, was much grieved, and sent divers men and thirtie
women, to sit all night on the banke side by us, and sent us into our boates five mattes to
cover us from the raine, using very many wordes, to entreate us to rest in their houses: but
because wee were fewe men, and if wee had miscaried, the voyage had bene in very great
danger, wee durst not adventure any thing, although there was no cause of doubt: for a
more kinde and loving people there can not be found in the worlde, as farre as we have
hitherto had triall20.
On the Web
Native peoples of the Chesapeake region
The Chesapeake Bay has been home to Native Americans for over 10,000 years. Throughout
their histories — even to the present day — these societies have adapted to difficult
circumstances and unforeseen changes. Chesapeake natives have faced wars, epidemic diseases,
loss of land, and treaty violations.
The creation and fall of man, from Genesis

The creation story from the biblical Book of Genesis describes how God created heaven and
earth, plants, animals, and people; and later how the first people were cast out of the Garden of
Eden as punishment for eating from the "tree of knowledge of good and evil."
Plant and animal species in Nags Head Woods

A short walk along the trails of the Nature Conservancy gives a spectacular glimpse of the great
diversity of this barrier island maritime forest. Nags Head Woods is home to more than 300
species of plants,...
Notes
1. The sails were slack because there was little wind to fill them and to propel the ship.
2. Amadas and Barlowe followed the example of European explorers since Columbus: On stepping
out of their boats onto the shore, they claimed the land in the name of their ruler, Queen
Elizabeth.
How much land they thought they were claiming is uncertain — probably they themselves had
no good idea. And it doesn’t seem to have concerned them when, a few days later, they met the
brother of the king who already ruled the land they had just claimed. Since he was not a
Christian monarch, his claim to the land was irrelevant to them.
3. The Queen had granted Sir Walter Raleigh a charter giving him exclusive use of and profit from
the land his men could claim.

4. Here Amadas and Barlowe discover that they are not on the mainland at all, but on a barrier
island. From the description of the hills and woods and from the fact that they were near
Roanoke Island, we can guess that they landed near Nags Head.
5. Barlowe wants to make it clear that they did not kidnap the Indian.
6. Barlowe describes the people of Roanoke as extremely deferential — submissive and respectful
— to their king, his brother, and his brother’s wife. In fact, though, the native rulers of this
region were not like European kings and emperors; they worked like everyone else and made
decisions with a council. It seems reasonable that the Indians would have let their leaders do the
talking when meeting dangerous-looking men from a faraway place, but Barlowe may also have
exaggerated the separation between the rulers and the ruled.
7. Warfare between tribes was common in precontact Virginia and North Carolina. You might
think that potential settlers might have been interested in that fact, but Barlowe passes over it
fairly quickly, perhaps because he doesn’t take the Indians or their weapons seriously.
8. The Indians of the Chesapeake did use copper to distinguish rank and privilege — which is why
they were happy to trade for the Englishmen’s copper kettle. Once the English learned this, early
shipments to the Jamestown colony included sheets of copper for trade with local Indians.
Barlowe refers to the people wearing the copper jewelry as people “of the better sort.” In
England, people “of the better sort” were of the upper classes — the nobility, which was mostly
hereditary. Barlowe, seeing native men and women wearing extra jewelry, assumes that they are
“of the better sort” and “noble” as well. We know that the copper jewelry was a mark of status,
but does Barlowe’s assumption that they were “noble” seem reasonable to you? Are there other
explanations for their special dress? What roles might these men and women have played in
native society?
9. There were no gold mines in this region, but Indians in Virginia mined copper.
10. In fifteenth-century England, queens, princesses, and other noble women had ladies-in-waiting
who attended to them. A lady-in-waiting was essentially a personal assistant, and was often a
family member or a noble woman of lower rank. Ladies-in-waiting to the queen were even
divided into ranks, depending on how close they were to the queen. Barlowe’s description of the
women who accompanied the king’s brother’s wife suggests that he may have imagined them
as her ladies-in-waiting.
11. This sounds like a well-practiced strategy for communicating with potential enemies who might
attack anyone who surprised them. Clearly, as Barlowe mentions, the people of the Outer Banks
did not all get along with one another!
12. Note the explorers’ interest in the source of the pearls — as in the copper and gold Barlowe
mentioned earlier. Needless to say, Raleigh would have been very happy to learn of a source of
precious metals or gems in the country they had claimed for him.
13. Here, Barlowe is pointing out that North Carolina’s growing season is longer than England’s,
which should make it easier for a colony to feed itself.
14. Tested.
15. That is, more than fourteen different kinds of trees. This is not an exaggeration. Nags Head
Woods, near where Amadas and Barlowe landed, is home to more than 300 species of plants,

including eleven species of oak, ten ferns, three pines, two magnolias, two cedars, and two
willows.
16. From this passage it isn’t clear whether the English mistrusted the Indians, or whether the
king’s brother’s wife mistrusted some of her people.
17. Sodden means soaked with water. Here Barlowe means that the venison was stewed. Later in
this paragraph, when he says that water is sodden with ginger, cinnamon, and sassafras, he
means that the spices are steeped in the water like tea.
18. The “golden age” refers to Greek mythology. In the Works and Days, the Greek poet Hesiod
wrote that there were four “ages” before the present one, each less perfect than the last. In the
Golden Age, which came first, there was absolute peace and the earth produced food without
the need for agriculture, so that no one needed to work. Mortals lived like gods, and when they
died they died peacefully as if they were falling asleep. The Golden Age ended when
Prometheus gave mortals the secret of fire.
In stories of the Golden Age, as in the story of the Garden of Eden, humans lived in paradise
until they tried to know too much and to become like gods — and then were thrown out and
forced to work and suffer. In both stories, too, when humans “fell” they took up the trappings of
civilization, such as wearing clothes. The similarities between Biblical story and Greek myth
meant that the story of the Golden Age fit neatly into Europeans’ understanding of the world.
Here, Barlowe is comparing the native people of the Outer Banks to people of the Golden Age
— suggesting that they are completely peaceful and happy and that they have hardly any need to
work, since food will grow with so little effort. Compared with Europeans, the Indians wore little
clothing, and their nakedness, too, reminded explorers of people of the Golden Age or of Adam
and Eve in Eden.
19. Here it becomes clear that the “fear of stealing” Barlowe mentioned earlier was felt by the
Englishmen, not by the Indians.
20. If the Indians were truly “void of all guile and treason” and as peaceful as Barlowe says, why
didn’t the Englishmen stay the night? Were they just being cautious? Was Barlowe exaggerating
how kind and gentle the people were? (Why might he do that?)

John White searches for the colonists
The Fifth Voyage of M. John White, 1590, from Henry S. Burrage, ed., Early English
and French Voyages, Chiefly from Hakluyt, 1534–1608 (New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1906), pp. 315–320.
As you read...
A F A T H E R ’ S SEAR C H
In this excerpt from the report of his voyage, John White explains how he and the crew of two ships, the
Moonlight and the Hopewell searched for the colonists on Roanoke Island but could not find them. The sea
was quite stormy, seven men had already been drowned, and the ships, after their long trip from England,
were low on food and fresh water, and so they were not able to continue their search at Croatan. One of the
two ships sailed for England. The other, with John White on board, sailed for the Caribbean for supplies with
the intent of returning to Croatan in the spring, but was forced to return to England and never made it back
to search for the colonists.
John White was the governor of the Roanoke colony and therefore felt responsible for the settlers, but
remember that his daughter (Eleanor Dare) and granddaughter were also among the missing. His search
for the “lost colonists” was therefore more urgent than his official report might suggest. How do you think
he felt during his search? Do you see any way that his feelings might have affected his judgment? For
example, he concludes in his report that the colonists were chased off by local Indians but went safely to
Croatan. Do you think that is a reasonable conclusion, or was he being overly optimistic? Was he right to
want to continue the search despite the problems of weather and navigation?
GR A VE Y A R D OF THE ATL ANTI C

White’s ordeals in simply trying to reach Roanoke Island tell us a lot about why the waters along North
Carolina’s Outer Banks have been called the “graveyard of the Atlantic.” In only two days, between Hatteras
and Roanoke, seven men were drowned, more men and boats were nearly lost in storms, and three anchors
were lost as the ship tried to free itself from the barrier islands. More men died in the wreck of one small
boat on August 17, 1590, than in the Roanoke settlement during White’s entire year as governor! This would
not be the last expedition to give up or be lost on the Outer Banks.
Original source available from American Journeys at http://www.americanjourneys.org/aj-038/.

Figure 101. John White drew this map of the coast of North Carolina and
Virginia in 1585 and 1586. (Note that west, not north, is up.) Although his
efforts to map the coast helped him find Roanoke Island, the colonists he left
behind had disappeared.
The next morning being the 17 of August, our boates and company were prepared againe to
goe up to Roanoak, but Captaine Spicer had then sent his boat ashore for fresh water, by
meanes whereof it was ten of the clocke afternoone before we put from our ships which
were then come to an anker within two miles of the shore. The Admirals boat was halfe
way toward the shore, when Captaine Spicer put off from his ship. The Admirals boat first
passed the breach, but not without some danger of sinking, for we had a sea brake into our
boat which filled us halfe full of water, but by the will of God and carefull styrage1 of
Captaine Cooke we came safe ashore, saving onely that our furniture, victuals, match and
powder were much wet and spoyled. For at this time the winde blue at Northeast and direct
into the harbour so great a gale, that the Sea brake extremely on the barre2, and the tide
went very forcibly at the entrance.
By that time our Admirals boat was halled3 ashore, and most of our things taken out to
dry, Captaine Spicer came to the entrance of the breach with his mast standing up, and was
halfe passed over, but by the rash and undiscreet styrage of Ralph Skinner his Masters
mate4, a very dangerous Sea brake into their boate and overset them quite, the men kept
the boat some in it, and some hanging on it, but the next sea set the boat on ground, where
it beat so, that some of them were forced to let goe their hold, hoping to wade ashore: but
the Sea still beat them downe, so that they could neither stand nor swimme, and the boat
twise or thrise was turned the keele upward, whereon Captaine Spicer and Skinner hung
untill they sunke, and were seene no more. But foure that could swimme a litle kept
themselves in deeper water and were saved by Captaine Cookes meanes, who so soone as
he saw their oversetting5, stripped himselfe, and foure other that could swimme very well,
and with all haste possible rowed unto them, and saved foure. There were 11 in all and 7 of
the chiefest were drowned, whose names were Edward Spicer, Ralph Skinner, Edward
Kelly, Thomas Bevis, Hance the Surgion, Edward Kelborne, Robert Coleman.

This mischance did so much discomfort the saylers, that they were all of one mind not
to goe any further to seeke the planters. But in the end by the commandement and
perswasion of me and Captaine Cooke, they prepared the boates: and seeing the Captaine
and me so resolute, they seemed much more willing.
Our boates and all things fitted againe, we put off from Hatorask, being the number of
19 persons in both boates: but before we could get to the place where our planters were left,
it was so exceeding darke, that we overshot the place a quarter of a mile: there we espied
towards the North ende of the Island the light of a great fire thorow6 the woods, to which
we presently rowed: when wee came right over against it, we let fall our Grapnel7 neere the
shore and sounded with a trumpet a Call, and afterwardes many familiar English tunes of
Songs, and called to them friendly; but we had no answere, we therefore landed at day-
breake, and comming to the fire, we found the grasse and sundry rotten trees burning
about the place.
From hence we went thorow the woods to that part of the Iland directly over against
Dasamongwepeuk, and from thence we returned by the water side, round about the North
point of the Iland, untill we came to the place where I left our Colony in the yeere 1586. In
all this way we saw in the sand the print of the Salvages8 feet of 2 or 3 sorts troaden the
night, and as we entred up the sandy banke upon a tree, in the very browe thereof were
curiously carved these faire Romane letters9 C R 0: which letters presently we knew to
signifie the place, where I should find the planters seated10, according to a secret token
agreed upon betweene them and me at my last departure from them, which was, that in
any wayes they should not faile to write or carve on the trees or posts of the dores the name
of the place where they should be seated; for at my comming away they were prepared to
remove from Roanoak 50 miles into the maine. Therefore at my departure from them in
An. 158711 I willed them, that if they should happen to be distressed in any of those places,
that then they should carve over the letters or name, a Crosse ? in this forme, but we found
no such signe of distresse.
And having well considered of this, we passed toward the place where they were left in
sundry houses, but we found the houses taken downe, and the place very strongly enclosed
with a high palisado of great trees, with cortynes and flankers very Fortlike12, and one of
the chiefe trees or postes at the right side of the entrance had the barke taken off, and 5
foote from the ground in fayre Capitall letters was graven CROATOAN without any crosse
or signe of distresse; this done, we entred into the palisado, where we found many barres
of iron, two pigges13 of Lead, foure yron fowlers, Iron sacker-shotte14, and such like heavie
thinges, throwen here and there, almost overgrowen with grasse and weedes. From thence
wee went along by the water side, towards the poynt of the Creeke to see if we could find
any of their botes or Pinnisse, but we could perceive no signe of them, nor any of the last
Falkons and small Ordinance which were left with them, at my departure from them. At
our returne from the Creeke, some of our Saylers meeting us, told us that they had found
where divers chests had bene hidden, and long sithence digged up againe and broken up,
and much of the goods in them spoyled and scattered about, but nothing left, of such
things as the Savages knew any use of, undefaced.
Presently Captaine Cooke and I went to the place, which was in the ende of an olde
trench, made two yeeres past by Captaine Amadas: wheere wee found five Chests, that had
bene carefully hidden of the Planters, and of the same chests three were my owne, and
about the place many of my things spoyled and broken, and my bookes tome from the

