January 28, 2019 • 39 mins
This episode was inspired by the TV series "Outlander." The Regulator War, aka the War of the Regulation, aka the Regulator Movement, was a North Carolina event which arose in response to unfair taxes, poor representation and corruption.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. If you
have been watching the fourth season of the TV show Outlander,
(00:21):
one of the things that keeps coming up is that
there are some rebellious people in colonial North Carolina who
are called the Regulators, and that they're mad about something
about unfair taxes and corruption. The show doesn't really make
it all that clear. This season of Outlander was roughly
based on the novel Drums of Autumn, which, to be clear,
(00:42):
I haven't read. I also haven't read the next novel
after that one, which is called The Fiery Cross. And
this episode is being recorded before the last episode of
this season of the TV show, but it's gonna come
out after, so I don't have any idea what's happening
in the season finale, but it seemed like with all
of this, uh, it would be a good time to
(01:03):
do an episode on the Regulator War also known as
the War of the Regulation, also known as the Regulator Movement,
which is something that people started asking us to do
all the way back during the last time we did
an Outlander themed episode, and that was in with our
installment on the Jacobite Rising of seventy. Yeah, I'll confess
(01:23):
that part of me wanted this to be some very
weird steampunky because it does. The name sounds so good.
It does. And one of the things that currently is
a bit of a challenge this will all be sorted
out by the time this episode comes out, is finding
the artwork to go with it on our website, because
I keep getting these strange uh not. I mean, they're beautiful,
(01:47):
some of them, but they're definitely steampunk inspired watches and
not and not anything to do with the actual historical
event now. And I also do I do want to
say right up here at the top that there is
really a lot to unpack with this season of Outlander
in terms of its representation of a number of people's
and that is not what today's episode is about at all,
(02:10):
but there's a lot there, so I just wanted to
acknowledge that it exists. I have not been watching, so
I have no idea, but to make sense of this
whole series of events we're talking about, we first need
to get into some North Carolina geography. North Carolina is
divided into three geographical regions from west to east. They
are the Mountains, the Piedmont, and the coastal Plain. Sometimes
(02:33):
the coastal plain is even further divided into the inner
coastal plain and the tide water. Naturally, when Europeans started
colonizing this part of North America, they started out along
the coastal plain. And it's not just because that's where
they landed. Aside from the swampy bits, the coastal plains
soil is really soft and flat and rich. It's not
particularly rocky. This part of the continent has navigable rivers
(02:58):
that are really good for carrying things can force to
the ocean. And overall, this was a lot of what
would become North Carolina's best farmland, and it was a
place where wealthy planters started establishing big plantations with enslaved workforces.
The coastal Plain is separated from the adjacent Piedmont by
a geological boundary known as the fall line. This is
(03:19):
basically a dividing line between the harder, rockier, more clay
like Piedmont and the softer, sandy or coastal plaine. In
addition to the differences in the soil and farming conditions
on either side of the line. Rivers crossing the line
descend through waterfalls and rapids, making them impractical too impossible
to use to transport people and goods. There are of
(03:40):
course fall lines all over the world, and in terms
of the Atlantic Seaboard fall Line, it runs from New
York to Georgia. Yeah, you could still certainly grow things
in the Piedmont, but it was harder, and then it
was harder to get them anywhere, a little bit of
a disadvantage. It makes me think of the various stories
we've done on on things like, um, I think Brook
Farm had this problem the brook Farm community where they
(04:02):
were like, we're going to go start a thing where
no one else is doing stuff. We're gonna farm here,
and it's like, no one else is farming here for
a reason. It is made of rocks. Also, just to
clear up a little geographical confusion for Outlander viewers who
might be trying to imagine where all of this is
happening in relation to the TV show, the fictional Fraser's
(04:24):
Ridge is in the Blue Ridge Mountains in northwest North Carolina,
somewhere near the real places of Boone and blowing Rock,
and that is on the opposite end of the state
from Wilmington's which is out on the southeastern coast, roughly
three hundred miles or four eighty kilometers away. Fraser's Ridge
also would not be very close to Cross Creek or
(04:45):
the Cape Beer River, which is home to the show's
fictional plantation of River Run. That is roughly two hundred
miles or three kilometers. Today, you would measure it from
roughly Boone to Fayetteville, which is what Cross Creek is
known as today. The kind of makes it look like
these places are all next door to each other. They
are not. This geography might seem like a weird thing
(05:08):
to be spending all this much time on, but in
colonial North Carolina, the division between the Piedmont and the
coastal plain contributed to huge divisions among the colonists and
between the colonists and the government. At first, the vast
majority of colonial activity was happening out on the coastal plain,
with mostly English colonists, and they were arriving by boat,
(05:29):
either from Europe or from other colonies. But in the
seventeen hundreds that really started to change. The western part
of the colony experienced a huge population boom. Newcomers were
arriving in the mountains and the Piedmont along the Great
Wagon Road also known as the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road.
This had started out as a trading route that was
(05:50):
being used by eastern North America's native peoples, and it
ran from Philadelphia down to Georgia. By the eighteenth century,
it had been widened to accommodate wagons in some places
had been shifted to cross rivers and to get around
obstacles more easily. Many of these new arrivals were Scots,
Irish or German, and while most of the English colonists
out on the coast were Anglican, the Scots, Irish and
(06:12):
German people arriving in North Carolina included a lot more Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers,
and Moravians. So from settlement to settlement, or even within settlements,
people often didn't speak the same language or follow the
same religious practices and observances, and as a general trend,
the Piedmont was much poorer than the coast, with most
(06:32):
people scratching out a living as subsistence farmers rather than
running large plantations. The influx of Europeans to the Piedmont
was huge. North Carolina's population more than doubled between seventeen
thirty and seventeen fifty, and then nearly tripled in the
twenty years after that. Most of these new arrivals were
settling in what was known then as the back counties.
(06:55):
That was the Piedmont, which is at the time considered
the North Carolina Frontier. This combination of geography and demographics
led to many problems people in the Piedmont and the mountains,
but our focus for this is really the Piedmont. In
this episode, uh thought that they were being unfairly taxed
because various taxes were levied at the same rate there
(07:16):
as they were out on the coast, where people had
more money. Settlers in the Piedmont were also represented in
the Assembly, but those Assembly seats had not been reapportioned
in light of the population boom, so the Piedmont settlers
also felt that they weren't really being fairly represented in
the Assembly either. A lot of local political and court
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offices were being filled by appointment, either by the monarch
or by the governor or by the Assembly. A lot
of these appointees were wealthy and powerful people from the
coast or friends of theirs. So, together with the tax issues,
that really led to a perception that the Piedmont did
not matter to the Assembly or to the governor except
when it came to being taxed, and even when there
(07:58):
was some local control roll over who was in charge.
The government and courts were very cliquish. Technically, most officials
were appointed by the governor, but in many cases the
governor made these appointments based on the recommendations of the
court itself, so those officers would recommend themselves and their friends,
ultimately creating a courthouse ring where the same powerful people
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were always in control of local politics and the legal system.
The existence of these courthouse rings wasn't necessarily the biggest
problem in people's minds. A bigger issue in the Piedmont
was that those legal and political positions went from being
held by farmers and planters to being held by lawyers
and merchants. So it seems like all the political power
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had increasingly moved toward these wealthy outsiders, a lot of
them either from the coast or connected to people from
the coast, and all of them in cahoots to stay
in power. And it also seemed like they were in
cahoots to take advantage of people. There were laws meant
to keep officials from abusing their positions, but they were
not consistently enforced, and people had to handle a lot
(09:03):
of matters through the court, everything from filing deeds to
trying to collect debts. The widespread perception was that everyone
from lawyers to clerks was making things take longer and
running up fees just to line their own pockets. For example,
if you were trying to file something with the Register
of Deeds, he might tax you three times, once for
(09:23):
each of the forms necessary to finish the transaction, rather
than just once for the whole transaction you were trying
to do. As another example of all this, people did
not trust the sheriffs at all. One of the sheriff's
duties was to collect the taxes, and here's how people
thought this process generally went down. It's clear that sometimes
(09:44):
the process did go down this way. Not clear whether
it happened every time, but this was how when somebody
said the sheriff's coming to collect the tax people just
sort of thought, Okay, this is how this is going
to happen. The sheriff would show up and demand the
tax but the taxpayer would not have the cash on
hand to actually pay it, because people didn't have a
lot of need to carry cash, and there was also
a serious shortage of actual physical currency to pay things with.
