Many Europeans left their homes across the Atlantic Ocean in search of a new life. Such a life that would facilitate their spiritual growth, fulfill their quest for independence from oppressors, and promote their financial advancement. European settlers, most notably the Ulster Scotch-Irish, of the North Carolina frontier were faced with many new and familiar problems, opportunities, and changes as they arrived and established themselves in their new homeland. .
PROBLEMS.
When writing of the problems the settlers faced, the first, one must consider, is the process of traveling to North Carolina. The Europeans had to buy their way onto ships that were bound for the colonies. This required payment and the majority of these immigrants were not wealthy and therefore, often entered into an indenture system meaning they would work off the debt of passage over a period of time when they arrived at their destination. It is uncertain exactly, the ease at which this could be accomplished. According to the text of From Ulster to Carolina, there was a "severe shortage of labor" thus a "demand for indentured laborers," (21). .
Even before the hopeful settlers could reach a point when they could offer themselves for indentured service they must brave the conditions of the Atlantic. The voyage "lasted from six to ten weeks and involved the danger of violent storms, disease, pirates, shortages of food and water, and the lack of concern or even brutality of the captains." (25). The ships were often cramped with passengers seeking out a new beginning in America and the conditions under which they lived on these voyages must .
have tested the hope and morale of these people. Once approaching the Carolina shoreline, the ships and passengers were still not out of harm's way as they must navigate the treacherous waters that aptly gave the Outer Banks its nickname the Graveyard of the Atlantic.
Once in the colonies the new settlers faced the same problems that their predecessors had faced; how to get started, to buy land, to clear the land, to learn what would grow and what not.