The latest edition of Southern Cultures includes a very interesting article by Bruce Baker on the origins of the “Tar Heel” nickname. Baker, a lecturer at Newcastle University in England and a graduate of UNC (Ph.D., History, 2003), did extensive research in newspapers and other sources to uncover a great deal of interesting and, as far as I am aware, new information about the history of “Tar Heels.”
Countering some of the often-repeated stories about the phrase, while it was adopted into popular use during the Civil War, its origins go back several decades earlier. Baker describes how the phrase “rosin heels” was in frequent use among the pine-rich turpentine-producing regions of the United States, including North Carolina. The phrase “tar heel” emerged later, used first as a derogatory term for politicians and later applied to African Americans, including Frederick Douglass, who was called a “Tarheel” in an 1852 newspaper article.
While initially used as a derisive nickname for North Carolina soldiers during the Civil War, the North Carolinians apparently decided to embrace it. By the time Governor Zebulon Vance referred to “Fellow Tar-Heels” in 1863, the name had stuck.
Baker’s article is well worth reading in its entirety. Southern Cultures is available in Davis and Wilson libraries and online for UNC students and staff.