Did North Carolinians Own Slaves?

Didn’t most North Carolinian’s own slaves before the war? Actually, relatively few North Carolinian’s owned slaves, less than 10 percent. The vast majority, seven out of ten, were yeoman farmers, owning only their home and a few acres of surrounding land, which they farmed to sustain their families. For these farmers, slavery was largely irrelevant, since keeping their families fed was the real concern, and they generally could not grow enough to compete with slave-holders in local markets.