Verrazzano: First European on This Shore

In March fifteen twenty-four, the Florentine navigator Giovanni da Verrazzano sailed along this coast flying the flag of King Francis the First of France, making the first recorded European contact with North Carolina. Verrazzano had left Madeira in January in the ship La Dauphine, after sailing from France, charged with finding a passage to Asia. He first spotted land near Cape Fear, then worked his way northward, landing at least twice between there and Cape Hatteras.

He made contact with Native Americans who offered him food and showed him their villages. He described the low coastline, the wide sounds, and the people he encountered in a letter to King Francis that remains one of the earliest written accounts of the eastern coast of North America. It would be sixty years before another European expedition arrived to stay.