(10:08):
But most communities did have somebody who would keep cash
and basically acted like a banker, So the taxpayer would
ask to go see that person to get some money,
and the sheriff would refuse and seize some of their
property instead. I love that people just presume this is
how the process works, like there's a horrible flow chart
that ends with property seized. Um. People, though, did not
(10:31):
want to pay their taxes in property arbitrarily seized by
the sheriff. If it had to be paid, they wanted
to pay it with something of known value, like money.
So then taxpayers would try to negotiate, asking if they
could get their property back if they went and got
some money and then caught up to the sheriff down
the road, and the sheriff might even agree to this,
but then disappear. Later on, the taxpayer might hear that
(10:54):
his property had been sold off for much less than
it was worth, so he would still owe money. And
it was not just the taxpayers who thought that they
were being ripped off by crooked sheriffs and all this.
In seventeen sixty seven, North Carolina Governor William Tryon said
that he thought the sheriff's had embezzled half of the
money that they had been charged with collecting. Another thing,
(11:16):
the Piedmont settlers were unhappy with Governor Tryon. And we're
gonna get to that after we first paused for a
little sponsor break. So before the break, we talked about
a lot of stresses happening in North Carolina. We did
not even get into the tensions between the colonists and
(11:40):
the native people already living there, or the tensions with
the enslaved people that were also in North Carolina. Like,
there was really a lot going on. One of the
biggest things, though, in the minds of the regulators was
the Governor William Tryon. He had been appointed Lieutenant governor
of North Carolina in seventeen sixty four under Governor Arthur Dobs,
but Dobbs retired really soon after that and then died
(12:03):
in seventeen sixty five. When Trion became governor, he represented
the royal prerogative in the colony of North Carolina and
soon he established North Carolina's first permanent capital in Newbern,
which is near the coast and connected to the Atlantic
by the NEOs River. Tryon planned to build an extravagant
seat of the government and governor's residence in New Bern.
(12:25):
To that end, even before leaving England to become Lieutenant Governor,
he had convinced architect John Hawks to join him. Tryon
made his first request for funding for this project, nicknamed
Tryon's Palace, on November a, seventeen sixty six. Not long
after the Assembly allotted five thousand pounds to both by
the land and get started on the building. A lot
(12:47):
of people in the Piedmont thought this was extravagant, and then,
to make things worse than just the fact that it
was five thousand pounds to build something that was nicknamed
a palace, the money to do it was taken from
a one that had been established for public schools, and
then to restore the money back to that fund, the
Assembly imposed a poll tax and, more importantly, in the
(13:09):
minds of some people, a levy on alcoholic beverages. That
five thousand pounds was just the beginning, though another ten
thousand pounds was earmarked for the project two years later,
and then when it was finally time to open the
palace in seventeen seventy, Governor Tryon planned a huge gala
to celebrate. Tryon's palace wasn't the governor's only extravagance. In
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seventeen sixty seven, he mounted an expensive expedition that he
personally went on to survey and negotiate a new border
between North Carolina and the Cherokee Nation, and as had
happened with Triump's Palace, taxes were used to pay for this.
Settlers who were on the wrong side of the line
were required to move the following January, and the general
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perception among the people of the Piedmont was that Tryon
had made this a whole lavish production just to draw
attention to himself. That was described as quote making a
splendid exhibition of himself to the Indians. The regulators also
had a particular problem with one of the governor's friends,
Edmund Fanning. Fanning was a great example of the way
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a small group of people were holding a huge amount
of power, which we touched on before we had our
commercial break and born in New York, he was a lawyer,
an assemblyman, the Register of Deeds of Orange County, and
a colonel in the militia. He was not at all
the only person who had multiple titles like this. That
crossover among the Assembly and the courts and the militia
(14:38):
was huge and was contributing to the perception that the
Piedmont was being controlled by a few wealthy people. Fanning
was just the one who raised the most ire. There
was even a song about him, more than one. This
is the one we're going to read. When Fanning first
to Orange came, he looked both pale and wan, an
old patched coat upon his back, an old mayor. He
(15:00):
wrote on both man and mayor want worth five pounds,
as I've been offense hold, but by his civil robberies,
He's laced his coat with gold. On top of all
of this, the geography and the taxes, and the representation,
and the governor and the governor's friend, the colonists and
settlers of North Carolina were just fractious. The colony went
(15:22):
through numerous uprisings and rebellions in the decades leading up
to this. In sixteen seventy seven, Culpepper's rebellion was an
armed uprising largely in response to the Navigation Acts that
restricted colonial trade. In sixteen eighty nine, colonists arrested corrupt
Governor Says Sawthel, who was then put on trial and
banished by the Assembly. The next year, John Gibbs, who
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replaced Governor Sauthel, led an armed uprising against his successor
and vowed to fight him to the death. Then there
was Carrie's Rebellion in seventeen eleven, which is a lot
harder to sum up in one sentence. It is named
for former Governor Thomas Ry, who led an armed rebellion
against his successor that was rooted in both religion and politics.
(16:06):
The first seeds of the regulator movement had started back
before Governor Tryon asked for that five thousand pounds for
his palace. It was August seventeen sixty six a group
of Quakers met in Orange County to talk about all
their various grievances, all those issues that were connected to
taxation and corruption. One of them was a man named
(16:26):
Herman Husband, who's often described as one of the leaders
of the Regulator movement. It's a little more complicated than that.
As a Quaker, he could not get behind some of
the more violent acts that they took, and he really
distanced himself from the movement as it became more violent.
The people that met in August of seventeen sixty six
called themselves the Sandy Creek Association, and they planned to
(16:48):
go through the more typical, non violent means of trying
to get things changed. They were going to file petitions,
they were going to try to get representation in the Assembly,
things like that. The same New Creek Association didn't make
a lot of headway and escalated to things like refusing
to pay taxes. And then a law was passed in
seventeen sixty eight that required sheriffs to be at specific
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places on specific days to collect taxes, rather than just
showing up in the Piedmont. This made things worse instead
of better. Taxpayers felt like now the burden was on
them to travel somewhere to pay taxes, and because the
counties then were much larger than they are now, this
could be a very time consuming and expensive inconvenience. The
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new law also didn't do anything to address the many
other concerns with embezzlement and corruption. Yeah, it seems like
having a person take their taxes to the sheriff at
a specific time and place, rather than having the sheriff
show up and demand money. Like it seems like that
would be an improvement, was not really read as an improvement.
(17:53):
In the early spring of seventeen sixty eight, the Orange
County sheriff posted a list of all the places that
he would be collect the tax, along with a fine
for the people who did not make it to those
places at the right time. And taxpayers were really angry
about this, and they thought it might be illegal. By
this point, they had also heard about that additional money
that had been allotted to build Triumphs Palace. So a
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group of Orange County residents got together. They drafted a
letter which they sent to all of their various officials,
and here is what it said. Whereas the taxes in
the county are larger according to the number of taxables
than adjacent counties, and continue so year after year, and
as the jealousy still prevails among us that we are wronged,
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and having the more reason to think so, as we
have been at the trouble of choosing men and sending
them after the civilist manner, that we could to know
what we paid our levy for. But could receive no satisfaction.
