The area surrounding Moores Creek Bridge historically included creek, swamp, savannah, bottomland forest, and high ground, and this savannah has been both open and forested over time. North Carolina's colonial economy was agricultural and depended on this rich and varied landscape. In the mid-1700s, rice, indigo, and naval stores made up most of the colony's trade, and these products were sold as far as the Caribbean and Europe. The trade created enormous wealth for a small group of North Carolina planters, including Colonels James Moore, Richard Caswell, and Alexander Lillington, who were also patriot leaders at the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge. Long-leaf pine, once dominant in southeastern forests, was used to produce naval stores vital to colonial shipbuilding, and resin was collected in turpentine orchards by a method that remained basically unchanged from colonial times into 1895.