"Courier from Boston", News of the Battle of Lexington reaches Charlotte, May, 1775 Did The ~~~~~~~~-~·~-~ ~r&':r - ' m~ L-= u= ., ~ G■f: g~= - ~ -:-~- 9..~. ~ ~ f ii.. ... ; --· ,:.~ ..: -:• : A History Lesson by Tom and Barbara Parramore • DID THE AM ERIC AN REVOLUTION BEGIN IN NORTH CARO LINA ? What was the first day of the American Revol ution? Was it April 19, 1775 when the mi nutemen of Lexington, Massachusetts and t he Redcoats of the King first f ired on each other? That was the beginning of the war between Eng l and and the colonies but it was not the first act of resistance, even of viol ent resistance, on the part of the co l onists. How about December 16, 1773? That was the day col onists dressed like Indians boarded a British ship in Boston harbor and threw overboard its cargo of tea in protest over a new tax on tea. Or how about that day in March 1770 when some Boston youths threw snowballs at Briti sh troops and some were shot dead in the 11 Boston Massacre"? What day will your community or state celebrate as the bi ­ centennial of the American Revol ution, the 200th anniversary of the day it all began? Wil l it be July 4, 1976? That will be two hundred years after the Dec l arati on of Independence but the war was already more than a year old on July 4, 1776 and colonial defiance as we have seen, was older than that. Will your cel ebration be held on the most appropriate date--or at a time which does not really commemorate the beginning of the Revolution? What are your pl ans for May 20, 1975? Have you noticed t hat that will be the 200th anniversary of a date on the flag of North Carolina? Do you know why some people thi nk that date is the most important one in the history of the Revolution and the day on which it really al l began? Let's look into this a little further and try to decide what we ought to celebrate and why . After al l, you don't want to be out there watching the parades and the fireworks and the music and the speeches if i t's the wrong day, do you? Let's get it straight. Copyright, 1973 Raleigh, N. C. l THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Living through the last ten years before the American Revolution must have been l ike watching the dark clouds gathering before a thunder­ storm. The first faint rumblings were followed by ever-louder cracks of thunder and bursts of lightning until all at once the storm coll111enced in all its fury. As the Revolution approached, one incident after another signalled the approach of warfare between the colonies and the mother country . The colonists in various ways protested the Sugar Act of 1764 , the Stamp Act of 1765 and other such l aws of the British Parliament. They demanded that no new taxes be imposed without their consent. Angry South Carolinians burned the stamps they were told they had to buy . Bos­ tonians in disguise tossed overboard a cargo of tea to protest the tea­ tax. Soldiers in Boston fired on some rioters and killed several of them (including a Negro, Crispus Attucks) . Then came the First Continen­ tal Congress, the first fighting at Lexington and Concord , Massachusetts and , finally, the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The people of North Carol i na were as much upset by events of the day as those of any other colony. In the beginning, very few Tar Heels seriously considered breaking off with Great Br itain but many thought that change in colonial policies was necessary . On October 19, 1765 there were violent demonstrations in Wilmington against the Stamp Act, followed by protests and demonstrations in other North Carol i na towns. On November 16th, the king's stamp-master visited Wilmington and was forced by a mob to resign his office. Meanwhile, widespread armed re­ sistance was developing in the western part of the state against high rents, high taxes, corrupt royal officials, and other ca uses . The pro­ testers formed themselves into a group known as the "Regul ators" whose purpose was to see to it that colonial government was better regulated than it had been in past years. Fighting broke out between Governor Tryon's troops and the rag-tag Regulator army. The cl imax came on May 16, 1771 when Tryon l ed his forces against the Regulators in a battle near Hillsborough . The Regulators were defeated in "The Battle of Alamance", some of the l eaders were tried for treason and six were hanged. Many sympathizers f l ed the co l ony . Even now there were few people in North Carol ina or other colonies who thought independence was the proper solution to the settlement of colo­ nial grievances. But the situati on grew worse from month to month. An indication of the mood of the people was an incident that occurred at Eden­ ton on October 25, 1774. On that day a group of fifty-one prominent women of Edenton and the surrounding co untryside met in Edenton and drew up a resolution which stated that they would not drink any more East Indian tea until the British tax on it was revoked . This is known as the "earliest instance of pol itical activity on the part of women in the American co lo­ ni es" and demonstrated that the women were as upset as the men over royal policies. All of this activity lay in the background of the actions taken in Mecklenburg county in May 1775. Mecklenburg had been one of the count ies concerned in the Regulator Movement and the demand for better treatment was as insistent there as anywhere in co l on ial America . 2 HOW THE GREAT DEBATE BEGAN In 1817 William Wirt published a biography of the great Virginia statesman, Patrick Henry . In his book, Wirt raised the question of whether it was to Virginia or Massachusetts that the · honor belonged of having started the American Revolution . A good argument could be made for Virg i nia, where the Declaration of Inde­ pendence was written, and for Massachusetts, where the first shots of the War for Independence were fired. Wirt himself concluded that Virginia should get the credi t, for which Patrick Henry was largely responsible because of his f i ery speeches and other acts of defiance . The controversy over Wirt's cl aims had been going on for more than a year when some people began to hear that neither state should claim the credit but that North Carolina should have it. It was claimed that the citizens of Mecklenburg county, North Carolina had declared their independence over a year before Jefferson wrote his famous Declaration. The claim on behalf of North Carol ina was not taken very seriously until the spring of 1819 when an article in a North Carolina newspaper added new fuel to the flames of the debate and created a sensation in the press . The article was written by Dr. Joseph McKnitt Alexander, a well-known and respected Mecklenburg county physician. He stated that he had copied the facts in the articl e from old papers left by his father. The article included the text of some resolutions which were said to have been adopted by citizens of Mecklenburg on May 20, 1775. The resolutions declared the independence of the people of Mecklenburg from the British ki ng and government . If the details were accurately reported, then North Carolina had strong reason to claim credit for starting the Revolution . If the article was mistaken, then those who believed it woul d seem foolish and the author for the article would be accused of lying. Many people, especial ly i n Virginia and Massachusetts, ridiculed the Meckl enburg Declaration as soon as they heard about it and charged that it was a fake. Such charges led to efforts in North Carol ina to find people who could support the story of the Mecklenburg Declaration. This meant finding and interviewing elderly peopl e who had been living in Mecklenburg in 1775 and could remember the incident. It also meant looking for old diaries, l etters or other papers that might prove the truth of the newspaper article. Dr . Alexander, the author of the article in 1819, was a son of one of the people who signed the Mecklenburg Declaration and it was just about impossible to believe that he would lie about it. Unfortunately, his father's own copy of the Mecklenburg Declaration had been burned in the year 1800 and a new copy was dr awn up by the father from memory soon afterward . Di sbelievers made a lot of the disappearance of the original and made it clear that they would not accept the Decl aration as genuine unless an authentic original could be discovered or some other kind of proof could be found. 3 The debate has never been settled. In 1831 the government of the state of North Carolina appointed a distinguished committee · to look into the matter and find out the truth. The committee put together everything it could find on the matter and issued a report which concluded that the Mecklenburg Declaration was genuine. The date was placed on the flag of North Carol ina in honor of the event and is still there today. Most historians who are not North Carol- inians do not accept the Mecklenburg Declaration as valid and you will probably not even find the document mentioned in your American history textbook.