The history of North Carolina from prehistory to the present covers the experiences of the people who have lived in the territory that now comprises the U.S. state of North Carolina. Before 200 AD, residents were building earthwork mounds, which were used for cooking and religious purposes. Succeeding peoples, including those of the ancient Mississippian culture established by 1000 AD in Piedmont, continued to build or add onto such mounds. In the 500–700 years preceding European contact, the Mississippian culture built large, complex cities and maintained far-flung regional trading networks. Historically documented tribes in the North Carolina region included the Carolina Algonquian-speaking tribes of the coastal areas, such as the Chowanoke, Roanoke, Pamlico, Machapunga, Core, Cape Fear Indians, and others, who were the first encountered by the English; Iroquoian-speaking Meherrin, Cherokee and Tuscarora of the interior; and Southeastern Siouan tribes, such as the Cheraw, Waxhaw, Saponi, Waccamaw, and Catawba. Spanish attempts to settle the interior, with several forts built by the Jose Pardo expedition in the 1560s, ended when the Indians destroyed the forts and killed most of the garrisons. Nearly two decades later, English colonists began to settle the coastal areas, starting with a charter in 1584. Sir Walter Raleigh began two small settlements in the late 1580s, but they failed. Some mystery remains as to what happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island, but most historians think a resupply ship was delayed. By 1640, some growth took place with colonists migrating from Virginia, who moved into the area of Albemarle Sound. In 1663, the king granted a charter for a new colony named Carolina in honor of his father Charles I. He gave ownership to the Lords Proprietors. North Carolina developed a system of representative government and local control by the early 18th century. Many of its colonists resented British attempts after 1756 to levy taxes without representation in Parliament. The colony was a Patriot base during the American Revolution, and its legislature issued the Halifax Resolves, which authorized North Carolina delegates to the Second Continental Congress to vote for independence from Britain. Loyalist elements were suppressed, and there was relatively little military activity until late in the war. During the first half of the nineteenth century, North Carolina remained a rural state, with no cities and few villages. Most whites operated small subsistence farms, but the eastern part of the state had a growing class of planters, especially after 1800 when cotton became highly profitable due to the invention of the cotton gin, which enabled cultivation of short-staple cotton in the uplands. All cotton cultivation as a commodity crop was dependent on the slave labor of African Americans. Politically the state was highly democratic, as heated elections pitted the Democratic east versus the Whiggish west. After the fire and ensuing battle on Fort Sumter in April 1861, North Carolina seceded from the United States and joined the Confederate States of America. More soldiers from North Carolina fought for the Confederacy during the American Civil War than from any other state, but few major battles were fought here. During the early years of Reconstruction, strides were made at integrating the newly freed slaves into society. Whites regained political power by violence and in 1899, disfranchised blacks through a new constitution, imposing Jim Crow and white supremacy. The Civil Rights Movement strengthened in the 1950s and 1960s, and it had strong supporters and activists in North Carolina. Events such as the sit-in protest at the F.W. Woolworth's store in Greensboro would become a touchstone for the movement. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a central organization in the movement, was founded at Shaw University in Raleigh. Following the passage of national civil rights legislation to enforce suffrage, in 1973, Clarence Lightner was elected in Raleigh as the first African-American mayor of a major southern city.
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