_ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Struggle for Independence R R obert Henry was the youngest sentry on the Catawba River that cold, wet night in February 1781. The fifteen-year-old student had joined other North Caro- linians in defending their homes from British invasion. In 1775, Robert had cheered the signing of the Mecklenburg Resolves, which prodded North Caro- lina on the road to independence. When the British came to North Caro- lina in 1781, Robert and his classmates had volunteered to fight alongside their schoolmaster, James Beatty. The sentries heard the British splash into the flooded river well before dawn. By the time the North Carolinians could get into position, British troops were marching up the riverbank behind them. Some defenders fled immediately, but Robert stood to fire his musket. Mr. Terms: Proclamation of 1763, Stamp Act, Provincial Congress, Committee of Safety, Tory, Whig, Mecklenburg Resolves, Halifax Resolves, Declaration of Indepen- dence, constitution, bicameral, Declaration of Rights, amendment, Confiscation Act, Overmountain Men, neutral, pacifism, pardon People: Penelope Barker, John Harvey, Cornelius Harnett, Richard Caswell, William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn, William R. Davie, Nathanael Greene, John Hamilton, David Fanning Places: Moore’s Creek Bridge, Ramsour’s Mill, Kings Mountain, Cowpens, Guilford Courthouse The Struggle for Independence 152 North Carolina: Land of Contrasts Above: This tea pot monument in Edenton commemorates the famous Edenton tea party. Opposite page, above: Reenactors portray North Carolinians at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. Right: This monument at Guilford Courthouse National Military Park honors General Nathanael Greene, the American commander.
RRobert Henry was theyoungest sentry on theCatawba River that cold,wet night in February1781. The fifteen-year-old
student had joined other North Caro-linians in defending their homes fromBritish invasion. In 1775, Robert hadcheered the signing of the MecklenburgResolves, which prodded North Caro-lina on the road to independence.When the British came to North Caro-lina in 1781, Robert and his classmateshad volunteered to fight alongside theirschoolmaster, James Beatty.
The sentries heard the British splashinto the flooded river well before dawn.By the time the North Carolinians couldget into position, British troops weremarching up the riverbank behindthem. Some defenders fled immediately,but Robert stood to fire his musket. Mr.
Terms: Proclamation of 1763,Stamp Act, Provincial Congress,Committee of Safety, Tory, Whig,Mecklenburg Resolves, HalifaxResolves, Declaration of Indepen-dence, constitution, bicameral,Declaration of Rights, amendment,Confiscation Act, Overmountain Men,neutral, pacifism, pardonPeople: Penelope Barker, JohnHarvey, Cornelius Harnett, RichardCaswell, William Hooper, JosephHewes, John Penn, William R. Davie,Nathanael Greene, John Hamilton,David FanningPlaces: Moore’s Creek Bridge,Ramsour’s Mill, Kings Mountain,Cowpens, Guilford Courthouse
The Struggle forIndependence
152 North Carolina: Land of Contrasts
Above: This tea pot monument inEdenton commemorates the famousEdenton tea party. Opposite page,above: Reenactors portray NorthCarolinians at the Battle of GuilfordCourthouse. Right: This monument atGuilford Courthouse National MilitaryPark honors General Nathanael Greene,the American commander.
Beatty, next to him, was shot in the leg. “Save yourself, Robert!” he shouted.As Robert stumbled up the hill, he saw General William Davidson shot offhis horse. Both General Davidson and Mr. Beatty died that morning.
Robert Henry, no coward, found his way up the road from the riverand took a position with other American soldiers behind a rail fence. Heagain fired and fled when the British scattered the refugees at TorrenceTavern. Determined to fight for liberty, Robert stayed with the Americanarmy. He fought at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse and helped sendthe British on the road to defeat at Yorktown in Virginia.
Years later, Robert Henry became the first lawyer in the new town ofAsheville across the Blue Ridge. He lived to be eighty-five. For more thana half century, he was hailed as a true patriot when Asheville celebratedthe great struggle that gained independence and created the state of NorthCarolina.
It was estimated that more than 200,000people lived in the colony by 1775. Theproportion of slaves grew from one-fifthof the population to one-fourth. OnlyNew Bern and Wilmington had morethan 1,000 people.
In 1776, Adam Smith, a Scottish collegeprofessor, wrote The Wealth of Nations,which argued for a market system free ofthe king’s control. The same year, NorthCarolina helped lead the effort to have thethirteen colonies break away from theCrown and control their own markets.
Despite the dangers of the War forIndependence, Presbyterian ministerslike David Caldwell of Greensboro andJames Hall of Statesville continued toteach in “academies,” schools thatprepared young men for college. InWachovia, the Moravians continuedschools for both boys and girls.
Golf was first played in America at acourse established in Charleston, SouthCarolina, in 1786. Pinehurst was notdreamed up in the Sandhills for morethan a century.
During the American Revolution, Englishmiller Edward Cartwright invented the“power loom,” a machine that harnessedwater power to turn yarn into cottoncloth. Cartwright’s invention helpedlaunch the Industrial Revolution. NorthCarolina’s first cotton mills would use thesame machine.
Joseph Priestley, an English preacher,discovered oxygen in 1774, and AntoineLavoisier, a French chemist, concludedthat animals breathe in oxygen and exhalecarbon dioxide. The Reverend James Halltaught these ideas in 1784 at Clio’sNursery in Rowan County, the first schoolto teach science in North Carolina.
1780Battles at Camden,Ramsour’s Mill, Kings Mountain
1777Confiscation Act passed;Llewellyn Conspiracy
1774Rowan Resolves;
Edenton Tea Party;Provincial Congress established
1775Mecklenburg Resolves
1776Halifax Resolves;
state constitution written
1760 1765 1770 1775 1780 1785
1770Boston Massacre
1773Boston Tea Party
1775Battles of Lexington and Concord
1776Declaration of Independence
1783Treaty of Paris ended
Revolutionary War andguaranteed American
independence
Both men and women in the statecontinued to dress as close to Europeanstyle as they could. Tri-cornered hatswere worn by gentlemen, and wealthierwomen had their hair curled and stackedin the “French manner.”
Defining the SkillSequencing is the ordering of events. In history,
sequencing often addresses the order in which eventsoccurred. Creating a timeline is one useful way to illus-trate a number of events that took place over a givenperiod of time.
Practicing the SkillLook at the timeline on page 155. Using the informa-
tion on the timeline, answer the questions that follow.
Sequencing
1. How many years does the timeline cover?2. What happened in 1765?3. When did the Boston Massacre take place?4. Which came first, the Edenton Tea Party or the
Battle at Concord?
After you have answered the questions, copy the timelinefound here on blank notebook paper. Then, read Sections 1and 2 in Chapter 5 and record at least six events found inthe reading on your timeline.
North Carolinians were caught up in more than just thetroubles of the Regulation during the 1760s and the 1770s.The British Parliament (governing body) began to changethe way the thirteen American colonies were governed. Thenew policies were designed to make Americans pay heaviertaxes and be more under the control of the British. Residentsof each of the colonies began to protest how the British wentabout changing rules without consulting them. In particu-lar, the colonists were angry that the British would pass lawswithout having the colonists’ representatives be part of theprocess. “No taxation without representation” became theslogan used to protest against this unfairness. Over thecourse of twelve years—from 1763 to 1775—these protestsled to greater arguments and, ultimately, violence. The re-sult was the War for Independence that was part of thegreater American Revolution.
