Colonial and Revolutionary Southeast North Carolina

The State Archives of North Carolina's Capital Buildings series contains fiscal materials relating to the building, maintenance, and furnishing of state government buildings in North Carolina, primarily in Raleigh. The records contain information about the labor, construction, furnishing, and maintenance of these buildings. The receipts and pay warrants for laborers include both free and enslaved persons.

The Colonial and State Records of North Carolina series includes documents and materials from throughout the country and from several European repositories covering the earliest days of North Carolina's settlement by Europeans through the ratification of the United States Constitution.

The Colonial Court Records digital collection includes three series from holdings of the State Archives of North Carolina:

Civil and Criminal Action Papers, Other Courts, 1669-1775 (CCR.193)
Estate Papers (CCR.179-CCR.186)
Land Papers (CCR.187)

North Carolina Reports (1778 - ongoing), which are the official report of opinions of the North Carolina Supreme Court, including the Court of Conference and Superior Courts that preceded it. The reports have been re-published over the years. The reports included in this collection are commonly known as the “Walter Clark” editions.

The David Rumsey Map Collection focuses on rare 16th through 21st century maps of North and South America, as well as maps of the World, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. The collection includes atlases, globes, wall maps, school geographies, pocket maps, books of exploration, maritime charts, and a variety of cartographic materials. Items range in date from around 1550 to the present.

Color maps and illustrations created by Theodor De Bry, based on the drawings completed by John White during his involvement with Sir Walter Raleigh's attempt to colonize America.

The District Superior Court Records digital collection currently contains only one district, Edenton District, from 1756 to 1806. Writs, transcripts, narratives, inventories of estates, notes, bonds, appeals, and subpoenas relating to the settlement of estates in the counties under the jurisdiction of the Edenton District Superior Court. It also includes a short subseries of guardians' records (1760- 1805) arranged by name of the ward, and records of unnamed decedents and wards. All these materials are from the State Archives of North Carolina.

A project of the State Library and State Archives of North Carolina, the Family Records Collection contains nearly 1,500 Bible records (lists of birth, marriage, and death information written in North Carolina family Bibles), indexed marriage and death announcements from five North Carolina newspapers (Raleigh Register, North Carolina State Gazette, Daily Sentinel, Raleigh Observer, and News & Observer) from 1799 to 1893, photographs of headstones and general views of the Raleigh Hebrew Cemetery and the Hebrew section of Historic Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh, and copies of genealogical research donated to the Government and Heritage Library.

This collection contains federal and state constitutions and amendments found within the holdings of the State Archives of North Carolina. These documents, consisting of loose manuscripts and one volume, highlight North Carolina government's role in the ratification of federal amendments and its own internal efforts to protect the rights of state residents dating back to the Declaration of Rights in 1776.

The General Assembly Session Records digital collection features records of early North Carolina state legislatures found within the holdings of the State Archives of North Carolina. These documents consist of bills and resolutions, petitions, committee reports, messages from the governor, legislative messages, tally sheets, election certificates, resignations, and other material related to the work of each session of the General Assembly.

The Historical Governors’ Papers collection is an ongoing digitization project that includes the correspondence of many of North Carolina’s early governors. These materials are from the collections of the State Archives of North Carolina and each group of correspondence will be indexed by month and year. Also included are materials from North Carolina’s colonial governors.

This collection of primary source sets allows students to select a topic of interest and evaluate themed primary sources from the Colonial Court Records at the State Archives of North Carolina. Within each category, users will find digital images of the primary source records, transcriptions of these records, and questions to prompt reflection and discussion for each category and for individual records.

The North Carolina Digital Heritage Center includes hundreds of ledgers and other records of the Grand Lodge of Ancient, Free, and Accepted Masons of North Carolina. Included in the collection are minutes from St. John's Lodge No. 1, North Carolina's first Masonic Lodge established in Wilmington in 1754. This link will take you to a full listing of Wilmington-related Masonic records in the collection, sorted chronologically.

A project of Documenting the American South, "North American Slave Narratives" collects books and articles that document the individual and collective story of Black people struggling for freedom and human rights in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. This collection includes all the existing autobiographical narratives of self-emancipated and formerly enslaved people published as broadsides, pamphlets, or books in English up to 1920.