We are obliged to seek redress by denying paying anymore
until we have a full settlement for what has passed
and have a true regulation with our officers. As our
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grievances are too many to notify in a small piece
of writing, we desire that you are assemblymen and vestrymen,
may appoint a time before next court at the courthouse,
and let us know by the bearer, and we will
choose men to act for us. We desire that the
sheriffs will not come this way to collect the levy,
for we will pay none before there is a settlement
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to our satisfaction. And as the nature of an officer
is a servant to the public, we are determined to
have the officers of this county under a better and
honester regulation than they have been for some time past.
Think not to frighten us with rebellion in this case,
For if the inhabitants of this province have not as
good a right to inquire into the nature of our
(19:42):
constitution and disbursement of our funds as those of our
mother country, we think it is by arbitrary proceedings that
we are debarred of that right. Therefore, to be plain
with you, it is our intent to have a full
settlement of yawn in every particular point that is matter
of doubt with us. So fail not to send an
answer by the bearer. They're basically refusing to pay any
(20:04):
taxes until these things are settled. Some cooler headed people
decided that the language in this initial letter was much
too aggressive, so they arranged to have a second meeting,
and at that second meeting they adopted this set of
articles that I find to just be delightfully conciliatory. Here's
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what it says. We, the subscribers, do voluntarily agree to
form ourselves into an association to assemble ourselves for conference
for regulating public aggrievances and abuses of power in the
following particulars, with others of a like nature that may occur.
One we will pay no more taxes until we are
(20:45):
satisfied that they are agreeable to law and applied to
the purposes therein mentioned, unless we cannot help it or
are forced. Two, we will pay no officer any more
fees than the law allows, unless we are a i
to do it, and then to show our dislike and
bear open testimony against it. Three, we will attend all
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our meetings of conferences as often as we conveniently can,
et cetera. Four, we will contribute to collections for defraying
necessary expenses attending the work according to our abilities. Five
in case of the difference and judgment, we will submit
to the judgment of the majority of our body. So
this is a lot more like we're not going to
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pay our taxes unless we have to, but then we
will complain about it. Both of these documents talked about regulating,
but the term regulators, as these men came to be known,
was likely picked up from a similar movement in South
Carolina that started the year before, although that particular movement
was more about combating lawlessness than tax reform and government corruption.
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Even though the regulators had tried to walk back that
first more aggressive statement, it was really too late. That
statement had already been sent to Orange County officers who
were affronted. But soon things really started to escalate, and
we will get to that. After another quick sponsor break
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on April four, seventy, the regulators called for another meeting,
this time to ask the sheriff to meet with the
committee to talk about their grievances, but before that meeting
could actually happen, one of the regulators saddle and bridle
were seized to pay off the levy. A group of
regulators went to try to get them back. That led
to weapons being drawn, but apparently no physical violence. Authorities
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tried to deploy a militia to reseize the reclaimed saddle
and bridle, but not enough people reported for duty to
go and do this, presumably because they were sympathetic to
the regulators and didn't want to go take up arms
against them. Edmund Fanning, having read only that first angry
Or document, wrote to the governor saying that these regular
leaders were going to burn down the Orange County seat
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of Hillsboro. At first, the governor was at least somewhat conciliatory,
and on April the regulators selected thirteen delegates to attend
a meeting to discuss their grievances. But before that meeting
could happen, Fanning had herman husband, and a regulator named
William Butler arrested and jailed, and this just inflamed tensions
even further. What followed was months and a lot of
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confusion and miscommunication, which is not really surprising considering that
now there have been two meetings that were thwarted by
some other action. Local authorities were trying to prosecute the regulators,
and the regulators were refusing to pay taxes and also
trying to bring charges against the officials who they thought
were corrupt. In July, Husband and Butler were tried and
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acquitted for inciting the populace to rebellion, and that same
court session, Fanning was indicted for taking excessive fees. Try
On also traveled to Hillsboro himself off during all this,
hoping that his presence would calm things down, and one
of the things he had to do was to dispel
rumors that he was recruiting a Native American fighting force
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to go after the regulators. By August, a new sheriff
had been appointed in Orange County, and he came bearing
a letter from the governor condemning the regulators and calling
their actions illegal. The next month, regulators, all of them farmers,
sent a proposal to the governor. Quote desiring to know
the terms on which their submission would be accepted, they
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were told that if they surrendered, nine of their leaders
from three counties laid down their arms and paid all
their taxes, they would be pardoned. Only about thirty people
accepted this agreement, and tryon sent troops to try to
track down and arrest some of the biggest ring leaders.
After all of this, several people were put on trial
for their involvement with the regulators, and those who were
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convicted paid fine and spent some time in prison, But
later on the governor pardoned everybody who had been found guilty.
That summer, he also dissolved the assembly and called for
a new election with new representatives, at which point several
men who had sympathies to the regulators or had been
really involved in the movement were elected to the Assembly.
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The regulators had little success bringing corrupt officials to trial,
though Edmund Fanning and another official named Francis Nash were
both charged with taking illegal fees. Nash was ultimately acquitted,
while Fanning was convicted but find only one penny for
each of the five offenses and resigned his post as
register of deeds. That Register of Deeds example we gave
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earlier in the show, where he was collecting multiple fees
on one transaction, was essentially what he was convicted of doing. Convicted,
but not really punished in a very meaningful way penny.
His His argument was was misconstruction of the law. Basically
that he had he had misunderstood that this was not allowed,
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and for punishment he can join the Columbia Records Club.
One penny thing is a little too much. In November
of seventeen sixty nine, regulators from multiple counties brought petitions
before the Assembly in New bern A petition from Anson
County called for changes to voting rights and taxation, for
(26:22):
paper money to be issued and loaned on land, for
the ability to sue for small debts without involving a lawyer.
That was important to that whole idea that the courts
were running up bees. If you could just handle small
debts without getting a lawyer involved, there would be less
of that. Reportedly, also some changes to how court officials
were paid, in particular paying them salaries rather than having
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them paid out of the fees. This petition also called
for all of the religious denominations to have the rights
to conduct legal marriages. For a long time, only Anglican
clergy had been able to legally perform marriages in North Carolina,
uh and once Presbyterians were also allowed to do it.
Part of their fees were still going to the Anglican Church.
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The Anson County regulators also called for Benjamin Franklin or
some other patriot to act as the colony's representative in London.
Regulators from Orange and Royanne Counties submitted a very similar petition,
asking for a lot of the same reforms, along with
calling for the assemblies yea and nay votes to be recorded.
In response, the Assembly introduced a number of bills meant
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to do several of these very things, although the lower
house did also pass a resolution that anyone who didn't
pay taxes was an enemy of the country. But on
November six, seventeen sixty nine, Governor Tryon got back to
the Assembly after having been ill, he saw these bills
that had been introduced. He dissolved the Assembly again and
called for another new election. Once again, though several pro
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regulator people were either elected or reelected. This included Herman
husband and John Pryor. But back in the Piedmont, many
of the regulators were incredibly frustrated. By this point. They
had been trying to get issues with taxation and corruption
resolved for roughly four years. They have no confidence that
the Assembly was actually going to get new laws passed,
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and it felt like everything that they had tried to
accomplish so far had been thwarted. So on Saturday, September
seventeen seventy, a group of regulators took a petition to
the Superior Court in Hillsboro. They felt that the juries
were prejudiced. They wanted the corrupt officers fairly tried, and
they wanted all these ongoing tax issues to be cleared
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up and fairly settled. They were told to come back
on Monday, and when they did, it was with a
hundred and fifty regulators armed with switches and sticks. They
took over the courtroom and disrected the court proceedings, and
then they surrounded the courthouse, whipping a lawyer and the
assistant district attorney when they tried to enter the building.
Then they whipped Edmund Fanning until he finally convinced them
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to let him go home if he promised to come
back in the morning. He did return in the morning,
and the regulators ran him out of town and then
tore down his house. But the judge did not return
to the courthouse, having fled in the middle of the night.