The British passed two policies in the 1760s that particu-larly hindered North Carolina’s ability to grow and develop.King George III issued the Proclamation of 1763. This rul-ing forbade settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains.The king had a good reason for the proclamation. He wanted to stop thefighting between the Indians and the settlers. Some North Carolinians,however, already had plans to move over the mountains. Daniel Booneand others actually explored all the way into what became the states ofTennessee and Kentucky in the late 1760s. Boone set up a base camp forhis trips at the site where the town of Boone is today. After the Battle ofAlamance, hundreds of Regulator families ignored the Proclamation Lineand moved into the valleys of the Tennessee River. That area had beendesignated an Indian reserve.
The Roadto Independence
As you read, look for:• ways in which Great Britain tried to tighten its
control over the American colonies• vocabulary terms Proclamation of 1763, Stamp Act
Section 1: The Road to Independence 157
Map 15The ProclamationLine of 1763
Map Skill: Which colonies didnot border the ProclamationLine?
This section will help you meet thefollowing objective:
8.2.01 Trace the events leading upto the Revolutionary War andevaluate their significance.
One of the celebrated marriages inU.S. history began in North Carolinaon August 14, 1756. On that day inpresent-day Davie County, Daniel Booneand Rebecca Bryan were married. Theirmarriage lasted more than a half cen-tury. Their love story took them repeat-edly to the edges of the early Americanfrontier, as they became the prototypesfor the male and female pioneers.
Daniel and Rebecca met in 1754.She was fifteen; he was nineteen.Both of their families had come to thebackcountry on the Great Wagon Road.Their fathers were among the first pub-lic officials of Rowan County.
It was love at first sight. After thewedding, Daniel’s hunting took him away for months at a time.In the 1760s, he became one of the first Anglo-Americans tocross the Appalachian Mountains and explore Kentucky. Hewas gone for two years. A Moravian missionary from Wachoviavisited Rebecca during this time. He described her as “a quietsoul” who nevertheless had “fear in her heart” about the safetyof her husband. She had good reason. At one point duringDaniel’s trip, he had to jump off a cliff to escape Indians.
While Daniel hunted through the years, Rebecca stayedhome, farmed, and raised a lot of children. From the agesof seventeen to forty-one, Rebecca had ten children—fourdaughters and six sons. In addition, she raised six orphansfrom her family and another child that Daniel rescued fromIndians. Two of her sons were killed by Indians, and a daugh-ter was kidnapped. Daniel rescued the daughter, but laterwas himself captured and thought for months to be dead.
The Boones lived in one log house—located near today’sFarmington—for ten years, the longest they lived in any
one house during their marriage. For a while, they lived ina cabin on the upper Yadkin River west of the future town ofWilkesboro. Then, in 1773, the Boones ignored the Procla-mation Line and led a group of families toward Kentucky.The death of their son turned them back, but the Boonestried again after Daniel cut the Wilderness Road in 1775.The Boones moved around a lot, as Daniel tended to berestless. Once they operated a tavern on the Ohio River, andRebecca cooked for whoever was passing by. After theymoved to Missouri, Rebecca died in 1813, having madeapple butter just days before. Daniel passed away seven yearslater, but, as a family member said, “After GrandmotherBoone died, he was never contented.”
Daniel and Rebecca Boone
Above: This lithograph, created in 1874, is entitled“Daniel Boone Protects His Family.” It shows Boone asan Indian fighter defending Rebecca and their childfrom Indian attack.
158 Chapter 5: The Struggle for Independence
Stamp Act RiotsThe second new British policy was the
Stamp Act, passed in 1765. Since the Brit-ish needed more money to pay for theFrench and Indian War, they took steps toincrease the taxes they collected from thecolonists. The Stamp Act required stampsbe used on all kinds of documents. Dur-ing the 1700s, ships often sailed withoutpaying customs duties. The Stamp Act re-quired all ships to have their records“stamped” with an official seal, and thosestamps had to be bought from a customsofficial. The purchase of the stamps waslike a departure announcement. Customsofficers knew they should visit the ship toverify that the cargo was what the captainsaid it was. Cheating on buying the stampsor paying the customs duties would leadto the ship being seized. The captainwould be taken to a court in Nova Scotia,Canada, where he would be charged andtried by a panel of judges, not a jury.
No jury? This meant being treated likea pirate! And this violated “the rights of Englishmen” that colonists upand down the Atlantic Coast had come to expect. Mobs protested theStamp Act in every colonial port. They often threatened the stamp agentswith bodily harm unless they resigned and burned the stamps. In NorthCarolina, reported one royal official, “Not one advocate[d] for the stampduty.” When the General Assembly protested the new law, GovernorTryon sent the representatives home. Soon Edenton, New Bern, andWilmington passed petitions condemning the governor. When the firstship with stamps from London arrived at Brunswick, local leaders—in-
cluding Hugh Waddell, a hero ofthe French and Indian War—toldthe captain they would not allowthe stamps to be sold. When theBritish seized two ships becausetheir captains sailed withoutstamps, Waddell and five hundredmen destroyed the documents thatwould be used in court against theship captains. The situation almostled to open rebellion in the CapeFear. At the last moment camenews that the British Parliamenthad cancelled the Stamp Act.
Some of the documentsthat were supposed to be
stamped were news-papers, playing cards,
checks, deeds, contracts,insurance policies,permits, and wills.
Above: As a warning to those whomight import tea, Boston patriotstarred and feathered tax collectorJohn Malcolm, forced him to drinktea, and threatened to hang him.
Section 1: The Road to Independence 159
The cancellation of the stamp duty in 1766 quieted matters for a while,but the colonists and the British continued to quarrel. While North Caro-lina was swept up in the Regulation, leaders in Virginia, Massachusetts,and other colonies continued to assert the political rights that colonistshad come to expect. When the North Carolina General Assembly pro-tested that the king was not doing enough to help the colony developeconomically, a member of Parliament claimed that North Carolinianswere “derogatory to his Majesty’s honor.” In 1769, Governor Tryon onceagain sent the Assembly home because it was too critical of the British.
Even though the Regulation showed that the British would use force toget what they wanted, some North Carolinians continued to disobey. DanielBoone joined with Judge Richard Henderson to start the TransylvaniaCompany, a group designed to settle farmers west of the Appalachians.When the king would not charter Queen’s Academy in Charlotte (a Pres-byterian attempt to open a college in the colony), the Scots-Irish openedthe school anyway. By the time the War for Independence started, it hadeighty students, including Robert Henry.
Violent opposition in the colonies to the Stamp Act led Parliament to repeal it in March 1766.This cartoon, entitled “The Repeal or the Funeral Procession of Miss Americ-Stamp,”
makes fun of British reaction to the repeal.
