The Southeast, Then and Now

North Carolina

n North Carolina, the first permanent footing was gained by the mere expansion of Virginia into what soon became a separate jurisdiction. When the colony was created under Charles II, affairs were little changed for the folk who dwelt obscurely near its northern border. The Proprietors appointed a succession of deputy governors for the Albemarle region and instituted a land office, courts and a legislative assembly, but the government had no fixed abode and little authority. Settlement slowly extended southward to Pamlico Sound and then up the main streams far enough to give a thin trade to the villages of Edenton, Washington and New Bern. Meanwhile, George Fox and his disciples, profiting by the lack of other missionaries, made many converts to Quakerism. The Tuscaroras, who had taken the warpath earlier, were eventually checked and then driven away with help of troops from distant Charleston.

North Carolina now is the nation’s largest furniture, tobacco, brick, and textile producer. It holds first place in the Southeast in the value of its industrial and agricultural production. Tobacco, corn, soybeans, cotton, hay, peanuts and truck and vegetable crops are of major importance. It is the nation’s leading producer of mica and lithium.

South Carolina

he tale of South Carolina is in remarkable contrast to that of her northern sister, partly because the main impulse for her settlement came from a tropical source. An extraordinary congestion in Barbados, the most easterly of the West Indies, had made that little island a potential mother of new colonies. Here, thousands of English migrants had settled during the English civil wars and Cromwellian Commonwealth. Sir John Colleton, returning to England from residence in Barbados, enlisted six powerful courtiers to join him and Sir William Berkeley in a Carolina proprietary venture. Procuring the desired charter in 1663 and a second within two years, they published proposals to grant lands on the usual quitrent basis and to erect a popular government. The new colony drew many settlers and helped to relieve the overcrowding of the Barbados.

The nucleus of South Carolina had been duly planted in 1670 on Charleston Harbor, though the first site of “Charles Town” soon gave place to the sandy neck across the Ashley River where the city now stands. The settlement gained permanence and expansion through slow migration from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, New England and New York, Germany and Switzerland, and notably from France and the West Indies. Some of these elements, particularly the thrifty Huguenots on the Copper and Santee rivers, maintained cultural distinction for a time in separate clusters, but a gradual blending (despite much dissension) brought most of the white people into a single integrated community, with the West Indies element contributing perhaps the major features in law and custom.

For two or three decades the livelihood of the people was drawn from Indian trade, forest industries, and farming on a small scale without any staple of note, for the agricultural experiments ordered by the Proprietors at the outset proved fruitless. In this phase, prosperity was meager and funds for any large importation of slaves were lacking. But in the closing decade of the century, a new trial of rice proved so strikingly successful that it served to shape the course of the Colony’s further development.

Soutn Carolina was once predominantly agricultural. But the state has built so many big textile and other mills that today the state’s factories produce eight times the output of its farms in cash value. Chief agricultural crops are livestock, cotton, tobacco, peaches, corn, hay, soybeans, sweet potatoes and peanuts.

Georgia

he founding of Georgia was a utopian project. James Oglethorpe enlisted some men of public spirit and prominent position to establish a new colony for the double purpose of affording unfortunates a new start in life, and, at the same time, extending British dominions at the expense of Spain. After much political maneuvering, a charter was procured from the crown in 1732 vesting a zone below the Savannah River in the Georgia Board, not as proprietors but as trustees. The trustees, meanwhile, examined applicants for colonization and sent forward such as could show presumption of honest character and an inability for English livelihood. Recruits were also accepted from Protestant exiles from Salzburg in Austria and from the needy at large.

Although successful at first, the colony soon began to decline. The population of Georgia shrank from some five thousand inhabitants in 1737 to barely 500 by 1742. The trustees attributed the colony’s lack of prosperity to the laziness and intemperance of the settlers. Though quite conservative in their idealism at first, before the middle of the century the trustees allowed the introduction of slaves, permitted liquor to be imported, and yielded full title to lands. The benevolent plans had been wrecked by human nature and geography. At length Parliament stopped its subsidy of the colony, and in 1751, the trustees resigned their charter. After an interval, Georgia was given the standard organization of royal province, whereupon a new growth, already begun in response to the trustee’s relaxations, put the colony on a prosperous footing.

Georgia in the 1970’s is typical of the changing South. The value of its factory products surpasses the value of its farm products. Atlanta is the communications and transportation center of the Southeast and is also the area’s chief distributor of goods. The state leads the nation in the production of paper and board, tufted textile products and processed chickens. Important agricultural products are corn, peanuts, cotton, soybeans, tobacco, eggs and pimiento pepper. It produces more than half of the world’s resin and turpentine and 74% of the U.S. supply. The state is a leader in the production of clay products. It’s granite is world-renowned.