So the regulators broke into the courtroom and started trying
cases on the docket themselves. In the words of John
(29:20):
Spencer Bassett, who wrote a history of all of this quote,
whatever we may think of the justness of the cause
of the Regulators, we must readily agree that their conduct
on this occasion was illegal. After these incidents in Hillsborough,
Governor Tryon became understandably alarmed. He asked whether the Regulator's
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actions constituted treason and was told that no, that not.
Even so he started considering whether he could raise a
militia to fight them. Then, on November twelve, Judge Richard
Henderson's barn was burned down, presumably by regulators. Governor Tryon
convened the Assembly to determine a course of action. The
Assembly expect old Herman husband from his seat in the Assembly,
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and he was then put in jail, even though he
claimed he had no involvement with the Regulators at this
point and disabout all their actions. Regulators and the Piedmont
started planning a march to New Bern. Soon, Johnston's Riot
Act was introduced to the Assembly and it passed on
January fifteen, seventeen seventy one. It was an Act for
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preventing tumultuous and riotous assemblies, and for the more speedy
and effectually punishing the rioters, and for restoring and preserving
the public peace of this Province. It made rioting a
felony punishable by death, and it authorized the governor to
raise a militia to deal with it. At the same time,
the Assembly also passed several other bills relating to things
(30:44):
like sheriff's appointments and attorney fees, and faster collections of
small debts and salaries for the Chief Justice. They also
divided several of the counties into smaller, more manageable ones.
All of these reforms related to the things that the
regulators had been advocating for for so long, but rather
than waiting to see whether they resolved the situation, Governor
(31:07):
Tryon took advantage of the Johnson's Riot Act and raised
a militia. The regulators were outraged at this. The existence
of the Johnston Riot Act had inflamed tensions even further,
and the idea that the governor was actually raising a
militia to come after them raised numerous questions about civil
liberties and whether the governor was just going to resort
to violence anytime someone disagreed with him. This militia left
(31:31):
Newbern in April of seventeen seventy one and arrived in
Hillsboro on May nine to find that it was vastly
outnumbered by the regulators. The militia was also short on ammunition.
After a powder raid that had been undertaken by nine
young men dressed as Native Americans. They were later nicknamed
the Black Boys of Cabaris, reinforcements arrived on May eleventh,
(31:55):
which gave the militia a force of about one thousand men.
They were still outnumbered by the regulators two to one,
but the militia were much better trained and also better armed.
On May sixteenth, the regulators were told to disarm themselves
near Alamance Creek, but before the deadline given to do so,
the Governor's militia opened fire. This came to be known
(32:17):
as the Battle of Alamance, and it lasted a couple
of hours before the regulators ran out of ammunition. Nine
were killed on each side, although many more regulators were
wounded than militiamen. This effectively ended the regulator movement, although
Tryon's militia continued moving through the Piedmont, rounding people up
for some time. Afterward, one regulator named James Few was
(32:40):
executed on the spot at the Battle of Alamance. To
set an example, twelve more people were arrested and put
on trial. The six who were convicted were executed for
treason on June seventeen seventy one. Here is the sentencing
of one of them, a man named Benjamin Merrill. Quote.
I must now close by afflict duty by pronouncing upon
(33:01):
you the awful sentence of law, which is that you,
Benjamin Merrill, be carried to the place from whence you came.
That you be drawn from thence to the place of execution,
where you are to be hanged by the neck. That
you be cut down, while yet alive. That your bowels
be taken out and burnt before your face, That your
head be cut off, that your body be divided into
(33:22):
four quarters. And this to be at His Majesty's disposal.
And the Lord have mercy on your soul. After all this,
nearly sixty d settlers in the Piedmont were made to
swear allegiance to the government. This was about three quarters
of the white men in the more remote parts of
the colony, and afterward, many former regulators left North Carolina,
(33:44):
many of them settling near the Watauga River in what
would become East Tennessee. Tryon got back to New Burn
in June of seventeen seventy one, but then he left
the colony not long after that to become Governor of
New York. Fanning went with him to be his personal secretary.
Both Tryon and Fanning were on the Loyalist side in
the Revolutionary War. Trion died in London in seventeen eighty eight,
(34:07):
and Fanning died in eighteen eighteen. Herman husband fled to Pennsylvania,
where he was part of the Whiskey Rebellion, for which
he was convicted and condemned to death, but then later freed.
He died in seventeen nine. As for Tryon's palace, his successor,
Josiah Martin, furnished it really extravagantly, but then he fled
(34:28):
the capital in May of seventeen seventy six out of
fear of the Revolutionary War. The state government took control
of the building in seventeen seventy seven, although it was
again abandoned as the war went on. The building was
also damaged when large amounts of lead that had been
used in its construction were torn out of it and
made into musket balls. The state capital was moved to
(34:50):
Raleigh in seventeen ninety two, at which point Trion's Palace
had been damaged by vandals and squatters. It burned down
on February seven. It was restored and rebuilt in the
nineteen fifties and is now just known as Tryon Palace
without the s. Some historians argue that the regulator movement
was a precursor to the Revolutionary War, especially given how
(35:14):
much of the dispute was between ordinary farmers and the
royal governor, and how many of the same or similar
grievances were shared between the regulators and the patriots. In
addition to taxation and representation and other issues that we discussed.
Tryon supported the British government when it came to the
Stamp Act of seventeen sixty five, and had refused to
(35:35):
allow a delegation from North Carolina to attend the Stamp
Act Congress that October. And this whole incident does seem
to have inspired some of the patriots in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts,
but it does not appear that most of the regulators
became involved in the revolution themselves. None of this is
anything that I would have gleaned from watching Outlander, because
(35:57):
as we all know, Outlander is not really a source
of historical accuracy. Uh that is, that is not its mission.
You have listener mail for us, I sure do. This
is from John. John says, I just finished your two
part episode on so Journal Truth and really enjoyed it.
(36:18):
I teach high school history and have used some of
your podcast episodes in the past for source material as
well as some lessons for my students. Thank you for
always citing your sources. That is a lesson we try
to get across to our students, and it is nice
to you reinforce that. This past summer, I took a
course on American protest and we were looking at some
photographs that were sold during the abolitionist movement, including some
(36:40):
of so Journal Truth. One of the photos that Truth
posed for was her holding some yarn with a string
of yarn on her lap. In the outline of the
United States, you can infer that the nation is becoming
untangled over the issue of slavery. I included a link
to the photo and an online source. I thought you
would enjoy that fact. I also included a link to
an article on knitting and social activism for you, hoping
(37:03):
you would enjoy it. Thank you both for your enthusiasm
and passion for history, Sincerely, John, Thanks so much John
for this uh for this email. That photo is really
interesting because it's not possible for us to really know
whether the yarn was intentionally draped out that way, um
because it does kind of resemble the United States. But
(37:25):
also people are primed to see patterns and things. Uh So,
regardless of whether that was part of the initial intent
of the photographer, it does make it a really striking image. UM.
For that and other reasons, there are also a lot
of very interesting articles about those particular photos and how
(37:46):
they were posed and how they were framed and sort
of the more staged aspects to them and what they
all mean. It is super interesting for folks who were
interested in um like the history of photography and the
history of pick sure's, as like political meanings and even propaganda.
