Here’s something that isn’t discussed much.
The Anglican Church was the state church of the English Crown. North Carolina colonists who were religious dissenters (members of any religious sect not following the precepts of the Anglican church) viewed this government-established and publicly supported state church as part of the oppressive control structure exercised by the King and Parliament.
Did you know that one of the primary grievances of the dissenters was that they were forced to pay taxes for the buildings and operations of the Anglican Church even though their religious beliefs greatly differed and they had their own churches to support?
Dissenters like the Baptists, Presbyterians, and to a lesser degree, Quakers, felt that the Crown’s laws promoting the state church with their tax money impinged on their right to worship as they pleased. They resented the state church pushing laws that prohibited dissenting preachers from legally performing marriage ceremonies, kept their churches from meeting publicly without a license, and forbade the education of children unless the schoolmaster had a license from the Bishop of London.
Out of this resentment grew an enthusiasm for religious independence that crossed all social barriers and brought people into the rebellion who otherwise might never have participated, especially those who lived in North Carolina’s remote backcountry.
Religious dissenters in the colony of Carolina
When the Lords Proprietors first established their colony in Carolina in the 1660s, religious toleration was something they marketed to attract settlers. The “Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina,” which set up rules and guidelines for the new colony, reflected the tolerant Presbyterian views of Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper and his close friend and secretary, John Locke, who allegedly authored the document. Its statement that “[n]oe person whatsoever shall disturbe, molest or persecute another for his Speculative opinions in Religion or his way of worship” echoed Locke’s sentiments from “A Letter Concerning Toleration,” in which he demanded “absolute liberty, just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty” for all dissenters — not as a privilege, but as a right.
As dissenting groups like the Quakers and Baptists flowed into the growing colony, the Anglicans reacted by passing a series of Vestry Acts to slow that growth and keep power away from dissenters. The acts established the Anglican Church by law and required men “to pay taxes for the support of a church whose services they did not desire to attend.”
As dissenting sects like the Presbyterians, Quakers, Lutherans, German Reformed, and Baptists flourished in the backcountry area of the colony, the Anglican Church held sway primarily in the towns on the coast and as a symbol of social prominence for planters and merchants on the coastal plains. The North Carolina Assembly was dominated by leaders from the coast, which meant that Anglicans held not only social but also political power. In spite of that power, by 1750, there were only nine Anglican churches in the colony, and during the entire colonial period, fewer than 50 Anglican ministers were assigned.
The effect of the Great Awakening on religious dissenters
In the 1750s, the Great Awakening, a religious revival primarily affecting Presbyterians and Baptists, took place in North Carolina, spurred by the preaching of evangelist George Whitefield. A June 24, 1740, letter from James Murray to Rev. Whitefield gives a sense of the general perception of the spiritual needs of the colony: “[I]t is the opinion of many People of good sence that there is Not a Province in America where your preaching is So Much wanted as in this.”
Whitefield’s message of freedom of conscience and individual liberty before God further weakened the hold of the established church. His emphasis on the layman’s personal spiritual experience, separate from the influence of any church body, created an atmosphere of religious freedom that became a primary tenet of the movement towards independence.
As the Great Awakening increased the dissenters’ independence and outspokenness, the Anglican Church became more determined to rein in their strength. Baptist historian George Washington Paschal reasons that the “simple democracy of the gospel as preached by the colonial Baptist preachers … did more than anything else to foster in our people that spirit of resistance to arbitrary exactions of the British Crown and the levies of taxes in support of the Established Church.” Because the Baptist plan of church government “taught them democracy,” Paschal reasons that this is what led dissenters “to be democratic not only in affairs of church but also in those of state.”
Royal Gov. William Tryon went so far as to say the Baptists were one sect beyond the pale of toleration, and that they were “the avowed enemies of mother church.”
When Baptists wanted to build a church in Lenoir County, the county court ruled that the word “church” could not be used in association with a Baptist fellowship. Instead, the word “society” ended up being used.
