April 12, 1776. On this date 235 years ago our legislature, meeting in Halifax, passed a resolution declaring we should be free of British rule.

North Carolina did not grow as fast or as prosperous as Virginia or other colonies, due largely to our governance. In 1663, King Charles II gave the land for what is now North and South Carolina to eight noblemen who had helped him regain the British throne following the insurrection by Oliver Cromwell and the Roundheads. They named it Carolina in honor of their patron but the noblemen were largely uninterested, uninvolved and indecisive in matters of developing the colony.

There were a few exceptions but North Carolina did not have the large number of prosperous plantations of some colonies. Most of our residents were yeomen, a class below the gentried nobility, what we would today call the hard-working middle class citizens. Most were given a few acres of land and worked with few animals and rustic tools to scratch out a living farming, fishing or even timbering.

Hard work, fertile natural resources and an encouraging governance structure saw the colony prosper and the population explode in the period after the Lords Proprietors sold North Carolina back to the crown. Looking for opportunity many moved west. Relations with the Royal Governor, the King and Parliament, while never good, were tolerable and many were prospering.

Two primary turning points could be cited for the Halifax resolves. The first was The Seven Years War, a global conflict between England, France and Spain over possessions in the New World. England won the war but ran up big debts and reasoned that since the war had been fought to preserve the British way of life in the new world the colonies should pay for much of the costs. They passed the Stamp Act, in 1765. Colonists resoundingly opposed the unpopular tax, as did many wealthy English merchants who saw the loss of sales as a result of the action.

Also in 1765 came the double whammy from Governor William Tryon, who, upon assuming office, declared that the royal representative in this growing colony should have an appropriate palace from which to conduct business, entertain and live. The Assembly of his time did not appropriate an adequate sum to pay for his mansion so Tryon, as government leaders have been known to do, levied taxes to pay for his new house in New Bern.

Not only did Tryon levy taxes but he wanted them paid in coin of the realm, a commodity in short supply in an economy accustomed to bartering goods and services. He selected Colonel Edmund Fanning, a pompous, arrogant and unyielding aide to ensure all taxes were paid.

You can just imagine how well Fanning was received in the rural areas we now know as Alamance, Orange, Cumberland and Rowan counties. A well-organized opposition movement formed, calling themselves “Regulators,” as a symbol of their complete displeasure with both taxes and regulation. When the courts, operating under the orders of Fanning and Tryon, foreclosed on many for nonpayment of taxes the revolt gained a foothold. Passions ran deep, words were angry and blood was shed.

Tryon overreacted, sending in troops to quash the revolt an action that only strengthened the resolve of both Regulators and the average citizen. Further actions by Parliament, such as the tax on tea and forced housing of troops in private homes and arrogant governance brought the revolt into full bloom.

It was in that context that delegates to the Assembly met in April in Halifax. Their years of hard work had made them independent, unwilling to accept unreasonable regulation and unbearable taxation. Their resolves were the first taken by an Assembly and gave us bragging rights to ‘first in freedom.” In July the Continental Congress followed our lead with the Declaration of Independence.