covers, the frames of some of my pictures and Mappes rotten and spoyled with rayne, and
my armour almost eaten through with rust; this could bee no other but the deede of the
Savages our enemies at Dasamongwepeuk, who had watched the departure of our men to
Croatoan; and as soone as they were departed digged up every place where they suspected
any thing to be buried: but although it much grieved me to see such spoyle of my goods,
yet on the other side I greatly joyed that I had safely found a certaine token of their safe
being at Croatoan, which is the place where Manteo was borne, and the Savages of the
Iland our friends.
When we had seene in this place so much as we could, we returned to our Boates, and
departed from the shoare towards our shippes, with as much speede as we could: For the
weather beganne to overcast, and very likely that a foule and stormie night would ensue.
Therefore the same Evening with much danger and labour, we got our selves aboard, by
which time the winde and seas were so greatly risen, that wee doubted our Cables and
Anchors would scarcely holde untill Morning: wherefore the Captaine caused the Boate to
be manned by five lusty men, who could swimme all well, and sent them to the little Iland
on the right hand of the Harbour, to bring aboard sixe of our men, who had filled our caske
with fresh water: the Boate the same night returned aboard with our men, but all our Caske
ready filled they left behinde, unpossible to bee had aboard without danger of casting away
both men and Boates: for this night prooved very stormie and foule.
The next Morning it was agreed by the Captaine and my selfe, with the Master and
others, to wey anchor, and goe for the place at Croatoan, where our planters were: for that
then the winde was good for that place, and also to leave that Caske with fresh water on
shoare in the Iland untill our returne. So then they brought the cable to the Capston, but
when the anchor was almost adecke, the Cable broke, by meanes whereof we lost another
Anchor, wherewith we drove so fast into the shoare, that wee were forced to let fall a third
Anchor: which came so fast home that the Shippe was almost aground by Kenricks
mounts15: so that we were forced to let slippe the Cable ende for ende. And if it had not
chanced that wee had fallen into a chanell of deeper water, closer by the shoare then wee
accompted of, wee could never have gone cleare of the poynt that lyeth to the Southwardes
of Kenricks mounts. Being thus cleare of some dangers, and gotten into deeper waters, but
not without some losse: for wee had but one Cable and Anchor left us of foure, and the
weather grew to be fouler and fouler; our victuals scarse, and our caske and fresh water
lost: it was therefore determined that we should goe for Saint John16 or some other Iland to
the Southward for fresh water.
Notes
1. Steering.
2. Sand bar, or barrier.
3. Hauled.
4. The assistant to the officer reponsible for navigation.
5. Going overboard.
6. Throughout.

7. A type of anchor.
8. Savages. “Savage” was the term used by the English to refer to people who were not Christian or
“civilized” by European standards; it doesn’t nececessarily suggest bloodthirstiness or cruelty.
9. Roman letters are letters from the Latin alphabet, the alphabet used in English today (as well as
most other languages of Western Europe). “Roman letters” can also refer specifically to capital
letters, since the Romans did not use lowercase letters, which were invented in the Middle Ages.
White may mean that the letters C R O were uppercase, or he may mean that they were Roman
letters as opposed to Gothic letters or “blackletter,” the kind of more elaborate script best known
today from the illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages. Gothic script was still commonly
used for English writing in the 1500s, though it was gradually being replaced by Roman letters.
Gothic script is still sometimes used on diplomas or certificates, as well as in the masthead of
the New York Times (see http://www.learnnc.orghttp://www.nytimes.com).
10. The planters were the people who settled or “planted” the colony. Plantation was used at this
time to mean an entire colony, not just a single large farm.
Seated here means located or situated.
11. An. is short for the Latin word anno, meaning year (as in Anno Domini, or A.D.).
12. Cortines were curtain walls, the walls of the fort. Flankers were bastions, which projected at
angles from the walls to allow defensive fire in several directions.
13. A pig in this sense is a block of iron or lead. Lead pigs would have been used to make shot
(ammunition).
14. Ammunition for guns.
15. A large sand hill on the Outer Banks.
16. St. John, now part of the U.S. Virgin Islands (a United States territory), is southeast of Puerto
Rico in the Caribbean Sea. (See map.)

170
5 Contact and consequences
Not only people crossed the Atlantic Ocean after 1492. They carried with
them livestock, crops, and diseases that had been unique to Eurasia and
Africa or to the Americas, and that “Columbian Exchange” of life forms
reshaped the world. Some aspects of the exchange were beneficial: Corn
and potatoes, native American crops, became important sources of food to
the world’s people. But the diseases that Europeans carried to the Americas
171
killed more than 90 percent of the population of those two continents,
wiping out entire cultures that had existed for thousands of years.
In the final chapter of this module we’ll weigh the biological, ecological, and
human consequences of contact between Europeans and Americans. After
considering the impact of new crops, new livestock, and especially new
diseases on the world’s peoples, we’ll end this module where we began —
with a look at the landscape of North Carolina, and how both American
Indians and European colonists molded it to suit their needs.

172
The Columbian Exchange
BY J.R. MCNEILL
Figure 103. The arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas marked the
meeting of previously separate biological worlds.
Geologists believe that between 280 million and 225 million years ago, the earth’s
previously separate land areas became welded into a landmass called Pangaea. About 120
million years ago, they believe, this landmass began to separate. As this happened, the
Atlantic Ocean formed, dividing the Americas from Africa and Eurasia. Over the course of
the next several million years in both the Americas and in Afro-Eurasia, biological
evolution followed individual paths, creating two primarily separate biological worlds.
However, when Christopher Columbus and his crew made land in the Bahamas in October
1492, these two long-separated worlds were reunited. Columbus’ voyage, along with the
many voyages that followed, disrupted much of the biological segregation brought about by
continental drift.
After Columbus’ arrival in the Americas, the animal, plant, and bacterial life of these
two worlds began to mix. This process, first studied comprehensively by American
historian Alfred Crosby, was called the Columbian Exchange. By reuniting formerly
biologically distinct land masses, the Columbian Exchange had dramatic and lasting effects
on the world. New diseases were introduced to American populations that had no prior
This section copyright ©2008 John McNeill. All Rights Reserved.

experience of them. The results were devastating. These populations also were introduced
to new weeds and pests, livestock, and pets. New food and fiber crops were introduced to
Eurasia and Africa, improving diets and fomenting trade there. In addition, the Columbian
Exchange vastly expanded the scope of production of some popular drugs, bringing the
pleasures — and consequences — of coffee, sugar, and tobacco use to many millions of
people. The results of this exchange recast the biology of both regions and altered the
history of the world.
The flow from east to west: Disease

By far the most dramatic and devastating impact of the Columbian Exchange followed the
introduction of new diseases into the Americas. When the first inhabitants of the Americas
arrived across the Bering land bridge between 20,000 and 12,000 years ago, they brought
few diseases with them. Why? For one reason, they had no domesticated animals, the
original source of human diseases such as smallpox and measles. In addition, as they
passed from Siberia to North America, the first Americans had spent many years in
extreme cold, which eliminated many of the disease-causing agents that might have
traveled with them. As a result, the first Americans and their descendants, perhaps 40
million to 60 million strong by 1492, enjoyed freedom from most of the infectious diseases
that plagued populations in Afro-Eurasia for millennia. Meanwhile, in Asia and Africa, the
domestication of herd animals brought new diseases spread by cattle, sheep, pigs, and fowl.
Soon after 1492, sailors inadvertently introduced these diseases — including smallpox,
measles, mumps, whooping cough, influenza, chicken pox, and typhus — to the Americas.
People who lived in Afro-Eurasia had developed some immunities to these diseases
because they had long existed among most Afro-Eurasian populations. However, the Native
Americans had no such immunities. Adults and children alike were stricken by wave after
wave of epidemic, which produced catastrophic mortality throughout the Americas. In the
larger centers of highland Mexico and Peru, many millions of people died. On some
Caribbean islands, the Native American population died out completely. In all, between
1492 and 1650, perhaps 90 percent of the first Americans had died.
This loss is considered among the largest demographic disasters in human history. By
stripping the Americas of much of the human population, the Columbian Exchange rocked
the region’s ecological and economic balance. Ecosystems were in tumult as forests regrew
and previously hunted animals increased in number. Economically, the population
decrease brought by the Columbian Exchange indirectly caused a drastic labor shortage
throughout the Americas, which eventually contributed to the establishment of African
slavery on a vast scale in the Americas. By 1650, the slave trade had brought new diseases,
such as malaria and yellow fever, which further plagued Native Americans.

The flow from east to west: Crops and animals
Eurasians sent much more than disease westward. The introduction of new crops and
domesticated animals to the Americas did almost as much to upset the region’s biological,
economic, and social balance as the introduction of disease had. Columbus had wanted to
establish new fields of plenty in the Americas. On his later voyages he brought many crops
he hoped might flourish there. He and his followers brought the familiar food grains of
Europe: wheat, barley, and rye. They also brought Mediterranean plantation crops such as
sugar, bananas, and citrus fruits, which all had originated in South or Southeast Asia. At
Figure 104. Oranges, now a first, many of these crops fared poorly; but eventually they all flourished. After 1640, sugar
staple of the Florida economy,
became the mainstay of the Caribbean and Brazilian economies, becoming the foundation
didn’t grow in the Americas
until after the arrival of Spanish for some of the largest slave societies ever known. The production of rice and cotton, both
explorers. imported in the Columbian Exchange, together with tobacco, formed the basis of slave
society in the United States. Wheat, which thrived in the temperate latitudes of North and
South America and in the highlands of Mexico, eventually became a fundamental food
crop for tens of millions of people in the Americas. Indeed, by the late 20th century, wheat
exports from Canada, the United States, and Argentina were feeding millions of people
outside the Americas. It is true that the spread of these crops drastically changed the
economy of the Americas. However, these new crops supported the European settler
societies and their African slave systems. The Native Americans preferred their own foods.
When it came to animals, however, the Native Americans borrowed eagerly from the
Eurasian stables. The Columbian Exchange brought horses, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and a
collection of other useful species to the Americas. Before Columbus, Native American
societies in the high Andes had domesticated llamas and alpacas, but no other animals
weighing more than 45 kg (100 lbs). And for good reason: none of the other 23 large
mammal species present in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus were suitable for
domestication. In contrast, Eurasia had 72 large animal species, of which 13 were suitable
for domestication. So, while Native Americans had plenty of good food crops available
before 1492, they had few domesticated animals. The main ones, aside from llamas and
alpacas, were dogs, turkeys, and guinea pigs.
Of all the animals introduced by the Europeans, the horse held particular attraction.
Native Americans first encountered it as a fearsome war beast ridden by Spanish
conquistadors. However, they soon learned to ride and raise horses themselves. In the
North American great plains, the arrival of the horse revolutionized Native American life,
permitting tribes to hunt the buffalo far more effectively. Several Native American groups
left farming to become buffalo-hunting nomads and, incidentally, the most formidable
enemies of European expansion in the Americas.
Figure 105. The introduction of
Cattle, sheep, pigs, and goats also proved popular in the Americas. Within 100 years
horses made hunting buffalo
much easier for the Plains after Columbus, huge herds of wild cattle roamed many of the natural grasslands of the
Indians. Americas. Wild cattle, and, to a lesser degree, sheep and goats, menaced the food crops of
Native Americans, notably in Mexico. Eventually ranching economies emerged, based
variously on cattle, goats, or sheep. The largest ranches emerged in the grasslands of
Venezuela and Argentina, and on the broad sea of grass that stretched from northern
Mexico to the Canadian prairies. Native Americans used the livestock for meat, tallow,
hides, transportation, and hauling. Altogether, the suite of domesticated animals from
Eurasia brought a biological, economic, and social revolution to the Americas.

