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Eighteenth-Century North Carolina Timeline
18th Century North Carolina History Timeline
Eighteenth-Century North Carolina Timeline
18th Century North Carolina History Timeline
Eighteenth-Century North Carolina History Timeline
1700-1720
1700
The
Chowanoc and Weapemeoc peoples have gradually abandoned their lands. Some have become slaves or indentured servants, and others
have migrated south to join the Tuscarora. Only about 500 American Indians remain in the Albemarle region.
An escaped
slave serves as an architect in the construction of a large Tuscarora Indian fort near the Neuse River.
Anglicans in
England grow concerned that their church does not have a significant presence in North Carolina. The Reverend Daniel Brett
becomes the first Anglican minister to serve in the colony. Brett’s disorderly behavior causes him to be called “the
Monster of the Age.”
ca. 1700
The first public library is established at Bath with books
sent from England by the Reverend Thomas Bray.
1701
Settlers begin moving west and south of the
Albemarle area.
The Vestry Act divides North Carolina into Anglican parishes and requires all citizens to pay taxes
for the support of Anglican priests. Non-Anglicans (also called Dissenters) object. The Lords Proprietors reject the act in
part because it does not provide enough funding for the clergy.
December 15: Chowan Parish is organized, followed by
Pasquotank and Perquimans Parishes.
1703
The Vestry Act passes, requiring members of the General
Assembly to be members of the Church of England and to take an oath of allegiance to Queen Anne. Subsequent governors and
assemblymen ignore these requirements.
1705
Parliament passes the Naval Stores Act in an effort
to cut British dependence on foreign sources of tar, pitch, and other commodities badly needed for sailing ships. The act
subsidizes the production of naval stores in the colonies by paying premiums of four pounds sterling per ton on tar and pitch,
and six pounds per ton on hemp. North Carolina benefits substantially from this act, and the production of naval stores becomes
one of the coastal area’s prime industries.
1705–1708
Charles Griffin, the first schoolteacher
in North Carolina, operates a school in Pasquotank County. He later moves to Edenton and runs a school there for several years.
The only other known school in operation during the Proprietary period is at Sarum, in Gates County.
1706
Bath
becomes the first incorporated town in North Carolina.
1708–1711
Thomas Cary is appointed
governor in 1708. Quakers protest his heavy-handed actions and send John Porter to England to petition for his removal. The
Proprietors agree to remove Cary as governor, but through a complicated chain of events, he retains his office into 1711.
In that year, Edward Hyde becomes deputy governor and de facto governor. A brief rebellion by Cary’s followers is put
down with the aid of forces from Virginia. Cary is sent to England for trial but is ultimately released.
1709
Surveyor
John Lawson, who began a thousand-mile journey through the colony at the end of 1700, publishes A New Voyage to Carolina.
It describes the colony’s flora and fauna and its various groups of American Indians. Lawson also publishes a map of
Carolina.
1710
Baron Christoph von Graffenried, a leader of Swiss and German Protestants, establishes
a colony in Bath County. The town, called New Bern, is founded at the junction of the Trent and Neuse Rivers, displacing an
American Indian town named Chattoka.
June 8: Tuscarora Indians on the Roanoke and Tar-Pamlico Rivers send a petition
to the government of Pennsylvania protesting the seizure of their lands and enslavement of their people by Carolina settlers.
1711
Early
September: Tuscarora capture surveyor John Lawson, New Bern founder Baron von Graffenried, and two African slaves. Lawson
argues with the chief, Cor Tom, and is executed. The Indians spare von Graffenried and the slaves.
September 22: The
Tuscarora War opens when Catechna Creek Tuscaroras begin attacking colonial settlements near New Bern and Bath. Tuscarora,
Neuse, Bear River, Machapunga, and other Indians kill more than 130 whites.
October: Virginia refuses to send troops
to help the settlers but allocates £1,000 for assistance.
1711–1715
In a series of uprisings,
the Tuscarora attempt to drive away white settlement. The Tuscarora are upset over the practices of white traders, the capture
and enslavement of Indians by whites, and the continuing encroachment of settlers onto Tuscarora hunting grounds.
1712
January:
South Carolina sends assistance to her sister colony. John Barnwell, a member of the South Carolina Assembly, leads about
30 whites and some 500 “friendly” Indians, mostly Yamassee, to fight the Tuscarora in North Carolina. A battle
takes place at Narhantes, a Tuscarora fort on the Neuse River. Barnwell’s troops are victorious but are surprised that
many of the Tuscarora’s fiercest warriors are women, who do not surrender “until most of them are put to the sword.”
January
24: Edward Hyde is commissioned as governor. North Carolina and South Carolina officially become separate colonies.
April:
Barnwell’s force, joined by 250 North Carolina militiamen, attacks the Tuscarora at Fort Hancock on Catechna Creek.
After ten days of battle, the Tuscarora sign a truce, agreeing to stop the war.
Summer: The Tuscarora rise again to
fight the Yamassee, who, unsatisfied with their plunder during earlier battles, remain in the area looting and pillaging.
The Tuscarora also fight against the continued expansion of white settlement.
September 8: Governor Hyde dies of yellow
fever, during an outbreak that kills many white settlers.
1713
March 20–23: Another force
from South Carolina, consisting of 900 Indians and 33 whites, begins a three-day siege on the Tuscarora stronghold of Fort
Neoheroka. Approximately 950 Tuscarora are killed or captured and sold into slavery, effectively defeating the tribe and opening
the interior of the colony to white settlement. Although a few renegades fight on until 1715, most surviving Tuscarora migrate
north to rejoin the Iroquois League as its sixth and smallest nation.
1715
A treaty with remaining
North Carolina Tuscarora is signed. They are placed on a reservation along the Pamlico River. The Coree and Machapunga Indians,
Tuscarora allies, settle in Hyde County near Lake Mattamuskeet. The land will be granted to them in 1727, and a reservation
will be established.
