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Home – Founding Fathers & American History – ‘Fire and Be Damned!’ North Carolina and the Sparks That Lit the American Revolution

‘Fire and Be Damned!’ North Carolina and the Sparks That Lit the American Revolution

By the late 1760s, North Carolina was a smoldering tinderbox of conflict. Elected officials Cornelius Harnett and John Ashe had led the Sons of Liberty in resisting the Stamp Act, making its enforcement impossible and contributing to Parliament’s repeal of the tax, but deeper grievances remained.

Drought brought crop failures, hunger, economic depression, and a dramatic rise in debt, with many ordinary farmers, artisans, and tradesmen consigned to a horrible fate: debtors’ prison. In contrast, “courthouse rings” of wealthy elite dominated local politics, with tax collectors, sheriffs, and other officials appearing to prosper at the expense of their neighbors.

Citizens protested, petitioned, and demanded reform, but Gov. William Tryon, dependent on the support of the political establishment, did little to satisfy the growing complaints.

On April 28, 1768, roughly 100 Regulators, led in part by Irish immigrant Patrick Boggan, confronted Anson County officials at the courthouse over excessive fees, taxation, and abuses of office. They demanded reform, nominated their own candidate for the Assembly, and refused to pay taxes.

Their protests echoed a longstanding precept of English common law, namely, that Englishmen cannot be taxed without consent of themselves or their delegates. These Regulators considered themselves loyal British subjects and demanded that their colonial government respect their rights as Englishmen.

Their calls fell on deaf ears.

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The magnificent Tryon Palace, completed in New Bern in 1770, became a powerful symbol of the widening divide between the folk and the royal government. As ordinary North Carolinians struggled with taxes and debt, the grandeur of the royal governor’s........

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