It's all tied together. So thanks so much John for
(38:09):
that note. If you would like to write to us
about this or any other podcast, we are at History
Podcasts at how Stuff Works. Dot com, and then we're
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to our website, which is missed in history dot com,
(38:30):
you will find up at the top of the page
where it says Paris trip exclamation point, information about the
trip we are taking to Paris later this year that
you can go on. UH. You can also find a
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(38:51):
and subscribe to our show in Apple podcast, the I
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staff works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. If you
have been watching the fourth season of the TV show Outlander,
(00:21):
one of the things that keeps coming up is that
there are some rebellious people in colonial North Carolina who
are called the Regulators, and that they're mad about something
about unfair taxes and corruption. The show doesn't really make
it all that clear. This season of Outlander was roughly
based on the novel Drums of Autumn, which, to be clear,
(00:42):
I haven't read. I also haven't read the next novel
after that one, which is called The Fiery Cross. And
this episode is being recorded before the last episode of
this season of the TV show, but it's gonna come
out after, so I don't have any idea what's happening
in the season finale, but it seemed like with all
of this, uh, it would be a good time to
(01:03):
do an episode on the Regulator War also known as
the War of the Regulation, also known as the Regulator Movement,
which is something that people started asking us to do
all the way back during the last time we did
an Outlander themed episode, and that was in with our
installment on the Jacobite Rising of seventy. Yeah, I'll confess
(01:23):
that part of me wanted this to be some very
weird steampunky because it does. The name sounds so good.
It does. And one of the things that currently is
a bit of a challenge this will all be sorted
out by the time this episode comes out, is finding
the artwork to go with it on our website, because
I keep getting these strange uh not. I mean, they're beautiful,
(01:47):
some of them, but they're definitely steampunk inspired watches and
not and not anything to do with the actual historical
event now. And I also do I do want to
say right up here at the top that there is
really a lot to unpack with this season of Outlander
in terms of its representation of a number of people's
and that is not what today's episode is about at all,
(02:10):
but there's a lot there, so I just wanted to
acknowledge that it exists. I have not been watching, so
I have no idea, but to make sense of this
whole series of events we're talking about, we first need
to get into some North Carolina geography. North Carolina is
divided into three geographical regions from west to east. They
are the Mountains, the Piedmont, and the coastal Plain. Sometimes
(02:33):
the coastal plain is even further divided into the inner
coastal plain and the tide water. Naturally, when Europeans started
colonizing this part of North America, they started out along
the coastal plain. And it's not just because that's where
they landed. Aside from the swampy bits, the coastal plains
soil is really soft and flat and rich. It's not
particularly rocky. This part of the continent has navigable rivers
(02:58):
that are really good for carrying things can force to
the ocean. And overall, this was a lot of what
would become North Carolina's best farmland, and it was a
place where wealthy planters started establishing big plantations with enslaved workforces.
The coastal Plain is separated from the adjacent Piedmont by
a geological boundary known as the fall line. This is
(03:19):
basically a dividing line between the harder, rockier, more clay
like Piedmont and the softer, sandy or coastal plaine. In
addition to the differences in the soil and farming conditions
on either side of the line. Rivers crossing the line
descend through waterfalls and rapids, making them impractical too impossible
to use to transport people and goods. There are of
(03:40):
course fall lines all over the world, and in terms
of the Atlantic Seaboard fall Line, it runs from New
York to Georgia. Yeah, you could still certainly grow things
in the Piedmont, but it was harder, and then it
was harder to get them anywhere, a little bit of
a disadvantage. It makes me think of the various stories
we've done on on things like, um, I think Brook
Farm had this problem the brook Farm community where they
(04:02):
were like, we're going to go start a thing where
no one else is doing stuff. We're gonna farm here,
and it's like, no one else is farming here for
a reason. It is made of rocks. Also, just to
clear up a little geographical confusion for Outlander viewers who
might be trying to imagine where all of this is
happening in relation to the TV show, the fictional Fraser's
(04:24):
Ridge is in the Blue Ridge Mountains in northwest North Carolina,
somewhere near the real places of Boone and blowing Rock,
and that is on the opposite end of the state
from Wilmington's which is out on the southeastern coast, roughly
three hundred miles or four eighty kilometers away. Fraser's Ridge
also would not be very close to Cross Creek or
(04:45):
the Cape Beer River, which is home to the show's
fictional plantation of River Run. That is roughly two hundred
miles or three kilometers. Today, you would measure it from
roughly Boone to Fayetteville, which is what Cross Creek is
known as today. The kind of makes it look like
these places are all next door to each other. They
are not. This geography might seem like a weird thing
(05:08):
to be spending all this much time on, but in
colonial North Carolina, the division between the Piedmont and the
coastal plain contributed to huge divisions among the colonists and
between the colonists and the government. At first, the vast
majority of colonial activity was happening out on the coastal plain,
with mostly English colonists, and they were arriving by boat,
(05:29):
either from Europe or from other colonies. But in the
seventeen hundreds that really started to change. The western part
of the colony experienced a huge population boom. Newcomers were
arriving in the mountains and the Piedmont along the Great
Wagon Road also known as the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road.
This had started out as a trading route that was
(05:50):
being used by eastern North America's native peoples, and it
ran from Philadelphia down to Georgia. By the eighteenth century,
it had been widened to accommodate wagons in some places
had been shifted to cross rivers and to get around
obstacles more easily. Many of these new arrivals were Scots,
Irish or German, and while most of the English colonists
out on the coast were Anglican, the Scots, Irish and
(06:12):
German people arriving in North Carolina included a lot more Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers,
and Moravians. So from settlement to settlement, or even within settlements,
people often didn't speak the same language or follow the
same religious practices and observances, and as a general trend,
the Piedmont was much poorer than the coast, with most
(06:32):
people scratching out a living as subsistence farmers rather than
running large plantations. The influx of Europeans to the Piedmont
was huge. North Carolina's population more than doubled between seventeen
thirty and seventeen fifty, and then nearly tripled in the
twenty years after that. Most of these new arrivals were
settling in what was known then as the back counties.
(06:55):
That was the Piedmont, which is at the time considered
the North Carolina Frontier. This combination of geography and demographics
led to many problems people in the Piedmont and the mountains,
but our focus for this is really the Piedmont. In
this episode, uh thought that they were being unfairly taxed
because various taxes were levied at the same rate there
(07:16):
as they were out on the coast, where people had
more money. Settlers in the Piedmont were also represented in
the Assembly, but those Assembly seats had not been reapportioned
in light of the population boom, so the Piedmont settlers
also felt that they weren't really being fairly represented in
the Assembly either. A lot of local political and court
(07:36):
offices were being filled by appointment, either by the monarch
or by the governor or by the Assembly. A lot
of these appointees were wealthy and powerful people from the
coast or friends of theirs. So, together with the tax issues,
that really led to a perception that the Piedmont did
not matter to the Assembly or to the governor except
when it came to being taxed, and even when there
(07:58):
was some local control roll over who was in charge.
The government and courts were very cliquish. Technically, most officials
were appointed by the governor, but in many cases the
governor made these appointments based on the recommendations of the
court itself, so those officers would recommend themselves and their friends,
ultimately creating a courthouse ring where the same powerful people
(08:21):
were always in control of local politics and the legal system.
The existence of these courthouse rings wasn't necessarily the biggest
problem in people's minds. A bigger issue in the Piedmont
was that those legal and political positions went from being
held by farmers and planters to being held by lawyers
and merchants. So it seems like all the political power
(08:41):
had increasingly moved toward these wealthy outsiders, a lot of
them either from the coast or connected to people from
the coast, and all of them in cahoots to stay
in power. And it also seemed like they were in
cahoots to take advantage of people. There were laws meant
to keep officials from abusing their positions, but they were
not consistently enforced, and people had to handle a lot
(09:03):
of matters through the court, everything from filing deeds to
trying to collect debts. The widespread perception was that everyone
from lawyers to clerks was making things take longer and
running up fees just to line their own pockets. For example,
if you were trying to file something with the Register
of Deeds, he might tax you three times, once for
(09:23):
each of the forms necessary to finish the transaction, rather
than just once for the whole transaction you were trying
to do. As another example of all this, people did
not trust the sheriffs at all. One of the sheriff's
duties was to collect the taxes, and here's how people
thought this process generally went down. It's clear that sometimes
(09:44):
the process did go down this way. Not clear whether
it happened every time, but this was how when somebody
said the sheriff's coming to collect the tax people just
sort of thought, Okay, this is how this is going
to happen. The sheriff would show up and demand the
tax but the taxpayer would not have the cash on
hand to actually pay it, because people didn't have a
lot of need to carry cash, and there was also
a serious shortage of actual physical currency to pay things with.
