Virginia's expansion happened to send some of her people across the boundary, where upon finding themselves under the jurisdiction of the Lord Proprietors of Carolina they took pains to keep that authority upon a strictly nominal basis.

The first comers, about 1660, and most of those who followed, were and continued to be small farmers; but in the course of decades a considerable number of plantations arose in the fertile districts about Albemarle Sound.

Nearly everywhere in the lowlands, however, the land was too barren for any distinct prosperity.

The settlements were quite isolated, the communications very poor, and the social tone mostly that of the backwoods frontier.

An Anglican missionary when describing his own plight there in 1711 discussed the industrial regime about him: "Men are generally of all trades and women the like within their spheres, except some who are the posterity of old planters and have great numbers of slaves who understand most handicraft.