An act of assembly declares the Church of England the established church of the colony and adopts
plans to build roads, bridges, ferries, sawmills, and gristmills throughout the colony.
North Carolina adopts its first
slave code, which tries to define the social, economic, and physical place of enslaved people.
The General Assembly
enacts a law denying blacks and Indians the right to vote. The king will repeal the law in 1737. Some free African Americans
will continue to vote until disfranchisement in 1835.
1717
The few Tuscarora remaining in the colony,
led by Tom Blount, are granted land on the Roanoke River in Bertie County, near present-day Quitsna. The Tuscarora left their
reservation on the Pamlico River because of raids by tribes from the south.
After British authorities drive them from
the Bahamas, pirates transfer their operations to the Carolina coast. Most notable are Stede Bonnet and Edward Teach (Blackbeard).
Teach locates at Bath, where he boasts that he can be invited into any home in North Carolina.
Blackbeard seizes English
and colonial ships along the coast. When the king offers to pardon all pirates who surrender and promise to cease their piratical
operations, Teach promptly takes the pardon. Within a few weeks, however, he returns to his old trade. Bonnet continues to
operate off the mouth of the Cape Fear River.
January: England, France, and Holland form a triple alliance against
Spain, and the resulting war leads to Spanish raids on English colonists in North Carolina.
1718
North
Carolina’s first free school, endowed by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, opens at Bath.
November
22: In a battle between British sailors and pirates near Ocracoke Inlet, Lieutenant Robert Maynard kills Blackbeard.
December
10: Stede Bonnet and 29 fellow pirates, captured earlier off the North Carolina coast, are hanged at Charlestown, S.C.
1720
Exports
of pitch and tar to Great Britain by way of New England are reported at 6,000 barrels.
1721-1740
1722
Charles Eden, governor since 1714, dies. The
Town on Queen Anne’s Creek is incorporated and renamed Edenton in his memory.
1723
Beaufort
Town is incorporated.
South Carolina planters settle along the Lower Cape Fear River and begin developing the rice
and naval stores industries. They bring large numbers of enslaved people and a large, plantation-style slave system.
1725
Brunswick
Town is founded. It will be incorporated in 1745.
Roger Moore builds Orton Plantation House on the Lower Cape Fear.
1726–1739
The
Cheraw (Saura) Indians incorporate with the Catawba living near present-day Charlotte.
1727
The
first Baptist congregation in North Carolina forms as Shiloh Church, in Chowan Precinct.
1728
Surveyors
begin determining where the North Carolina–Virginia line will lie.
The “cotton weevil” is reported.
1729
North
Carolina becomes a royal colony when King George II purchases shares from seven of the eight Lords Proprietors. Only Earl
Granville refuses to sell.
Between 1743 and 1746, an area equaling one-eighth of the original land grant is surveyed
and marked off as the Granville District, in order to differentiate between areas of royal and Proprietary control. The district
consists of a 60-mile-wide strip along North Carolina’s border with Virginia and contains some of the most densely settled
areas in the colony.
Small quantities of iron are shipped to England.
1730
North Carolina’s
population numbers about 35,000, but a new wave of immigration is beginning.
Virginia ends the ban on importation of
North Carolina tobacco.
Cherokee leaders visit London and confer with the king. They pledge friendship to the English
and agree to return runaway slaves and to trade exclusively with the British.
early 1730s
Welsh
immigrants living in Pennsylvania come to North Carolina and settle mainly along the Northeast Cape Fear River (in present-day
Pender County), in an area that becomes known as the Welsh Tract.
1731
Brunswick flourishes, and
42 vessels carrying cargo sail from the port in one year.
1732
Highland Scots begin immigrating
to North Carolina and settling in the Cape Fear backcountry. Thousands will eventually come to this area.
1734
Saint
Thomas Episcopal Church, now the oldest church building in the state, is constructed in Bath.
The first tobacco market
in North Carolina opens in Bellair, Craven County.
1735
Scots-Irish immigrants begin coming to
North Carolina in large numbers, settling mainly in the Piedmont. Most are second-generation colonists moving south down the
Great Wagon Road from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, but a few come directly from Northern Ireland.
Surveyors
begin defining the North Carolina–South Carolina border.
1736
The North Carolina colony establishes
an Indian Trade Commission to regulate trade with native peoples.
1738–1739
Mail is first
carried regularly through North Carolina on the post road that runs from Boston to Charlestown, S.C.
A smallpox epidemic
decimates the Indian population in North Carolina, especially in the eastern part of the colony. The epidemic decreases the
number of Cherokee by 50 percent.
1739
The Reverend George Whitefield, a Methodist missionary and
one of the earliest circuit-riding preachers, makes his first foray into North Carolina.
1740
England
calls on the colonies to support a war against the Spanish in South America. North Carolina sends four companies of 100 men
each. They participate in a failed attack on a Spanish fort at Cartagena, Colombia. Many are killed or die of disease, and
only 25 of the 400 men return to the colony. The Spanish attack shipping off the North Carolina coast for the next eight years.
Waxhaw
Indians, decimated by smallpox, abandon their lands in present-day Union County and join the Catawba. The vacated lands are
taken up by German, English, Scottish, and Welsh immigrants.
Aaron Moses witnesses a will, becoming the first Jewish
person on record in North Carolina.
1741-1760
1741
The
privilege of performing marriage ceremonies is restricted to clergy of the Anglican Church and, in lieu of such, any lawful
magistrates.
A law is enacted requiring newly freed slaves to leave North Carolina within six months.
1743
Physician
and naturalist John Brickell lists the colony’s religious groups, including Quakers, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics,
Anabaptists, and “many Sectaries.”