(10:08):
But most communities did have somebody who would keep cash
and basically acted like a banker, So the taxpayer would
ask to go see that person to get some money,
and the sheriff would refuse and seize some of their
property instead. I love that people just presume this is
how the process works, like there's a horrible flow chart
that ends with property seized. Um. People, though, did not
(10:31):
want to pay their taxes in property arbitrarily seized by
the sheriff. If it had to be paid, they wanted
to pay it with something of known value, like money.
So then taxpayers would try to negotiate, asking if they
could get their property back if they went and got
some money and then caught up to the sheriff down
the road, and the sheriff might even agree to this,
but then disappear. Later on, the taxpayer might hear that
(10:54):
his property had been sold off for much less than
it was worth, so he would still owe money. And
it was not just the taxpayers who thought that they
were being ripped off by crooked sheriffs and all this.
In seventeen sixty seven, North Carolina Governor William Tryon said
that he thought the sheriff's had embezzled half of the
money that they had been charged with collecting. Another thing,
(11:16):
the Piedmont settlers were unhappy with Governor Tryon. And we're
gonna get to that after we first paused for a
little sponsor break. So before the break, we talked about
a lot of stresses happening in North Carolina. We did
not even get into the tensions between the colonists and
(11:40):
the native people already living there, or the tensions with
the enslaved people that were also in North Carolina. Like,
there was really a lot going on. One of the
biggest things, though, in the minds of the regulators was
the Governor William Tryon. He had been appointed Lieutenant governor
of North Carolina in seventeen sixty four under Governor Arthur Dobs,
but Dobbs retired really soon after that and then died
(12:03):
in seventeen sixty five. When Trion became governor, he represented
the royal prerogative in the colony of North Carolina and
soon he established North Carolina's first permanent capital in Newbern,
which is near the coast and connected to the Atlantic
by the NEOs River. Tryon planned to build an extravagant
seat of the government and governor's residence in New Bern.
(12:25):
To that end, even before leaving England to become Lieutenant Governor,
he had convinced architect John Hawks to join him. Tryon
made his first request for funding for this project, nicknamed
Tryon's Palace, on November a, seventeen sixty six. Not long
after the Assembly allotted five thousand pounds to both by
the land and get started on the building. A lot
(12:47):
of people in the Piedmont thought this was extravagant, and then,
to make things worse than just the fact that it
was five thousand pounds to build something that was nicknamed
a palace, the money to do it was taken from
a one that had been established for public schools, and
then to restore the money back to that fund, the
Assembly imposed a poll tax and, more importantly, in the
(13:09):
minds of some people, a levy on alcoholic beverages. That
five thousand pounds was just the beginning, though another ten
thousand pounds was earmarked for the project two years later,
and then when it was finally time to open the
palace in seventeen seventy, Governor Tryon planned a huge gala
to celebrate. Tryon's palace wasn't the governor's only extravagance. In
(13:33):
seventeen sixty seven, he mounted an expensive expedition that he
personally went on to survey and negotiate a new border
between North Carolina and the Cherokee Nation, and as had
happened with Triump's Palace, taxes were used to pay for this.
Settlers who were on the wrong side of the line
were required to move the following January, and the general
(13:54):
perception among the people of the Piedmont was that Tryon
had made this a whole lavish production just to draw
attention to himself. That was described as quote making a
splendid exhibition of himself to the Indians. The regulators also
had a particular problem with one of the governor's friends,
Edmund Fanning. Fanning was a great example of the way
(14:17):
a small group of people were holding a huge amount
of power, which we touched on before we had our
commercial break and born in New York, he was a lawyer,
an assemblyman, the Register of Deeds of Orange County, and
a colonel in the militia. He was not at all
the only person who had multiple titles like this. That
crossover among the Assembly and the courts and the militia
(14:38):
was huge and was contributing to the perception that the
Piedmont was being controlled by a few wealthy people. Fanning
was just the one who raised the most ire. There
was even a song about him, more than one. This
is the one we're going to read. When Fanning first
to Orange came, he looked both pale and wan, an
old patched coat upon his back, an old mayor. He
(15:00):
wrote on both man and mayor want worth five pounds,
as I've been offense hold, but by his civil robberies,
He's laced his coat with gold. On top of all
of this, the geography and the taxes, and the representation,
and the governor and the governor's friend, the colonists and
settlers of North Carolina were just fractious. The colony went
(15:22):
through numerous uprisings and rebellions in the decades leading up
to this. In sixteen seventy seven, Culpepper's rebellion was an
armed uprising largely in response to the Navigation Acts that
restricted colonial trade. In sixteen eighty nine, colonists arrested corrupt
Governor Says Sawthel, who was then put on trial and
banished by the Assembly. The next year, John Gibbs, who
(15:45):
replaced Governor Sauthel, led an armed uprising against his successor
and vowed to fight him to the death. Then there
was Carrie's Rebellion in seventeen eleven, which is a lot
harder to sum up in one sentence. It is named
for former Governor Thomas Ry, who led an armed rebellion
against his successor that was rooted in both religion and politics.
(16:06):
The first seeds of the regulator movement had started back
before Governor Tryon asked for that five thousand pounds for
his palace. It was August seventeen sixty six a group
of Quakers met in Orange County to talk about all
their various grievances, all those issues that were connected to
taxation and corruption. One of them was a man named
(16:26):
Herman Husband, who's often described as one of the leaders
of the Regulator movement. It's a little more complicated than that.
As a Quaker, he could not get behind some of
the more violent acts that they took, and he really
distanced himself from the movement as it became more violent.
The people that met in August of seventeen sixty six
called themselves the Sandy Creek Association, and they planned to
(16:48):
go through the more typical, non violent means of trying
to get things changed. They were going to file petitions,
they were going to try to get representation in the Assembly,
things like that. The same New Creek Association didn't make
a lot of headway and escalated to things like refusing
to pay taxes. And then a law was passed in
seventeen sixty eight that required sheriffs to be at specific
(17:12):
places on specific days to collect taxes, rather than just
showing up in the Piedmont. This made things worse instead
of better. Taxpayers felt like now the burden was on
them to travel somewhere to pay taxes, and because the
counties then were much larger than they are now, this
could be a very time consuming and expensive inconvenience. The
(17:33):
new law also didn't do anything to address the many
other concerns with embezzlement and corruption. Yeah, it seems like
having a person take their taxes to the sheriff at
a specific time and place, rather than having the sheriff
show up and demand money. Like it seems like that
would be an improvement, was not really read as an improvement.
(17:53):
In the early spring of seventeen sixty eight, the Orange
County sheriff posted a list of all the places that
he would be collect the tax, along with a fine
for the people who did not make it to those
places at the right time. And taxpayers were really angry
about this, and they thought it might be illegal. By
this point, they had also heard about that additional money
that had been allotted to build Triumphs Palace. So a
(18:17):
group of Orange County residents got together. They drafted a
letter which they sent to all of their various officials,
and here is what it said. Whereas the taxes in
the county are larger according to the number of taxables
than adjacent counties, and continue so year after year, and
as the jealousy still prevails among us that we are wronged,
(18:38):
and having the more reason to think so, as we
have been at the trouble of choosing men and sending
them after the civilist manner, that we could to know
what we paid our levy for. But could receive no satisfaction.
We are obliged to seek redress by denying paying anymore
until we have a full settlement for what has passed
and have a true regulation with our officers. As our
(19:00):
grievances are too many to notify in a small piece
of writing, we desire that you are assemblymen and vestrymen,
may appoint a time before next court at the courthouse,
and let us know by the bearer, and we will
choose men to act for us. We desire that the
sheriffs will not come this way to collect the levy,
for we will pay none before there is a settlement
(19:21):
to our satisfaction. And as the nature of an officer
is a servant to the public, we are determined to
have the officers of this county under a better and
honester regulation than they have been for some time past.