The flow from west to east: Disease
In terms of diseases, the Columbian Exchange was a wildly unequal affair, and the
Americas got the worst of it. The flow of disease from the Americas eastward into Eurasia
and Africa was either trivial or consisted of a single important infection. Much less is
known about pre-Columbian diseases in the Americas than what is known about those in
Eurasia. Based on their study of skeletal remains, anthropologists believe that Native
Americans certainly suffered from arthritis. They also had another disease, probably a form
of tuberculosis that may or may not have been similar to the pulmonary tuberculosis
common in the modern world. Native Americans also apparently suffered from a group of
illnesses that included two forms of syphilis. One controversial theory asserts that the
venereal syphilis epidemic that swept much of Europe beginning in 1494 came from the
Americas; however, the available evidence remains inconclusive.
The flow from west to east: Crops and cuisine

America’s vast contribution to Afro-Eurasia in terms of new plant species and cuisine,
however, transformed life in places as far apart as Ireland, South Africa, and China. Before
Columbus, the Americas had plenty of domesticated plants. By the time Columbus had
arrived, dozens of plants were in regular use, the most important of which were maize
(corn), potatoes, cassava, and various beans and squashes. Lesser crops included sweet
potato, papaya, pineapple, tomato, avocado, guava, peanuts, chili peppers, and cacao, the
raw form of cocoa. Within 20 years of Columbus’ last voyage, maize had established itself
in North Africa and perhaps in Spain. It spread to Egypt, where it became a staple in the
Nile Delta, and from there to the Ottoman Empire, especially the Balkans. By 1800, maize
was the major grain in large parts of what is now Romania and Serbia, and was also
important in Hungary, Ukraine, Italy, and southern France. It was often used as animal
feed, but people ate it too, usually in a porridge or bread. Maize appeared in China in the
16th century and eventually supplied about one-tenth of the grain supply there. In the 19th
Figure 106. Maize has become a century it became an important crop in India. Maize probably played its greatest role,
dietary staple in southern Africa.
however, in southern Africa. There maize arrived in the 16th century in the context of the
slave trade. Southern African environmental conditions, across what is now Angola,
Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and eastern South Africa, suited maize handsomely.
Over the centuries, maize became the primary peasant food in much of southern Africa. In
late 20th-century South Africa, for example, maize grew in two-thirds to three-quarters of
the region’s cropland.
Despite maize’s success, the humble potato probably had a stronger impact in
improving the food supply and in promoting population growth in Eurasia. The potato had
little impact in Africa, where conditions did not suit it. But in northern Europe the potato
thrived. It had the most significant effect on Ireland, where it promoted a rapid population
increase until a potato blight ravaged the crop in 1845, bringing widespread famine to the
area. After 1750, Scandinavia, the Low Countries, Germany, Poland, and Russia also
gradually accepted the potato, which helped drive a general population explosion in Europe.
This population explosion may have laid the foundation for world-shaking developments

such as the Industrial Revolution and modern European imperialism. The potato also fed
mountain populations around the world, notably in China, where it encouraged settlement
of mountainous regions.
While maize and potatoes had the greatest world historical importance of the
American crops, lesser crops made their marks as well. In West Africa, peanuts and
cassava provided new foodstuffs. Cassava, a tropical shrub native to Brazil, has starchy
roots that will grow in almost any soil. In the leached soils of West and Central Africa,
cassava became an indispensable crop. Today some 200 million Africans rely on it as their
main source of nutrition. Cacao and rubber, two other South American crops, became
important export items in West Africa in the 20th century. The sweet potato, which was
introduced into China in the 1560s, became China’s third most important crop after rice
Figure 107. Cassava root.
and wheat. It proved a useful supplement to diets throughout the monsoon lands of Asia.
Indeed, almost everywhere in the world, one or another American food crops caught on,
complementing existing crops or, more rarely, replacing them. By the late 20th century,
about one-third of the world’s food supply came from plants first cultivated in the
Americas. The modern rise of population surely would have been slower without them.
In contrast, the animals of the Americas have had very little impact on the rest of the
world, unless one considers its earliest migrants. The camel and the horse actually
originated in North America and migrated westward across the Bering land bridge to Asia,
where they evolved into the forms familiar today. By the time of the Columbian Exchange,
these animals were long extinct in the Americas, and the majority of America’s
domesticated animals would have little more than a tiny impact on Afro-Eurasia. One
domesticated animal that did have an effect was the turkey. Wild animals of the Americas
have done only a little better. Probably after the 19th century, North American muskrats
and squirrels successfully colonized large areas of Europe. Deliberate introductions of
American animals, such as raccoons fancied for their fur and imported to Germany in the
1920s, occasionally led to escapes and the establishment of feral animal communities.
However, no species introduced from the Americas revolutionized human affairs or animal
ecology anywhere in Afro-Eurasia. In terms of animal populations as with disease, the
Americas contributed little that could flourish in the conditions of Europe, Africa, or Asia.
The Columbian Exchange in the modern world

As the late dates of the introduction of muskrats and raccoons to Europe suggest, the
Columbian Exchange continues into the present. Indeed, it will surely continue into the
future as modern transportation continues the pattern begun by Columbus. Recently, for
example, zebra mussels from the Black Sea, stowed away in the ballast water of ships,
invaded North American waters. There they blocked the water intakes of factories, nuclear
power plants, and municipal filtration plants throughout the Great Lakes region. Just as the
arrival of Christopher Columbus’s ships in America in the 15th century resulted in the
Figure 108. At Lake Ontario in worldwide exchange of disease, crops, and animals, the 20th-century practice of ships
Canada, zebra mussels cling to
using water as ballast helped unite the formerly diverse flora and fauna of the world’s
the inside of a rusty pipe.
harbors and estuaries. Similarly, air transport allows the spread of insects and diseases that
would not easily survive longer, slower trips. Modern transport carries on in the tradition of
Columbus by promoting a homogenization of the world’s plants and animals. To date,

however, the world historical importance of modern exchanges pales beside that which
took place in the original Columbian Exchange.
On the Web
The importance of one simple plant
The natives of America could trace the history of maize to the beginning of time. Maize was the
food of the gods that had created the Earth. It played a central role in many native myths and
legends. And it came to be one of their most important foods. Maize, in some form, made up
roughly 65 percent of the native diet. When European settlers reached the New World, they
learned to cultivate Indian corn from their native neighbors.

The Columbian Exchange at a glance
Countless animals, plants, and microorganisms crossed the Atlantic Ocean with European
explorers and colonists in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. This chart
lists some of the organisms that had the greatest impact on human society worldwide.
Old World ? New World New World ? Old World
• horses
• cattle • turkeys
• pigs • llamas
Domestic animals
• sheep • alpacas
• goats • guinea pigs
• chickens
• maize (corn)
• potatoes
• sweet potatoes
• rice
• cassava
• wheat
• peanuts
• barley
• tobacco
• oats
• squash
• coffee
Crops • peppers
• sugar cane
• tomatoes
• citrus fruits
• pumpkins
• bananas
• cacao (the source of chocolate)
• melons
• sunflowers
• Kentucky bluegrass
• pineapples
• avocados
• vanilla
• smallpox
• measles
• mumps
Diseases • malaria • syphilis (possibly)
• yellow fever
• influenza
• whooping cough
The Columbian Exchange at a glance | 179

Old World ? New World New World ? Old World
• typhus
• chicken pox
• the common cold

Disease and catastrophe
BY DAVID WALBERT
Of all the kinds of life exchanged when the Old and New Worlds met, lowly germs had the
greatest impact. Europeans and later Africans brought smallpox and a host of other
diseases with them to America, where those diseases killed as much as 90 percent of the
native population of two continents. Europeans came away lucky — with only a few tropical
diseases from Africa and, probably, syphilis from the New World. In America, disease
destoyed civilizations.
Endemics and epidemics: How disease works

A disease becomes endemic in a population when it continues to be passed from person to
person without needing to be re-introduced from outside sources. The common cold, for
example, is endemic in the United States — if we closed the borders and sterilzed
everything that entered the country, we’d still be sneezing half the winter. Malaria, which is
passed from person to person by mosquitoes, is endemic in parts of Africa. If you live in a
region where a particular disease is endemic, you are likely to get that disease at some
point during your life.
DISEASE AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS

Although all populations of animals, including humans, are subject to disease, humans
who live in close contact with domesticated animals are particularly at risk. Many of the
diseases that have plagued humanity are caused by microorganisms that originally affected
only other species of animals. When humans began to domesticate animals for agricultural
purposes, some of those microorganisms mutated into a form that could cause disease in
humans. Diseases that come to humans from other animals are called zoonotic diseases.
Measles, smallpox, influenza, diphtheria, the common cold, and tuberculosis probably
came to humans from other animals and are now transmitted directly from human to
human. Other zoonotic diseases are still transmitted by animals. Yellow fever and malaria,
for example, are transmitted by mosquitoes. Bubonic plague is carried by rats (though it is

also highly contagious among humans), and rabies can be carried and transmitted by any
mammal.
Because Europeans, Asians, and Africans had many more domestic animals than
American Indians, they had acquired more endemic diseases. Large centers of population
like the cities of Europe and Asia also attracted rats that carried diseases like the bubonic
plague.
NATURAL RESISTANCE AND EPIDEMICS

When a deadly disease is endemic in a population, over many generations, that population
gradually builds up a resistance to it. Most serious diseases are especially likely to kill
infants and children. Children who die of a disease obviously won’t live to reproduce. But
not everyone dies from even the most serious diseases. Some people have combinations of
genes that help their immune systems to successfully fight particular diseases. A child who
survives smallpox, for example, and grows up will pass on his smallpox-resistant genes to
his children. Since people with genes that help them resist the endemic disease are more
likely to live, reproduce, and pass on their genes, while people who lack those genes are
more likely to die in childhood, over time, all of the surviving population will have those
genes.
An endemic disease isn’t always present in a population at the same level. There can
still be epidemics — outbreaks of the disease that spread faster and to more people than is
typical. But epidemics are more likely, and more serious, in a population where a disease is
not endemic. There, people are sickened more easily, become weaker, and pass the disease
along more quickly. The most serious epidemics are of diseases or strains of diseases new
to a population. Epidemics of influenza (the “flu”), for example, tend to come from new
strains of the influenza virus.
Europeans, Asians, and Africans had a natural resistance to smallpox, measles,
typhoid, and other diseases endemic to the Old World. These diseases were still deadly —
smallpox killed some 60 million Europeans over the course of the eighteenth century —
but not as deadly as they would have been in a population that lacked the natural
resistance.
American Indians, who lived on a continent where the smallpox virus and other Old
World microbes did not exist, had no natural resistance to them. When Europeans arrived,
infection spread like wildfire, killing not only the young, old, and weak but healthy adults
in the prime of life.
Disease in the Americas

Not only smallpox but measles, tuberculosis, diphtheria, whooping cough, and influenza
arrived in the Americas with European conquistadors and colonists. Enslaved Africans
brought malaria, yellow fever, and denge (breakbone fever), which thrived in the Caribbean
and warmer parts of North America. Slave traders, in turn, carried yellow fever back to
Europe, and European traders and explorers may have brought home syphilis from the
Americas. Nowhere, though, did disease have the devastating impact it did in the New
World.

This was not the first time that a new disease had been introduced into a human
population. In the 1300s, Mongol armies and traders from Central Asia brought the
bubonic plague to Europe, and the resulting epidemic — the “Black Death” — killed one-
third of the population of Western Europe.
But even the Black Death can’t compare to the devastation of the indigenous peoples
of North and South America. Hit by wave after wave of multiple diseases to which they had
utterly no resistance, they died by the millions. Disease spread from the paths of explorers
and the sites of colonization like a stain from a drop of ink on a paper towel.
In fact, in North America, disease spread faster than European colonization. When
Hernando de Soto explored the Mississippi Valley in the early 1500s he found large,
thriving cities connected by networks of trade. By the time Rene-Robert de La Salle
followed de Soto’s footsteps in the 1680s, those cities had evaporated.
In parts of North Carolina, disease may have come later. Smallpox may have arrived in
the 1500s in the wake of Soto’s expedition, and it may have struck the Indians of the Outer
Banks when the English arrived to settle Roanoke Island. Its worst damage, though, came
later. In the late 1600s, the colonial population grew rapidly, and many more slaves were
imported from Africa, where most people were not exposed to smallpox at a young age as
they were in England. This made conditions right for an epidemic among the colonial
population, and between 1696 and 1700, that epidemic occurred, first in Virginia, then
moving south through the Carolinas and west to the Mississippi. The expanding network
of colonial trade among the Indians (including a trade in Indian slaves) quickly carried
smallpox throughout the Southeast. Death rates were as high as 90 percent in some
communities — and it was only the beginning of a century of epidemics.
As a result, by 1700, North Carolina east of the mountains was sparsely populated. The
English colonists in North America found a wilderness ready for the taking, and the
Indians who remained were not numerous enough to stop them.
HOW MANY PEOPLE DIED?
Estimating the number of The figure most often cited is that 90 to 95 percent of the native population of the
deaths due to imported Americas died between the time Columbus landed in the Caribbean and the end of the
diseases is difficult for two
reasons. First, we have only
eighteenth century. That percentage is based largely on epidemiology — the study of how
rough estimates of the diseases spread in populations. But no one knows exactly how many people died, because
population of most of the no one knows exactly how many people were here in 1491, before Columbus arrived.
Americas even after Europeans In 1910, James Mooney, an ethnographer at the Smithsonian Institution, made the
arrived and started counting
people. Then, researchers use
first scholarly estimate of the indigenous population of the Americas. Mooney used old
data on present-day epidemics documents to estimate that in 1492, North America had 1.15 million inhabitants. Mooney
to estimate what a likely death was widely respected in his field, and for decades, other researchers accepted this figure.
rate would have been for a Then, in 1966, anthropologist Henry F. Dobyns used new research in epidemiology to
population with no immunity to
any of the diseases Europeans
estimate that 95 percent of the native population of the Americas died after European
brought. A small inaccuracy in contact — 95 percent of an original population of 90 to 112 million people, more than the
the estimated death rate can population of Europe at that time!
lead to very different estimates Based on further research, Dobyns later reduced his estimate to 18 million people.
of population, and researchers
argue about both numbers.
Other researchers estimate far fewer, as low as 1.8 million. Others have proposed numbers
in between. But regardless of whether 1 million people died or 100 million, scholars agree
that disease devastated native populations, cultures, and societies. To put those numbers in

