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| Alamance: Regulators takingup
arms against the new taxes. |
The Beginnings of Revolution
The Townshend Act was the next tax to make the colonists
angry. This Act taxed imports like wine, tea, paper, glass and lead.
In November 1768, Speaker John Harvey and the North Carolina General
Assembly spoke out about how bad the Townshend Act was. Harvey asserted,
"Free men cannot legally be taxed but by themselves or their
representatives." Although Britain repealed all taxes except
the one on tea, they continued to try to tax the colonies.
In May 1771, North Carolinians had had enough. Several men
got together and formed a group called the Regulators, vowing to
protest any tax that Britain imposed on them. They protested quietly
at first, but no one noticed them. So they began starting riots,
which got Governor Tryon's attention.
However, it wasn't the kind of attention they wanted—Governor
Tryon put a military force together to squash the Regulation. In
the ferocious Battle of Alamance, the militia defeated the Regulators,
and several Regulator leaders were hanged some months later.
The final straw came in 1773, when the next governor,
Josiah Martin, vetoed a property bill that the General Assembly
wanted to pass. In fact, Governor Martin created a new group of
courts to make sure the General Assembly did not pass any bill without
his permission. The next year, when the new Continental Congress
was choosing delegates, Governor Martin would not permit members
of his General Assembly to join the Congress.
Steps Toward Independence
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