1745
Assembly delegates choose New Bern as the colonial
capital and vote for equal representation among the counties. Delegates from the Albemarle region, absent because of bad weather,
protest these decisions. Many people in their districts refuse to pay taxes for several years.
April 20: The first
liquor control law adopted by the colonial assembly levies a fine on any tavern keeper who allows a person “to get drunk
in his home on the Sabbath.”
1747
A new wave of Highlanders begins arriving in North Carolina
after the failed revolt in Scotland in 1746. Forced from their Scottish homelands, these immigrants settle mainly in the Cape
Fear Valley.
1747–1748
During King George’s War, the Spanish attack Beaufort and Brunswick.
In the so-called Spanish Alarm, they sack settlements before local militia can drive them away.
1748
People
of German descent begin migrating in large numbers from Pennsylvania and resettle throughout the western Piedmont.
1749
James
Davis installs North Carolina’s first printing press in New Bern. His first publications are government documents.
1750–1751
Squire
Boone settles with his family, including his son Daniel, near present-day Mocksville.
1750s
Armed
conflicts arise between the Cherokee and colonists, who continue to expand areas of settlement further into the western part
of the colony.
1751
James Davis begins publishing the North Carolina Gazette, the colony’s
first newspaper, in New Bern. He also prints North Carolina’s first book, A Collection of All the Public Acts of
Assembly, of the Province of North Carolina, Now in Force and Use.
The first monthly meeting of Friends (Quakers)
in central North Carolina begins in Alamance County.
1752
Orange County is established in an area
of heavy immigration. It encompasses all or parts of the present-day counties of Alamance, Caswell, Chatham, Durham, Guilford,
Orange, Person, Randolph, Rockingham, and Wake. Its county seat, Hillsborough, will become known as the “capital of
the backwoods.”
1753
Moravians from Pennsylvania purchase a 100,000-acre tract in present-day
Forsyth County from Earl Granville. They name the area Wachovia, which means “peaceful valley.” They establish
the settlement of Bethabara in November.
The colony reports exports of pitch, tar, and turpentine at 84,012 barrels.
1754–1763
The
French and Indian War is fought between England and France all along the frontier of North America. North Carolina troops
serve both in North Carolina and in other colonies.
1755
Salisbury is founded as the county seat
of Rowan County, created from Anson County in 1753 to accommodate increasing numbers of German and Scots-Irish settlers in
the area.
The Reverend Shubal Stearns leads a group of 15 Separate Baptists from Connecticut to Orange County and establishes
Sandy Creek Baptist Church, the “mother of Southern Baptist churches.”
The Indian population in eastern
North Carolina is estimated at around 356. Most of these are Tuscarora who have not moved north.
The colonial governor
approves a proposal to establish an Indian academy in present-day Sampson County.
October 14: The assembly awards a
contract for the first postal service to James Davis, public printer. Davis is authorized to “forward public dispatches
to all parts of the province.”
1756
Fort Dobbs, built near Statesville to house settlers
during times of war, is completed. The Moravians build a fort around the village of Bethabara.
1758
North
Carolina militia and Cherokee assist the British military in campaigns against the French and Shawnee Indians. The Cherokee
decide to change sides after receiving ill treatment by the English, and they return home, where they eventually attack North
Carolina colonists.
The Moravians establish Bethania in present-day Forsyth County.
1759
The
French and Indian War intensifies as the Cherokee raid the western Piedmont. Refugees crowd into the fort at Bethabara. Typhus
kills many refugees and Moravians there.
A second smallpox epidemic devastates the Catawba tribe, reducing the population
by half.
1760
An act of assembly permits North Carolinians serving against Indian allies of the
French to enslave captives.
February: Cherokee attack Fort Dobbs and white settlements near Bethabara and along the
Yadkin and Dan Rivers.
June: An army of British regulars and American militia under Colonel Archibald Montgomerie destroys
Cherokee villages and saves the Fort Prince George garrison in South Carolina but is defeated by the Cherokee at Echoe.
August:
Cherokee capture Fort Loudoun in Tennessee and massacre the garrison.
1761-1780
1761
June: An army of British regulars, American
militia, and Catawba and Chickasaw Indians under Colonel James Grant defeats the Cherokee and destroys 15 villages, ending
Cherokee resistance.
December: The Cherokee sign a treaty ending their war with the American colonists.
1763
King
George III issues a proclamation that demarcates the western edge of settlement. This “proclamation line” through
western North Carolina is meant to separate the Native Americans and the colonists.
A group of white men from Edgecombe,
Granville, and Northampton Counties petitions the General Assembly to repeal a 1723 law that heavily taxes free African Americans
upon marriage. The petitioners state that the tax leaves blacks and mixed-race people “greatly impoverished and many
of them rendered unable to support themselves and families with the common necessaries of life.”
February: The
Treaty of Paris ends the Seven Years’ War in Europe and the French and Indian War in North America.
1765
The
New Bern Academy, chartered by the assembly, opens. The academy receives support from the church and a provisional tax: in
return for the tax revenue, the school will educate 10 poor children without charge. The academy will operate until it is
incorporated into the New Bern public school system in the 1920s. It is the oldest public-supported educational institution
in North Carolina.
Parliament passes the Stamp Act. It requires that paper items such as licenses, playing cards, wallpaper,
newspapers, pamphlets, and almanacs be stamped with a tax. Colonial assemblies protest.
October: Two public protests
over the Stamp Act take place in Wilmington. After November 1, with no stamped paper available, ships cannot clear North Carolina,
and newspapers cease publication. Governor Tryon reports that “all Civil Government is now at a stand.”
1766
The
Moravians establish Salem in present-day Forsyth County.