perspective, consider that 1.8 million people is the population of Charlotte, Raleigh,
Greensboro, Durham, Winston-Salem and Fayetteville combined; 18 million is more than
twice the current population of the state of North Carolina; and 100 million is a a third of
the population of the United States.
Who’s to blame?
Historians also debate whether Europeans were guilty of genocide — the deliberate killing
of an entire ethnic group. That question has many layers, and it’s difficult to answer — or
even to ask — without succumbing to emotion or ideology. When millions of people die,
we naturally look for someone to blame, but the desire to assign blame can prevent us from
fully understanding the past.
Europeans certainly understood the impact of disease on American Indians. The
Spanish learned quickly that the native populations of the Caribbean and Central America
were highly susceptible to diseases. When John Lawson traveled through North Carolina in
1701, he noted repeatedly in his journals1 that the populations of the Indians he met were
greatly reduced from only a short time earlier. Europeans also had a rough idea of how
some diseases, such as smallpox, were transmitted, and they understood the importance of
quarantine.
John Lawson, traveling through South Carolina in 1701, wrote about the effect of
smallpox on the Sewee Indians:
These Sewees have been formerly a large Nation, though now very much decreas’d since the
English hath seated their Land, and all other Nations of Indians are observ’d to partake of the
same Fate, where the Europeans come, the Indians being a People very apt to catch any
Distemper they are afflicted withal; the Small-Pox has destroy’d many thousands of these
Natives, who no sooner than they are attack’d with the violent Fevers, and the Burning which
attends that Distemper, sling themselves over Head in the Water, in the very Extremity of the
Disease; which shutting up the Pores, hinders a kindly Evacuation of the Pestilential Matter,
and drives it back; by which Means Death most commonly ensues; not but in other
Distempers which are epidemical, you may find among’em Practitioners that have
extraordinary Skill and Success in removing those morbifick Qualities which afflict ‘em, not
often going above 100 Yards from their Abode for their Remedies, some of their chiefest
Physicians commonly carrying their Complement of Drugs continually about them, which are
Roots, Barks, Berries, Nuts, &c. that are strung upon a Thread. So like a Pomander, the
Physician wears them about his Neck. An Indian hath been often found to heal an English-
man of a Malady, for the Value of a Match-Coat; which the ablest of our English Pretenders in
America, after repeated Applications, have deserted the Patient as incurable; God having
furnish’d every Country with specifick Remedies for their peculiar Diseases.
Lawson had great respect for the traditional medicine of the Indians, which was based on
herbal cures and rituals and was often quite effective against illnesses and maladies present
before Europeans arrived. Although Indians tried to adapt their system of medicine to new
diseases, viruses such as smallpox simply overwhelmed them.
At least one European used smallpox as a military weapon. Lord Jeffrey Amherst,
commanding general of British forces in America during the Seven Years War (or French
and Indian War, 1756–1763), distributed blankets from smallpox victims as a way to crush

an Indian uprising and “to Extirpate this Execrable Race.”2 Amherst, at least, went on
record in favor of genocide.
Other Europeans, from the Spanish in the 1500s to English colonists in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, saw the spread of smallpox as divine intervention.
They believed that by wiping out the native population and clearing the continent for
European settlement, God was declaring himself on their side.
But although there are rumors and stories of other similar attempts to spread
smallpox among native populations — by the Spanish in Central America and by the U.S.
government in the nineteenth century — no documentary evidence survives to prove them.
Although plenty of Europeans wanted the Indians out of their way, few seem to have
engaged in deliberate biological warfare.
Finally, it’s worth remembering that germs weren’t discovered until the nineteenth
century, and that although inoculation had been proven to work, most Europeans still
feared it. People’s understanding of disease was still poor. Note Lawson’s disdain for
“English pretenders” — European doctors who claim to practice superior medicine, but are
less successful than their Indian counterparts. European physicians believed, for example,
that some diseases were caused by an excess of blood in the body, and “cured” them by
attaching leeches to patients’ skin to “bleed” them.
There was, probably, no way to stop the spread of disease once peoples long isolated
came into contact. Even had Europeans been horrified by the spread of smallpox among
the Indians and thrown the weight of their medical system against it, they would have been
opening an umbrella against a hurricane.
OTHER KILLERS
It’s important to remember that in addition to disease, war and slavery killed American
Indians. How many people were killed is difficult — perhaps impossible — to know.
Clearly, though, war and slavery were deliberate acts on the part of Europeans, and some of
the wars fought between colonists and Indians were genocidal in intent — that is, the
colonists attempted to wipe out an entire native population. Wars between colonists and
Indians often led to massacres of native villages. In the Pequot War, which took place in
New England in the 1630s, the colonial militia burned the village of Mystic, killing an
estimated 600 to 700 Pequot Indians — mostly women and children. But both sides
engaged in this kind of warfare: The Tuscarora War began in North Carolina in 1711 when
parties of Tuscarora Indians attacked plantations and killed families of colonists. But
weakened and diminished by disease, American Indians were nearly always unsuccessful
in colonial wars.
What’s clear is that millions of American Indians died, and most European colonists
were content to have them out of the way. That feeling was usually mutual, but Europeans,
armed with better weapons and with disease as an ally, prevailed. How they prevailed is a
complex story that would play out over centuries.
Disease and epidemics today

The World Health Organization provides information on the symptoms, treatment, and current
status of some of the diseases mentioned in this article:

• influenza (see http://www.learnnc.orghttp://www.who.int/topics/influenza/en/)
• malaria (see http://www.learnnc.orghttp://www.who.int/topics/malaria/en/)
• measles (see http://www.learnnc.orghttp://www.who.int/topics/measles/en/)
• mumps (see http://www.learnnc.orghttp://www.who.int/topics/mumps/en/)
• smallpox (see http://www.learnnc.orghttp://www.who.int/topics/smallpox/en/)
• typhoid fever (see http://www.learnnc.orghttp://www.who.int/topics/typhoid_fever/en/)
(typhus)
• yellow fever (see http://www.learnnc.orghttp://www.who.int/topics/yellow_fever/en/)
On the Web
1491
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200203/mann
Before it became the New World, the Western Hemisphere was vastly more populous and
sophisticated than has been thought. By Charles Mann, from The Atlantic.
The Origin of Disease and Medicine

A Cherokee myth recorded in the late nineteenth century.
Lessons from America's Tropical Epidemic

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19241319
Diseases still move around the world wherever people go, and climate change may accelerate
that process. NPR tells the story of an epidemic of yellow fever that swept Memphis, Tennessee,
in 1878 and considers what lessons it might hold for us today.
Notes
1. See http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/john-lawson/.
2. Amherst wrote these words in a letter to Colonel Henry Bouquet on July 13, 1763.

Smallpox
Adapted from "Smallpox Overview (see http://www.smallpox.gov/smallpox/
aboutdisease.html)" provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services and the Centers for Disease Control Smallpox Vaccine Overview (see
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/vaccination/facts.asp).
PROVIDED BY U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Figure 109. This photograph of a smallpox victim appeared in the Baltimore

Health News in 1939 as a warning to people who had not been vaccinated.
Smallpox is a serious, contagious, and sometimes fatal infectious disease caused by the
variola virus. There is no specific treatment for smallpox disease, and the only prevention is
vaccination. The name smallpox is derived from the Latin word for “spotted” and refers to
the raised bumps that appear on the face and body of an infected person.
The variola virus first emerged in human populations thousands of years ago.
Historically, smallpox had a mortality rate of as much as 30 percent — that is, it killed 30
percent of people who contracted it. Mortality was highest among infants and children. In
the eighteenth century, smallpox killed some 60 million Europeans. In the Americas, it
Smallpox | 187
killed as much as 90 percent of the indigenous population after contact with Europeans
introduced the disease. As late as 1967, some 2 million people worldwide died of smallpox.
Smallpox is now eradicated — eliminated from nature — after a successful worldwide
vaccination program. The last case of smallpox in the United States was in 1949. The last
naturally occurring case in the world was in Somalia in 1977. Smallpox is the only human
infectious disease ever completely eradicated. Today, the variola virus exists only in
laboratory stockpiles.
Transmission
Generally, direct and fairly prolonged face-to-face contact is required to spread smallpox
from one person to another. Smallpox also can be spread through direct contact with
infected bodily fluids or contaminated objects such as bedding or clothing. Rarely,
smallpox has been spread by virus carried in the air in enclosed settings such as buildings,
buses, and trains. Humans are the only natural hosts of variola. Smallpox is not known to
be transmitted by insects or animals.
A person with smallpox is sometimes contagious with the onset of fever, but the
person becomes most contagious with the onset of rash. At this stage the infected person is
usually very sick and not able to move around in the community. The infected person is
contagious until the last smallpox scab falls off.
Smallpox disease
Incubation period (7–17 days; not contagious)
Exposure to the virus is followed by an incubation period during which people do not
have any symptoms and may feel fine. This incubation period averages about 12 to 14
days but can range from 7 to 17 days. During this time, people are not contagious.
Initial symptoms (2–4 days; sometimes contagious)

The first symptoms of smallpox include fever, malaise, head and body aches, and
sometimes vomiting. The fever is usually high, in the range of 101 to 104 degrees
Fahrenheit. At this time, people are usually too sick to carry on their normal activities.
This is called the prodrome phase and may last for 2 to 4 days.
Early Rash (about 4 days; most contagious)
A rash emerges first as small red spots on the tongue and in the mouth.
These spots develop into sores that break open and spread large amounts of the
virus into the mouth and throat. At this time, the person becomes contagious.
Around the time the sores in the mouth break down, a rash appears on the skin,
starting on the face and spreading to the arms and legs and then to the hands and feet.
Usually the rash spreads to all parts of the body within 24 hours. As the rash appears,
the fever usually falls and the person may start to feel better.
By the third day of the rash, the rash becomes raised bumps.

By the fourth day, the bumps fill with a thick, opaque fluid and often have a
depression in the center that looks like a bellybutton. (This is a major distinguishing
characteristic of smallpox.)
Fever often will rise again at this time and remain high until scabs form over the
bumps.
Pustular rash (about 5 days; contagious

The bumps become pustules — sharply raised, usually round and firm to the touch as
if there’s a small round object under the skin. People often say the bumps feel like BB
pellets embedded in the skin.
Pustules and scabs (about 5 days; contagious)
The pustules begin to form a crust and then scab.

By the end of the second week after the rash appears, most of the sores have
scabbed over.
Resolving scabs (about 6 days; contagious)
The scabs begin to fall off, leaving marks on the skin that eventually become pitted
scars. Most scabs will have fallen off three weeks after the rash appears.
The person is contagious to others until all of the scabs have fallen off.
Scabs resolved (not contagious)

Scabs have fallen off. Person is no longer contagious.
The smallpox vaccine

HISTORY
Until the late eighteenth century, the only way to prevent smallpox was by inoculation —
deliberately giving someone a weak case of the disease so that his or her body would
develop an immunity to it and prevent a more deadly case of the disease later on. This
might be done by rubbing pus from the sores of an infected person into a scratch or cut on
the skin of a healthy person. Although inoculation had a mortality rate of 0.2 to 0.5
percent, it was far safer than taking chances with the full disease.
Inoculation was used to prevent smallpox in China by 1100 CE and was also widely
understood in West Africa. According to several eighteenth-century accounts, African
slaves taught methods of inoculation to European colonist. But inoculation was rarely used
in Europe until the eighteenth century, and remained controversial for centuries
afterwards.
In 1796, Edward Jenner, an English doctor, discovered that inoculation with cowpox
would give a person immunity to smallpox as well. Cowpox and smallpox are closely
related, but cowpox is a much less serious disease than smallpox, and so Jenner’s form of
inoculation was far safer than the traditional version. He called his method “vaccination,”
Smallpox | 189
from the Latin word vacca, or cow, and today we use vaccination to refer to immunization
against any disease.
MODERN VACCINATION
The modern smallpox vaccine is made from a virus called vaccinia which is a related to
smallpox. The smallpox vaccine contains the “live” vaccinia virus — not dead virus like
many other vaccines. For that reason, the vaccination site must be cared for carefully to
prevent the virus from spreading. Also, the vaccine can have side effects. The vaccine does
not contain the smallpox virus and cannot give you smallpox.
Currently, the United States has a big enough stockpile of smallpox vaccine to
vaccinate everyone in the United States in the event of a smallpox emergency.
LENGTH OF PROTECTION
Smallpox vaccination provides high level immunity for 3 to 5 years and decreasing
immunity thereafter. If a person is vaccinated again later, immunity lasts even longer.
Historically, the vaccine has been effective in preventing smallpox infection in 95 percent
of those vaccinated. In addition, the vaccine was proven to prevent or substantially lessen
infection when given within a few days of exposure. It is important to note, however, that at
the time when the smallpox vaccine was used to eradicate the disease, testing was not as
advanced or precise as it is today, so there may still be things to learn about the vaccine and
its effectiveness and length of protection.
RECEIVING THE VACCINE

The smallpox vaccine is not given with a hypodermic needle. It is not a shot as most people
have experienced. The vaccine is given using a bifurcated (two-pronged) needle that is
dipped into the vaccine solution. When removed, the needle retains a droplet of the
vaccine. The needle is used to prick the skin a number of times in a few seconds. The
pricking is not deep, but it will cause a sore spot and one or two droplets of blood to form.
The vaccine usually is given in the upper arm.
If the vaccination is successful, a red and itchy bump develops at the vaccine site in
three or four days. In the first week, the bump becomes a large blister, fills with pus, and
begins to drain. During the second week, the blister begins to dry up and a scab forms. The
scab falls off in the third week, leaving a small scar. People who are being vaccinated for
the first time have a stronger reaction than those who are being revaccinated. The following
pictures show the progression of the site where the vaccine is given.

