page_title: Pleasure Island (North Carolina)
section_title: The People of the Lower Cape Fear
hierarchical_section_title: Pleasure Island (North Carolina) / History / The People of the Lower Cape Fear
caption_attribution_description: Zoom into this map at maps.bpl.org. Author: Lodge, John Publisher: J. Bew Date: 1781. Location: Cape Fear River (N.C.) Scale: Scale [ca. 1:410,000]. Call Number: G3902.C16S3 1781.L6
context_page_description: Pleasure Island is a coastal barrier island in Southeastern North Carolina, USA just south of the City of Wilmington. Pleasure Island is located within Federal Point Township, in New Hanover County. The coastal resort towns of Carolina Beach and Kure Beach, as well as the annexed communities of Wilmington Beach and Hanby Beach are located on the island. The southern end of Pleasure Island was separated from Bald Head Island by Corncake Inlet until the inlet was shoaled and closed in 1998 by Hurricane Bonnie; thus Pleasure Island and Bald Head Island are no longer separate islands.
  The combined island now stretches from Carolina Beach Inlet in the north, the Cape Fear River to the west, Onslow Bay to the east and Long Bay to the south. It is 17 miles long, 2 miles wide in the far north, 3 miles wide at the far south and about ½ mile wide in the middle. Pleasure Island refers to the northern half of the combined island and Bald Head Island refers to the southern half of the combined island.
context_section_description: Federal Point was historically home to small groups of Native Americans, but much heavier concentrations, perhaps numbering into the thousands, lived on the west side of the river or upstream. History has forgotten the names of these tribes so they are generally referred to as the Cape Fear Indians. The tribes called the lower Cape Fear River, "Sapona" and they lived on the abundant forest, river and ocean resources. By the time Europeans arrived in the fifteenth century, the Native Americans of the region had largely transitioned from hunter-gathering to small-scale agriculture. Various artifacts and oyster mounds have been found on and near Federal Point over the years. One village site was discovered about “1.5 miles south of the head of Myrtle Grove Sound, 3 miles north of Fort Fisher, and less than 100 yards from the beach. Sugar Loaf is less than one mile from this site in a northwesterly direction”. This location would be very close to where Carolina Beach Lake sits today.
  England laid its European claim to the area that is now the eastern United States (including Federal Point) in 1497 after the first voyage of Venetian John Cabot, who was in the service of King Henry VII. In 1524, Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Italian explorer in the service of the King of France, wrote about reaching Cape Fear region. He talked about seeing smoke from a multitude of native campfires and went ashore to briefly meet with them. The Spaniard, Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón, then came to the Cape Fear River in 1526, which he call the Jordan River (Rio Jordan). The Spanish spoke of the greater area as “Cape San Romano”. Shortly after arriving, Ayllón died of fever after attempting to settle in what is now South Carolina. This was the end of any significant moves by Spain to claim lands north of Florida.
  Several attempts at English colonization in the area North and South of the Cape Fear region were launched during the ensuing century, notably the failed colony of Roanoke. However, the Cape Fear area did not see serious attempts at permanent colonization until the 1660s.
  In 1662, the Englishman William Hilton, on the ship Adventurer, in the service of New Englanders from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, came and explored the lower reaches of the Cape Fear River, which was then called the Charles River. He wrote of an Indian ambush on the river in his journal of the expedition. Hilton's favorable reports of the area, Indians not withstanding, encouraged a group of colonists from Massachusetts to sail south to try to settle in the area. Within months, however, the settlement was abandoned presumably due to Indian problems or disease; and the colonists' livestock were left behind to roam freely along what is now Bald Head Island. Legend says the party left behind a sign on a tree warning others to not try to settle in the area.
  Also in 1662 King Charles II granted all of his English lands south of Virginia and north of Spanish-held Florida to his eight Lord Proprietors of Carolina, as a reward for their loyalty in restoring him to the English throne. This grant included all of the lands in the Cape Fear region, which they called Clarendon County. The Cape Fear River was therefore renamed as the Clarendon River. The Lord Proprietors had almost complete control of who could or could not settle in the area.
  In 1663, Hilton accompanied another group of English colonists, this time from Barbados, who were hoping to gain permission from the Lord Proprietors to settle in the area. Their settlement was called Charles Town and was located on the north side of Town Creek (Indian Creek), just across the river from Federal Point. Others from both New England and Barbados followed until the number reached over 800, spread out along the river. They stayed in the area for the next few years, but significant conflicts with Indians, problems with the Lord Proprietors and concerns of abandonment—after the start of an English war with the Dutch—prompted them to leave by 1667. The settlers evacuated Charles Town and some travelled to other Atlantic Coast settlements, w
caption: 1781 map of the Cape Fear Region. The Federal Point Peninsula is just about the New Inlet on the map.
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "5512", "Image ImageLength": "7850", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image Compression": "Uncompressed", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "Epson", "Image Model": "Exp10000XL10000", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "600", "Image YResolution": "600", "Image PlanarConfiguration": "1", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2008:07:11 00:25:20", "Image ExifOffset": "304", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "442", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4950", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1405", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2000"}