Introduction

In the years after the Revolution, North Carolina remained an agricultural state, with a people proud of their independence. But the new state also remained torn by contradictions.

North Carolina’s economy was no longer limited by British rule, and the state became the site of the first gold strike in the United States — yet there was so little economic opportunity that nearly a third of people born in North Carolina in the first half of the nineteenth century left for other states. North Carolina chartered the nation’s first public university in 1789, but would not create a system of free public primary schools until the 1840s. A wave of religious revivals swept the state, inspiring personal conversion and social reform, yet slaveholders used religion to justify racism and slavery. The Cherokee adapted to life in the new United States, establishing a government with a formal constitution, adopting a European-American style of agriculture, developing a written language, and converting to Christianity. Yet in the 1830s the U.S. Army forcibly removed nearly all of them to Oklahoma and took their land for white settlement.

Through all this change and conflict, as always, people went about their lives. They were born, grew up, married, worked, grew old, and died. They attended school and church; they farmed and started businesses; they traveled and explored; they tended to the sick and organized charities to help the poor. Where people’s daily experiences met the great events of the time is where our story takes place.

Key questions

As in the rest of this digital textbook, you’ll have the opportunity to explore the experiences of various people firsthand, through primary sources — political arguments and newspaper articles about important events, but also diaries, letters, memoirs, maps, music, census data, and even contemporary magazine articles. From these raw materials and background readings, you’ll answer questions like these:

Why did North Carolina come to be known as the “Rip Van Winkle state” in the early nineteenth century?
What were the causes and effects of the “Great Revival”?
What was education like, and what were the experiences of students?
How did slavery become more and more deeply entrenched in North Carolina society?
How did the North Carolina Gold Rush affect the state and its citizens?
Why were the Cherokee forcibly removed from the Southeast on the “Trail of Tears”?
How and why did reform come to North Carolina in the 1830s?