Native Americans

The first visitors to Bald Head Island were Native Americans.  They lived in the Cape Fear Region and came to the island to hunt and fish.  The Cape Fear Indians were part of the Siouan Indian Nation.  They called the Cape Fear region "Chicora." 

Midden sites have been found near the creeks on the island.  These midden sites are mounds of shells left by Native Americans who fished on the island over 400 years ago.

Exploration

Many Spanish and French explorers visited the Cape Fear region.  In 1526, an explorer named Lucas Vasques de Ayllon traveled up the Cape Fear River.  He had three ships and over 300 people in his party.  One of his ships crashed on Frying Pan Shoals.  He stopped at Bald Head Island to rebuild it.  This was the first ship built in the New World. 

A group of colonists with Sir Walter Raleigh also came to the lower Cape Fear region.  They, too, almost ran aground on the shoals.  A few colonies were started in the lower Cape Fear region in the 1600's.  These colonies did not last very long because the colonists fought with the Cape Fear Indians. 

In 1715, Bald Head Island was given to Langrave Thomas Smith, a rich merchant from Charleston, South Carolina.  This is how the island came to be called, "Smith Island."  The name was changed to Bald Head Island much later.

Piracy

Some of the roads on Bald Head Island are named for notorious pirates. That is because many pirates used the island as a hide out.  For the pirates, the mouth of the Cape Fear river was a good place to hide.  They stopped on the beach at Bald Head Island to repair their boats. From Bald Head Island, they could attack and steal from ships that crashed on the nearby shoals.

The most famous pirate to use Bald Head Island was Stede Bonnet, the "Gentleman Pirate."  Bonnet was a rich, educated English planter.  He left his family on a sugar plantation in Barbados and took up a life of piracy on the high seas.  Legends say that he became a pirate to get away from his wife, who was always nagging him. 

When he decided to become a pirate, Bonnet bought a ship that he named the Revenge.  This was strange because most pirates stole their ships.  Bonnet sailed up and down the Atlantic Coast for a few years, attacking ships that carried goods from one port to the next.  He was once given a pardon by the governor of North Carolina.  The governor would forgive him if he agreed to stop being a pirate.  But he would not change his ways.  He was finally captured by Colonel William Rhett and hung in Charleston in 1718.

Another pirate who came to Bald Head Island from time to time was Blackbeard, one of the most feared pirates of all time.

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