North Carolina: Reconstruction and Agrarian Revolt

In May, 1865, President Andrew Johnson applied his plan of Reconstruction to the state. The radical Republicans in Congress, however, adopted their own scheme in 1867, and the Carolinas, organized as the second military district, were again occupied by federal troops. The Reconstruction constitution of 1868 abolished slavery, removed all religious tests for holding office, and provided for the popular election of all state and county officials. In 1871 the legislature, with conservatives again in control, impeached and convicted Gov. William H. Holden.

The often maligned period of Reconstruction actually saw the beginning of the modern state, with a tremendous rise in industry in the Piedmont. Increased use of tobacco in the Civil War stimulated the growth of tobacco manufacturing (first centered at Durham), and the introduction of the cigarette-making machine in the early 1880s was an immense boon to the industry, creating tobacco barons such as James B. Duke and R. J. Reynolds.

Agriculture, however, was in a critically depressed condition. The old plantation system had been replaced by farm tenancy, which long remained the dominant system of holding land. Much farm property was destroyed, credit was largely unavailable, and transportation systems broke down. The nationwide agrarian revolt reached North Carolina in the Granger movement (1875), the Farmers' Alliance (1887), and the Populist party, which united with the Republicans to carry the state elections in 1894 and 1896. However, the Fusionists (as members of the alliance were called) were blamed for the rise of black control in many tidewater towns and counties, and in the election of 1898, when the Red Shirts, like the Ku Klux Klan of Reconstruction days, were active, the Democrats regained control.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Progress since 1900
• Reconstruction and Agrarian Revolt
• Secession and Civil War
• Westward Expansion and Civic Improvements
• Resistance and Revolution
• Exploration and Colonization
• Government and Higher Education
• Economy
• Geography
• Facts and Figures
• Bibliography

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