Chatham County history

The First Peoples on the land we now call Chatham County arrived here about 1000 BCE.

Two major language groups moved in and out of the area:

• Siouan language group: Croatans, Catawba, Congarees, Keyauwees, Esaw, Tutelos, Saponis, Cheraw, Enos, Occaneechees, Shakoris, and Saxapahaw.
• Iroquoian language group: Cherokee, Tuscaroras.

The Secotan tribe that met early English explorers spoke the Carolina Algonquian language, an Eastern Algonquian language.

• The Secotans were the most southerly of this language group and included the Pamlico.
• Smallpox devastated the Pamlico in 1696.

Mostly, the first peoples to arrive on the land we now call North Carolina were undisturbed for about 500 years. Forest covered much of the area. The peoples were mostly hunter-gatherers.

This pre-Columbian time part of what is described today as the Woodland period followed by the Mississipian culture. There were many independent tribes and societies, loosely connected by trade routes. It spread eastward from the Mississippi valley. The Late Mississippi period (c. 1400–1540) is characterized by increasing warfare, political turmoil, and population movement.

Villages with single platform mounds were more typical of the river valley settlements throughout the mountainous area of southwest North and South Carolina, and southeastern Tennessee that were known as the historic Cherokee homelands. In Western North Carolina for example; some 50 such mound sites in the eleven westernmost counties have been identified since the late 20th century, following increased research in this area of the Cherokee homeland.

Early encounters were with Hernando De Soto during his explorations in 1539-1543.

First Peoples and Europeans.

In the Carolinas, colonization did not exist as a straight-line transition, from Native American to European rule. A rivalry marked the relationship between the English and the Spanish. English were on the coast, Spanish the interior. Rivalries also existed between the Native American groups. The Europeans often found themselves caught in the middle of conflicts between Native American groups.

Each group, European or Native American, placed the interest of their group over the interest of all others. The English, Spanish, and Native American groups each acted against the others, as counter-colonizers of the Carolinas shown through the study of Roanoke Island.

What Europeans came early to Carolina?

1566-1567: Juan Pardo built Fort San Juan in Burke County, (near Morganton today).

• Pardo was trying to find an overland route from the coast to Mexico’s silver mines.
• Pardo declared that the Catawba, Wateree, and Saxapahaw groups were subject to the Spanish crown. Pardo successfully persuaded the groups to construct housing and make food provisions, which created eleven Spanish settlements in the Carolinas
• Fort San Juan was the first European settlement in NC, predating the English at Roanoke Island.
• Pardo led two expeditions exploring the Piedmont interior and along the Appalachian mountains.
• Native Americans turned against the Spanish in 1568, burning all forts and killing most.
• Current archaeology at the Berry site finds mound culture and Spanish artifacts.

At Joara, near Morganton, North Carolina, Native Americans of the Mississippian culture interacted with Spanish colonizers of the Juan Pardo expedition, who built a base there in 1567 called Fort San Juan. Expedition documentation and archaeological evidence of the fort and Native American culture both exist. The soldiers were at the fort about 18 months (1567–1568) before the natives killed them and destroyed the fort. (They killed soldiers stationed at five other forts as well; only one man of 120 survived.) Sixteenth-century Spanish artifacts have been recovered from the site, marking the first European colonization in the interior of what became the United States.

1584: Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe:

• English land patent from Queen Elizabeth: “land not actually possessed of any Christian prince, nor inhabited by Christian people.” Stay North of the Spanish!
• Amadas and Barlowe explored the Outer Banks, and this voyage determined Roanoke Island as the location for the future colonies under the leadership of Sir Walter Raleigh.
• They were met at Pamlico Sound by a large group of the Secotan tribe, led by their king's brother Granganimeo.

Amadas was nominated Admiral of Virginia by Raleigh in 1585.

1585: Richard Grenville and Ralph Lane found the Roanoke Island colony under Sir Walter Raleigh.

1587: John White under Sir Walter Raleigh. Colony abandoned, known as the Lost Colony.

1600-1699: Many expeditions and settlements by English, French, Spanish, Portuguese explorers and settlers.

Who came later? As ever, people disenchanted with societal strictures sought freedom to be who they wanted to be. Of course, many of those societies, e.g., those in Rhode Island, also restricted freedoms to only those who conformed to their rules. Enslaved peoples included not only those brought in on the Atlantic slave trade, but also natives and peoples from the Caribbean. Generally, three groups of people came to the part of the Piedmont that became Chatham County (~1600 and later):

• Dissenters: (those not in communion with the Church of England)
  • Presbyterians (old definition): Scots-Irish
  • Baptist separatists (old definition)
  • Congregationalists
  • Quakers/ Society of Friends
• Enslaved people. Some were here as early as 1526, some were brought in later.
• The era of the Lords Proprietors (starting 1660s). See an excellent history at this web page.

After 1750

The 1771-1971 book notes that there were few settlers prior to 1750. Chatham was considered part of the "backcountry." All kinds of folks ended up here:

• Land speculators.
• Squatters.
• Well-off Cape Fear planters seeking summer residences away from the pestilence of the coast.
• Enslaved people.
• Free people of color.

Creating Chatham County

The Colonial Assembly at New Berne considered establishment of Chatham County from Orange County on December 5, 1770. The bill was effective in April 1771. The Counties of Guilford, Wake and Surry created same date.

• Pittsboro was established as a town in 1785 and chartered in 1787.
• Siler City was settled in the 1750’s and chartered in 1887.