What type of relationships existed between pirates and some of North Carolina's government officials?

The colony of North Carolina was unique, one in which the people owned land

and enjoyed religious toleration but were isolated from much of the Atlantic trade.

Unlike any other colonial society, the demographic of settlers included a mixture of

classes, religions, and races among landowners. The local government was comprised of

the new landowners, so it tended to be informal and less structured than the colonial

government of Virginia, creating a relaxed judicial system. The geography of the

coastline of North Carolina presented many obstacles for the large ships of the Atlantic

trade but attracted many pirate sloops, since it offered inlets and islands that could serve

as hideouts. The people who settled in Carolina formed a society that did not define

criminal activity in the same manner as their Virginian neighbors. As a result of these

factors—the demographics of the population, the informal structure of government, and

the geographic obstacles for legal trade—pirates, who provided luxury goods at cheaper

prices than England and were an easily accessible source for trade, were embraced by the

people and accepted into North Carolina communities.

Historians have written about colonial North Carolina, its geographical

differences from other eastern colonies, and its history under proprietary rule. Jonathan

Edward Barth’s article, “‘The Sinke of America’: Society in the Albemarle Borderlands

of North Carolina, 1663-1729,” “seeks to provide a glimpse into early modern ideas on

authority and disorder…in early North Carolina, a colony that many contemporaries

considered a stain on the map of British America.”1 Barth’s research and analysis

support the claim that, in a region geographically designed to protect pirates from many

seafaring naval vessels too large to navigate the Outer Banks, the early colonists of

North Carolina were the types of individuals who were open to nurturing a mutually

beneficial relationship with pirates, and were perfectly located to do so. Edwin Combs

Explanation:

they use tree rings to figure out weather patters.