probably traded them for stone and 

 copper. 



Trade networks were extensive. 

 Well-established overland trails made 

 travel and trade from region to region 

 relatively easy. 



By the time of European contact, 

 Tar Heel coastal Indians had evolved 

 complex societies. They had devel- 

 oped distinctly different languages and 

 were no more savage than the Europe- 

 ans they were about to meet. 



Technologically, some people 

 would argue that the Europeans were 

 more advanced than Native Ameri- 

 cans because they had discovered 

 metallurgy and thus could make metal 

 weapons and tools. 



But Knick argues that Indian 

 cultures, because of their closeness to 

 the environment and their ability to 

 live in balance with nature, were 

 superior to the more exploitative and 

 destructive cultures of Europe. 



And so it was when Columbus, in 

 1492, came ashore in the Bahamas, 

 thinking he had found the islands off 

 the Asian coast known as the Indies. 

 He named the inhabitants he saw 

 "Indians," and for some unknown 

 reason, the name stuck and was 

 broadly applied to native inhabitants. 

 Columbus died in 1506, thinking he 

 had found Asia and never realizing he 

 would go down in history as discover- 

 ing the Americas. 



During the next century, contact 

 between Tar Heel natives and Europe- 

 ans increased. First the Spanish tried 

 to colonize along the Carolina coast. 

 Then came the English. 



In 1584, two English ships 

 anchored along the Outer Banks. This 

 marked the beginning of the Roanoke 

 voyages that ended in 1590 when John 

 White returned in search of the now- 

 famed Lost Colony. 



From these voyages and attempts 



at colonization, we have the first 

 written descriptions and drawings of 

 North Carolina, its resources and its 

 people. The chief chroniclers were 

 John White, an artist and the governor 

 of the Lost Colony, and Thomas 

 Harriot, a scientist chosen to study the 



AGRICULTURE 

 GRADUALLY EVOLVED, 

 AND BY THE 1500s, 

 NORTH CAROLINA'S 

 NATIVES HAD 

 DEVELOPED A 

 COMPLEX 

 AGRICULTURAL 

 SYSTEM. 



Indians and the natural resources. 



Most early accounts describe the 

 Carolina Algonkians, who spoke no 

 less than 20 and perhaps as many as 

 100 versions of the Algonkian 

 language. 



The nobility lived in villages along 



David Phelps 



coastal rivers such as the Chowan and 

 the Pamlico. The more common 

 people lived in smaller villages and 

 farmsteads surrounding the main 



village, Phelps says. 



Harriot says the Algonkian 

 "longhouses" ranged in size from 

 18-by-36 feet to 36-by-72 feet and were 

 "made of small poles, made fast at the 

 tops in round form ... covered with 

 barks and in some with artificial mats 

 made of long rushes from the tops of 

 the houses down to the ground." 



The Algonkians planted substantial 

 tracts of land in com, beans, squash and 

 other sustenance vegetables and fruits. 

 But the Native Americans also contin- 

 ued to gather nuts, berries, fruits and 

 some roots. 



When it came to hunting, Harriot 

 writes that deer were an important and 

 readily available year-round source of 

 meat for the Indians. The Algonkians 

 also shot bears, rabbits, opossums, 

 raccoons, squirrels, skunks, muskrats 

 and marsh rats. Harriot counted 28 

 "beasts" and 86 "fowl" likely to end up 

 in an Algonkian stew. 



From White's paintings and 

 Harriot's word, we also know that the 

 Algonkians were proficient fishermen. 

 They fished with weirs, hook-and-line, 

 spears, and bows and arrows. The weirs 

 drawn by White look much like the 

 pound nets used by fishermen along the 

 Carolina coast today. 



Occasionally, the Indians trapped 

 their catch in small pools and poisoned 

 them, using a plant extract that killed 

 the fish but left the flesh untainted. 



In their religious beliefs, the 

 Algonkians, like virtually all Indians, 

 believed in a central creator. But they 

 also had gods of nature such as the 

 wind, sun and moon, and a form of 

 ancestor worship, Phelps says. 



Coastal Indians "were attuned to 

 one creator, the four directions, the four 

 comers of the year — the two equi- 

 noxes and two solstices — and the 

 investing of spirits in things, which 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 5 



