Swine, Corn, and Timber
Colonial North Carolina
by Wilson Angley*
Farmers provided the backbone of colonial
North Carolina. Well over 90 percent of the
colony's inhabitants derived their livelihoods
from the soil. One of the things that most
attracted settlers to North Carolina was the
large amount of inexpensive and fertile land
available to them. Colonial farmers obtained
land by purchasing land grants from agents of
the government or Lord Granville, one of the
colony's largest landowners. Once a farmer
received a land grant, he could transfer it from
one person to another through sale or
inheritance.
Some settlers acquired extensive tracts of
land, especially in the eastern portions of
North Carolina. Their farms and plantations
were so large that they acquired Indian and
black slaves to do most of the work. The vast
majority of North Carolinians, however,
owned small farms. All of the work was done
by the farmer and his family. These families
engaged in subsistence farming. This meant
that they needed nearly everything produced
on the farm merely to survive. Anything left
over could be sold or traded for necessities
that the colonists could not grow or make for
themselves. It was a rough life that left little
time for formal education or polished
manners.
Many of the colonists' crops, like corn,
tobacco, peas, and beans, had been introduced
to the earliest European settlers by the
Indians. Corn, in fact, became the mainstay of
the colonial North Carolinian's diet. Uses
were found for nearly all parts of the corn
plant.
Many products from the farms and forests
of North Carolina were shipped out of the
colony to New England, Great Britain, and the
West Indies. Wheat, tobacco, rice, meat,
shingles, and lumber went to these destina¬
tions. But the most important exports from
North Carolina were naval stores — tar, pitch,
rosin, and turpentine derived from the vast
pine forests of the coastal plain.
Hogs and cattle fed hungry colonial
families as well. These animals roamed freely
through the winter months, although the law
required that they be branded by their
owners. By today's standards these half-wild,
skinny creatures were far from impressive.
They offended some colonial visitors to North
Carolina, too. Virginia's William Byrd criti¬
cized North Carolina farmers after traveling
in the colony in 1728.
Both cattle and hogs ramble into the neighboring
marshes and swamps, where they maintain themselves
the whole winter long and are not fetched home till
the spring. Thus these indolent wretches during one
half of the year lose the advantage of the milk of their
cattle, as well as their dung, and many of the poor
creatures perish in the mire, into the bargain, by this
ill management. . . .
The only business here is raising of hogs, which is
managed with the least trouble and affords the diet
they are most fond of. The truth of it is, the inhabi¬
tants of North Carolina devour so much swine's flesh
that it fills them full of gross humors. . . . Surely there
is no place in the world where the inhabitants live with
less labor than in North Carolina. It approaches nearer
to the description of Lubberland than any other, by the
great felicity of the climate, the easiness of raising pro¬
visions, and the slothfulness of the people. . . .
Even so, North Carolina hogs provided
meat for the farmer's table, and large herds
were rounded up and driven to distant
markets for sale.
4 ‘Researcher, Research Branch, North Carolina Division of Archives and History.