Think not to frighten us with rebellion in this case,
For if the inhabitants of this province have not as
good a right to inquire into the nature of our
(19:42):
constitution and disbursement of our funds as those of our
mother country, we think it is by arbitrary proceedings that
we are debarred of that right. Therefore, to be plain
with you, it is our intent to have a full
settlement of yawn in every particular point that is matter
of doubt with us. So fail not to send an
answer by the bearer. They're basically refusing to pay any
(20:04):
taxes until these things are settled. Some cooler headed people
decided that the language in this initial letter was much
too aggressive, so they arranged to have a second meeting,
and at that second meeting they adopted this set of
articles that I find to just be delightfully conciliatory. Here's
(20:25):
what it says. We, the subscribers, do voluntarily agree to
form ourselves into an association to assemble ourselves for conference
for regulating public aggrievances and abuses of power in the
following particulars, with others of a like nature that may occur.
One we will pay no more taxes until we are
(20:45):
satisfied that they are agreeable to law and applied to
the purposes therein mentioned, unless we cannot help it or
are forced. Two, we will pay no officer any more
fees than the law allows, unless we are a i
to do it, and then to show our dislike and
bear open testimony against it. Three, we will attend all
(21:07):
our meetings of conferences as often as we conveniently can,
et cetera. Four, we will contribute to collections for defraying
necessary expenses attending the work according to our abilities. Five
in case of the difference and judgment, we will submit
to the judgment of the majority of our body. So
this is a lot more like we're not going to
(21:28):
pay our taxes unless we have to, but then we
will complain about it. Both of these documents talked about regulating,
but the term regulators, as these men came to be known,
was likely picked up from a similar movement in South
Carolina that started the year before, although that particular movement
was more about combating lawlessness than tax reform and government corruption.
(21:51):
Even though the regulators had tried to walk back that
first more aggressive statement, it was really too late. That
statement had already been sent to Orange County officers who
were affronted. But soon things really started to escalate, and
we will get to that. After another quick sponsor break
(22:16):
on April four, seventy, the regulators called for another meeting,
this time to ask the sheriff to meet with the
committee to talk about their grievances, but before that meeting
could actually happen, one of the regulators saddle and bridle
were seized to pay off the levy. A group of
regulators went to try to get them back. That led
to weapons being drawn, but apparently no physical violence. Authorities
(22:40):
tried to deploy a militia to reseize the reclaimed saddle
and bridle, but not enough people reported for duty to
go and do this, presumably because they were sympathetic to
the regulators and didn't want to go take up arms
against them. Edmund Fanning, having read only that first angry
Or document, wrote to the governor saying that these regular
leaders were going to burn down the Orange County seat
(23:02):
of Hillsboro. At first, the governor was at least somewhat conciliatory,
and on April the regulators selected thirteen delegates to attend
a meeting to discuss their grievances. But before that meeting
could happen, Fanning had herman husband, and a regulator named
William Butler arrested and jailed, and this just inflamed tensions
even further. What followed was months and a lot of
(23:26):
confusion and miscommunication, which is not really surprising considering that
now there have been two meetings that were thwarted by
some other action. Local authorities were trying to prosecute the regulators,
and the regulators were refusing to pay taxes and also
trying to bring charges against the officials who they thought
were corrupt. In July, Husband and Butler were tried and
(23:47):
acquitted for inciting the populace to rebellion, and that same
court session, Fanning was indicted for taking excessive fees. Try
On also traveled to Hillsboro himself off during all this,
hoping that his presence would calm things down, and one
of the things he had to do was to dispel
rumors that he was recruiting a Native American fighting force
(24:10):
to go after the regulators. By August, a new sheriff
had been appointed in Orange County, and he came bearing
a letter from the governor condemning the regulators and calling
their actions illegal. The next month, regulators, all of them farmers,
sent a proposal to the governor. Quote desiring to know
the terms on which their submission would be accepted, they
(24:32):
were told that if they surrendered, nine of their leaders
from three counties laid down their arms and paid all
their taxes, they would be pardoned. Only about thirty people
accepted this agreement, and tryon sent troops to try to
track down and arrest some of the biggest ring leaders.
After all of this, several people were put on trial
for their involvement with the regulators, and those who were
(24:55):
convicted paid fine and spent some time in prison, But
later on the governor pardoned everybody who had been found guilty.
That summer, he also dissolved the assembly and called for
a new election with new representatives, at which point several
men who had sympathies to the regulators or had been
really involved in the movement were elected to the Assembly.
(25:15):
The regulators had little success bringing corrupt officials to trial,
though Edmund Fanning and another official named Francis Nash were
both charged with taking illegal fees. Nash was ultimately acquitted,
while Fanning was convicted but find only one penny for
each of the five offenses and resigned his post as
register of deeds. That Register of Deeds example we gave
(25:38):
earlier in the show, where he was collecting multiple fees
on one transaction, was essentially what he was convicted of doing. Convicted,
but not really punished in a very meaningful way penny.
His His argument was was misconstruction of the law. Basically
that he had he had misunderstood that this was not allowed,
(26:01):
and for punishment he can join the Columbia Records Club.
One penny thing is a little too much. In November
of seventeen sixty nine, regulators from multiple counties brought petitions
before the Assembly in New bern A petition from Anson
County called for changes to voting rights and taxation, for
(26:22):
paper money to be issued and loaned on land, for
the ability to sue for small debts without involving a lawyer.
That was important to that whole idea that the courts
were running up bees. If you could just handle small
debts without getting a lawyer involved, there would be less
of that. Reportedly, also some changes to how court officials
were paid, in particular paying them salaries rather than having
(26:45):
them paid out of the fees. This petition also called
for all of the religious denominations to have the rights
to conduct legal marriages. For a long time, only Anglican
clergy had been able to legally perform marriages in North Carolina,
uh and once Presbyterians were also allowed to do it.
Part of their fees were still going to the Anglican Church.
(27:06):
The Anson County regulators also called for Benjamin Franklin or
some other patriot to act as the colony's representative in London.
Regulators from Orange and Royanne Counties submitted a very similar petition,
asking for a lot of the same reforms, along with
calling for the assemblies yea and nay votes to be recorded.
In response, the Assembly introduced a number of bills meant
(27:29):
to do several of these very things, although the lower
house did also pass a resolution that anyone who didn't
pay taxes was an enemy of the country. But on
November six, seventeen sixty nine, Governor Tryon got back to
the Assembly after having been ill, he saw these bills
that had been introduced. He dissolved the Assembly again and
called for another new election. Once again, though several pro
(27:53):
regulator people were either elected or reelected. This included Herman
husband and John Pryor. But back in the Piedmont, many
of the regulators were incredibly frustrated. By this point. They
had been trying to get issues with taxation and corruption
resolved for roughly four years. They have no confidence that
the Assembly was actually going to get new laws passed,
(28:16):
and it felt like everything that they had tried to
accomplish so far had been thwarted. So on Saturday, September
seventeen seventy, a group of regulators took a petition to
the Superior Court in Hillsboro. They felt that the juries
were prejudiced. They wanted the corrupt officers fairly tried, and
they wanted all these ongoing tax issues to be cleared
(28:36):
up and fairly settled. They were told to come back
on Monday, and when they did, it was with a
hundred and fifty regulators armed with switches and sticks. They
took over the courtroom and disrected the court proceedings, and
then they surrounded the courthouse, whipping a lawyer and the
assistant district attorney when they tried to enter the building.
Then they whipped Edmund Fanning until he finally convinced them
(28:59):
to let him go home if he promised to come
back in the morning. He did return in the morning,
and the regulators ran him out of town and then
tore down his house. But the judge did not return
to the courthouse, having fled in the middle of the night.
