Tryon Resolves

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Today known as the Tryon Resolves (the document was originally titled the Tryon Declaration of Rights and Independence from British Tyranny), it was a short declaration signed on August 14, 1775 by members of the Tryon County Association in Tryon County, North Carolina, early in the American Revolution. The signers promised to resist the British government’s growing coercion of the colonies. They did not declare independence, but supported armed resistance until a peaceful agreement with Britain could be reached.

The Tryon Association formed after the April 19, 1775 Battle of Lexington, and the Resolves were among the first local statements against British policies. Nearby Mecklenburg Resolves (Mecklenburg County, NC) and the Suffolk Resolves (Suffolk County, MA) are other examples of similar early declarations.

Although the Resolves came almost eleven months before the national Declaration of Independence, they stopped short of independence and favored resistance for the time being. As tensions rose, Committees of Safety were formed to organize militia. On September 14, 1775, many signers helped form the Tryon County Militia in preparation for possible British retaliation.

The subscribers to the Tryon Association were listed alphabetically.