The North Carolina Assembly appropriates £5,000 for the construction
of a governor’s mansion in New Bern. Previously, the seat of government has not been permanent but has moved up and
down the coast with the governor. The assembly, controlled by wealthy coastal landowners, chooses New Bern over Hillsborough,
the site preferred by residents of the backcountry.
February: North Carolina “Sons of Liberty” offer armed
resistance to the Stamp Act at Brunswick. They coerce officials to reopen the port.
March: The Stamp Act is repealed.
1767
The
Reverend David Caldwell opens a school, later known as Caldwell’s Log College, in present-day Guilford County. The school,
which serves as an academy, a junior college, and a theological seminary, becomes the most important one in the colony. It
is coeducational and eventually instructs approximately 50 to 60 students per year.
Construction of the governor’s
residence at New Bern begins under the direction of Governor William Tryon. It becomes known as Tryon’s Palace because
of its extravagance.
Chowan County Courthouse, now the oldest standing courthouse in the state, is constructed in Edenton.
Parliament
passes the Townshend Act, which imposes duties on imported glass, paper, lead, pigments, and tea. Calls to boycott these goods
circulate throughout the colonies.
March 15: Andrew Jackson, the future seventh president of the United States, is
born in or near Union County. The precise place of his birth is in dispute.
1768
Farmers in Orange County organize the Regulator movement, which spreads to surrounding
counties. The movement protests excessive taxation and abuses by public officials. Edmund Fanning is considered the most corrupt
official. Herman Husband and William Butler lead the protest. Over the next two years, the Regulator movement gains strength
in the Piedmont.
1769
A committee of the assembly votes to join other colonies in a “nonimportation
association” and to vow that after January 1770, no “slaves, wine, nor goods of British manufacture” will
come into the colony.
1770
Tryon’s Palace is completed in New Bern.
Regulators storm
the Hillsborough Superior Court and assault several public officials, including Edmund Fanning. The assembly passes reform
measures designed to address some of the Regulators’ concerns. It also passes the Johnston Riot Act, authorizing the
governor to put down the Regulators by military force if necessary.
Iron is being mined and ironworks are established
on Troublesome Creek, in present-day Rockingham County.
1771
The assembly charters Queen’s
College in Charlotte as the colony’s first full-fledged college. A bill to collect taxes to support the college passes,
and classes begin before the colony learns that King George III refuses to approve the charter. The Crown does not approve
of the college because most of the pupils will be Presbyterians or Dissenters of some sort rather than members of the Church
of England.
May 16: North Carolina militiamen under the command of Governor Tryon defeat the Regulators at the Battle
of Alamance in Orange County, ending the Regulator movement.
1772
Joseph Pilmoor preaches the first
Methodist sermon in the colony at Currituck Courthouse.
1773
Approximately 4,000 Highland Scots
arrive to settle along the Cape Fear River, bringing the total Scottish population in the colony to 20,000.
September
25: Frontiersman Daniel Boone leaves his Yadkin River home to begin exploring Kentucky.
December 16: The Boston Tea
Party takes place in Massachusetts.
1774
Scottish heroine Flora MacDonald, who helped Prince Charles
Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) escape from British forces in 1746, immigrates to North Carolina. In accord with her
forced oath to the Crown, she remains a staunch Loyalist during the Revolutionary War. Her husband is captured by Patriots
early in the war, and she returns to Scotland in 1779.
August: The First Provincial Congress meets in New Bern. It
adopts a resolution criticizing the acts and policies of the British government. In addition, the members adopt a nonimportation
and nonexportation agreement and elect delegates to the First Continental Congress.
August 4: Rowan County freeholders
adopt resolutions opposing Crown taxes and duties, favoring restrictions on imports from Great Britain, and objecting to the
“African trade.”
September–October: The First Continental Congress issues a “Declaration of
Rights and Grievances” against Great Britain.
October 25: The Edenton Tea Party takes place at the home of Mrs.
Elizabeth King. The 51 women in attendance resolve to support American independence.
1775
North
Carolina has a population estimated at 250,000, making it the fourth most populous mainland British colony. Between 10 and
30 percent of the backcountry population is of German descent, and most other white settlers in the region are Scots-Irish.
Eastern North Carolina is populated mostly by English colonists and enslaved African Americans.
The Treaty of Sycamore
Shoals (now Elizabethton, Tenn.), between Richard Henderson of the Transylvania Company and the Cherokee people, is signed.
It opens for settlement the area from the Ohio River south to the Watauga settlement. The Shawnee people, who inhabit the
lands, refuse to accept the terms of the treaty.
April 8: Royal governor Josiah Martin dissolves the last North Carolina
colonial assembly.
April 19: The first battles of the American Revolution take place at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts.
May
24: Governor Martin goes from the capital at New Bern to Fort Johnson on the Cape Fear River for safety.
May 31: A
committee of citizens from Mecklenburg County meets at the courthouse in Charlotte and adopts the Mecklenburg Declaration.
The declaration protests acts of the British government, voids all British authority in the colony until abuses are corrected,
and calls for the election of military officers by the people.
June 19: Patriots burn Fort Johnson on the Cape Fear,
and Governor Martin escapes to a British warship.
August 24: The North Carolina Provincial Congress declares that the
people of the colony will pay their due proportion of the expenses of training a Continental army. The delegates appoint a
committee to devise a system of government for the province.
November–December: Virginia’s royal governor,
the earl of Dunmore, calls upon slaves, indentured servants, and other Loyalists to assist in suppressing the rebellion of
American colonists. Hundreds of African Americans from Virginia and North Carolina join his Royal Ethiopian Regiment. At the
Battle of Great Bridge, Virginia and North Carolina colonials defeat Dunmore’s forces.
ca. 1775
The
first German Baptist (Dunker) congregation in the state forms near Muddy Creek in present-day Forsyth County.
1775–1776
The
Coharie, Catawba, and ancestors of the Lumbee join the Patriot cause; the Cherokee decide to support the British.
