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Roanoke Colonies Research Newsletter
PTRF Earth Day Symposium Features Roanoke Colonization Connections The afternoon’s first presentation was by Tom Parramore, an emeritus professor of history at Meredith College, speaking on the original vision of eastern North Carolina from the first British landings in 1584 to the late 1700s. Parramore noted that the symposium title perhaps ought to be more aptly “Arthur Barlowe’s Eden” because it was Barlowe who first wrote about the region, portraying it as an Edenic world. “I thinke in all the world the like aboundance is not to be founde,” Parramore quoted from Barlowe. Parramore then mentioned how Barlowe describes the indigenous people of the region as “the . . . most gentle, loving, and faithfull.” “The point is,” said Parramore, “that for the Elizabethans, it was love at first sight.” However, Parramore indicated, the settlement pattern of eastern North Carolina following the failed Roanoke Island colonization attempts of the 1580s was dictated by a number of factors, including at least one with connections to those attempts. Hostility between the Native Americans of the region and the British began as early as 1585 with the silver cup incident at Secotan where the village was burned because a Native American had taken a silver cup belonging to Sir Richard Grenville. From that point on, there was mistrust and outright hostility between the indigenous peoples of the region and the British colonists. In addition, according to Parramore, without a deep water port or a road to connect with settlements in Virginia and South Carolina, the region was perceived as inaccessible, giving it the name of “the Great Desert.” Permanent European American settlement did not occur in any significant numbers until the 1690s, but by the late 1770s, Barlowe’s economic Eden was in full swing, based on, a thriving livestock trade (cattle and hogs allowed to forage freely in the woods), a major naval stores industry (especially in turpentine), and hunting (a professional hunter could kill upwards of 200 deer a year for their hides). However, Parramore concluded, while the area’s European Americans saw no reason why this Eden would not continue, signs of problems were visible. Reeds, canes, and straw used by the Native Americans of the region for important crafts such as basket weaving were being destroyed by free-ranging livestock. Also hunters who were after deer and other pelts would skin the animals and leave the carcasses throughout the woods. Finally, the region still had no deep-water port and no good road system connecting it to the other colonies. David Ceceleski, from the Southern Oral History program at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, spoke next. Most important in Ceceleski’s talk for scholars of the Roanoke colonization efforts were the ways the region has changed as a result of human activities during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Ceceleski indicated that before the Civil War, the coastal forest may have changed the most of any of the land’s features. While much of eastern North Carolina was once covered with loblolly pines, the forests were harvested for shipbuilding and for the naval stores industry. By the 1850s, this resource was playing out. Several of the Outer Banks had been deforested and many of the trees on the coastal plains were destroyed by insect infestations, burning, windstorms, and so forth, all because the trees had been weakened by V-cuts to tap them for their sap. The second major change, Ceceleski continued, was due to the draining of the region’s swamps. Even before the Civil War, Ceceleski noted, canals had been dug to drain for farmland and for rice growing. This draining lowered water levels to the point that the water level in the area’s rivers lowered. The draining also allowed for major forest fires while the lower water levels would not allow for regrowth of the same species that had been burned out. In the post-Civil War era, added Ceceleski, the commercial fishing industry made major inroads. By 1880, New Bern had become a large wholesale fishery town with several canneries. By the 1890s, sturgeon, terrapin, dolphins, and oysters had all been greatly reduced in number if not almost wiped out. According to Ceceleski, the result was that by the 1890s, North Carolina’s first widespread conservation movement had begun. However, it wasn’t until 1927 that the State of North Carolina passed significant environmental laws. The final presentation of the afternoon was by Barbara Garrity-Blake, an anthropology professor at East Carolina University and Carteret Community College. Garrity-Blake presented a case study on the modern menhaden industry. The main point of Garrity-Blake’s talk was that while many people in the Beaufort/Morehead City/Atlantic Beach area of North Carolina perceive the menhaden industry to be an environmental threat, in fact there are greater stocks of the fish now than there have been in the past. Instead, according to Garrity-Blake, the problem is one of perception: many people perceive the area to be one mainly for the tourist industry, a place of rest and pleasure, while the menhaden industry is highly visible (menhaden are fished within one half mile of the beach) and highly odoriferous (the steam from the processing plant has a strong fishy smell). The afternoon ended with a question/answer period, during which McNaught wrapped up with what was the overall point of the day. McNaught warned against using a model that “balances” economic and environmental needs, playing one off of the other. “You want an economy that reflects the environment,” McNaught concluded.
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