Figure 110. The smallpox vaccination site, days 4 through 21 after receiving
the vaccine for the first time.
Smallpox | 191
The lost landscape of the Piedmont
By Geitner Simmons. Originally published as "Prairies and bottomland forests are
among Rowan’s lost habitats" in the Salisbury Post, Salisbury, N.C., 1999.
As you read...
A M E R I C A N I NDI ANS AND THEI R ENVI R ONM ENT
It’s easy to think of American Indians as living in harmony with nature, never exploiting it or shaping it for
their needs. But the reality was more complicated.
In fact, American Indians deliberately shaped their environment. In North Carolina, they burned areas
of forest to clear land for agriculture, to make roads, and to flush out game. When John Lawson traveled
through the Carolinas in 1701 — partly along a trading path made and used by various native peoples — he
reported seeing the Sewee Indians “firing the Canes Swamps, which drives out the Game, then taking their
particular Stands, kill[ing] great Quantities of both Bear, Deer, Turkies, and what wild Creatures the Parts
afford.” The longleaf pine savanna or “prairie” that flourished centuries ago was, to some extent at least, the
product of human activity — and not the “virgin forest” we might like to imagine today.
Southeastern Indians understood that they had to exploit the natural world in order to survive —
whether by hunting or through agriculture. But they also understood that it was important to treat the
natural world carefully, because it could strike back. They understood the importance of maintaining natural
balance, and that is the key belief that distinguished them from the European settlers who were to come.
If Mike Baranski could time-travel back to 16th century Rowan County, one of his first
stops would be High Rock Lake.
Few parts of Rowan have undergone a more dramatic habitat change than High Rock,
the Catawba College biologist says.
The best way to understand the magnitude of the change is to visualize how the site
looks now compared to 400 years ago:
If you see a huge man-made lake like High Rock, Baranski says, “you can assume that
Figure 111. At Town Creek Indian it’s over what was once a bottomland forest. I would have liked to have seen the original
Mound, caretakers are working land under High Rock Lake. I imagine the forest there would have been huge and
to restore the prairie plant
community that existed when
spectacular.”
the Pee Dee occupied the site. Bottomland forests, such as the one that probably stood at High Rock, typically
produced the largest hardwood trees among North Carolina’s old-growth forests. “Some of
those trees would have been gigantic, maybe four, five, six feet in diameter,” Baranski says.

In the late 20th century, such trees are a rarity in the Piedmont. Boone’s Cave State
Park in Davidson County is one of the few areas in the Rowan area where some large old-
growth trees survive, Baranski says.
“It’s really, really hard to find old hardwood, bottomland forest, especially that hasn’t
been cut,” he says.
Many hardwood trees would have routinely reached over three feet in diameter in
precolonial times, he says. Common hardwoods were oaks, cottonwoods, sycamores and
ashes.
In the days when Spanish explorers crisscrossed the Southeast, pine trees — now a
fixture of the Piedmont landscape — accounted for a small percentage of Piedmont
acreage. Pines became the dominant tree in much of the Piedmont only after European
settlers began clearing vast sections of hardwood trees to create farmland in the 1700s,
followed by the abandonment of many farms.
In 20th century Rowan, the forests are tremendously fragmented compared to
conditions in precolonial times, Baranski says.
Near Barber, in western Rowan County, lies another site Baranski would like to visit if
he could travel back four centuries. There, he would look for two once-prominent habitats:
• Areas of grassland known as “Piedmont prairie,” which provided breaks in the area’s
large expanses of hardwood trees.
• Upland depression swamps, where the clay soils often kept moisture on the land’s
surface.
Small numbers of buffalo — actually, woodland bison — grazed there. A “buffalo wallow”
near Youngs Mountain in western Rowan continues today as one of the fragments of that
once-significant ecosystem.
Many European explorers left written records describing the Piedmont prairie in parts
of the old Southeast. The accounts of the Juan Pardo expedition of the 1560s mention that
the Piedmont contained “very large and good plains… clear land.”
John Lawson, an English explorer, described the grasslands found in the Rowan area
in 1701. He wrote that while approaching the Sapona Indian village at Trading Ford, his
party journeyed “about 25 miles over pleasant savanna ground, high and dry, having very
few trees upon it, and those standing at a great distance apart.…
“A man near Sapona may more easily clear 10 acres of ground than in some places he
can clear one.”
The Rev. Jethro Rumple made a similar point in his 1881 history of Rowan County.
One longtime resident, Rumple wrote, claimed that when his father had settled in Rowan
around 1750, the region “was destitute of forests.” That early pioneer farmer, Rumple
wrote, “had to haul the logs for his house more than a mile.”
The Barber area also has remnants of the former wetlands called upland depression
swamps. Both the prairies and the wetlands appeared in Barber because of the particular
nature of the soil there. In the 1990s, all that remains of those former ecosystems, in many
cases, is an isolated plant here and there.
In studying those areas, Baranski is pursuing what he calls an “ecological detective
story,” trying to unravel the mysteries behind these forgotten parts of Rowan County’s
landscape. “Right now we’re only looking at fragments and pieces and trying to put them
together and imagine what they were like,” he says.

A third area the Catawba biologist would like to see in its precolonial condition is in
eastern Rowan. In the days of Juan Pardo’s 1567 visit to Rowan, small plants clung to
granite outcroppings and spread across the slaterock soil, forming a unique habitat.
“A lot of plants are special to these places,” Baranski says. “These are some of our
rarest places now, from a plant point of view.”
The plants have largely disappeared now as timbering and quarrying operations have
proliferated — and because we have suppressed the natural occurrence of wild fires.
Fire played an enormously important role in shaping the destinies of plant life in
precolonial Rowan, Baranski says. Because modern society places such importance on
containing fires, the notion that fire can be beneficial might seem hard to grasp. But in
precolonial days, fire — whether caused by lightning or by Indians — produced ecological
cycles that were quite healthy for the habitat.
“Different ecosystems depended on fire — some more and some less,” Baranski says.
“Prairies are areas where fire is a very important component. Without fire, hardwoods take
over.”
Indians, writes Lawrence Barden, a biologist at the University of North Carolina at
Charlotte, “have lived in the Piedmont region of the Southeastern United States for 12,000
years. They burned the forest to improve hunting, to facilitate travel and, for the last 1,500
years, to clear fields for agriculture.”
“When a fire would break out back then,” Baranski says, “it would go for a long ways.
It may have burned thousands and thousands of acres before it ended.”
Once fires became a rarity, the landscape inevitably changed. The forest slowly crept
onto the grasslands. First, the bison and elk disappeared from the Piedmont prairie. Soon
thereafter, so did the prairie itself.
On the Web
Forests and fires: The longleaf pine savanna
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/cede_longleaf/
This Carolina Environmental Diversity Explorations “virtual field trip” examines the role of fire
in maintaining the longleaf pine savanna as well as other rare plant communities found in
Camp Lejune, North Carolina.

Appendix A. Reading primary
sources: An introduction for students
BY KATHRYN WALBERT
Primary sources are sources that were created during the historical period that you are
studying. Just about anything that existed or was created during that time period can count
as a primary source — a speech, census records, a newspaper, a letter, a diary entry, a song,
a painting, a photograph, a film, an article of clothing, a building, a landscape, etc. Primary
sources are documents, objects, and other sources that provide us with a first-hand account
of what life was like in the past.
Determining what is a primary source and what isn’t can get tricky — what do you do,
for example, with a recent recording of your aunt talking about her experiences during the
Civil Rights Movement? It wasn’t created at the time, but it’s still a first-hand account.
Eyewitness accounts like oral history interviews and memoirs or autobiographies, even
those recorded recently, are considered primary sources because the memories that
eyewitnesses reveal in those sources were created in that historical time period, even if
those memories were not talked about or formally recorded until much later.
It can get even trickier. The movie Gone With The Wind is not a primary source about
the Civil War and Reconstruction, even though it is a movie about that time period. It
wasn’t created during that time period and it is purely a work of fiction and therefore it
can’t provide us with any credible information about that era. It could, however, be used as
a primary source for the Great Depression since the movie and the book on which it was
based were both produced during that period. A fictional film produced in 1930s can tell us
nothing credible about the 1860s, but it could certainly tell us a lot about what people were
interested in during the 1930s — their fantasy world, their dreams, their view of history,
and their tastes in film. If you were writing a paper about American culture in the
Depression, this would be an excellent primary source, but for a paper about slavery, it
would be horrible!
This section copyright ©2004 Kathryn Walbert. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-
Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by-nc-sa/2.5/.
Appendix A. Reading primary sources: An introduction for students | 197

Why bother reading primary sources anyway?
Because they are first-hand accounts of life in the past, created during the time period that
you are interested in, primary sources provide you with windows into the past — a chance
to catch a glimpse at the world you’re trying to understand through the words, pictures,
artwork, and objects of the people who lived in it. This window is especially important for
historians because, unlike other scholars who study people and societies such as
psychologists, sociologists, or anthropologists, historians can’t use direct observation and
experimentation to prove their arguments — at least not until the time machine is
invented! Instead, historians must rely on the records left behind by the people we’re trying
to understand.
Of course you could learn about the past by reading your textbook or the conclusions
of other historians and reading those secondary sources can be important, but reading
secondary texts is no substitute for immersing yourself in the first-hand accounts of
primary sources. When you read a secondary source, you are essentially taking someone
else’s word for what happened and trusting them to approach the subject objectively,
interpret the evidence thoughtfully, and report their findings in interesting and appropriate
ways. But you can never know whether what that other person wrote about the past is valid,
accurate, or thoughtful unless you’ve explored the evidence for yourself.
In short, primary sources allow you to be your own historical detective, piecing
together the puzzle of the past by using materials created by the people who lived it. When
you start reading primary sources, you stop just learning history and start doing history. It
can be a challenging task, but in the end you’ll find that it’s much more rewarding and
interesting than just passively accepting the conclusions of others.
So how do I approach primary sources?

In order to fully understand a primary source, you’ll want to identify it, contextualize it,
explore it, analyze it, and evaluate it. The questions below will help you do all of those
things, and understand why it’s so important to do them.
1. IDENTIFY THE SOURCE
What is the nature of the source?

You’ll want to know what kind of source it is — a newspaper, an oral history account, a
diary entry, a government document, etc. — because different kinds of sources must be
considered differently. For example, you might think about a description of a Civil War
camp differently than you would think about a photograph of one, or you might have
different questions about census data regarding poverty in the 1930s than you would about
oral history interviews with people who were poor during the Depression. Knowing that
type of source you’re dealing with can help you start to think about appropriate questions.

Who created this source, and what do I know about him/her/them?
Knowing something about who created the source you’re using can help you determine
what biases they might have had, what their relationship to the things they described in the
source might have been, and whether or not this source should be considered credible.
Keep in mind that someone doesn’t have to be famous or need to have played a dramatic
role in history to be a credible source — in terms of understanding the experience of World
War I, for example, the writings of a regular soldier in the trenches may be as valuable or
even much more so than the recollections of President Wilson or a general.
Knowing who wrote the source can also help you figure out the angle or perspective
that the source will convey. For example, the description of a Revolutionary War battle
might be very different if it was written by a soldier in the Continential Army, by George
Washington himself, by a British soldier, or by an American loyalist. You might wonder
different things about the account depending on who wrote it, so knowing the author
would definitely help you start to ask the right questions.
When was the source produced?

Knowing when the source was produced can help you start to put it into historical
perspective. A discussion of women’s rights in America, for example, would obviously be
very different in the 1820s (one hundred years before women could vote), the 1920s (when
women first got the vote), the 1970s (when the feminist movement was thriving and the
Equal Rights Amendment was debated), and 2004. If you don’t know when a source was
written, you can’t start to put it into its historical context and understand how it connects to
historical events.
If you’re using a first-hand account that was written some time after the events that it
describes, you might also take the passage of time into account in your later analysis. For
example, you might view the diary of a settler moving west in the 1870s that was written
during her travels in a different way than you would view the memoirs of that same settler
written fifty years later for her grandchildren.
Where was the source produced?

Just as it is important to situate the source in time, it’s also important to identify the place
where the source was produced. If you found an editorial in a newspaper discussing the
Montgomery Bus Boycott, for example, you would want to know where the newspaper was
published — a newspaper from Montgomery might be considered very differently from
one published in Boston, Massachussetts, Mobile, Alabama, or Washington, D.C.
2. CONTEXTUALIZE THE SOURCE
What do you know about the historical context for this source?
Once you know when, where, and by whom the source was created, you can start to place it
in its historical context . What was going on in the place and time that this source was
created? What significant local, regional, or national events might this source relate to? You
can look for information about the historical context for your sources in many places.
Sometimes sources are packaged along with descriptive information that can help you

contextualize them — this is often true of web-based collections of resources in which the
website compiler might provide you with a written introduction to the sources to help you
place them in context. Similarly, libraries and archives often provide collection descriptions
or finding aids for their materials that can provide context. You can also consult secondary
sources to learn more about the time and palce in which the source was created.
What do I know about how the creator of this source fits into that historical context?
Once you know the historical context of the source, you’ll want to think further about the
person(s) who created the source. How were they connected to that historical context? If it’s
a source about the Civil Rights Movement, for example, you may have already figured out
the person’s location, their race, their sex, and some other basic information — but what
do you know about his connection to the Movement? Was he an activist? Was he opposed?
Was he involved in the race riot that he describes in the source and, if so, what was his
role? Figuring out how this person fit into their historical context, individually, can help
you think more critically and creatively about what he or she had to say.
Why did the person who created the source do so?

