Rowan Resolves


Rowan Resolves is the short name for a colonial era document called Resolutions by inhabitants of Rowan County concerning resistance to Parliamentary taxation and the Provincial Congress of North Carolina. It was signed in Salisbury, Rowan County, in the royal Province of North Carolina on August 8, 1774 in response to a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774, the Intolerable Acts, after the political protest against Tea Act in Boston, the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, commonly known as Boston Tea Party. Rowan County was the first county in North Carolina to adopt such resolutions in the early stages of American Revolution.

Discovery

The document was discovered in Iredell County in 1851 among the papers of the Sharpe family which were direct descendants of William Sharpe, the last Secretary of the Rowan County Committee of Safety. The document was first published to the general public by Colonel Wheeler. Authenticity of the document was asserted by a committee of experts before the publication.

Summary

The freeholders of Rowan County opened the document with the assertion of their fidelity and obedience to King George III and his right to the Crown of Great Britain and Dominions in America. Then the authors proceeded to state their position on the recent Royal measures in response to the economic and political events in the colonies.
Freeholder representatives from all parts of Rowan County signed the Resolves.
On August 9, 2009 Rowan Public Library held the first annual Rowan Resolves Day to commemorate Rowan County's involvement in paving the road to American Independence.

External Links

in Colonial and State Records of North Carolina presented online by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as part of Documenting the American South digital collection