THE ART OF POLITICSTHE ART OF POLITICS
160 Chapter 5: The Struggle for Independence
Figure 9 Steps Toward Revolution
Legislation Date What It Did
Proclamation of 1763 1763 Set boundaries for western settlement
Sugar Act 1764 Lowered tax on sugar, molasses, and other
products, but tightened customs enforcement
Stamp Act 1765 Taxed certain types of documents
Declaratory Act 1766 Stated that Great Britain had the right to tax
the colonies
Townshend Acts 1767 Taxed glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea
Tea Act 1773 Gave East India Tea Company the sole control
The two sides continued to dis-agree. Violence broke out in occu-pied Boston in 1770, the same yearRegulators rioted in Hillsborough.When the British announced newsteps to control the colonists, NorthCarolinians joined in the protests.Matters came to a head in 1773,when Bostonians disguised them-selves as Iroquois Indians anddumped hundreds of boxes of teainto their harbor. They were protest-ing the exclusive right to sell teagiven the East India Company bythe British Crown. Bostonians andother colonists believed such controls went against their rights to a freemarketplace. The event has been known ever since as the Boston Tea Party.
The Edenton Tea PartyWhen the British closed down the port of Boston to punish the city
for the loss of the tea, the other colonies agreed to buy nothing from theBritish or send any of their goods to England until matters improved. In1774, Salisbury’s leaders passed the Rowan Resolves, a series of state-ments in which their citizens pledged not to import British goods. RowanCounty citizens were encouraged to use their own homemade products.The same year, North Carolina leaders sent a ship to Massachusetts fullof corn, wheat, and salted pork to help the citizens of Boston.
Above: Patriots at the BostonTea Party in December 1773crudely disguised themselves asNative Americans. In fact,they were farmers, merchants,artisans, and apprentices.
Section 1: The Road to Independence 161
In October 1774, fifty-one women from around the Albemarle Soundmet at the home of Mrs. Elizabeth King on the village green in Edenton.Under the leadership of Penelope Barker, they promised they would drinkno more British tea or use other imported materials. Mrs. King servedherbal tea that day, and the event was reported all the way back to En-gland. Since that time, North Carolinians have remembered it as theirown Edenton Tea Party.
By 1775, Boston and the British were so hostile to one another thatfighting broke out when soldiers were sent to seize weapons and ammu-nition the leaders of the rebellion were hiding in the town of Concord.Shots fired in Lexington led to a battle at Concord that started the Ameri-can War for Independence. Those shots were said to be “heard roundthe world.” Very soon, North Carolinians heard about them and tookaction to join in the struggle for independence.
Above: North Carolina had its owntea party. Penelope Barker (left)organized an “Association” offifty-one women who pledged notto drink tea. A British cartoonistdrew this unflattering pictureof the Edenton Tea Party (right).
It’s Your Turn
1. Why did the king want to keep the colonists east of theProclamation Line?
Above: Alexander Martin hadaided the Regulators, then servedin the Provincial Congresses. Hewas a patriot leader at the Battle ofMoore’s Creek Bridge. After theWar for Independence, he becamea governor.
As you read, look for:• how North Carolina reacted to Great Britain’s
tightening controls• the Mecklenburg Resolves and the Halifax Resolves• the state government created in 1776• vocabulary terms Provincial Congress, Committee of
Safety, Tory, Whig, Mecklenburg Resolves, HalifaxResolves, Declaration of Independence, constitution,bicameral, Declaration of Rights, amendment,Confiscation Act
Even before the battles of Lexington and Concord, North Carolinianshad taken steps to separate themselves from the clutches of the British.When first Governor Tryon, then his successor, Josiah Martin, tried toshut down the Assembly, Speaker John Harvey continued to correspondwith protestors in other colonies.
Harvey, who was five times elected speaker of the Assembly, stoodup to the royal governors for the interests of North Carolinians. In 1774,Governor Martin refused to call the Assembly together to elect represen-tatives to attend a Continental Congress. (The Congress was meeting
in Philadelphia to protest whatwas going on in Boston.) Harveyset up a new body, a ProvincialCongress, that chose the delegatesanyway. When news of the battlesat Lexington and Concord arrivedin North Carolina, Governor Mar-tin fled. Harvey ordered Commit-tees of Safety to be set up in eachcounty to keep order and providegovernment. Most committeesimmediately demanded that mensuspected of siding with the Brit-ish—called Tories—had to sign a
Section 2: North Carolina in the War for Independence 163
North Carolina in the Warfor Independence
John Harvey was thegreat grandson of thefirst John Harvey of
Culpeper’s Rebellion. Hewas carrying on a familytradition of protestingwhat he believed to be
unfair treatment.
This section will help you meet thefollowing objectives:8.2.02 Describe the contributionsof key personalities from theRevolutionary War era.8.2.03 Examine the role of NorthCarolina in the Revolutionary War.8.2.05 Describe the impact ofvarious significant documents on theformation of the state and nationalgovernments.
164 Chapter 5: The Struggle for Independence
loyalty oath. In turn, members of the Committeescalled themselves Whigs, a name borrowed fromthe political opponents of the Tories back inLondon.
The Committee of Safety in MecklenburgCounty went farther in protesting the British at-tacks than any other. Mecklenburg’s leaders cametogether at Queen’s Academy to discuss recentevents. The Committee announced a series ofstatements that have collectively been called theMecklenburg Resolves. The resolves stated that,because of British aggression, “the king’s commis-sions” were “null and void.” Local leaders weredirected to elect new leaders themselves. As cheer-ing residents realized, this amounted toMecklenburg being “free and independent” ofBritish authority. Later, Mecklenburg residentscounted their “years of liberty” from 1775 andwhat came to be called the “Mecklenburg Decla-ration of Independence.” The date it was said tohave been signed—May 20, 1775—was later in-cluded on North Carolina’s state flag.
The Battle of Moore’s Creek BridgeAfter the death of John Harvey in 1775, other leaders like Cornelius
Harnett and Richard Caswell led the province. The Provincial Congressset up defense measures, created a loyalty oath for everyone to take, au-thorized the enlistment of soldiers to fight in the war, and issued papermoney to pay for everything. The province raised two regiments (groupsof soldiers) for General George Washington’s Continental army. JamesMoore of Wilmington and Robert Howe of Brunswick commanded theregiments. (Both later became generals in the army.) North Carolina
Tories were also calledloyalists, British Royalists,and “King’s friends.” TheWhigs were also calledPatriots, Liberty Boys,colonials, and Sons andDaughters of Liberty.
Map 16The ThirteenColonies in 1776
Map Skill: Which colony isfarthest north?
N
0 100 200 Miles
0 100 200 Kilometers
A Revolutionary War-eratwo-pound cannon on display at Moore’s Creek.
Was There a MecklenburgDeclaration of Independence?
Section 2: North Carolina in the War for Independence 165
North Carolina has a distinctivestate flag. Not only is it red, white,and blue, but it also has twoimportant dates on it. One is May20, 1775, when the people ofMecklenburg County declaredthemselves free of British author-ity. The other is April 12, 1776,when the state legislature voted tosupport the growing nationalmovement for independence.
The Halifax Resolves, as theyare called, are an accepted state tradition. The MecklenburgDeclaration of Independence—or “Meck/Dec” as it has beencalled—is another matter. Since the early 1800s, manyAmericans and some North Carolinians have doubted it everhappened.