So the regulators broke into the courtroom and started trying
cases on the docket themselves. In the words of John
(29:20):
Spencer Bassett, who wrote a history of all of this quote,
whatever we may think of the justness of the cause
of the Regulators, we must readily agree that their conduct
on this occasion was illegal. After these incidents in Hillsborough,
Governor Tryon became understandably alarmed. He asked whether the Regulator's
(29:40):
actions constituted treason and was told that no, that not.
Even so he started considering whether he could raise a
militia to fight them. Then, on November twelve, Judge Richard
Henderson's barn was burned down, presumably by regulators. Governor Tryon
convened the Assembly to determine a course of action. The
Assembly expect old Herman husband from his seat in the Assembly,
(30:02):
and he was then put in jail, even though he
claimed he had no involvement with the Regulators at this
point and disabout all their actions. Regulators and the Piedmont
started planning a march to New Bern. Soon, Johnston's Riot
Act was introduced to the Assembly and it passed on
January fifteen, seventeen seventy one. It was an Act for
(30:23):
preventing tumultuous and riotous assemblies, and for the more speedy
and effectually punishing the rioters, and for restoring and preserving
the public peace of this Province. It made rioting a
felony punishable by death, and it authorized the governor to
raise a militia to deal with it. At the same time,
the Assembly also passed several other bills relating to things
(30:44):
like sheriff's appointments and attorney fees, and faster collections of
small debts and salaries for the Chief Justice. They also
divided several of the counties into smaller, more manageable ones.
All of these reforms related to the things that the
regulators had been advocating for for so long, but rather
than waiting to see whether they resolved the situation, Governor
(31:07):
Tryon took advantage of the Johnson's Riot Act and raised
a militia. The regulators were outraged at this. The existence
of the Johnston Riot Act had inflamed tensions even further,
and the idea that the governor was actually raising a
militia to come after them raised numerous questions about civil
liberties and whether the governor was just going to resort
to violence anytime someone disagreed with him. This militia left
(31:31):
Newbern in April of seventeen seventy one and arrived in
Hillsboro on May nine to find that it was vastly
outnumbered by the regulators. The militia was also short on ammunition.
After a powder raid that had been undertaken by nine
young men dressed as Native Americans. They were later nicknamed
the Black Boys of Cabaris, reinforcements arrived on May eleventh,
(31:55):
which gave the militia a force of about one thousand men.
They were still outnumbered by the regulators two to one,
but the militia were much better trained and also better armed.
On May sixteenth, the regulators were told to disarm themselves
near Alamance Creek, but before the deadline given to do so,
the Governor's militia opened fire. This came to be known
(32:17):
as the Battle of Alamance, and it lasted a couple
of hours before the regulators ran out of ammunition. Nine
were killed on each side, although many more regulators were
wounded than militiamen. This effectively ended the regulator movement, although
Tryon's militia continued moving through the Piedmont, rounding people up
for some time. Afterward, one regulator named James Few was
(32:40):
executed on the spot at the Battle of Alamance. To
set an example, twelve more people were arrested and put
on trial. The six who were convicted were executed for
treason on June seventeen seventy one. Here is the sentencing
of one of them, a man named Benjamin Merrill. Quote.
I must now close by afflict duty by pronouncing upon
(33:01):
you the awful sentence of law, which is that you,
Benjamin Merrill, be carried to the place from whence you came.
That you be drawn from thence to the place of execution,
where you are to be hanged by the neck. That
you be cut down, while yet alive. That your bowels
be taken out and burnt before your face, That your
head be cut off, that your body be divided into
(33:22):
four quarters. And this to be at His Majesty's disposal.
And the Lord have mercy on your soul. After all this,
nearly sixty d settlers in the Piedmont were made to
swear allegiance to the government. This was about three quarters
of the white men in the more remote parts of
the colony, and afterward, many former regulators left North Carolina,
(33:44):
many of them settling near the Watauga River in what
would become East Tennessee. Tryon got back to New Burn
in June of seventeen seventy one, but then he left
the colony not long after that to become Governor of
New York. Fanning went with him to be his personal secretary.
Both Tryon and Fanning were on the Loyalist side in
the Revolutionary War. Trion died in London in seventeen eighty eight,
(34:07):
and Fanning died in eighteen eighteen. Herman husband fled to Pennsylvania,
where he was part of the Whiskey Rebellion, for which
he was convicted and condemned to death, but then later freed.
He died in seventeen nine. As for Tryon's palace, his successor,
Josiah Martin, furnished it really extravagantly, but then he fled
(34:28):
the capital in May of seventeen seventy six out of
fear of the Revolutionary War. The state government took control
of the building in seventeen seventy seven, although it was
again abandoned as the war went on. The building was
also damaged when large amounts of lead that had been
used in its construction were torn out of it and
made into musket balls. The state capital was moved to
(34:50):
Raleigh in seventeen ninety two, at which point Trion's Palace
had been damaged by vandals and squatters. It burned down
on February seven. It was restored and rebuilt in the
nineteen fifties and is now just known as Tryon Palace
without the s. Some historians argue that the regulator movement
was a precursor to the Revolutionary War, especially given how
(35:14):
much of the dispute was between ordinary farmers and the
royal governor, and how many of the same or similar
grievances were shared between the regulators and the patriots. In
addition to taxation and representation and other issues that we discussed.
Tryon supported the British government when it came to the
Stamp Act of seventeen sixty five, and had refused to
(35:35):
allow a delegation from North Carolina to attend the Stamp
Act Congress that October. And this whole incident does seem
to have inspired some of the patriots in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts,
but it does not appear that most of the regulators
became involved in the revolution themselves. None of this is
anything that I would have gleaned from watching Outlander, because
(35:57):
as we all know, Outlander is not really a source
of historical accuracy. Uh that is, that is not its mission.
You have listener mail for us, I sure do. This
is from John. John says, I just finished your two
part episode on so Journal Truth and really enjoyed it.
(36:18):
I teach high school history and have used some of
your podcast episodes in the past for source material as
well as some lessons for my students. Thank you for
always citing your sources. That is a lesson we try
to get across to our students, and it is nice
to you reinforce that. This past summer, I took a
course on American protest and we were looking at some
photographs that were sold during the abolitionist movement, including some
(36:40):
of so Journal Truth. One of the photos that Truth
posed for was her holding some yarn with a string
of yarn on her lap. In the outline of the
United States, you can infer that the nation is becoming
untangled over the issue of slavery. I included a link
to the photo and an online source. I thought you
would enjoy that fact. I also included a link to
an article on knitting and social activism for you, hoping
(37:03):
you would enjoy it. Thank you both for your enthusiasm
and passion for history, Sincerely, John, Thanks so much John
for this uh for this email. That photo is really
interesting because it's not possible for us to really know
whether the yarn was intentionally draped out that way, um
because it does kind of resemble the United States. But
(37:25):
also people are primed to see patterns and things. Uh So,
regardless of whether that was part of the initial intent
of the photographer, it does make it a really striking image. UM.
For that and other reasons, there are also a lot
of very interesting articles about those particular photos and how
(37:46):
they were posed and how they were framed and sort
of the more staged aspects to them and what they
all mean. It is super interesting for folks who were
interested in um like the history of photography and the
history of pick sure's, as like political meanings and even propaganda.
It's all tied together. So thanks so much John for
(38:09):
that note. If you would like to write to us
about this or any other podcast, we are at History
Podcasts at how Stuff Works. Dot com, and then we're
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to our website, which is missed in history dot com,
(38:30):
you will find up at the top of the page
where it says Paris trip exclamation point, information about the
trip we are taking to Paris later this year that
you can go on. UH. You can also find a
searchable archive of every episode we have ever done, and
you can find all of the show notes for the
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(38:51):
and subscribe to our show in Apple podcast, the I
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