History
As in other areas along the waterways, centuries of Native Americans created settlements, increasingly permanent, along the Chowan River. At the time of European contact, the Chowanoke occupied most of the territory along the river. After suffering dramatic population decreases likely due to European infectious diseases, to which they had no immunity, most were pushed out by encroaching Tuscarora.
With early settlement in the mid-17th century by English colonists, the county was organized in 1779 from parts of Chowan County, Hertford County, and Perquimans County. It was named for General Horatio Gates, who had commanded the victorious American colonial forces at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777.
Read more about this topic: Gates County, North Carolina
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Well, for us, in history where goodness is a rare pearl, he who was good almost takes precedence over he who was great.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“False history gets made all day, any day,
the truth of the new is never on the news
False history gets written every day
...
the lesbian archaeologist watches herself
sifting her own life out from the shards she’s piecing,
asking the clay all questions but her own.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)