1776
Washington,
N.C., becomes the first town in the United States named for George Washington. Laid out in 1771, it was originally called
Forks of the Tar River. It will be incorporated in 1782.
The Yearly Meeting of Friends (Quakers) denounces slavery
and appoints a committee to aid Friends in emancipating their slaves. Forty slaves are freed, but the courts declare them
still enslaved and resell them.
The British recruit enslaved and free African Americans along the North Carolina coast
to form the Black Pioneers and Guides, a regiment of guides and laborers. This unit serves throughout the Revolutionary War.
February
27: North Carolina Patriots defeat North Carolina Highland Scots Loyalists at the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge. The victory
emboldens the Patriots and prevents the Loyalists from reaching Wilmington, the site of a planned rendezvous with a British
naval expedition.
April 12: In the Halifax Resolves, the North Carolina Provincial Congress, meeting at Halifax, authorizes
North Carolina delegates to attend the Continental Congress to “concur in independency.”
April 24: The
Provincial Congress orders that a saltworks be established in Carteret County for use in the cause of independence.
May–June:
Cherokee village councils discuss going to war against the American colonists. The Cherokee decide to fight, knowing that
the consequences are enormous. However, the Cherokee are fighting to protect the existence of their society, so they ignore
the overwhelming odds against them.
June: White settlements in Watauga and South Carolina are raided by the Cherokee,
allies of the British, who have promised to protect the Indians from encroachments by colonial borders.
July 29–November:
General Griffith Rutherford with 2,400 men invades Cherokee country, destroying 32 towns and villages. Rutherford is joined
by Colonel Andrew Williamson with South Carolina troops and Colonel William Christian with Virginians. This expedition breaks
the power of the Cherokee and forces them to sue for peace.
August 2: North Carolina’s Continental Congress representatives,
Joseph Hewes, William Hooper, and John Penn, sign the Declaration of Independence.
December 18: The Provincial Congress
adopts the first North Carolina state constitution and elects Richard Caswell as governor.
1776–1792
Halifax,
Hillsborough, Fayetteville, Smithfield, and Tarboro serve at various times as the state’s capital.
1777
North
Carolina recognizes settlements in what is now Tennessee as Washington County, and in 1783 Davidson County, including present-day
Nashville, is formed in the Cumberland River valley.
The first paper mill in the state is built in Hillsborough to
help reduce the paper shortage brought on by the war.
April: An exodus of British sympathizers (mostly Highland Scots)
to England, Scotland, Canada, Nova Scotia, Florida, and the West Indies follows the enactment of punitive laws by the assembly.
June–September:
Some 90 men from Martin, Bertie, and Tyrrell Counties form a conspiracy under the leadership of John Lewelling to resist North
Carolina’s militia draft and loyalty oath. The conspirators, some of them Loyalists, fear that an independent state
would lead to increased secularization of government, the weakening of the Anglican Church, and increased influences from
overseas French-Catholic powers. The conspiracy is broken when Lewelling’s plans to start a slave rebellion become known.
July
20: By the Treaty of Long Island of Holston, the Cherokee cede territory east of the Blue Ridge and along the Watauga, Nolichucky,
Upper Holston, and New Rivers (the area east of present-day Kingsport and Greenville, Tenn.).
October 4: Brigadier
General Francis Nash is mortally wounded while leading the North Carolina Brigade at the Battle of Germantown, Pa.
1778
A
list of blacks in the Continental army shows that 58 African Americans served in the North Carolina Brigade. According to
some historians, at times as much as one-tenth of George Washington’s Continental army consisted of African American
men.
April 24: North Carolina ratifies the Articles of Confederation.
June 29: North Carolina Continentals in
General Washington’s American army fight in the Battle of Monmouth, N.J.
November 15: The Continental Congress
adopts the Article of Confederation, uniting the colonies in the war against Great Britain and toward a unified government.
December:
North Carolina Continentals begin a harsh winter encampment as part of General George Washington’s army at Valley Forge,
Pa. They remain there until spring.
December: African American John Chavis from Halifax County joins the Fifth Virginia
Regiment of the Continental army. Chavis remains in the army for three years and will go on to become a prominent teacher
and minister. In 1832 Chavis will write to Senator Willie P. Mangum: “Tell them if I am Black I am free born American
& a revolutionary soldier & therefore ought not to be thrown out of the scale of notice.”
1779
November:
North Carolina Continentals are transferred from Washington’s army to General Benjamin Lincoln’s American army
at Charlestown, S.C. They arrive there in March 1780.
1780
May 12: The British capture Charlestown,
S.C., and a large American army. Among those who surrender are 815 Continental troops and 600 militia from North Carolina.
Loyalists across the backcountry are emboldened as the British army approaches North Carolina, and significant Loyalist groups
form in Anson, Rowan, Tryon, and Surry counties. Local Patriot forces defeat most of them, but 800 men under the command of
Samuel Bryan reach the main British army.
June 20: In the Battle of Ramseur’s Mill, near present-day Lincolnton,
North Carolina Patriots defeat North Carolina Loyalists who are attempting to join British commander Lord Cornwallis’s
approaching army.
July: North Carolina partisans defeat Loyalists in three small battles in the western Piedmont of
North and South Carolina.
August 16: The new American commander of the South, General Horatio Gates, and his army,
including 1,200 North Carolina militia, are surprised and defeated at the Battle of Camden, S.C. North Carolina general Griffith
Rutherford is captured, and 400 North Carolinians are killed.
September: The town of Charlotte defends itself against
approaching British troops. The ferocity of resistance causes Cornwallis to call the area a “hornet’s nest.”
October
7: Americans defeat Loyalists at the Battle of Kings Mountain, just south of the North Carolina–South Carolina border.
This battle ends Cornwallis’s first invasion of North Carolina.
