38. Deadly “Rape Gangs”
Micajah “Big” Harpe and his young brother Wiley “Little” Harpe were born in North Carolina to Scottish parents. Their father was a British Loyalist who fought in a Tory militia during the Regulator War (1765 – 1771) against local insurgents who took up arms against corrupt colonial officials. When the American Revolution began, their father tried to join the Patriots, but his past record as a Tory made him suspect in their eyes. Instead, Patriot neighbors took to persecuting the Harpe family, which drove the Harpe brothers to seek revenge by fighting on the British side.
Big and Little Harpe joined what was described as a Loyalist “rape gang”. Taking advantage of the wartime breakdown of law and order, the Harpes and their associates went on a deadly and depraved spree of robbery, arson, kidnapping, rape, and murder, targeting Patriots. At times, they fought alongside the British without pay, subsisting by looting battlefields. They are known to have been present at the battles of Kings Mountain and Blackstocks in 1780, and the Battle of Cowpens in 1781.
