<P> In the late eighteenth century , the tide of immigration to North Carolina from Virginia and Pennsylvania began to swell . The Scots - Irish ( Ulster Protestants ) from what is today Northern Ireland were the largest immigrant group from the British Isles to the colonies before the Revolution . In total , English indentured servants , who arrived mostly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries , comprised the majority of English settlers prior to the Revolution . On the eve of the American Revolution , North Carolina was the fastest - growing British colony in North America . The small family farms of the Piedmont contrasted sharply with the plantation economy of the coastal region , where wealthy planters had established a slave society , growing tobacco and rice with slave labor . </P>
<P> In the late eighteenth century , the tide of immigration to North Carolina from Virginia and Pennsylvania began to swell . The Scots - Irish ( Ulster Protestants ) from what is today Northern Ireland were the largest immigrant group from the British Isles to the colonies before the Revolution . In total , English indentured servants , who arrived mostly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries , comprised the majority of English settlers prior to the Revolution . On the eve of the American Revolution , North Carolina was the fastest - growing British colony in North America . The small family farms of the Piedmont contrasted sharply with the plantation economy of the coastal region , where wealthy planters had established a slave society , growing tobacco and rice with slave labor . </P>
settlers of the piedmont region of north carolina
settlers of the piedmont region of north carolina
Scots - Irish ( Ulster Protestants ) from what is today Northern Ireland
Scots - Irish ( Ulster Protestants ) from what is today Northern Ireland