December 2: General Nathanael Greene takes command
of the American army at Charlotte.
1780–1783
North Carolina enacts legislation that provides
lands in present-day Tennessee to Revolutionary War veterans.
1780–1816
Bishop Francis Asbury
preaches Methodism throughout the state.
1781-1799
1781
January–February:
After a futile chase across North Carolina, known as the Race to the Dan, Cornwallis does not catch the American army led
by Greene. Cornwallis occupies Hillsborough, hoping that local Loyalists will join him, but few do.
January–November:
British troops occupy Wilmington. From there British and Loyalists conduct raids into the countryside. Cornelius Harnett,
a signer of the Declaration of Independence, is captured, and New Bern is raided.
January 17: A British force under
Colonel Banastre Tarleton attacks Americans under General Daniel Morgan at Cowpens, S.C., but is badly defeated.
February
25: En route to join Cornwallis’s army near Burlington, a force of some 400 Loyalists led by Colonel John Pyle is massacred
by Patriots. This event becomes known as Pyle’s Hacking Match.
March 15: The largest armed conflict in North
Carolina during the war, the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, results in a costly narrow victory for Cornwallis’s British
troops. Cornwallis retreats to Cross Creek (present-day Fayetteville) and then to Wilmington. His army marches north and occupies
Halifax briefly before moving into Virginia.
May–June: A bloody civil war between Loyalists and Whigs erupts
in eastern and central North Carolina. It becomes known as the Tory War. Loyalist successes during the confrontations end
with the British evacuation of Wilmington later in the year.
September 12: Loyalist troops under the leadership of
David Fanning capture Governor Thomas Burke at Hillsborough and set out to take him to Wilmington.
September 13: Whig
forces attack Fanning’s army in an attempt to free Governor Burke and other prisoners. The Battle of Lindley’s
Mill, which results from this attack, is one of the largest military engagements in North Carolina during the war. Fanning
is injured, but his column continues. Burke is given over to the British, who imprison him at Charlestown, S.C.
October:
North Carolina militia under General Rutherford sweep through the Cape Fear region clearing out Tory opposition. As they reach
Wilmington, the British abandon the city.
October 19: Cornwallis surrenders a large British force at Yorktown, Va.,
effectively ending large-scale hostilities. North Carolina Loyalists are among those who surrender.
1782
May:
David Fanning escapes from North Carolina, marking the end of the Tory War in the state.
November: The British evacuate
Charlestown. With them go more than 800 North Carolina Loyalist soldiers (some will later be joined by their families) and
perhaps as many as 5,000 African Americans, many of them runaway slaves from North and South Carolina. Some of the Loyalists
go to England, but most disperse to other British possessions, including Florida, Bermuda, Jamaica, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick,
and Ontario.
1783
Despite the Indian treaty of 1777 fixing the boundary at the foot of the Blue
Ridge, the assembly declares lands open for settlement as far west as the Pigeon River.
The North Carolina General
Assembly passes the Act of Pardon and Oblivion, offering amnesty to some North Carolinians who remained loyal to Britain during
the Revolution. Many notable Loyalists, such as David Fanning, do not receive amnesty. The state continues to sell confiscated
Loyalist property until 1790.
Cross Creek, which merged with Campbellton in 1778, is renamed Fayetteville in honor
of the marquis de Lafayette, a French general who helped Americans win the war.
June 18: Governor Alexander Martin
proclaims July 4 “a day of Solemn Thanksgiving to Almighty God.” This is the earliest known proclamation of the
observance of July 4 as Independence Day.
September 3: Great Britain and the United States sign a treaty that officially
ends the American Revolution and recognizes the independence of the former British colonies.
1784
Methodist
circuit riders, or traveling preachers, cover the North Carolina backcountry. Some Methodists are “Republican Methodists”
who denounce slavery, and many circuit riders bar slaveholders from communion.
1785
The State of
Franklin secedes from western North Carolina, but Congress refuses to recognize it. Statehood by Franklin collapses.
April
19: The first North Carolina conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church takes place in Louisburg.
November 28: By
the Treaty of Hopewell, S.C., the Cherokee cede additional territory reaching to a line east of present-day Marshall, Asheville,
and Henderson. They also cede a strip along the south bank of the Cumberland River in present-day middle Tennessee. The treaty
delineates the boundaries of Cherokee territory.
December 29: The General Assembly enacts a law requiring free and
enslaved African Americans to wear badges in the towns of Edenton, Fayetteville, Washington, and Wilmington. A slave must
wear a leaden or pewter badge in a conspicuous place. A free black must wear a cloth badge on his or her left shoulder with
the word free in capital letters.
1786–1787
In Bayard v. Singleton, Elizabeth Bayard attempts
to recover property confiscated because her father was a Loyalist. Spyers Singleton has purchased the property from the state.
Judges declare the Confiscation Act, passed by the General Assembly during the American Revolution, unconstitutional. The
decision is the first in the United States to declare an act passed by a legislature as contrary to a written constitution.
1787
The
banjo, an African musical instrument, is first mentioned in a journal by a visitor to Tarboro.
After a period of study
in Salisbury, Andrew Jackson, future seventh president of the United States, is admitted to the bar in Rowan County.
September
17: William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, and Hugh Williamson sign the United States Constitution for North Carolina.
1788
North
Carolina lawyers Andrew Jackson and Colonel Waightstill Avery engage in a duel in Jonesboro, now in Tennessee. Neither man
is injured, and they leave the field as friends.
The assembly encourages ironworks by offering 3,000 acres of vacant
land for each set of works placed in operation.
August 2: Delegates to the constitutional convention at Hillsborough,
unsatisfied with the document’s lack of a bill of rights to ensure personal freedoms, protest by choosing to neither
ratify nor reject the United States Constitution.
