The Province of North Carolina (also "The North Carolina Colony") was a British colony that existed in North America from 1712 to 1776, and was created as a proprietary colony The power of the British government was vested in a governor of North Carolina, but the colony declared independence from Great Britain in 1776 The Province of North Carolina had four capitals: Bath (1712 - 1722), Edenton (1722 - 1743), Brunswick (1743 - 1770), and New Bern (after 1770) It later was divided into the states of North Carolina and Tennessee; parts of the colony were combined with other territories to form the states of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi