Militias in the Revolution

Part-Time Soldiers with a Vital Role

Who They Were

Two militiamen talking
Militia reenactors (Credit: Jim.henderson / CC BY-SA [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0])

The word “militia” refers to people who fought in the Revolutionary War but were not officially in the regular British or Continental armies. Militias existed for decades prior to the war, to protect settlements against raids by the French, Spanish, pirates, and Native Americans and frequent slave revolts. North Carolina militias participated in the French and Indian War of 1754–63 and the