Thomas Jefferson, the author of the U.S. Declaration ofIndependence, was one of the first to question the Meck/Dec. Backcountry settlers in Charlotte, he said, could nothave written something that sounded so much like his greatessay. Jefferson’s doubts were strengthened by the fact thatno original copy of the document existed. It was lost in ahouse fire near Charlotte about 1800. Only copies writtenfrom memory by John McKnitt Alexander, who had been thesecretary at the Charlotte meeting in 1775, were available.
Plus, the leaders of Mecklenburg had approved a seconddocument—called the Mecklenburg Resolves—on May 31,1775, that sounded a lot like the earlier declaration. Sincean actual copy of the Resolves existed and one of the Dec-laration did not, historians have wondered whetherAlexander mixed the two up in his old age.
For years, however, the people of Charlotte asserted thatboth documents were real. Former students of Queen’s Acad-emy, where the meetings had been held, testified that they
Was There a MecklenburgDeclaration of Independence?
had been present when residentscheered at hearing the word inde-pendence. And, several land deedsrecorded in the courthouse afterthe American Revolution weredated “such and such year of ourliberty,” with the math pointingback to 1775, not 1776. Foryears, Meck/Dec Day was a Char-lotte holiday.
Historians, however, want moreevidence. Like Jefferson, they of-
ten wonder how folks in the backcountry could be so out infront of the rest of the colonies. But, a few historians pointout that the original people of Mecklenburg County weredescendants of the Scots-Irish who suffered at the hands ofthe British. And, the first Mecklenburg settlers were preachedto by the Reverend Alexander Craighead, the son of one ofthe ministers who was harassed in Ireland. One colonialgovernor noted that the Mecklenburg Scots-Irish wanted “aSolemn League and Covenant teacher among them.” The“League” referred to a Scottish independence movement,and the “teacher,” Craighead, numbered among his studentsmany of the later signers of the Meck/Dec. If the Meck/Decreally happened, then Craighead was its inspiration.
Several of those signers had graduated from the Collegeof New Jersey (today’s Princeton University). At the time,the New Jersey school was considered a better place of highereducation than the College of William and Mary inWilliamsburg, which Thomas Jefferson attended. They, likeJefferson, had read the Scottish and English documents thatincluded phrases like “life, liberty, and property” and“sacred honor.”
Like most of the Carolina curiosities, the Meck/Decremains arguable from both sides.
Above: This is a reconstructionof the Moore’s Creek Bridge. Insetis a swivel gun of the type thatfired on the British troops as theystruggled to cross the bridge.
militiamen (civilians called up to serve the military for short periods oftime) were sent into South Carolina and Virginia to fight Tories.
By early 1776, North Carolinians were fighting among themselvesabout the war against the British. Governor Martin had fled to a ship offthe Cape Fear coast. Nevertheless, he encouraged the recently arrivedHighland Scots to march on Wilmington to join a British invasion of thetwo Carolina colonies. Since many of the Highlanders had signed an oathof personal loyalty to the king, they kept their word and gathered to fight.In February, the Highlanders marched from Cross Creek towardWilmington. Colonel James Moore ordered several groups of militia tocut them off.
The Whig forces blocked the Tories’ path at Moore’s Creek Bridge,about twenty miles north of Wilmington. The Whigs removed the planksfrom the bridge and greased the support beams. For fifteen minutes, theHighlanders tried to slip and slide across the bridge. More than fifty wereshot. They soon retreated. Colonel Moore chased them, seizing their armsand money. The Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge was as celebrated anAmerican victory in the southern colonies as the 1775 Battle of BunkerHill had been in Boston.
Halifax ResolvesThe British attempt to invade the province convinced many North
Carolinians that their conflict could not be settled peacefully. WilliamHooper, a delegate to the Continental Congress, wrote home that “it wouldbe Toryism to hint [at] the possibility of future reconciliation.” In April1776, the Provincial Congress decided that the whole province shouldfollow the example of Mecklenburg County. “Independence seems to bethe word,” Robert Howe told friends back in Brunswick.
166 Chapter 5: The Struggle for Independence
The Declaration ofIndependence was written
by Thomas Jefferson ofVirginia, with the help ofJohn Adams of Massachu-
setts and BenjaminFranklin of Pennsylvania.
On April 12, 1776, the Provincial Congress passed the Halifax Resolves,which put together all the feelings about liberty and freedom that NorthCarolinians had been discussing for years. (This is the second date onthe state flag.) The Resolves authorized the delegates in Philadelphia tojoin other colonies in seeking independence. North Carolina became thefirst of the thirteen colonies to endorse the independence movement. Later,in July 1776, William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, and John Penn were thethree North Carolinians who signed the Declaration of Independence.Within months, the great document was read publicly in front of everycourthouse in North Carolina.
State ConstitutionOnce independence was declared, and the United States created by
an act of the Continental Congress, North Carolina officially went frombeing a colony to a state. As a state, North Carolina had to come up withits own rules to govern itself. With the encouragement of the Continen-tal Congress, each of the thirteen new states wrote a state constitution,a set of rules and procedures for government. To make sure the newgovernment truly connected to the people, the Provincial Congress chosedelegates for a special constitutional convention. The delegates wrotethe first state constitution at a convention in Halifax in November andDecember 1776. Although the delegates used many of the old colonialideas of governing, they did make innovations.
Everyone who wrote the North Carolina constitution agreed upon oneprinciple: The legislature made up of the representatives of the peopleshould be the strongest part of the government. They continued theGeneral Assembly, but made it bicameral (having two bodies): the Houseof Commons (an old English term for people who weren’t aristocrats)
Above: This mural shows theDeclaration of Independence beingpresented to John Hancock(seated). The men standing beforethe table were those charged withwriting the document. The paintinghangs in the U.S. Capitol Building.
Section 2: North Carolina in the War for Independence 167
Above, left to right: The threeNorth Carolina signers of theDeclaration of Independence wereWilliam Hooper, a Wilmingtonlawyer; Joseph Hewes, an Edentonmerchant; and John Penn, aGranville County farmer. Hooperwas absent on July 4, 1776, whenthe Declaration was approved, butlater signed it. Penn had just beenappointed to the Congress torepresent the North Carolinabackcountry but served longer inthe Continental government thanany other state delegate. Heweshelped establish the United StatesNavy and helped John Paul Jones,the first great naval hero, get hiscommission.
and the Senate (an old term that went back to ancient Rome, referring toolder, wiser leadership). Each county in the state was to send two del-egates to the house and one to the senate. The representation was equalno matter how big or small the county was, whether in size or popula-tion. House members had to own 100 acres, and senators 300 acres, as away to ensure that people with the means to take time off from theirfarms and businesses could afford to govern. Similarly, all eligible men(no women or slaves could vote at that time) could elect a house mem-ber, but only those who owned at least 50 acres could vote for senators.
While North Carolinians gave a lot of power to the General Assembly,they kept watch on them. All General Assembly members were to runfor office on an annual basis. That way, unhappy voters could replacethem frequently, or reward them often.
The fact that North Carolinians could be guarded about giving too muchpower to government officials was seen in the creation of the office ofgovernor. He was to be chosen by the legislature each year, and he hadvery little power. North Carolinians did not quickly forget the abuses Wil-liam Tryon had committed. The governor could only act upon the adviceof a council and the consent of the legislature. William Hooper joked thatthe governor’s only power was “to sign a receipt for his salary.”
