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.”
The Spanish – American War
During the Spanish-American War (1898), North Carolina provided three infantry regiments named simply the First, Second, and Third Volunteer Infantry Regiment(s). All of these were state militia regiments. The First was the only one to see action in Cuba; the Second disbanded after a short-lived yet infamous term of service in the States, and the Third, an African American regiment, experienced continuous discrimination whether it was stationed in eastern North Carolina or Knoxville, Tennessee. Only two North Carolinians, Worth Bagley and William E. Shipp, died in action.
Virginia Dare (1587 – ?)
Virginia Dare was born on August 18, 1587 at Roanoke Island, Virginia (present-day North Carolina). Virginia Dare was the first English-born child in the Americas. She was daughter of Ananias and Eleanor Dare and the granddaughter of John White. As a member of the lost Roanoke Colony, Virginia Dare’s fate is unknown, but she has become an icon of American folklore.
John W. Winters, Sr. (1920-2004)
Born on January 21, 1920 in Raleigh, North Carolina, John W. Winters, Sr. lived an accomplished life in the city where his “family home” had always been. Before he died on February 15, 2004, Winters started a construction company and real estate management business and became Raleigh’s first African American city councilman and one of the first African Americans elected to the North Carolina State Senate since the Reconstruction Era.
Willie Jones (1741 – 1801)
Willie Jones was an influential Jeffersonian states’ righter and patriot during the Revolutionary War and Federalist periods. Willie Jones (pronounced Wiley) is remembered mostly for opposing the ratification of the United States Constitution. His political philosophy has had a lasting influence.