Before Brunswick Town and before Wilmington, the first residents of the Cape Fear were the native people who had inhabited the land, to varying degrees, for thousands of years.

Unfortunately, little is known about the people now known as the Cape Fear Indians. How did they live? How did they use the land? What happened to them and what can we still learn from them today?

In Cape Fear Unearthed's first episode of 2020, we will explore those questions and more, including a conversation with David La Vere, a professor of history at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

Cape Fear Unearthed is written, edited and hosted by Hunter Ingram. Additional editing by Adam Fish.

The show is sponsored by Northchase Family Dentistry and Tidewater Heating & Air Conditioning.

Sources:

-- "A Coat of Many Colors: Religion and Society Along the Cape Fear River of North Carolina," by Walter Conser

-- "Time Before History: The Archaeology of North Carolina," by H. Trawick Ward and R. P. Stephen Davis

-- "The Lost Tribe," by Amy Hotz, Wilmington StarNews, Nov. 2007

-- "Cape Fear River Indians," by Phillip D. Garwood

-- Research materials provided by the Cape Fear Museum