After the Seven Years War, King George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, restricting colonists from encroaching on Native American lands west of Appalachia. The decree was largely ignored. Then, in 1774, a land speculator coerced the Cherokee to part with 20...

In September 1848, 86-year-old Mary Hicks appeared before a Justice of the Peace. She was applying for a widow’s pension. Her deceased husband, Micajah Hicks, served in the 1st Regiment of the NC line from 1779 through 1782. After the American army surrendered in...

Marquis de Lafayette In 1777, the Marquis de Lafayette, a 19-year-old French nobleman, sailed across the ocean to help America win its independence. Arriving on June 13, Lafayette was made a major general in the Continental Army, serving under his idol, George...

Washington did not really outfight the British. He simply out-spied us - British Intelligence Officer. By the summer of 1781, simply sustaining the Continental Army proved challenging. Earlier winter encampments and intense fighting devastated the patriot spirit. That...

Cornelis Titus fled enslavement when he was 22 and joined the British Army as part of the Ethiopian Regiment, an all-Black unit whose rallying cry was “Liberty to Slaves.”  Poorly trained, the unit was slaughtered in its second battle. Titus, one of the unit’s few...

“The Oneidas and Tuscaroras have a particular claim to attention and kindness for their perseverance and fidelity.” –George Washington to General Philip Schuyler Tewahangarahken (Han Yerry Doxtader) was a formidable Oneida war chief of the patriot-allied Oneida at...

With men away at war, women tended to families, farms, and finances. Some traveled with their children alongside their husbands as camp followers. These women nursed the sick and wounded, sewed and laundered uniforms, and secured provisions. They were extraordinary....

“Remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.” –Abigail Adams to her husband John, March 1776 In the era of revolution, women often lacked access to formal education and were often excluded from commenting on the philosophy of...

The patriot militia at the Battle of Bunker Hill was made up of roughly 2,500 to 4,000 men, mostly farmers and merchants. Among them were 150 patriots of color. These Black and Native American men contributed greatly that day in the fight against highly trained...