What are two ways that the revolutionary war affected North Carolina?

Answer 1

One important effect of the Revolution in North Carolina was to open up the westernmost 125 miles of the state for settlement. At that time all of Tennessee was part of North Carolina, and all of Tennessee and western North Carolina, everything west of the eastern border of Buncombe County today was beyond the "Proclamation Line". This was a line drawn along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains at the end of the French and Indian War in 1763 by the British government. The British did not want to have to keep a large army in North America to fight the Indians, so to prevent settlers from moving on to Indian lands - the frequent cause of Indian wars - the British government forbade settlement west of the Proclamation Line. This was a major cause of discontent before the Revolution among people in the back country, the area to the east of the Blue Ridge. There was only so much land to the east of the Proclamation Line, and it was only made more expensive by this ruling. This made it hard for poor people or young people to find land they could afford to buy to make a farm on, and there was good land sitting empty just over the hills.

Another important result might be the founding of the city of Raleigh as the state capital. During most of the colonial period the colonial capital was at New Bern. Like most of the other colonies the capital was moved inland not too long before the Revolution, in North Carolina, to Hillsborough, in Orange County. In order to make a clean break and to create a capital free from the political stranglehold of anyone, it was decided to make a new city, where no city as yet existed, and make that new city the state capital. The location was chosen in 1788 and the city chartered in 1792. This makes Raleigh a very early example of a planned city.