August 15: The assembly orders the state capital located within 10
miles of Isaac Hunter’s plantation in Wake County.
August 26: An iron mine and forge operate in Lincoln County.
November:
The Synod of the Carolinas of the Presbyterian Church forms at Centre Church in Iredell County.
1789
John
Wallace and John Gray Blount establish a “lightering” complex at Ocracoke Inlet. It includes warehouses, docks,
a gristmill, a chandlery, and a lighthouse—the first on the coast. The area will become known as Shell Castle Island
and Harbor.
November 21: The convention at Fayetteville votes to accept the United States Constitution, which now contains
the Bill of Rights, making North Carolina the 12th state to ratify.
December 11: The state’s first university,
called for under the 1776 constitution, is chartered.
December 22: North Carolina’s western lands are ceded to
the United States, forming what will become the state of Tennessee.
1790
The federal government
takes the first census of the United States.
North Carolina Census Data
Total 393,751
Free white persons 288,204
All
other free persons 4,975
Slaves 100,572
Henry Evans, a free black shoemaker and Methodist minister, is credited
with starting the Methodist church in Fayetteville.
The Dismal Swamp Canal, designed to connect the Chesapeake Bay
with the Albemarle Sound, is chartered.
February 10: President George Washington appoints North Carolinian James Iredell
a justice of the United States Supreme Court.
1791
Wilmington exports about 3,000 hogsheads of
flaxseed. Flax and hemp are important in the economy of backcountry farms.
April–June: George Washington visits
several North Carolina towns on his southern tour.
July 2: The Cherokee sign the Treaty of Holston, by which they cede
a 100-mile tract of land in exchange for goods and an annuity of $1,000.
1792
Joel Lane sells 1,000
acres of land on his Wake County plantation as the site of North Carolina’s new capital. The city is named Raleigh after
Sir Walter Raleigh.
Approximately 1,200 African Americans living in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, many formerly from
the Carolinas, resettle in Sierra Leone, Africa. Former North Carolina slave Thomas Peters leads the party. Peters left his
Wilmington-area plantation in 1776 to join the Black Pioneers and eventually attained the rank of sergeant in the regiment.
1793
Eli
Whitney invents the first commercially successful cotton gin near Savannah, Ga. The cotton gin eventually changes the agricultural
face of North Carolina by making cotton a profitable cash crop.
Work begins on the Dismal Swamp Canal, which will link
South Mills in Camden County with waterways in Virginia. Constructed with slave labor, the canal is the oldest man-made waterway
in the United States.
April 22: President George Washington issues a proclamation of neutrality to keep the United
States out of war between France and Great Britain, establishing a policy of noninterference in European conflicts.
1794
August:
A group of dissenters from the Methodist Episcopal Church, led by North Carolinian James O’Kelly, forms the southern
Christian Church in Surry County, Va. The denomination will evolve into the present-day United Church of Christ.
December
30: The General Assembly convenes for the first time at the new State House in Raleigh.
1795
January
15: The University of North Carolina opens its doors in Chapel Hill. It is the first state university in the nation to open
for students.
November 2: James Knox Polk, future 11th president of the United States, is born in Pineville.
ca.
1795
John Fulenwider founds the High Shoals Ironworks in present-day Gaston County.
1796
The
Bald Head Lighthouse, the state’s first permanent lighthouse, is erected in Brunswick County. In 1817 it will be replaced
by the current structure, which will operate until 1935.
1797
The Buncombe County Courthouse and
the village around it are renamed Asheville in honor of Governor Samuel Ashe.
Because of an aversion to increased taxation,
public lotteries, authorized by the assembly, are a popular way of raising funds for academies, churches, bridges, canals,
and other public works. Between 1797 and 1825, the state lotteries raise $150,000 for educational purposes alone.
North
Carolina–born William Blount, a United States senator from Tennessee, becomes the only member of Congress to be impeached
by the House. He is impeached for conspiring with the British to launch a military expedition of frontiersmen and Indians
to help Great Britain take New Orleans, La., and Florida away from Spain. The Senate expels Blount and later dismisses the
impeachment charges.
1798
The General Assembly takes a stand against the Alien and Sedition Acts,
which allow the federal government to jail or deport individuals who speak out against the president or Congress.
October
2: By the Treaty of Tellico, the Cherokee cede a triangular area with its points near Indian Gap, east of present-day Brevard,
and southeast of Asheville.
1799
Gold is discovered on John Reed’s farm in Cabarrus County,
starting North Carolina’s gold rush. North Carolina becomes the primary supplier of gold for the United States until
1849.
Joseph Rice kills the last bison, or buffalo, seen in the Asheville area.
May 20–June 28: The North
Carolina–Tennessee boundary is first surveyed.
December: North Carolinian Alfred Moore is appointed a justice
of the United States Supreme Court.
December 16: The North Carolina Medical Society holds its first meeting in Raleigh.
The organization will continue until 1804.
Source: North Carolina Museum of History
Recommended
Reading: Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. Review: In retrospect, it seems as if
the American Revolution was inevitable. But was it? In Founding Brothers, Joseph J. Ellis reveals that many of those truths
we hold to be self-evident were actually fiercely contested in the early days of the republic. Ellis focuses on six crucial
moments in the life of the new nation, including a secret dinner at which the seat of the nation's capital was determined--in
exchange for support of Hamilton's financial plan; Washington's
precedent-setting Farewell Address; and the Hamilton and Burr duel. Most interesting, perhaps, is the debate (still dividing
scholars today) over the meaning of the Revolution. Continued below...