You’ll also want to know the motivations of the person who wrote the source, which may be
easier to guess after you know their historical context. Do you think this source was created
as a private document, or was it intended for others to view? How do you know that? If
there was an intended audience, who was that audience? Family? The general public?
"Future generations?" What did the creator of the source intend for that audience to get out
of it? Was she trying to persuade people to a particular point of view? Was she simply
recording daily events? Was she intentionally trying to deceive the audience? Was she
trying to make herself look good?
3. EXPLORE THE SOURCE
What factual information is conveyed in this source?

Some sources can provide us with valuable factual information about what happened in the
past. As you read, think about what information in the source is presented as fact. But, of
course, things that are presented as fact are not always accurate, so you will also want to
think about whether the facts presented in the source can be verified. Where else might
you look to check and make sure that those facts are accurate? How will you decide
whether you believe this person’s accounting of the facts to be accurate?
What opinions are related in this source?

Since primary sources are first-hand accounts that often convey only a single person’s point
of view, they will likely contain a fair bit of opinion. Identify sections of the source that
seem to be opinion and ask yourself why the creator of the source might hold that opinion.
Who else might share that opinion? Is it an opinion that you find compelling? Why or why
not?

What is implied or conveyed unintentionally in the source?
People don’t always spell out what they are thinking when they write a letter, a diary entry,
or a newspaper column. Intentionally or unintentionally, there may be ambiguities or
vagueness in the source — places that require the reader to "fill in the blanks" and use the
author’s tone, rhetorical strategies, and attitude to make inferences about meanings that
are not spelled out. For example, in a letter to the editor in a newspaper criticizing a
particular politician, the author may never spell out his or her beliefs about the role of
government or how the government should handle particular kinds of issues, but based on
their criticisms, you can probably infer or make an educated guess about those questions.
What is not said in this source?

Sometimes what isn’t said in a source can be as interesting as what is said. Ask yourself,
what did I expect to have seen here that I didn’t see? For example, it would seem odd to
find a letter written the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor that didn’t mention that event
— you might wonder, "Why didn’t this person write about the Pearl Harbor attack? Did
she not know about it? Was it not important to her or to her audience? Was it so much on
everyone’s mind that she didn’t feel a need to write about it?" You may have no good
answers to these questions, but thinking about what seems missing can help you imagine
the writer’s frame of mind and motivations a bit more clearly.
What is surprising or interesting about the source?

Once you know what is and isn’t in the source, take a minute to think about what was
interesting or surprising. What did you learn that you didn’t know before? What details
were interesting to you? Was the perspective revealed by this source one that you hadn’t
thought about before? What did you not expect that you found here — and what did you
expect that wasn’t here after all?
What do I not understand in this source?

Are there words that were unclear to you? Are there events or people referred to that you
aren’t familiar with? Does anything not make sense? Think about where you might go to
clarify these issues so that you can understand the source fully. You might look up
unfamiliar vocabulary in the dictionary or do an online search to find some basic historical
information about an event that the source writer described. Doing these simple things can
help you make sure that you get the most out of each source.
4. ANALYZE THE SOURCE
How does the creator of the source convey information and make his/her point?
Sometimes it’s important to not only think about what the author said, but how he said it.
What strategies did the writer/artist/etc. use to convey information? In the case of written
or oral sources, did he use humor? Sarcasm? An appeal to patriotism? Guilt? An appeal to
religious principles? Logical arguments? Tugging on heartstrings?

How is the world described in the source different from my world?
Think about the time and place in which this source was created. What did the author and
people around her believe? What was their world like? What significant differences are
there between that world and your world today? How would you feel if you were in the
author’s shoes? What would be reasonable to expect of the author, given his or her
historical context?
How might others at the time have reacted to this source?

Would the ideas and perspective revealed by this source have been universally accepted by
others? Would certain individuals or groups have disagreed with the account in this
source? Why or why not? Imagine an individual who might have disagreed with something
in this source — how would that person’s account be different? What might they convey in
their own source, and how? (For example, if you’re reading the diary of a plantation owner,
how might a source giving the perspective of an overseer, an abolitionist, the owner of a
bigger or smaller plantation, or a slave be different?)
5. EVALUATE THE SOURCE
How does this source compare to other primary sources?

Have you read other sources like this one? What did they say? Does the account in this
source seem to mesh will with those, or does it depart dramatically? Remember that if your
source doesn’t say exactly what other sources say, it may still be entirely truthful. It could
be that the other sources were wrong. It could also be that all of the authors of your sources
told the truth as they saw it, but that their own individual perspectives gave them different
views and therefore different accounts. It may also be that the author of your source had a
unique experience that wasn’t like most people’s experiences, but it happened that way just
the same. For example, some people remained very wealthy during the Great Depression
— they were not in the majority, to be sure, but their stories are still true and can offer
valuable insights into the diversity of experiences during that era in American history.
Consider all of the possible reasons why this source may differ from other primary sources
before you decide to reject any of your sources as "untrue" or "useless."
How does this source compare to secondary source accounts?

You’ll also want to think about how your source compares to secondary sources that you
have read such as your textbook and accounts written by historians. Does this source seem
to fit with the interpretations presented in those secondary works? In what ways does it fit
and in what ways does it differ? Keep in mind that just because it differs from what your
book says, that doesn’t mean that the source isn’t accurate. It may be that this source offers
an insight that the secondary text authors didn’t know about. It may also be that this source
presents information that the secondary source authors weren’t interested in or chose not
to include for a variety of possible reasons. Consider all of the possible reasons why this
source may differ from the secondary source account before you decide to reject one or the
other completely.

What do you believe and disbelieve from this source?
Based on everything you know about the historical context and from reading other
accounts, what elements of this source do you take as credible and believable? What does
the weight of the evidence suggest to you about the believability and historical usefulness
of the information and attitudes conveyed in this source? Does anything in this source
seem unbelievable, exaggerated, deceptive, or simply mistaken? Think about why you are
willing to believe certain parts of the source but not others — what are your reasons for
accepting some evidence and rejecting other evidence? If you found some parts of the
source to be less than credible, do you think that this assessment in any way taints other
parts of the source?
What do you still not know — and where can you find that information?
After assessing your source thoroughly, you’ll want to take stock of what you do and don’t
know after reading it. What are you still wondering about? What gaps did this source leave
in your understanding of the topic at hand, and what new questions did it raise for you?
Think, too, about where you might turn to find out what you still don’t know. What kinds
of primary sources would help you fill in the blanks, and what kinds of secondary sources
might you consult to answer some of your broader questions?

Glossary
abolition n.
The act of doing away with something; often used to refer to the abolishment of
slavery.
accelerator mass spectrometer n.

An electronic instrument that measures small, electrically charged particles by causing
them to move at high speeds before analyzing them.
adornment n.
The practice of decorating with ornaments or jewelry.
adroit adj.
Clever and skillful.
aerial adj.
Conducted by aircraft.
affirm v.
To confirm or support the validity of.
afflicting v.
Overthrowing; striking down.
agrarian adj.
Concerned with the land and its cultivation.
alfresco adv.
In the open air.
alpaca n.
A hoofed, domesticated South American mammal, with long woolly fur, related to the
llama.
annul v.
To cancel or declare invalid.
Glossary | 205
anthropologist n.
A scholar who practices anthropology—the comparative study of human culture,
behavior, and biology, and of how these change through time.
apex n.
Highest point.
armada n.
Fleet of warships.
arquebus n.
A primitive firearm, a forerunner of the musket, used from the fifteenth to the
seventeenth century.
ascertain v.
To determine with certainty.
assimilate v.
To absorb and integrate into a culture or group of people.
asunder adv.
Apart.
auspicious adj.
Marked by favorable circumstances.
authoritarianism n.
A form of government in which strict obedience to authority is enforced and the ruler
is not constitutionally accountable to those who are governed.
autocratic adj.
Ruled by a person with unlimited power.
autonomous adj.
Independent; self-governing.
awl n.
A sharp pointed tool used to punch holes in skins and other materials.
ballast n.
Heavy material placed in the hold of a ship to provide stability.
bedlamites n.
Madmen or lunatics.

benevolent adj.
Marked by goodwill and kindness.
Berber n.
A name given by the Arabs to the North African people living in settled or nomadic
tribes from Morocco to Egypt.
beta particle n.
A high-speed elementary particle emitted in the decay of a radioactive isotope.
blight n.
A plant disease that causes the sudden death of plant tissues.
boreal forest adj.

Forest native to the northern temperate zone, dominated by spruce, fir, pine, and
other coniferous trees.
botanist n.
A biologist who specializes in the study of plants.
bottomland n.
Low-lying land near a river.
breach n.
A break in a coast, a bay or harbor. Also a break in the bank where a river has flooded.
cadging v.
Begging, or borrowing without intent to repay.
capers n.
Playful leaps.
capstan n.
On a ship, the drum-like part of the windlass, which is a machine used for winding in
rope, cables, or chain connected to an anchor.
Cartesian coordinate system n.

Two- or three-dimensional grid based on intersecting, perpendicular incremented
lines or planes.
cassava n.
A woody shrub grown in tropical and subtropical regions for its edible starchy
tuberous root.
Glossary | 207
castigated v.
Severely criticized.
cathartic adj.
Cleansing, purifying, purging.
celestial adj.
Of or relating to the stars or outer space.
chain mail n.
Flexible armor made of connected metal links.
charter n.
A written grant issued by a head of state granting privileges or rights, or establishing a
corporation or other body.
choristers n.
Members of a choir or chorus of singers.
chunkey n.
A game widely played by American Indians. One player rolled the chunkey stone. Just
as it was about to stop rolling, the players threw spears or notched poles at it. The
player whose spear landed nearest to the stone without hitting it scored points.
circumnavigation n.
The act of sailing completely around.
coercion n.
The use of force or power to exert control.
coexist v.
To exist together or nearby without conflict.
coffers n.
A treasury.
colic n.
Severe abdominal pain caused by gas or obstruction in the intestines.
compliance n.
Cooperation with legal or official authority.
conciliatory adj.
Showing a desire to overcome distrust or make peace.

confluence n.
The place where two rivers flow together.
conjurer n.
Among American Indians, a healer or root doctor -- a person who identifies symptoms
and reveals problems in the health and balance of the body, mind, and soul and who
suggests possible solutions and actions.
consensus n.
General agreement.
conserve v.
To take or use only a small portion of a resource so that the future supply of the
resource is not threatened.
contiguous adj.
Sharing a common border or edge; touching.
contingent n.
A military unit.
convert v.
To persuade people that your ideas and beliefs are better than theirs and to convince
them to change their ideas and beliefs to yours.
corroborate v.
To support with other evidence.
courtly adj.
Elegant, refined, or polished; suitable for a royal court.
cultivate v.
To prepare (land) for the raising of crops.
cultivation n.
The process of agriculture; preparing the land to grow crops.
cultivation n.
The process of agriculture; preparing the land to grow crops.
cynical adj.
Acting with a disregard for honesty or morals, especially by using the morals of others
against them.
Glossary | 209
dainty n.
A choice item of food; a delicacy.
deed v.
To transfer ownership by a legal document.
deity n.
A god or goddess.
delegate v.
To appoint or send a person to act as a representative.
demographic adj.
Having to do with human populations, especially relating to population expansion or
decline.
demoralized adj.
Having weakened courage or spirit.
denomination n.
A religious group or community called by the same name and sharing a common
leadership and set of beliefs.
destitute adj.
Suffering from a complete lack of resources.
diplomacy n.
The process of conducting negotiations between nations.
disenchantment n.
Loss of faith in previously held hopes, beliefs, or illusions.
dismembering v.
Cutting or tearing off the arms and legs.
disproportionate adj.
Unbalanced; out of proportion.
divers adj.
Archaic form of diverse meaning several or of different types.
domestic adj.
Related to the home, household, or family.

durst v.
An archaic form of dare.
ecosystem n.
A community of organisms, interacting with each other, plus the environment in
which they live and react.
A functional unit consisting of all the living organisms (plants, animals, and
microbes) in a given area, and all the non-living physical and chemical factors of their
environment, linked together through nutrient cycling and energy flow. An ecosystem
can be of any size-a log, pond, field, forest, or the earth's biosphere-but it always
functions as a whole unit.
egalitarian adj.
Characterized by social equality.
encroach v.
To gradually and stealthily take another's possessions or rights.
endemic adj.
Native to or confined to a certain region.
enmity n.
Deep-seated hostility; hatred.
entourage n.
Group of persons attending a person of superior rank.
entrails n.
The internal parts of a body; the guts.
epidemic n.
An outbreak of a disease that spreads rapidly and extensively.
erosion n.
Natural processes, including weathering, dissolution, abrasion, corrosion, and
transportation, by which material is worn away from the earth's surface.
escarpment n.
A steep slope or long cliff that results from erosion or faulting and separates two
relatively level areas of differing elevations.
espied v.
An archaic spelling of "spied."
Glossary | 211
estuary n.
The mouth of a river where it meets the sea, and where freshwater from the river
mixes with the salty water of the sea.
A partially enclosed coastal body of water having an open connection with the ocean,
where freshwater from inland areas is mixed with saltwater from the sea; also the part
of the wide lower course of a river where its current is met by the tides, or an arm of
the sea that extends inland to meet the mouth of a river.
ethnographer n.
An anthropologist who engages in the scientific description of specific human
cultures.
ethnology n.
A branch of anthropology that compares and analyses the origins, distribution,
technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or
national divisions of humanity.
excrement n.
Waste matter discharged from the body, especially feces.
execrable n.
Detestable; awful.
exemplar n.
A model or ideal to be imitated.
exploitation n.
The practice of exploiting (making unfair use of) people or resources.
exploitative adj.
Characterized by exploiting (making unfair use of) people or resources.
extirpate v.
To remove or destroy completely.
facade n.
A deceptive outward appearance; an illusion.
facilitate v.
To make easier.
felicitous adj.
Marked by good fortune.

feral n.
Having gone from domestication to a wild or untamed state.
fertility n.
The ability to produce offspring.
feudal system adj.

