Existing comment:
War Comes To North Carolina:
Even before the colonies declared independence, North Carolina began preparing for the coming storm. Rumors of a loyalist army being raised by Governor Martin and the impending arrival of British ships on the North Carolina coast spread in 1775 and 1776. In response, North Carolina patriots raised regiments of soldiers and gathered supplies of weapons and ammunition in case the threats materialized. The first battle came in February 1776 when Scottish loyalists clashed with a combined force of North Carolina Continental and militia soldiers at Moore's Creek Bridge. In May, British ships reached the mouth of the Cape Fear River -- a presence that North Carolina patriots considered an invasion. But the British only sent a few raiding parties ashore before quickly moving on to attack Charleston. British troops would not reappear in North Carolina for another four years.
Much of the attention of the Provincial Congress in 1776 and 1777 focused on the intensifying conflicts with Indian nations, primarily the Cherokees. British and American agents were competing for Indian nations' allegiances or, at the very least, their neutrality. The Catawba, Tuscarora and Coharie Indians of southern North Carolina agreed to fight with the Americans, but the Cherokees remained hostile to the colonies throughout the Revolutionary War. The Cherokees battled North Carolina and other colonies primarily to rid their lands of settlers and re-establish their disrupted trading routes. But they would pay dearly for their allegiance with the British. At least two thousand Cherokee warriors lost their lives during the war, and those who survived were forced to abandon their homes -- located on land that North Carolina forced them to sell to the state -- and rebuild their nation in Georgia and Mississippi. |