Louisiana

ouisiana was first settled to secure an ice-free route supplementing the St. Lawrence River and to strengthen French domination in the great continental interior. After LaSalle’s disastrous expedition in 1685, Iberville made a settlement on the Mississippi coast; and from this headquarters Bienville founded Mobile in 1710 and built interior forts near Natchez and Montgomery. New Orleans, a spot previously judged uninhabitable, was founded in 1718, and became a thriving commercial center almost overnight. Fort Assumption at the present site of Memphis, and other posts as well, sent out peltries through New Orleans, while forts on the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers fed the trade of Mobile. In short, the river channels were utilized everywhere to radiate French trade and influence.

Today, Louisiana is one of the leading states in fur trapping—mink, muskrat, opossum and raccoon and other pelts. Important agricultural products are: Sugarcane, strawberries, sweet potatoes, rice and cotton. It is an important producer of petroleum and petrochemicals, pulp and paper, natural gas, sulfur, and salt. New Orleans, suffering from its location, avoids flooding only by an expensive levee and spillway system.

Florida

lorida, whose history will be discussed in the part of this section dealing with William Bartram’s early trips, has undergone a tremendous expansion of population in recent decades and is now one of the fastest growing “sun belt” states. Its economy rests on tourism, manufacturing and agriculture. Oranges and grapefruit lead Florida’s crop list. Next are sugarcane, tomatoes, tobacco, beans, celery, potatoes, field corn, honey, watermelons, limes and mangoes. Forestry, truck gardening, commercial fishing and cattle are leading industries. It produces 80% of the nation’s phosphate.

Tennessee

he French claim to Tennessee was lost by the British victory in the French and Indian Wars. The first permanent settlement in the state was in the Watauga Valley in 1769. The oldest town in the state was founded in 1779.

Settlers in east Tennessee formed a short-lived government under John Sevier in 1784–1788—the State of Franklin. Franklin was formed by inhabitants of Washington, Sullivan and Greene counties in June, 1784, after North Carolina ceded its western lands to the United States. The government and separate state passed out of existence when terms of its officers expired.

Tennessee is now predominantly industrial and in 1970, 58.8 % of its people lived in urban areas. The state is a large producer of chemicals, food, aluminum, shoes, textiles and wood products. With more than 55 colleges and universities, Tennessee is the academic center of the South. Stone is the state’s leading mineral in dollar value, cement and coal are second and third. The state ranks first in the production of ball clay, zinc, pyrite and marble.

Alabama

xplored by Hernando DeSoto in 1540, Alabama was first settled in 1702 by the French under Jean Baptiste le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, the colonizer and Governor of the colony for France. He founded Mobile in 1710 and Fort Toulouse in 1717. At the time of Bartram’s travels, Alabama was under British control. [See section of the Floridas in Bartram’s early travels.] The Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee and Seminole Indians all lived within the present borders of the state. The major Creek capitals of Coweta and Tuckabatchi were also located here.

Cotton was king in Alabama from 1830 to 1861 and continued to dominate agriculture in the state until the 1920’s.

Alabama is the leading heavy-industry state in the South and is actively involved with the U.S. space program. Tourism is its number-one industry, with visitors totaling more than 36 million in 1977. Iron, steel and textiles lead its manufacturing. Other important Alabama industries include: cement, feeds, fertilizer, chemicals, rubber and aluminum products. It also ranks high in the output of cotton, peanuts, soybeans, lumber, pulpwood, poultry, hogs, corn, potatoes and fruit. Since 1881, with the founding of Tuskegee Institute by Booker T. Washington, Alabama has been a national leader in Black education.

Mississippi

t the time of Hernando DeSoto’s exploration of Mississippi in 1541, the area within the present state boundaries was controlled by the Choctaw, Chickasaw and Natchez Indians (with the smaller Biloxi, Pascagoula, Chachuma, Tunica and Yazoo tribes coming under their political dominion).

When Great Britain acquired political control of the area from the French in 1763 and established the colony of West Florida, white settlements began slowly to increase in number. Despite yellow fever epidemics and infection from hookworm, an estimated 4,000 settlers had moved to the area of present-day Mississippi by 1774. By the turn of the eighteenth century, this number had doubled.

Today, although industrialization has come late to Mississippi, the state boasts many manufacturing concerns, is the ninth largest producer of oil and ranks tenth in the production of gas in the United States. In addition to its major agricultural crop, cotton, Mississippi produces corn, peanuts, oats, pecans, soybeans, rice, tung nuts, sugarcane and hay.