The social and political system which prevailed in medieval Europe, in which the king
owned the land and gave it to noblemen in return for military service. The noblemen
in turn allowed peasants to farm the land in return for their free labor and a share of
their produce. Under this system, it was impossible to change the social position into
which one was born.
flout v.
To disregard or treat with scorn.
flux n.
Frequent change.
foment v.
To promote the growth of.
font n.
Basin or vessel holding the water used in baptism.
foray n.
A quick, sudden attack; a raid.
formidable adj.
Causing fear or alarm.
fortified adj.
Strengthened for protection against attack.
fowler n.
A type of gun, so called because it was used to hunt fowl (birds).
gar n.
A long, thin fish with needle-like teeth that lives in shallow and weedy areas of rivers,
lakes, and bayous in eastern North America.
gorget n.
An ornament for the neck; a collar of beads, shells, etc.; a necklace.
Glossary | 213
gourd n.
A hard-rinded, inedible, vine-growing fruit used for vessels and utensils.
granaries n.
Storehouses for grain.
guava n.
A sweet, pink or red fruit of the Psidium tree, which grows in the American tropics.
habiliments n.
Clothing or equipment.
halberd n.
A weapon from the 15th and 16th centuries consisting of a long handle with an ax-like
blade and a steel spike.
hamlet n.
A small village.
hearth n.
A fireplace.
heathen n.
Derogatory term used to describe a member of a people that does not acknowledge the
God of a particular religion (usually Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.)
heretic n.
A person who dissents from established church beliefs.
hierarchy n.
A system of authority in which officials are organized by rank.
hierarchy n.
System of ranking people according to status.
homogenization n.
The process of becoming the same or similar.
horticulture n.
The cultivation of gardens whose foods supplement those obtained from some other
primary source, such as hunting, gathering, fishing, or shell fishing.
hymn n.
A song of praise to God or a deity.

idealistic adj.
Characterized by a pursuit of high or noble principles, purposes, or goals.
ideology n.
A system of political beliefs or theories held by an individual or a group.
immunity n.
Resistance; lack of susceptibility to infection.
imperial adj.
Having to do with an empire.
Having to do with an empire. When capitalized (“Imperial”), refers to a specific
empire: in Vietnamese history, the empire that existed after Chinese rule and before
French colonial rule; in Cambodian history, the Khmer Empire.
imperialism n.
Policy of extending a nation's rule over other countries.
implement n.
A tool.
impound v.
To seize and hold in custody of the law.
inadvertently adv.
Unknowingly.
indigenous adj.
Native, or belonging naturally to a particular region.
indispensable adj.
Absolutely necessary.
infernal adj.
Devilish, fiendish, awful.
infidel n.
A person who doesn't accept a particular religion, usually Christianity.
inoculation n.
The process of introducing a virus or germ into the body to produce immunity to a
disease; vaccination.
Glossary | 215
insatiable adj.
Incapable of being satisfied.
insurrection n.
An uprising against authority.
Jesuit n.
Member of a Roman Catholic religious society founded by St. Ignatius Loyola in 1534.
kiln n.
Any of various ovens for hardening, burning, or drying substances such as grain,
meal, or clay, especially a brick-lined oven used to bake or fire ceramics.
leach v.
To remove nutrients or other constituents from soil by the process of water passing
through it.
leeward adj.
Downwind; toward the side sheltered from the wind or toward which the wind is
blowing.
legitimacy n.
Acceptability according to established principles or ideas.
lingua n.
Language.
loam n.
A rich soil containing a relatively equal mixture of sand and silt, and a smaller
proportion of clay.
logistical adj.
Related to the organization of an operation and its details.
logistical adj.
Related to the organization of an operation and its details.
lusty adj.
Heatlhy and strong; vigorous.
magnitude n.
Greatness in size or scope.
mainstay n.
A chief support.

malaise n.
A feeling of bodily weakness or discomfort, usually associated with the onset of
disease.
malaria n.
A contagious disease transmitted through the bite of an infected mosquito and
characterized by chills and fever.
Maltese cross n.
A cross with four arms of equal length that expand outward and end in a V-shape.
marsh elder n.
A shrub with greenish flower heads, often growing in marshy areas in eastern and
central North America.
matrilineal adj.
Based on determining descent through the maternal line.
meager adj.
Slight, deficient.
megafauna n.
Large or relatively large animals.
menace v.
To threaten or present a danger to.
mercenary adj.
Acting in pursuit of payment or other personal gain.
merits n.
Admirable qualities, virtues.
microbes n.
Very minute organisms, usually used to describe disease-causing bacteria.
midden n.
An area used for trash disposal; a deposit of refuse.
militaristic adj.
Primarily concerned with a commitment to military strength.
millenium n.
Period of one thousand years. (Plural: millenia.)
Glossary | 217
milling stone n.
Stone used to grind corn or other grains.
mischance n.
An unlucky event.
misinterpretation n.
An incorrect explanation or interpretation.
mission n.
The physical base of operations from which religious missionaries carry out their work
of attempting to convert others.
missionary n.
Person who attempts to convert others to a particular religion or set of ideas.
Missionaries are often sent to foreign countries to perform this work.
monopoly n.
Exclusive control or ownership.
monsoon n.
A seasonal wind system that brings heavy rains to southern Asia during the summer.
mortality n.
Death rate.
mortuary n.
A place in which the dead are prepared for burial, such as a funeral home or morgue.
municipal filtration plant n.

The site where a city or town's wastewater is treated before being discharged back into
the environment.
negligible adj.
So small as not to be worth mentioning.
New Testament n.
The second part of the Christian Bible; a collection of books believed by Christians to
form the record of a new set of promises and rules received from God.
nomadic adj.
A way of life in which a group of people have no permanent residence, but move from
place to place.

notary n.
A clerk or secretary.
odoriferous adj.
Having an odor.
opaque adj.
Not allowing light to pass through.
overshoot v.
To go beyond, without meaning to.
pacify v.
To end fighting or violence; to cause a person or people to become peaceful.
palatine adj.
Having a ruler with power and privileges normally belonging only to the king. May
also refer to the ruler himself.
palisade n.
A walled enclosure built around a village or town; a stockade.
paramount adj.
Having the highest rank or importance.
parley n.
A conference or discussion between enemies to negotiate the terms of a truce.
patriarchal adj.
Characterized by having males in positions of power.
petition v.
To make a formal request.
phonetic adj.
Using spellings that correspond to pronunciation.
pike n.
A long spear formerly used by foot soldiers.
pinnace n.
A small boat, often used for rowing ashore from a larger ship.
Glossary | 219
preclude v.
To make impossible or prevent.
preliterate adj.
Lacking a written language.
privateer n.
As a noun, a privately owned and manned warship authorized by a government to
attack the commercial ships of an enemy nation; or a member of the crew of such a
ship. As a verb, to sail as a privateer.
prodigious adj.
Of great size, extent, or amount.
projectile n.
An object propelled through the air, such as an arrow or bullet.
proliferate v.
To increase rapidly.
propensity n.
A natural inclination or tendency.
proponents n.
Those who argue in favor of something; supporters.
pulmonary adj.
Affecting the lungs.
punch n.
Tool used for punching holes in skin, fabric, or other material.
quarantine n.
A period of enforced isolation imposed to prevent the spread of a contagious disease.
quince n.
A hard, acidic pear-shaped fruit.
quincentenary n.
500th anniversary.
ravening adj.
Greedily consuming; devouring.

recast v.
To form or arrange again.
reiterated v.
Repeated.
reminiscent adj.
Suggesting memories of something similar.
replication n.
The act or process of reproducing artifacts, structures, or use patterns.
requite v.
Returned or responded, as love or a favor.
reservoir n.
A natural or artificial pond or lake where water is stored.
respiration n.
The process by which living things exchange gases with their environment. Humans
and other organisms with lungs do this by breathing.
retaliate v.
To repay in kind.
revile v.
To criticize harshly.
rind n.
A tough outer covering.
rituals n.
Established ways of conducting religious ceremonies.
ruminate v.
To reflect deeply about something.
runlet n.
A cask or drinking vessel.
sacred adj.
Holy.
Glossary | 221
salvage v.
To save from loss or destruction.
savvy adj.
Well-informed and quick-witted.
scriptures n.
The sacred writings of the Christian Bible.
scruple v.
To be reluctant to do something out of concern for what is proper.
scrutinized v.
Examined closely and in great detail.
self-perpetuating adj.
Capable of renewal or continuation without external assistance.
shoal-water n.
The water in a shallow place.
smallpox n.
A severe contagious disease spread by a virus, characterized by fever and skin
eruptions usually leaving permanent scars.
spur n.
Incentive; motivating factor.
stockade n.
A defensive enclosure made of strong posts or timbers standing upright, side by side.
stratigraphy n.
The order and relative position of the layers of the earth's crust.
strenuous adj.
Requiring great exertion.
stylized adj.
Conforming to a particular style or convention.
subservient adj.
Subordinate; belonging to a lower rank.

subsistence n.
The means of supporting life, usually referring to food and other basic commodities.
sundry adj.
Various; miscellaneous.
syllabary n.
The set of characters belonging to a language, in which each character represents a
syllable.
taffeta n.
In early times, a fabric consisting of a plain-woven glossy silk.
tallow n.
Substance made from animal fat, used in making candles and soap, and for dressing
leather.
temper v.
To bring to a desired consistency or strength by mixing.
tentative adj.
Done as an experiment, trial, or attempt.
thatch n.
Straw, reeds, or other plant material used for roofing.
thatched adj.
Made from straw, reeds, or other plant material.
thrice n.
Three times.
tobacco tongs n.
A light pair of tongs formerly used by smokers to pick up tobacco or a live coal for
igniting it.
tonsure n.
Style of haircut.
traditions n.
The values and ideas that are common to and accepted by the people of a certain
community over a long period of time.
transit n.
A surveying instrument that measures horizontal and vertical angles.
Glossary | 223
tributary n.
A stream that flows into a larger stream or other body of water.
tuberculosis n.
A contagious disease that affects the lungs.
tumult n.
Disturbance or agitation.
typhus n.
A contagious disease transmitted by body lice and characterized by skin rash and high
fever.
undefaced adj.
Not defaced, that is, not ruined or spoiled.
unprecedented adj.
Never before known or experienced.
unscrupulous adj.
Lacking moral standards or principles.
values n.
Established ideas about the way life should be lived; that is, the objects, customs, and
ways of acting that members of a given society regard as desirable.
vassal n.
A servant or slave; a person in a subordinate position.
venison n.
A wild animal killed by hunting, especially deer. More specifically, the meat of such an
animal.
vermilion n.
A brilliant red pigment made from mercury sulphide (cinnabar).
vestibule n.
A small entrance hall connecting the outer door and the interior of a house or
building.
viable adj.
Capable of succeeding or developing.
victuals n.
Articles of food.