Most importantly, North Carolinians included a Declaration of Rightsin their constitution. This list set out the rights and protections citizenshad, such as the right to a trial with a jury. The Declaration of Rights wasa legacy of the Regulation and the other controversies with the British. Itwas written by the delegates from Mecklenburg, Rowan, and Orangecounties, the very places where people’s rights and property had beenliterally trampled.
The constitution also set up a court system. Amazingly, the delegatesincluded no rule about amendments, additions or changes to the stateconstitution.
168 Chapter 5: The Struggle for Independence
It’s Your Turn
1. Who were the Tories? the Whigs?2. What is the significance of May 20, 1775?2. What was the strongest part of the government established by the
first North Carolina constitution?
Governing the New StateThe new legislature in the new state faced many chal-
lenges in its early years. Under the first governor, RichardCaswell, it had to protect its citizens from Tories and otherpotential threats.
Some of the Native Americans in the state saw the Warfor Independence as a way to regain their lands. In thespring and summer of 1776, the Cherokee attacked alongthe frontier. The state sent backcountry militia over the BlueRidge to attack the Cherokee. Dozens of Cherokee townswere destroyed, including the sacred town of Nikwasi, andmany of the Cherokee were left hungry and homeless.
The state also had to find sources of revenue to pay forthe war. In 1777, the state passed a Confiscation Act,which said that Tories who refused to take the oath of al-legiance to the new state could have their property takenaway. Eventually, the lands of hundreds of North Caro-lina residents were seized, including the thousands of acresstill belonging to the descendants of Lord Granville. Witheach seizure, the state made money by reselling the land.In addition, strictly religious people like the Quakers andMoravians, who would not say an oath or take up arms,had to pay more taxes than other citizens.
One of the major expenses was the raising of troops to fight in theContinental army. North Carolina sent several regiments north to fightwith General Washington in 1777. Some of these troops fought bravelyat the Battles of Brandywine and Germantown just outside of Philadel-phia. General Francis Nash of Hillsborough was killed. He would laterbe remembered in the naming of both Nashville, North Carolina, andNashville, Tennessee. The state’s troops had to endure the harsh winterat Valley Forge in 1777 and 1778 before they were sent back south todefend the Carolinas. By the end of the war, more than 7,000 NorthCarolinians had done Continental service.
The strict measures the new government took against the Cherokeeand the Tories kept the state safe and relatively secure for the first threeyears of the war. In 1779, however, the British invaded the southern statesagain, and this time North Carolina was almost destroyed.
Richard Caswell wasthe unanimous choice for
governor. He held theoffice for three years.
Above: Richard Caswell, who livednear present-day Kinston, becamethe first governor once NorthCarolina became a state.
Section 2: North Carolina in the War for Independence 169
During the War for Independence, Halifax may have beenthe liveliest town in the new state. It certainly was the mostimportant in the year 1776, when North Carolina becamethe first state to go on record urging the United States toseek independence. Later that same year, the new state’sleaders returned to write the first state constitution. Laterin the war, Lord Cornwallis camped there as his British armymoved toward Virginia, and, as Cornwallis would find out,disaster at Yorktown.
Halifax was founded in 1757 to handle shipping fromnearby plantations on the Roanoke River. Halifax remainedvery small in the colonial period because most of its promi-nent citizens lived outside of town on their plantations.People from all around the area, however, came to town tohave parties, watch horse races, attend the Church of En-gland, and hold the county court four times a year. Duringthe War for Independence, Halifax made uniforms for NorthCarolina Continentals.
Halifax
The best-known early resident was Willie (pronounced“why-ley” in the speech of the day) Jones. Jones, a success-ful tobacco and wheat planter, threw the biggest parties intown. He kept some of the fastest racehorses and had hisown private racetrack. Jones had a hand in the passage ofthe Halifax Resolves in April 1776 and became acting ex-ecutive of the state during the time between the Declara-tion of Independence in July 1776 and the writing of thestate constitution in November. He then had a major role inthe writing of the North Carolina constitution. During theWar for Independence, Jones went to Philadelphia to be amember of the Continental Congress. Jones had a very strictview of what liberty was. He believed no government shouldbe very strong. When it came time to write the United States
Above: The Owens House is the oldest house in Halifax.It was North Carolina’s first entry on the NationalRegister of Historic Places.
170 Chapter 5: The Struggle for Independence
Constitution in 1787, Jones opposedthe idea of a strong federal govern-ment. He refused to go to Phila-delphia to represent the state atthe constitutional convention, thenworked to keep North Carolina fromratifying the Constitution in 1788.His last public act was to help es-tablish the site for the capital city,Raleigh.
“Historic Halifax” is now a statehistoric site within the small townof Halifax. The state has restored anumber of buildings to depict life inthe early history of the town. Thebest known of the buildings is theOwens House, built around 1760.The Constitution-Burgess House was, at one time, thoughtto be where the first state constitution was written. How-ever, later evidence shows that the constitution was actu-ally written at Eagle Hotel.
After the Declaration of Independence was passed, Halifaxwas one of the first places in the state where it was readaloud. Townspeople carried members of the Assembly ontheir shoulders in an impromptu parade.
Halifax did not grow very much during the 1800s. Itparticularly lost influence after the railroads helped developRoanoke Rapids. In the twentieth century, it remained asmall county seat town in the northern Coastal Plain.
Above: The Constitution-Burgess House is furnishedas an early 1800s law office would be. Below: TheEagle Tavern was built in the late 1700s.
Section 2: North Carolina in the War for Independence 171
The British Invadethe CarolinasThe British Invadethe Carolinas
As you read, look for:• the fighting that took place in the Carolinas• the end of the War for Independence• vocabulary term Overmountain Men
North Carolinians did not always earn praise during the southern phaseof the War for Independence. Robert Howe of Brunswick had been madethe ranking American general in the Carolinas by the Continental Con-gress. Howe, however, lost Savannah, Georgia, to the British in late 1778.He was replaced. During early 1779, General John Ashe of Wilmingtonwas unable to retake Augusta, Georgia, from the British. After a longstruggle, the southern American army was trapped in Charles Town, SouthCarolina, and surrendered in May 1780, including almost all the NorthCarolina Continentals.
A second southern army was raised in a month, including militia calledout from across North Carolina and commanded by former GovernorCaswell. That army marched into South Carolina and collided head onwith one commanded by Lord Charles Cornwallis, one of Great Britain’smost experienced generals. The Americans were routed at Camden onAugust 16, 1780. Most of the North Carolina troops fled after the firstshots were fired. Some ran all the way back into North Carolina, morethan fifty miles.
The American defeat at Camden meant that South Carolina was inthe control of the British and that North Carolina was open to invasion.
North Carolinians Defend Their HomelandFaced with an enemy at their doorsteps, North Carolinians gathered
their courage and their resources and fought back. Even before the battleat Camden, Whigs along the Catawba River had attacked a large contin-gent of Tories gathered to go join Cornwallis. On June 20, 1780, morethan a thousand Tories were defeated at Ramsour’s Mill, at the site ofpresent-day Lincolnton.
After Camden, Cornwallis split his army into two, sending Tories intothe North Carolina mountains to force the settlers there to join with the
Above: Gen. Robert Howe wasNorth Carolina’s highest-rankingContinental officer during theRevolutionary War. He commandedthe Southern Department foralmost two years.