Gov. Tryon pushed the Assembly hard in the 1760s, declaring in a 1765 message that Anglicans needed to rescue the Church and warning that within a few years, the dissenters would control the Assembly. Tryon was ultimately successful in increasing the number of Anglican clergymen from five to 12 in two years, and to 18 by the end of his term.
As political protests over the Stamp Act increased from 1765 to 1776, religious protests followed. The dissenters had one particular grievance that had lingered for years: Prior to 1766, marriage ceremonies in the colony were allowed to be performed only by an Anglican clergyman or a justice of the peace. That year, Presbyterian ministers were finally allowed to perform marriage ceremonies. Being allowed to perform weddings in 1766 was a great victory for Presbyterians. On the other hand, Baptist petitions to let their preachers to perform marriages were roundly rejected.
Gov. Tryon aggressively courted Presbyterians, convincing several Presbyterian preachers in Mecklenburg County to support him against the Regulators. For their allegiance, Tryon granted the charter for Queen’s College in Charlotte with the provision that “no person shall be admitted to be President of the said College but who is of the Established Church.”
Itinerate Anglican preacher Charles Woodmason wrote during this period and described the dialogue of the dissenters as moving beyond the utterances against unjust taxation to active political action, “Instilling Democratical” and “republican Notions” into the minds and hearts of the common people of the backcountry.
In November 1774, Royal Gov. Josiah Martin wrote Lord Dartmouth in England that the political squabbles in the colony could only be understood in light of “distinctions and animosities” that had “immemorially prevailed” between “the people of the established Church and the Presbyterians.”
Anglican Loyalists and the Llewelyn conspiracy
As Patriot grievances against the Crown grew in the 1770s, more and more instances arose involving the rebellion against the state church. Patriot Committees of Safety forced Anglican ministers from the pulpit and deprived them of their salaries.
In 1776, John Llewelyn, an Anglican Loyalist in northeastern North Carolina, began a conspiracy designed to take advantage of Anglican hatred of Catholics by spreading the rumor that the Patriot members of the Halifax Congress were working to bring France into the war — and with it, “Popery.”
When the Provincial Congress wrote the North Carolina Constitution of 1776, it disestablished the Anglican Church, providing no more public money for its support. Combined with the rumor of France entering the war, this aroused many Anglicans who had thus far remained neutral toward the Patriots. Llewelyn distributed the “constitution” document, along with oaths of loyalty to the king, to Anglican Tories hoping to recruit fellow Anglicans at religious services — asking them to “stand up for Religion.”
Llewelyn built a sizable army of Tory sympathizers with this method. The conspiracy was broken in July 1777 when 30 of Llewelyn’s men tried to attack a powder magazine in Tarboro. The men were caught, disarmed, and made to take the oath of allegiance to the new state government of North Carolina. Llewelyn underwent trial in Edenton, while many of the other conspirators fled the state.
The schism between dissenters and Anglicans over religious matters resulted in Presbyterians from Mecklenburg County instructing their delegates to the Provincial Congress in Halifax (which wrote the first North Carolina Constitution in 1776) “to have all vestry laws and marriage acts … forever abolished.” That Provincial Congress did abolish the ecclesiastical laws in North Carolina, disestablish the Anglican Church, and produce a Declaration of Rights stating “[t]hat all men have a natural and unalienable right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences.”
Significance of the religious dissenters to American history
The victory won by the Patriots in the American Revolution was as much a triumph of religious freedom for dissenting denominations over the oppressive regulations of the Anglican Church as it was a political victory. The principles of individual freedom before God, introduced with the Great Awakening and development of the dissenting denominations, helped produce a freedom-loving people who resented central authority, whether religious or political.
Historians have commented that because the royal governors constantly condemned the Baptist dissenters from the backcountry, “[n]ot a single adherent to the Baptist faith is known to have held an office of importance either at the local or the provincial level before the Revolution, but it was from among the members of this church that much of the leadership of the early revolutionary movement was to emerge.” The experience of the struggle by dissenters against the state church was a common thread that bound political freedom with religious freedom in the coming of the Revolution in North Carolina.
