Conspiracy theories run deep in American history. So it should come as no surprise that during the tumultuous period following the Declaration of Independence and the collapse of British institutions in the former American colonies, a group of yeomen and planters in the Albermarle region of North Carolina became suspicious of the intentions of local revolutionary authorities. The form that their suspicions took, however, might raise a modern eyebrow: they believed that the revolutionary leadership of North Carolina was involved in a Catholic-inspired plot to subvert the Protestant political culture that had previously guaranteed their rights as free Englishmen. Their evidence: the interim government’s effort to impose military service, its championing of an alliance with France, and the efforts of fourteen prominent delegates to the North Carolina constitutional convention to purge the document of all references to that Protestant culture in the name of Enlightenment ideals. Notably, the same agrarian interests had just recently decried the Quebec Act of 1774 as signaling popish infiltration of England’s ministries and a threat to their Protestant liberties, and many had considered it grounds to declare independence.

Conspiracy theories run deep in American history.

Now faced with existential threats from their new government, these North Carolinians did what any red-blooded Americans would do: they formed a secret society. Known to its members as “the Brethren” and, ultimately, to the authorities as “the Associators,” the group quickly developed governing institutions, recruiting methods, a written constitution