172 Chapter 5: The Struggle for Independence
This section will help you meet thefollowing objectives:8.2.02 Describe the contributionsof key personalities from theRevolutionary War era.8.2.03 Examine the role of NorthCarolina in the Revolutionary War.8.2.04 Examine the reasons for thecolonists’ victory, the impact ofmilitary successes and failures, therole of foreign interventions, and on-going domestic issues.
Map 17The RevolutionaryWar inthe Carolinas
Map Skill: Which battletook place closest to whereyou live?
British. He then took the main army into Charlotte. Both intrusions (in-vasions) into North Carolina proved to be disastrous for the British.
At Charlotte, William R. Davie held up the British for hours, then re-treated to Salisbury. Cornwallis stayed in Charlotte for a month, but thepeople of Mecklenburg County did not treat him well. The Scots-Irishmade as much trouble for the invaders as possible. One Whig militiacaptain even burned down his own farm rather than let the British useit. Once, several hundred British soldiers were sent to forage, which meantthey took whatever they wanted from nearby farms. The residents in theneighborhood started firing at the soldiers from hiding places in the woods.One wounded British soldier knocked over a beehive in a barnyard. Theangry swarm chased the British all the way back to Charlotte. Ever since,Mecklenburg County has had a reputation as the “hornet’s nest” of theRevolution. One officer serving with Cornwallis called Charlotte the most“rebellious country” in all America.
Meanwhile, the Tories sent to the mountains were wiped out. Whenthe settlers there were told to come fight for the British or suffer the con-sequences, they chose to make their own consequences. OvermountainMen, as they came to be called, crossed the Blue Ridge and trapped theTories on October 7, 1780, at the Battle of Kings Mountain. PatrickFerguson, the Tory commander, had bunched his thousand troops at thetop of a ridge on the border between North and South Carolina and daredanyone to dislodge him. The Overmountain Men surprised the Tories,
Section 3: The British Invade the Carolinas 173
killed Ferguson, and took the survivors off as prisoners. The loss at KingsMountain forced Cornwallis to retreat into South Carolina.
The British Chase the American ArmyWith Cornwallis in retreat, the small group of American troops left in
Salisbury advanced to Charlotte. In the winter of 1780, their new com-mander, Nathanael Greene, arrived. Greene found the army almost starv-ing to death. To find supplies, he split it in two, sending one divisionwest under General Daniel Morgan and taking the other east himself.
The British immediately went after Morgan, thinking that was theweaker force. Morgan, however, was joined by several groups of militia-men. On January 17, 1781, he turned and made a valiant stand atHannah’s Cowpens, not far from Kings Mountain. On the open pastureswhere drovers gathered cattle for shipment to market, Morgan gave theBritish one of their biggest defeats of the war. The Americans capturedmany British soldiers in the fight. Morgan, knowing that Cornwallis wouldcome after him, beat a hasty retreat toward Salisbury. Greene, too, re-treated toward the Yadkin River, hoping to put his army back togetherbefore it was too late.
Wet weather slowed Cornwallis so much that he burned his extrabaggage and pushed his troops faster. Morgan had barely gotten acrossthe Catawba River when the British destroyed General William Lee
Above: Patrick Ferguson, theBritish commander at Kings Moun-tain, was shot off his horse as hetried to escape the OvermountainMen’s trap. Several North Carolin-ians claimed to have fired the fatalshot, including a son of HenryWeidner, the backcountry pioneer,who was using his father’s rifle.
The Battle at KingsMountain has been calledthe turning point of the
war in the South.
174 Chapter 5: The Struggle for Independence
Davidson’s militia at Cowan’s Ford. So badly were the Americans scat-tered that General Greene spent an entire night, woefully alone, at therally point near Salisbury. The Americans barely escaped with their sol-diers and their supplies across the Yadkin River; the British appeared onthe ridge above as the last boats made it across. Cornwallis then occu-pied, in turn, Salisbury, Salem, and Hillsborough, while Greene and theAmericans crossed the Dan River into Virginia to gain reinforcementsand supplies.
General Greene returned to North Carolina, outnumbering the Britishtwo to one. He carefully chose a battleground similar to the one that hadworked at Cowpens. The two armies met on March 15, 1781, at GuilfordCourthouse (where Greensboro is today) and fought viciously for oneand one-half hours. Early on, the North Carolina militia panicked andran away, just as it had at Camden. Greene, however, had put more ex-perienced troops from Virginia in a second line, and they stood theirground. At one point, the fighting became the fiercest of the entire Warfor Independence. Cornwallis, knowing his army was near total defeat,actually ordered grapeshot (small metal balls and jagged fragments thatdo great damage) to be fired into a spot where his own troops were mixedup with the Americans. It worked, at great human cost. Greene chose topull back, and the British held the field.
Cornwallis lost one-fourth of his army, Greene about the same, if thefive hundred North Carolina militiamen who fled are counted. When theresult was announced back in London, one British official suggested that
Below: Reenactors annually“portray” the Battle of GuilfordCourthouse in Greensboro. Theauthor of this textbook “fought”with the Scots Guards in theoriginal depiction in 1981, the200th anniversary of the originalfight. Some reenactors always holda moment of silence at the spotwhere Lord Cornwallis firedcannon shot into his own troops.
The state’s first papermill was built in 1777 inHillsborough to reduce
the paper shortagebrought on by the war.
Section 3: The British Invade the Carolinas 175
It’s Your Turn
1. Why was Robert Howe replaced as the ranking general for the armyin the Carolinas?
2. Why was Mecklenburg County called a “hornet’s nest”?3. Where did the War for Independence end?
Above: This painting of the Britishsurrender at Yorktown hangs in therotunda of the U.S. Capitol. FewNorth Carolinians were serving withWashington at the time, but a wholeregiment of Tories commanded byJohn Hamilton of Halifax wassurrendered by Lord Cornwallis.
When the British laiddown their arms atYorktown, a British
band supposedly played“The World Turned
Upside Down.”
“another such victory would be the ruin of the British army.” The Britishthen limped across the Coastal Plain to Wilmington and, after resting,marched straight north into Virginia. Cornwallis hoped to have betterluck in that richer state, but Washington trapped him in Yorktown, effec-tively ending the war.
Meanwhile, Greene moved the American army into South Carolina todislodge the British from a number of forts. North Carolina recruits didsomewhat redeem their state’s battlefield reputation with bravery at theBattle of Eutaw Springs. By the end of 1782, the last British had leftWilmington and Charles Town, ending the war in the South.
The two years of war left its mark on the North Carolina landscape.Kings Mountain, Cowpens, and Guilford Courthouse are national militaryparks. General Greene had Greenville, Greensboro, and Greene County,North Carolina; Greenville, South Carolina; and Greeneville, Tennesseenamed for him. For most of the twentieth century, the professional ath-letic teams in Charlotte were named the Hornets, until the National Bas-ketball Association moved the team to New Orleans in the 1990s.
The British army was just one enemy in the War for Independence.Up and down the Atlantic coast, some colonists sided with the Whigs,wanting independence for the new United States. Others identified withthe Tories, hoping that the king’s armies would triumph. None of theoriginal thirteen states was as divided in its loyalties as North Carolina.Because land titles had been jeopardized by the Regulation, state resi-dents gambled their futures, sometimes their very lives, on the choicesthey made.
