at these environmental phenomena recur with regularity over the long term. Such themes...
4. Period of European Colonization
Download PDF (162.4 KB)
Hunter-gatherers roamed the Albemarle-Pamlico region thousands of years before agriculture eventually supported semipermanent settlements there, from about 1000 ʙc. The moist, rich soil was especially conducive to the growing of corn (maize). These more sedentary, ‘‘modern’’ Indians cleared land for planting corn and other crops, utilized a...
5. Agricultural History
Download PDF (492.4 KB)
In early prehistory the native peoples of the Albemarle region were hunters and gatherers, living off game and edible plants that abounded in this wetland. They tended to move about seasonally in search of food, such as waterfowl in winter and migratory fish in spring. Starting about 1000 ʙc a fundamental change began to occur in this region that man-...
6. Sturgeon, Herring, and Other Fisheries
Download PDF (217.5 KB)
The Albemarle region once constituted the richest resource of nonmarine fish in the United States. Since early prehistory the native peoples relied on food from these waterways to make a significant annual contribution toward their very survival. A wide range of residential, year-round fish (e.g., crappie, perch, sunfish, bluegill and other panfish, black...
7. Antebellum Golden Age: Transportation Canals
Download PDF (200.4 KB)
Dugout canoes dating back to 3095 ʙc have been found in the pocosin lakes at the center of the Albemarle peninsula. Nearly five thousand years later, dugouts of the same time-tested design were still being used here. When the Roanoke colonists arrived in 1584, the native Algonquins were described as exceptionally skilled watermen who routinely crossed...
8. African American Experience
Download PDF (652.3 KB)
The first Africans in the English colonies of America arrived in the Albemarle region in June 1586. Francis Drake had taken on about a hundred ‘‘Negroes’’ during his skirmishes with the Spanish at Santo Domingo and Cartagena. It is said he planned to use them to strengthen the incipient English colony on Roanoke Island. However, what actually happened to...
9. Armed Conflict: A Recurring Theme
Download PDF (161.1 KB)
In these days when American wars are fought in some vague place halfway around the world, we need to be reminded that for most of human history armed conflicts took place near home. The Albemarle region is no exception. In fact, wars have been a recurring theme in the long history of this region. Disparate Indian tribes battled intermittently among...
10. Intracoastal Waterways: War Canals
Download PDF (657.8 KB)
The Outer Banks is called the ‘‘Graveyard of the Atlantic’’ for good reason. At no other point along either coast of America has shipping been so hazardous literally for centuries, from shoals, storms, pirates, and other hostile attack. Little-known events during World War I reexposed this vulnerability in a modern world. Few people are aware, for example,...
11. Forests Then and Now
Download PDF (783.9 KB)
When humans first arrived in the Albemarle region thousands of years ago the most superlative feature here was the hundreds of thousands of acres of primeval forest, unsurpassed in the entire eastern United States.The rich, damp soil and warm climate created a canopy of trees of truly gargantuan size and age. The virgin hardwoods, bald cypress (Taxodium...
12. Droughts and Forest Fires
Download PDF (1.4 MB)
For tens of thousands of years forest fires occurred naturally in what is now northeastern North Carolina and southeastern Virginia, independently of human disturbance. Such fires were linked to the juxtaposition of two naturally recurring phenomena, droughts and lightning. The significance of lightning in starting fires in the past can be extrapolated from...
13. From Peat Mining to Wildlife Refuges
Download PDF (187.4 KB)
The Albemarle region of southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina holds some of the largest deposits of peat in temperate North America, comparable in area to that in Ireland. The Albem