"The North Carolina Experience" collects a wide variety of print and manuscript materials that tell the story of the Tar Heel State as seen through representative histories, descriptive accounts, institutional reports, fiction, and other writing. It comprises printed works, images, oral history interviews, and workplace songs.

Searchable data plus 1.2 million images for 217,460 land grants issued in North Carolina from 1663 to 1960

North Carolina Maps is a comprehensive, online collection of historic maps of the Tar Heel State. Featuring maps from three of the state's largest map collections -- the State Archives of North Carolina, the North Carolina Collection at UNC-Chapel Hill, and the Outer Banks History Center -- North Carolina Maps provides an unprecedented level of access to these materials. North Carolina Maps contains more than 3,000 maps, ranging in date from the late 1500s to 2000, and including detailed maps for each of North Carolina's one hundred counties.

This online resource from FamilySearch describes digitized resources from the state of North Carolina available from various repositories and databases across the country. The wiki also links out to resources from individual North Carolina counties.

This digital collection includes shipping accounts, entries, clearances, and various records from North Carolina’s ports, spanning from the colonial period to the late nineteenth century. These documents cover a wide array of topics such as customs duties, health regulations, privateering cases and laws, and seamen’s welfare accounts. Notably, the collection sheds light on the trafficking of enslaved persons into North Carolina ports, with detailed records of arrivals at Port Beaufort, Port Brunswick, Port Roanoke, and others. Additionally, materials related to the U.S. Cutter Diligence and Port Wilmington’s quarantine hospital offer insights into early maritime law enforcement and public health initiatives during this period.

This website includes a list of links to digitized primary source documents from the Revolutionary period. The website was created as part of the state of North Carolina's observance of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

The North Carolina Secretary of State Wills Digital Collection, contains wills from 1663 to 1789. These are loose original wills probated in the province. After 1760 most original wills were kept by the clerk in the county in which they were probated, though there are some wills after 1760 in the collection.

The Records of Enslaved People in Private Collections digital collection draws from various private collections from the State Archives of NC, offering glimpses into different points in the lives of enslaved individuals such as purchases, sales, births, and deaths. Due to their legal status, these records seldom reflect their own perspectives; however, they serve as poignant reminders of their humanity and the systemic coercion imposed upon them by others and by governmental structures. The collection includes, but is not limited to, bills of sale, correspondence, inventories, lists, wills, and administrative records, collectively shedding light on the often harsh realities faced by enslaved people in different historical contexts.

The Regulator Movement was a brief uprising in eastern North Carolina from 1768 to 1771, before the start of the American Revolution. Materials in this digital collection are taken from the State Archives of North Carolina.

The Revolutionary War digital collection is composed of selected documents from the government and private collections of the State Archives of North Carolina that highlight this important time in history.

North Carolina laws and legislative publications dating back to 1777. From the State Library of North Carolina.

The Tax Lists and Records digital collection features tax records from the holdings of the State Archives of North Carolina drawn from General Assembly, Treasurer & Comptroller, and Secretary of State records. The bulk of the records are from the Colonial and Revolutionary War eras, but some lists date from as late as 1809.

The Vault Collection, also sometimes referred to as the “Treasures” of the State Archives of North Carolina, is an artificial collection created to highlight and preserve those rare manuscripts that enhance the history of the “Old North State” and its residents. Ranging from the Carolina Charter of 1663 and North Carolina’s copy of the Bill of Rights to documents pertaining to African American and Native American peoples, these manuscripts are unique in their value in describing and enhancing the cultural history of North Carolina.

This collection is comprised of Troop Returns from the State Archives of North Carolina Military Collection. Troop Returns (1747-1893) include lists, returns, records of prisoners, and records of draftees. Most of this collection is related to the Revolutionary War. Lists are usually pay or muster rolls. Returns are usually field or general returns and report the names of the officers and the number of enlisted men under the commanding officer. Names of individual soldiers are rarely included.

John White was a watercolorist, the first British artist in America, and governor of the colony at Roanoke (1587). His voyages for Sir Walter Raleigh to Roanoke and North Carolina (then called Virginia) and his two voyages searching for the 'Lost Colony' of Roanoke are well documented. His watercolors illustrate the Indigenous people, flora, and fauna of the North Carolina region at the time of British colonization. This digital collection shares two sets of his watercolors from the 1585-1586 trip, owned by the British Museum.