In a fascinating
chapter on the renewed friendship between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson at the end of their lives, Ellis points out the
fundamental differences between the Republicans, who saw the Revolution as a liberating act and hold the Declaration of Independence
most sacred, and the Federalists, who saw the revolution as a step in the building of American nationhood and hold the Constitution
most dear. Throughout the text, Ellis explains the personal, face-to-face nature of early American politics--and notes that
the members of the revolutionary generation were conscious of the fact that they were establishing precedents on which future
generations would rely. In Founding Brothers, Ellis (whose American Sphinx won the National Book Award for nonfiction in 1997)
has written an elegant and engaging narrative, sure to become a classic. Highly recommended.
Recommended Reading: The Tar Heel State: A History of North Carolina
(Hardcover). Description: The Tar Heel State: A History of North Carolina constitutes the most comprehensive and inclusive
single-volume chronicle of the state’s storied past to date, culminating with an attentive look at recent events that
have transformed North Carolina into a southern megastate. Integrating tales of famous pioneers, statesmen, soldiers, farmers,
captains of industry, activists, and community leaders with more marginalized voices, including those of Native Americans,
African Americans, and women, Milton Ready gives readers a view of North Carolina that encompasses perspectives and personalities
from the coast, "tobacco road," the piedmont, and the mountains in this sweeping history of the Tar Heel State. The first
such volume in more than two decades, Ready’s work offers a distinctive view of the state’s history built from
myriad stories and episodes. The Tar Heel State is enhanced by one hundred and ninety illustrations and five maps. Continued
below...
Ready begins with a study of the state’s geography and then invites
readers to revisit dramatic struggles of the American Revolution and Civil War, the early history of Cherokees, the impact
of slavery as an institution, the rise of industrial mills, and the changes wrought by modern information-based technologies
since 1970. Mixing spirited anecdotes and illustrative statistics, Ready describes the rich Native American culture found
by John White in 1585, the chartered chaos of North Carolina’s proprietary settlement, and the chronic distrust of government
that grew out of settlement patterns and the colony’s early political economy. He challenges the perception of relaxed
intellectualism attributed to the "Rip van Winkle" state, the notion that slavery was a relatively benign institution in North
Carolina, and the commonly accepted interpretation of Reconstruction in the state. Ready also discusses how the woman suffrage
movement pushed North Carolina into a hesitant twentieth-century progressivism. In
perhaps his most significant contribution to North Carolina’s historical record, Ready continues his narrative past
the benchmark of World War II and into the twenty-first century. From the civil rights struggle to the building of research
triangles, triads, and parks, Ready recounts the events that have fueled North Carolina’s accelerated development in
recent years and the many challenges that have accompanied such rapid growth, especially those of population change and environmental
degradation.
Recommended Reading: 1776, by David McCullough (Simon
& Schuster). Description: Esteemed historian David McCullough covers the military
side of the momentous year of 1776 with characteristic insight and a gripping narrative, adding new scholarship and a fresh
perspective to the beginning of the American Revolution. It was a turbulent and confusing time. As British and American politicians
struggled to reach a compromise, events on the ground escalated until war was inevitable. McCullough writes vividly about
the dismal conditions that troops on both sides had to endure, including an unusually harsh winter, and the role that luck
and the whims of the weather played in helping the colonial forces hold off the world's greatest army. Continued below...
He also effectively
explores the importance of motivation and troop morale--a tie was as good as a win to the Americans, while anything short
of overwhelming victory was disheartening to the British, who expected a swift end to the war. The redcoat retreat from Boston, for example, was
particularly humiliating for the British, while the minor American victory at Trenton
was magnified despite its limited strategic importance. Some of the strongest passages in 1776 are the revealing and well-rounded
portraits of the Georges on both sides of the Atlantic. King George III, so often portrayed
as a bumbling, arrogant fool, is given a more thoughtful treatment by McCullough, who shows that the king considered the colonists
to be petulant subjects without legitimate grievances--an attitude that led him to underestimate the will and capabilities
of the Americans. At times he seems shocked that war was even necessary. The great Washington lives up to his considerable
reputation in these pages, and McCullough relies on private correspondence to balance the man and the myth, revealing how
deeply concerned Washington was about the Americans' chances for victory, despite his public optimism. Perhaps more than any
other man, he realized how fortunate they were to merely survive the year, and he willingly lays the responsibility for their
good fortune in the hands of God rather than his own. Enthralling and superbly written, 1776 is the work of a master historian.
Recommended Reading: Encyclopedia of North Carolina (Hardcover:
1328 pages) (The University of North Carolina Press). Description: The first single-volume reference to the events, institutions, and cultural forces that have defined
the state, the Encyclopedia of North Carolina is a landmark publication that will serve those who love and live in North Carolina for generations to come. Editor William S. Powell, whom
the Raleigh News & Observer described as a "living repository of information on all things North Carolinian," spent fifteen
years developing this volume. With contributions by more than 550 volunteer writers—including scholars, librarians,
journalists, and many others—it is a true "people's encyclopedia" of North
Carolina. Continued below...
The volume
includes more than 2,000 entries, presented alphabetically, consisting of longer essays on major subjects, briefer entries,
and short summaries and definitions. Most entries include suggestions for further reading. Centered on history and the humanities,
topics covered include agriculture; arts and architecture; business and industry; the Civil War; culture and customs; education;
geography; geology, mining, and archaeology; government, politics, and law; media; medicine, science, and technology; military
history; natural environment; organizations, clubs, and foundations; people, languages, and immigration; places and historic
preservation; precolonial and colonial history; recreation and tourism; religion; and transportation. An informative and engaging
compendium, the Encyclopedia of North Carolina is abundantly illustrated with 400 photographs and maps. It is both a celebration
and a gift—from the citizens of North Carolina, to the citizens of North Carolina.
"Truly an exhaustive and exciting view of every aspect of the Old
North State!”
North Carolina History, Detailed History of North Carolina
Timeline, North Carolina Map, Photos, Photographs, Pictures, Mountains Landmarks Historical Locations Maps, The Tar Heel State
History
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