Taking SidesWhigs and Tories were to be found from one end of North Carolina to
the other. Yet there were pockets of Whig support and areas of Tory re-sistance that were notable. Many coastal residents sided with the Whigs.They had been early participants in the rebellion against British rulesthat restricted their access to trade. In the west, the greatest supportersof the Whigs lived in Presbyterian neighborhoods, particularly inMecklenburg and Rowan counties. There, the Scots-Irish vented theirtraditional hostility to English control over their lives and property. Manyof the soldiers in the first regiments sent to the Continental army werefrom these two areas.
In contrast, Tories were often concentrated in the central area of thestate, often in the very neighborhoods that had supported the Regulatorsjust a few years before. Many of these residents still resented what thepeople on the coast had done to their homes and communities. It wasnot so much that the ex-Regulators loved the king, but they hated theleaders of the coastal area more. Some Regulators who had fled to themountains (such as those who settled on Mills River near today’sHendersonville) felt the same way. Finally, the strongest Tories were theHighland Scots, recent immigrants into the Sandhills. They had yet to
Section 4: North Carolinians Fight Each Other 177
This section will help you meet thefollowing objectives:8.2.02 Describe the contributionsof key personalities from theRevolutionary War era.8.2.03 Examine the role of NorthCarolina in the Revolutionary War.8.2.04 Examine the reasons for thecolonists’ victory, the impact ofmilitary successes and failures, therole of foreign interventions, and on-going domestic issues.
Top: Tory soldiers at a reenactmentof the skirmish at the House in theHorseshoe demonstrate the firingof a Revolutionary War-era cannon.In the actual battle, the Torieshad no cannon. Above: The Housein the Horseshoe was the home ofWhig Colonel Philip Alston.
gain a new identity in their new home and likely thought, if the Whigswere defeated, the king would punish them more severely than had beenthe case back in Scotland.
At least some North Carolinians tried to be neutral (not take sides) inthe war. They may not have cared which government held sway over them,so long as they were left alone to live their lives. Moravians fit into thisgroup. They did not oppose the new Whig government that created thestate. However, their natural pacifism (a belief that no one should fight orresort to violence for any reason other than self-defense) made them op-pose the war. The Moravians stayed out of the war as soldiers and wereforced to pay triple the taxes of other state residents because of their posi-tion. Many Quakers were also pacifists and, since they would not swearan oath or serve in the militia, were forced to pay the triple tax.
So long as the British were not present to force the issue, North Caro-lina remained relatively peaceful. Still, there was Tory activity across thestate. In 1777, state officers put down the Llewellyn conspiracy. That wasa Tory plot to capture the guns and ammunition at Halifax and then usethose guns to kidnap Governor Richard Caswell. The same year, a groupof Tories “drank to the King’s health” at a secret gathering in GuilfordCounty. About the same time, disgruntled residents of the UwharrieMountains marched on Cross Creek to demand that salt be sold at a rea-sonable price. In 1778, more than five hundred men (out of 5,000) re-fused to take the oath of allegiance to the state and therefore were chargedfour times the taxes paid by the other state residents. When some of thesemen did not pay their taxes, their lands were seized, often by greedy Whigsout to both punish them and make money.
178 Chapter 5: The Struggle for Independence
Above: David Fanning’s harshtreatment at the hands of someWhigs resulted in Fanning organiz-ing Tory groups that committedtheir own atrocities upon theWhigs. This lithograph is entitled“Fanning’s Atrocity: Murder of anAmerican Planter.”
Governor Burke wasimprisoned on James
Island near Charles Town,South Carolina. He
escaped in January 1782.
A Civil WarWhig control of the state was all but lost when Lord Cornwallis swept
through North Carolina with his army in 1781. Some Tories had becomebolder during the first British invasion in 1780 and had joined with theinvaders. John Hamilton, a merchant from Halifax, became one of thestate’s leading Tories when he organized the North Carolina Regimentfor the British. It marched with Lord Cornwallis all the way to Yorktown.
The most famous Tory—or infamous, depending upon who told thestory—was David Fanning. Although he was no relative of Edmund Fan-ning of Regulator fame, David Fanning became just as notorious. Fan-ning had been abused and beaten by Whigs early in the war, and heswore revenge. When the British army invaded in 1781, Fanning raiseda second regiment for them and became its colonel.
Fanning’s regiment did not join the British but operated independently.Fanning recruited most of his troops from among the unhappy residentsof the Uwharries. As the British retreated from Guilford Courthouse toWilmington, Fanning attacked and harassed American units wheneverand wherever he could find them. In addition, Fanning and his men ter-rorized the backcountry neighborhoods that sent men to the North Caro-lina militia. Fanning’s men were accused of theft, murder, and more thanone rape during this time. Fanning’s most astounding feat was to sur-prise the town of Hillsborough while it was the temporary capital of thestate. Fanning’s men literally ran the Assembly out of town, capturedlots of supplies, and kidnapped the governor of the time, Thomas Burke.Despite being attacked along the way, the Tories delivered Burke and otherprisoners to the British in Wilmington.
Neighbor Killing NeighborLosing the governor was symbolic of the terrible times North Carolin-
ians faced in the years 1780-1782. With so many men either in the Ameri-can army or a Charles Town prison, many families were left withoutprotection.
Sometimes the British set a bad example, as when they angrily burneddown four houses after the hard fight at Cowan’s Ford. After the battle ofGuilford Courthouse, British soldiers went to the log college run by DavidCaldwell and burned and ruined all his books. Some Tories attacked fami-lies because of the politics of the day; others simply took advantage ofthe situation to loot (take goods illegally) farms. When Whigs stood inthe way, they were often tortured or murdered. A dozen Tories surroundedthe house of Thomas Hadley on the Cape Fear River. Hadley looked outhis upstairs window to warn his neighbors, but he was shot to death.Three of his four sons got away, but the youngest, only a teenager, wastaken to a nearby pocosin, stripped of his clothes, and tied to a tree inthe middle of a swarm of mosquitoes. Another man, taken from his CapeFear house and imprisoned in Wilmington, escaped. He ran eighty milesin less than twenty-four hours, then hid in the woods near his house forthe rest of the war.
Section 4: North Carolinians Fight Each Other 179
Above: This monument at GuilfordCourthouse National Military Parkhonors Mrs. Kerenhappuch Turnerwho came to nurse her seriouslywounded son after the battle. It isone of only two monuments in thepark dedicated to women.
Women often showed their bravery in the conflict. Eliza-beth Wiley Forbis had no time to mourn when she learnedher husband had been killed at Guilford Courthouse. Sheand a young son took their only horse out to plow and plantcorn. When two Tories demanded the animal, Mrs. Forbisstood in front of both of them. “I will split your head withthis hoe,” she threatened. They left. Young Maggie McBridewas so eager to help her mother tell the Whigs where thelocal Tory hideout was that the commander insisted she showhim. She rode along on the back of the commander’s horse.When she whispered, “yonder they are,” she slid off the horseand hurried home by a back path. Mrs. Colin McRae, wholived on the Deep River, had her farm repeatedly looted. Shehad used her last sheet to wrap her baby. A robber came inand yanked the sheet out of her hands, rolling the baby ontothe floor. So dangerous was the neighborhood that Mr. McRaehid in a swamp for a year, coming out at night to work hisfields to feed his family.