wattle and daub n.
A method of constructing buildings in which vertical wooden stakes or branches are
woven with horizontal branches and sticks, and then plastered together with clay or
mud. The interwoven branches are known as "wattle," and the clay or mud is known
as "daub."
weigh anchor v.
To haul up the anchor so that the ship can set sail.
wielded v.
Exercised (as in influence or authority).
yellow fever n.
A tropical disease caused by a mosquito-borne virus, causing fever and usually death.
zealotry adj.
Excessive religious fanaticism usually characterized by intolerance of opposing views.
Glossary | 225
Bibliography
Barquet, Nicolau and Pere Domingo, “Smallpox: The Triumph over the Most Terrible of
the Ministers of Death,” in Annals of Internal Medicine 127:8 (1997). Cited on p. 3.1.
Beyer, Fred, North Carolina: The Years Before Man (Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic
Press, 1991).
Columbus, Christopher and B. W. Ife (translator), Journal of the First Voyage (Diario del
Primer Viaje) (Warminster, England: Aris & Phillips Ltd.). Cited on p. 3.1.
de Las Casas, Bartoleme and Herma Briffault (translator), The Devastation of the Indies: A
Brief Account. (New York: Seabury Press, 1974). Cited on p. 3.1.
Deetz, James, Invitation to Archaeology (Garden City, N.Y.: Natural History Press, 1967).
Cited on pp. 2.11.
Fagan, Brian M., In the Beginning: An Introduction to Archaeology. 8th ed. (New York: Harper
Collins, 1994). Cited on pp. 2.11.
Hudson, Charles, Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun: Hernando de Soto and the South's
Ancient Chiefdoms (Athens, Ga.: The University of Georgia Press, 1997). Cited on pp.
3.1.
Hudson, Charles, The Southeatern Indians (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press,
1976).
Hudson, Charles and Paul E. Hoffman, The Juan Pardo expeditions: exploration of the
Carolinas and Tennessee, 1566–1568 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press,
1990).
Price, Margo L., Patricia M. Samford, and Vincas P. Steponaitis, Intrigue of the Past: North
Carolina's First Peoples (Chapel Hill, N.C.: Research Laboratories of Archaeology,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2001).
Smith, Shelley J. et al., Intrigue of the Past: A Teacher’s Activity Guide for Fourth through
Seventh Grades. (Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Department of
the Interior, 1993).
Ward, H. Trawick and R. P. Stephen Davis Jr., Time Before History: The Archaeology of North
Carolina (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1999).
Bibliography | 227
Contributors
David Walbert
David Walbert is Editorial and Web Director for LEARN NC in the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Education. He is responsible for all of LEARN NC’s
educational publications, oversees development of various web applications including
LEARN NC’s website and content management systems, and is the organization’s primary
web, information, and visual designer. He has worked with LEARN NC since August 1997.
David holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
He is the author of Garden Spot: Lancaster County, the Old Order Amish, and the Selling of
Rural America, published in 2002 by Oxford University Press. With LEARN NC, he has
written numerous articles for K–12 teachers on topics such as historical education, visual
literacy, writing instruction, and technology integration.
Charles Carlton
Charles Carlton is a professor emeritus in the history department at North Carolina State
University in Raleigh.
J.R. McNeill
John R. McNeill is a professor of history and University Professor at Georgetown
University. He is the author of Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of
the 20th-Century World.
James Mooney
James Mooney (1861–1921) was an anthropologist who lived for several years among the
Cherokee. He was the author of Myths of the Cherokee (1888), Sacred Formulas of the
Cherokee (1891), and The Ghost-Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890, an
ethnographic study of the Ghost Dance, a widespread religious movement among various
Native American culture groups that ended in 1890 with a bloody confrontation against the
United States Army at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. His collected James Mooney’s History,
Contributors | 229
Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees is available from Bright Mountain Books
(1992).
Theda Perdue
Theda Perdue is Atlanta Distinguished Term Professor of Southern Culture in the history
department at UNC - Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on the Native peoples of the
southeastern United States, on gender in Native societies, and on racial construction in the
South. Her book, Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700-1835 (1998), won the
Julia Cherry Spruill Award for the best book in southern women’s history and the James
Mooney Prize for the best book in the anthropology of the South. More recently, she has
edited an anthology, Sifters: The Lives of Native American Women (2001), for which she wrote
an essay, “Catherine Brown: Cherokee Convert to Christianity,” as well as the introduction.
In conjunction with Professor Michael D. Green, she has published The Columbia Guide to
American Indians of the Southeast (2001) and The Cherokee Removal: A Brief History with
Documents (1995, 2nd ed., 2005). In October 2001, Professor Perdue delivered the Lamar
Lectures at Mercer University, published as “Mixed Blood” Indians: Racial Construction in
the Early South (2003). She has served as president of the Southern Association for Women
Historians (1985-86) and the American Society for Ethnohistory (2001).
Professor Perdue currently is working on a book on Indians in the segregated South.
In 2006-2007, she is a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.. She
also has a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation fellowship.
Karen Raley
Karen Raley formerly taught history and women’s studies at the University of North
Carolina at Greensboro, where she studied Cherokee environmental history as a doctoral
student.
Terry L. Sargent
Terry L. Sargent reenacts 1830s farmwork and works with livestock from this period. He
has spent many years in the animal health field.

Image credits
Cover
Clockwise from top left: (1) "Chesapeake Indians cooking fish," hand-colored version
of engraving by Theodor de Bry. Image believed to be in the public domain. (2) "Tidal
Freshwater Marsh" by Dirk Frankenberg. All Rights Reserved. (3) Bear painting from
major temple at Town Creek Indian Mound, photograph by David Walbert. Licensed
This image is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-
ShareAlike 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/. (4) The Elizabeth II, photograph
from http://www.flickr.com/photos/aviatordave/2444821/. This image is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivativeWorks 2.0
License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc-nd/2.0/. (5) Sebastian Münster's 1540 map of the New World. This image is
believed to be in the public domain. (6) Statue of Sir Walter Raleigh in London,
photograph from http://www.flickr.com/photos/sloejoe/270090307/. This image is
licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 License. To view
a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/. This
image is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by-nc-sa/2.5/.
Figure 1 (page 7)
Photo by Bec Thomas Photography. This image is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 License. To view a
copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/.
Figure 2 (page 9)
Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC. This image is
believed to be in the public domain. Users are advised to make their own copyright
assessment.
Figure 3 (page 11)

Courtesy of LEARN NC. Copyright ©2006. This image is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License. To view a copy of this
license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/.
Image credits | 231

Figure 4 (page 12)
Courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey. This image is believed to be in the public domain.
Users are advised to make their own copyright assessment.
Figure 5 (page 12)

Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC. This image is
assessment.
Figure 6 (page 12)

Dirk Frankenberg. Copyright ©1999. All Rights Reserved.
Figure 7 (page 13)

Figure 8 (page 13)

Figure 9 (page 14)

Figure 10 (page 14)

Figure 11 (page 15)

Map by Lee Ratcliff, from the Nov. 1999 special issue of Wildlife in North Carolina
magazine, "Rivers of North Carolina." Published by the N.C. Wildlife Resources
Commission. Base map copyright John Fels, 1997. All Rights Reserved.
Figure 12 (page 15)

Figure 13 (page 16)

From NationalAtlas.gov. This image is believed to be in the public domain. Users are
advised to make their own copyright assessment.
Figure 14 (page 16)

Figure 15 (page 19)

From This Dynamic Earth: The Story of Plate Tectonics, published by the U.S.
Geological Survey. This image is believed to be in the public domain. Users are

Figure 16 (page 19)
Image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:LeggedTrilobite2.jpg. This image is
licensed under a GNU Free Documentation License. To view a copy of this license,
visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_License.
Figure 17 (page 29)

By Hieronymus Bosch. This image is believed to be in the public domain. Users are
Figure 18 (page 35)

David Walbert. Copyright ©2007. This image is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license,
visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/.
Figure 19 (page 37)

Courtesy of Research Laboratories of Archaeology. Copyright ©2001. All Rights
Reserved.
Figure 20 (page 37)

Photo by David Monniaux. This image is licensed under a Creative Commons
Figure 21 (page 38)

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Index
A
Africa, 33
Algonkian, 61
Appalachia, 19, 57
Aragon, 93
archaeology, 37, 41, 45, 51, 57, 61, 83, 115
Archaic Period, 45
Arthur Barlowe, 145, 157
Aztecs, 93
B
barrier islands, 11, 19
Bartolome de Las Casas, 93
Beringia, 37, 41
Bible, 29
biological warfare, 181
Blue Ridge Mountains, 11
C
Caribbean, 93
cartography, 101
Castile, 93
Cherokee, 27, 67, 71
Chesapeake Bay, 75
Christopher Columbus, 93, 173
Church of England, 137
climate, 11
clockmaking, 101
Clovis culture, 37, 41
coastal plains, 11, 61
colonial, 79, 75, 145
colonization, 75, 141, 145, 181
Columbian Exchange, 93, 173, 179, 181
conquistadors, 93, 121
Index | 243
corn, 79, 51, 57, 67, 179
creation, 27, 29, 33
Croatan, 151
crops, 79, 51, 57, 173, 179
culture, 45
D
diplomacy, 75
diseases, 93, 173, 179, 181, 187
E
eastern continental divide, 11
ecology, 11, 37, 193
Elizabeth I, 137
England, 137, 141
Eno River, 51
environment, 193
epidemics, 181
epidemiology, 181
Europe, 129, 181
evolution, 19
excavations, 83
exploration, 93, 101, 115, 121, 129, 131, 137, 145, 157
extinctions, 41
F
families, 71
farming, 79, 45, 51, 57, 179
Ferdinand Magellan, 101
Florida, 115
food, 79, 173
forests, 193
fossils, 19
Francisco Pizarro, 93
G
Garden of Eden, 29, 157
gender roles, 71
Genesis, 29
genocide, 181
geologic time, 19
geology, 11, 19
Giovanni da Verrazano, 101

Guatari, 121
H
Henry VIII, 137
Hernando Cortes, 93
Hernando de Soto, 115
High Rock Lake, 193
I
Incas, 93
Inner Coastal Plain, 11
inoculation, 181, 187
Iroquoian, 61
J
John White, 145, 165
Juan Pardo, 121, 129, 131
K
Kennewick Man, 41
L
latitude, 101
livestock, 173, 179
longitude, 101
Lumbee, 151
M
magnetic compass, 101
maps, 101
Martin Waldesmuller, 101
Maryland, 75
measurement, 101
Meherrin, 61
Mercator projection, 101
Mexico, 93
migration, 41, 141
Mississippian Period, 79, 45, 51, 57, 61, 115
Moctezuma, 93
mountains, 11, 19
mythology, 27, 29, 33
Index | 245
N
Nanticoke, 75
natural history, 19
navigation, 101
New World, 93
North America, 101
Northwest Passage, 101
Nottoway, 61
O
Occaneechi, 83
Outer Banks, 157, 165
Outer Coastal Plain, 11
P
Pacific Ocean, 101
Paleoindian, 37, 45
paleontology, 19
Paul Green, 151
Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, 129
Pee Dee, 51
Philip Amadas, 145, 157
Piedmont, 11, 51, 193
Piscataway, 75
Pisgah, 57
platform mounds, 51, 57
Portugal, 93
Powhatan, 75
prairies, 193
Protestant Reformation, 137
Q
Qualla, 57
R
Radiocarbon dating, 19, 83
Reconquista, 93
religion, 29, 67
river basins, 11
rivers, 11
Roanoke, 141, 145, 151, 157, 165
Roanoke Indians, 145, 157

S
Sir Walter Raleigh, 145
slavery, 93, 173
smallpox, 93, 179, 181, 187
social conditions, 141
South America, 93
South Carolina, 121, 129, 131
Spain, 93, 115, 121, 129, 131, 137
Spanish Armada, 137
T
Tenochtitlan, 93
tools, 45, 61, 101
Town Creek Indian Mound, 51
trade, 93
Tuscarora, 61
U
Uwharrie Mountains, 19
V
vaccination, 187
Virginia, 75
Virginia Dare, 145, 151
W
West Africa, 33
wetlands, 11
Wingina, 145
women, 71
women’s work, 71
Woodland period, 45
work, 141
Y
Yoruba, 33
Index | 247
This edition is typeset in Scala and Scala Sans. It was published to the web with LearnPress
(www.learnpress.org) and converted to PDF with PrinceXML (www.princexml.com).
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What are some of the major topics covered in the document?

What are some of the major topics covered in the document?

How does the document describe the arrival of Europeans in North Carolina?

How does the document describe the arrival of Europeans in North Carolina?

Two worlds: Prehistory,

contact, and the Lost

About this "digital textbook" 5

Spain and America: From Reconquest to Conquest | 93

4 From England to America | 135

England's flowering | 137

5 Contact and consequences | 171

The Columbian Exchange | 173

Appendix A. Reading Primary Sources: An Introduction for Students 197

vi | Two worlds: Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony

Associate Editor and Librarian

viii | Two worlds: Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony

The past is a mystery — to be solved

Journeys into the past

2 | Two worlds: Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony

READING PRIMARY SOURCES

About this "digital textbook" | 5

6 | Two worlds: Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony

About this "digital textbook" | 7

Figure 3. The four geological provinces of North Carolina, with county

Figure 4. This map from the

Figure 5. In this true-color satellite image, the ridges of the Appalachians

The Coastal Plain

12 | Two worlds: Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony

THE OUTER COASTAL PLAIN

THE INNER COASTAL PLAIN

The Blue Ridge Mountains

14 | Two worlds: Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony

ON THE COAST: SOUNDS

Humans and the natural world

16 | Two worlds: Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony

The natural history of North Carolina | 19

Eon Era Period Epoch Major events Start

Many large mammals flourished, then became extinct.

20 | Two worlds: Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony

The land surfaces of the Blue Ridge and Piedmont now

Modern mammal and bird families became recognizable.

Animals, especially mammals, evolved rapidly and became

The first grasses appeared. Some of the first modern families of

Early mammals diversified, and the first large mammals

Conifers and ferns were common. Dinosaurs were diverse, including

The natural history of North Carolina | 21

As the North American continent drifted to the northwest, its trailing

Dinosaurs appeared and became dominant, as did ichthyosaurs and

Winged insects spread, including very large species. Amphibians were

22 | Two worlds: Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony

The “Cambrian Explosion” saw a major diversification of life. Many fossils

As oxygen-producing bacteria proliferated, the atmosphere became oxygenic — filled with

The natural history of North Carolina | 23

How do scientists know…

…the age of the earth?

…when water appeared on the earth?

…where the continents and oceans used to be?

24 | Two worlds: Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony

…what the climate was like in the distant past?