Abstract:
Bill Sharpe explains the meaning and history of the famous nickname for North Carolinians, \r\n'Tar Heel'. Sharpe claims that prior to the Civil War, people who lived by the Virginia-North Carolina border employed patrolmen to keep slaves from crossing state lines. Each state enforced a penalty on slaves caught escaping. In North Carolina this penalty was to tar the heels of the slave, hence the name, 'Tar Heel'.\r\n