During the American Revolution, a Franco-American alliance united France and the United States against Great Britain, but by the late 1790s, the two countries almost declared war. Disagreements over shipping led to the XYZ Affair in which North Carolinian Congressmen played a key role in keeping the young nation from waging war against a European power.
Francis Oliver was a Baptist preacher from Duplin County, North Carolina and a delegate at the 1788 state convention to ratify the federal constitution. An Anti-Federalist, Oliver vigorously defended individual liberty and upheld republican values.
Edward Vail, resident of Edenton, North Carolina, is most known for his support of American Independence. He served on North Carolina’s Committee of Correspondence prior to the American Revolution and was a colonel in the State Militia.
Although Don Curtis founded the Curtis Media Group in 1968, he started his media career ten years earlier. In 1957, 15 year old Don began working at WKMT in Kings Mountain, North Carolina. He transformed his weekly broadcast in Bessemer City into one of the largest single shareholder companies in the United States.
In spite of his illiteracy, Hinton was a successful entrepreneur. He ran two flourishing businesses when African Americans struggled for equality and respect and the chance to participate in a free market where each held his own.
In 1732, Robert Howe was born in Brunswick County, North Carolina. He emerged as the colonies’ highest-ranking officer during the Revolutionary War. Althought he supported Royal Governor Tryon in the 1760s, Howe like many others soon grew disenchanted with the English crown and evinced a strong patriotism by the mid-1770s.
Born in Maryland in 1724, Herman Husband was a successful farmer and an influential leader during the Regulator Rebellion in pre-Revolutionary North Carolina. Husband represented Alamance farmers’ interests and protested what he considered corrupt government and exploitation.
The Edenton Tea Party was one of the earliest organized women’s political actions in United States history. On October 25, 1774, Mrs. Penelope Barker organized, at the home of Mrs. Elizabeth King, fifty-one women in Edenton, North Carolina. Together they formed an alliance wholeheartedly supporting the American cause against “taxation without representation.”
In 1584, 1585, and 1587, Sir Walter Raleigh funded expeditions to Roanoke Island (located on what is now called the Outer Banks). On March 25, 1584, Queen Elizabeth I issued a charter allowing Raleigh to “discover, search, find out, and view such remote heathen and barbarous Lands, Countries, and territories … to have, hold, occupy, and enjoy.”
Arthur Dobbs, sheriff (1720), Surveyor General (1730), and member of Parliament (1727-1730) in his native Ireland, became one of the five royal colonial governors of North Carolina in 1754. He was born on April 2, 1689 in the fishing village of Girvan in Ayrshire, Scotland, to Richard and Mary Stewart Dobbs. Soon after his birth, Mary returned with Arthur to Ireland. He resided there until moving to North Carolina.