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Independence
North
Carolina was involved in the Revolutionary War in
a number of ways. They had to deal with a group
of loyalists, figure out how to finance the war,
organize troops, and recover from the damage.
Loyalists:
North Carolina was faced with a group of loyalists
already in the state. The loyalists were mainly
Highland Scots, with heavy concentrations in Cumberland
County. In 1777 the Assembly called for either allegiance
or banishment, so many of the staunch loyalists
left for Britain, Canada, Florida and the West Indies.
Scottish Toryism never completely disappeared, remaining
a menace even after the war.
Finances: When
the war started, North Carolina had to come up with
a way to finance it. They specified four ways to
create money for the war. They circulated paper
money, taxed the residents, secured loans, and sold
confiscated property.
The Military:
North Carolina was very active in the military aspect
of the war. They enacted a state militia filling
regiment requirements.
Figure 1 Battle Sites of the American Revolution
Freedom: For
more than a year after independence was won, North
Carolina was home to a continuing war between Tories
and Whigs. There was much disunity, and the state
found it hard to keep its infrastructure functioning.
Schools remained closed, newspapers went unpublished,
and there was no postal service. As far as national
politics went, North Carolina was reluctant to endorse
the proposal to revise the Articles of Confederation.
Delegates from North Carolina to the Constitutional
Convention were Federalists, but the rest of the
state was mostly anti-Federalist, therefore taking
one year to ratify the Constitution.
The War of 1812
The Americans faced
the British yet again in the War of 1812. The war
didn't affect North Carolina dramatically, but the
citizens were divided about the necessity of it.
Some thought that America had withstood the insults
from England for years without conflict and it could
continue to do so. Others thought the freedom of
the seas should be protected and that the United
States shouldn't have to put up with British bullying.
There were some North Carolinians who fought in
the war, including Benjamin Forsyth, of Stokes County,
who was killed in Canada and became a state hero.
General Andrew Jackson, who was from the Waxhaw
region on the North Carolina and South Carolina
border, became the hero of the Battle of New Orleans.
North Carolina's Antebellum Rut
North Carolina was
very quiet during the first half of the 19th century.
The citizens of the interior were self sufficient
and isolated, and the citizens of the eastern part
of the state seemed satisfied with their place in
society. This isolation and individualism caused
the state to be very unproductive. The state was
highly agricultural, had very little industry, and
no public schooling, which hindered progress. Bad
economics and politics also played a part in the
state's decline. In addition to stagnation, and
bad economy, there was an outflow of migration.
This was due to poor agricultural processes. Instead
of fertilizing, farmers would move onto other plots
of land, leaving a lot of acreage unusable. This
practice caused large numbers of slaveholding farmers
to move to the South in the 1820s and 1830s. Many
small farmers suffered from poor crops and left
as well. Between 1815 and 1850, a third of North
Carolina's citizens emigrated. An estimated 200,000
moved from North Carolina to Tennessee, Alabama,
and Ohio.
The static economy
did not last forever. A small group of Carolinians
were determined to lift the state out of its backwardness.
Archibald DeBow Murphy was the most important of
these progressive men. Murphy represented Orange
County in the North Carolina senate from 1812 to
1818. He pushed for a public school system, internal
improvements, and constitutional reforms that kick
started the state into a more modern pace. Agriculture
eventually picked up and prospered again, and cotton,
rice and wheat production rose. An unexpected gold
rush in the early 1800s, and a boom in cotton and
turpentine manufacturing also helped pull North
Carolina out of its rut. |
