North Carolina played a critical, often overlooked, role in our nation’s founding. We at the North Carolina History Project have put together this timeline of our state’s contributions to the American Revolution. The following timeline chronologically lays out some of the most important events in North Carolina’s revolutionary history and links out to our more...
To academic historians and amateur (or avocational) historians: We explored the North Carolina Historical Review to find articles about the American Revolution. I hope these summaries (written by a person, not AI) will whet your appetite for the longer versions. (A link to each article on JSTOR is provided for each.) Did North Carolina’s Revolution...
The North Carolina Historical Review includes a rich collection of articles about the American Revolution. This list was compiled by Kathryn McKee and Jane Shaw Stroup.
Pyle’s Defeat occurred in February 1781 near the end of the Revolution. It was a savage blow to British hopes, as Lt. Gen. Charles, Lord Cornwallis attempted to stop the Patriots’ momentum.
The subject of Scottish folklore and myth, Flora MacDonald assisted Prince Charles Stuart in his escape from King George II. In 1774, she moved to North Carolina, where her Loyalist husband and son fought in the Battle of Moores Creek.
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.”
Harriet Jacobs (1813 – 1897)
A former North Carolina slave turned abolitionist and author, Harriet Jacobs was born in bondage in Edenton. In her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), Jacobs describes the abuse that she endured while a slave and is the best-known autobiography written by an African American woman during the 19th century.
Evolution Debate in North Carolina in the 1920s
In North Carolina, the debate teaching evolution became a contentious issue between religious leaders and educators. William Louis Poteat, president of Wake Forest University drew criticism from conservative critics from North Carolina and around the United States when he openly accepted the theory of evolution.
Eugenics Board
Although the sterilization laws were passed in 1919 and 1929, the Eugenics Board was organized in July 1933. In four short months, the Board started receiving petitions to sterilize North Carolinians. From 1933 until 1977, the year the Board closed and the eugenics program in North Carolina ended, the state government had sterilized approximately 7,600 individuals (male and female and white and black).
Human Betterment League of North Carolina
Created in Pasadena, California in 1928, The Human Betterment Foundation sponsored and conducted research dealing with sterilization’s physiological, mental, and social effects. Closely aligned with the Human Betterment Foundation, the Human Betterment League of North CarolinaFounded by James G. Hanes in 1947, used mass media and advertisements to promote the implementation of sterilization procedures. In large part because of the League's work, the number of sterilizations in North Carolina increased after World War II.
Fort Macon
Named in honor of Nathaniel Macon, a United States congressman and senator and a leading early-republic statesman of North Carolina, Fort Macon was built after the War of 1812 to defend America and North Carolina from foreign invasion. During the Civil War, Fort Macon was a Confederate fort, but Union Major General Ambrose E. Burnside had plans to return it under Union control.
Fort Clark
One of two forts protecting Hatteras Inlet, a major port in North Carolina, Fort Clark fell into Union hands during the first few months of the Civil War.
Henry E. Frye (1932 – )
Governor James B. Hunt appointed Justice Henry Frye, in 1983, to the North Carolina Supreme Court. He thus became the first African American to sit on the North Carolina Supreme Court.
Pearsall Plan: North Carolina’s Response to Brown v. Board of Education
The United States Supreme Court’s ruling in the Brown v Board of Education (1954) declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. Following the Brown ruling, North Carolina enacted legislation that undermined the Supreme Court ruling. In August 1954 and in response to the Brown decision, Governor William B. Umstead created a “Governor’s Special Advisory Committee on Education,” with Thomas Pearsall, a prominent Rocky Mount farmer and businessman and former North Carolina Speaker of the House, as chairman.
Civil War in North Carolina
Although most major battle engagements occurred in other states, North Carolina played an important role during the American Civil War. The fertile Piedmont region provided crops for the Confederate forces, and in 1865, Wilmington provided the only access to European trade. The Union-occupied territories in the State provided the United States with valuable ports and land.
Civil Rights Movement
Most North Carolinians believe the Civil Rights Movement occurred strictly in the 1960s, with the start of the Sit-Ins at the Woolworth’s store in Greensboro, North Carolina. The movement, however, began much earlier, and one can argue that its roots lay in the Civil-War period.
Thomas Jordan Jarvis (1836-1915)
After Zebulon Vance resigned from being governor to assume a U.S. senatorial post, Lieutenant Governor Thomas Jordan Jarvis became governor in 1879.
Ella Baker (1903 – 1986)
A North Carolina native, Ella Baker played a key role in the Civil Rights Movement and in forming the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee at Shaw University.