Ethnohistorical Description of the Eight Villages Adjoining Cape Hatteras National Seashore and Interpretive Themes of History and Heritage. Volume One-Final Technical Report

摘要

This document results from a three-year long research project funded by the National Park Service beginning in 2002 to conduct an ethnohistorical and ethnographic study of eight communities adjacent to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore (CAHA). This study grew out of the National Park Services recognition of the importance of understanding the social, cultural, and economic histories of communities affected by its policies and actions; its purpose was to support the Park in the interpretation of its cultural resources, stewardship of ethnographic sources within the Park, and in community relations with these Park neighbors. Research methods included participant-observation in Hatteras and Ocracoke villages, social mapping, genealogical interviews, and extended, tape-recorded interviews of community elders and leaders. We also built upon interviews of residents who born before or near the turn of the century that were recorded in the 1970s and 1980s by National Park Service staff as part of the University of North Carolinas Southern Oral History Project. In some cases we were able to interview the children of those interviewed in earlier decades, now deceased. These interviews helped us formulate a diachronic description of social and cultural change in Outer Bank villages, particularly relating to the interpretive themes of Cape Hatteras National Seashore: seashore living and fishing economy.