Whigs could be just as cruel as Tories. During Cornwallis’smarch to Hillsborough, more than four hundred Tories un-der the command of Colonel John Pyle marched to join him.Near the site of present-day Burlington, American cavalry-men tricked the Tories into believing that they were Britishsoldiers. (During the war, cavalrymen of both sides wore the
same green color.) Colonel Henry Lee’s men rode up to the Tories and,without any warning, began to cut them down with sabers. At least ninetywere killed before they could flee. Colonel Pyle managed to jump into anearby pond. The man for whom Pyle’s Massacre was named stayedunder water all day, only raising his nose up when he had to breathe.One of the Tories, Drury Honeycutt, suffered a dozen saber wounds andwas shot twice. He survived, but only as an invalid.
In August 1781, Whigs along the Cape Fear struck back at three hun-dred Tories gathered in Elizabethtown, in Bladen County. After theircommanders had been shot, the Tories fled, many of them into a deepravine that covered their retreat. The spot has been known ever since as“Tory Hole.” On the Yadkin River, Kings Mountain veteran BenjaminCleveland hanged five suspected Tories. The tree, located whereWilkesboro would be built, became famous as the Tory Oak, survivinginto the twentieth century.
The War EndsThe Tory-Whig war in North Carolina stopped after the British with-
drew from Wilmington in 1782. David Fanning and many of his men leftwith them, resettling in Nova Scotia. Almost immediately, the Whigs triedto calm the state. County courts continued to try Tories charged withcrimes, but Tories who had simply fought for the king in battle weregenerally allowed to return home. John Hamilton, for example, returned
180 Chapter 5: The Struggle for Independence
After the war, DavidFanning was one of threemen in North Carolina towhom the governmentdid not grant a pardonfor offenses committed
during the war.
It’s Your Turn
1. What part of the state was a Tory stronghold?2. Which two groups of North Carolinians did not serve in the militia
during the war?
William Bartram, for a time amerchant in the Cape Fear, madeseveral trips into the mountains ofCherokee country looking for plantsthat he could preserve and take backwith him to his botanical garden inPhiladelphia. His father was the of-ficial botanist to King George III fora time. After the War for Indepen-dence, Bartram set up a celebratedgarden outside the city of Philadel-
phia. He was lucky this day in Swain County. The Chero-kee were on the warpath and could have done him harm.
to the state and resumed his successful career as a merchant. He becameone of the more popular men in the state and often had dinner with formerWhigs, where they traded war stories. In 1784, the state legislature is-sued a pardon, an act forgiving Tories for their actions in the war.
The war left all of North Carolina destitute for several years after theBritish left. Ports had been closed, and farms had been ruined. The moneythe state had issued to pay for the war was worthless. It took a lot ofcurrency to buy a few goods or services. The state had no permanentcapital, and its leaders had only marginal influence with the nationalgovernment that met in Philadelphia. In 1784, the year peace was com-pletely restored, North Carolina seemed as divided and torn as it hadbeen at the start of the Revolution.
• In the 1760s, the British passed two laws thatparticularly hindered North Carolina’s ability togrow and develop: the Proclamation of 1763 andthe Stamp Act. These and other similar lawsincreased resentment against British rule.
• In 1775, shots fired in Lexington led to a battle atConcord that started the War for Independence.This war is also known as the American Revolutionor the Revolutionary War.
• North Carolina set up a Provincial Congress togovern the colony when the royal governor shutdown the Assembly.
• In 1775, the Committee of Safety in MecklenburgCounty issued the Mecklenburg Resolves, recom-mending that North Carolina declare itself to beindependent.
• In 1776, the Provincial Congress issued the HalifaxResolves authorizing its delegates to join with theother colonies in an independence movement.
• The British attempted to invade North Carolina in1776 but were defeated at the Battle of Moore’sCreek Bridge.
• After the Declaration of Independence, NorthCarolina wrote a state constitution, which alsoincluded a Declaration of Rights.
• Several battles of the War for Independence werefought in North Carolina, including Camden,Ramsour’s Mill, Kings Mountain, and GuilfordCourthouse. The war in the South ended in 1782,when the last British left Wilmington and CharlesTown.
• A civil war broke out in North Carolina between theTories and the Whigs. One notorious Tory leaderwas David Fanning. This infighting stopped after theBritish withdrew from Wilmington in 1782.
Reviewing People, Places, and Terms
Explain why each of the following terms appears in achapter on the War for Independence.
1. Battle of Kings Mountain
2. Committee of Safety
3. Confiscation Act
4. constitution
5. Declaration of Rights
6. David Fanning
7. Guilford Courthouse
8. Halifax Resolves
9. Overmountain Men
10. Proclamation of 1763
11. Provincial Congress
12. Stamp Act
Understanding the Facts
1. What does the phrase “no taxation withoutrepresentation” mean?
2. How did the Proclamation of 1763 and the StampAct affect North Carolina’s ability to grow anddevelop?
182 Chapter 5: The Struggle for Independence
Chapter Review 183
3. What was the Edenton Tea Party?
4. How did the Committee of Safety in MecklenbergCounty protest British policies?
5. What principle did those who wrote the NorthCarolina constitution agree upon?
6. Name the two dates in North Carolina’s flag andexplain their significance.
7. Which area of North Carolina contained many Whigsupporters? Tory supporters? What groups tried toremain neutral?
8. Why did a civil war erupt between Tories and Whigsin the state?
9. Describe the condition of North Carolina after thewar.
Developing Critical Thinking
1. Why did North Carolinians dislike the Stamp Act? Inwhat way did the actions of the North Caroliniansover taxes pave the way for the actions of NorthCarolinians during the War for Independence?
2. Why did the Highland Scots join the Britishinvasion of the Carolinas in 1776? How do youthink that action affected their relationship withother North Carolinians after the war?
3. What were the requirements for the first statesenators and members of the house of commons?How did those qualifications make it difficult forthe delegates to relate to many of the constituentsthey represented?
Applying Your Skills
1. Draw a poster illustrating ways that Rowan Countycitizens could participate in the Rowan Resolves byusing homemade and not British-made products.
2. On an state outline map, mark the route of LordCornwallis’s army in North Carolina.
Exploring Technology
1. Go to web site www.bhsonline.org/library/Teachers/kelleher/Tories/index.htm and chooseone of the documents. After reading and studyingthe document, answer the following questions: (a)How did the document’s author feel about the kingof England? (b) How did the author feel he or shewas being treated by the Whigs? (c) For whatoutcome was the author of the document hoping?
2. Go to web site www.myrevolutionarywar.com/battles/800620.htm. Read the information andanswer the following questions: (a) Which side lostmore soldiers in the battle? (b) Which side hadmore soldiers fighting? (c) How many soldiers weretaken prisoner?
Writing Across the Curriculum
1. Using the information you have learned from yourtextbook, write a short speech entitled “No TaxationWithout Representation” to read at a Whig protest.
2. Write a short story describing the efforts of aMecklenburg County family to thwart the Britishtroops.
Encountering Diversity
1. In what ways did the Quakers, Moravians, andother pacifists suffer during the war? Did theycontinue to suffer in these ways after the war?
