Regulators of North Carolina

Project Description

Research Questions

Introduction to the Regulation

Who Were the Regulators?

The Geography of the Regulation – A Western Insurrection Against Westerners

The earliest social history of the Regulation, by John Spencer Bassett, explained the Regulation as a sectional conflict rooted in the disparate economies of the Piedmont and coast. Large slave plantations dominated the eastern counties, argued Bassett, whereas an economically isolated western frontier practiced subsistence farming. Western farmers revolted against elite eastern planters, who overtaxed them while depriving them market access and adequate political representation.

Despite its geographic concentration in the piedmont, the Regulator insurrection did not pit westerners against easterners. Local clerks, lawyers, jurors and sheriffs earned the bulk of Regulator criticism. In the Tenth Regulator Advertisement, an assortment of Orange Country Regulators traced “all our grievances” to the “roguish practices of ignorant and unworthy men who have crept into Posts of Offices.” (CRNC 758-759). Regulator contempt crystallized around the person of Colonel Fanning, the leading political figure and assemblyman of Orange Country. Named in several petitions, Regulators successfully sued him for extortion (cite the trial). So great was the contempt for Colonel Fanning that Herman Husband, a leading Regulator devoted an entire tract to his abuses (A Fan for Fanning). Fanning was even ridiculed in song.

Criticisms of coastal planters and politicians were notably absent from most Regulator petitions, letters and advertisements. The one petition that references the “Maritime parts of the province,” far from exhibiting animosity towards coastal planters, instead challenges the planter elites of the western counties. An October 1769 petition from Rowan county asked that the Assembly “pass an Act, to Tax every one in proportion to his Estates; however equitable the Law as it now stands, may appear to the Inhabitants of the Maritime parts of the province, where estates consist chiefly in Slaves; yet to us in the frontier, where very few are possessed of slaves, tho’ their Estates are in proportion (in many instances) as of one Thousand to one, for all to pay equal, is with Submission, very grievous and oppressive.” These petitioners implicitly recognized that the taxes would seem fair to an eastern planter rich in slaves, who paid taxes on those slaves. Rather than castigate these eastern planters, the petitioners highlighted how these taxes worked an inequity among western farmers. The western land speculator paid the same amount of taxes as the subsistence farmer.

Though a thoroughly western rebellion, the Regulation was a western rebellion against fellow westerners.

Wealth – An Uprising of the Middling Farmer

Anti-Regulators, by contrast, controlled much of the wealth of the western counties. Extant tax lists indicate that wealthiest one percent of Orange County consisted mostly of known anti-Regulators. (Marvin Kay, 82). As both Mark Whittenberg and Marvin Kay note, not all anti-Regulators were rich, nor were all Regulators poor. Nevertheless, the wealthier segments of backcountry society provided steadfast opposition to the Regulation.

Occupation – A Farmer’s Rebellion

Regulators understood their movement as an insurrection against a non-agrarian elite. Rowan County Regulators petitioned the Assembly “to pass an Act to call in all the now acting Clerks, and to fill their places with Gentlemen of probity and Integrity” while also “prohibiting Judges, Lawyers and Sheriffs, from fingering any of their fees” before a final determination. (TC 376). The petition also requested “an Act to prevent and effectually restrain every lawyer and Clerk whatsoever from offering themselves as Candidates, at any future Election of Delegates, within this Province.” (TC, 375). Lack of “redress in what is called Courts of Justice,” Claimed Regulator Teague, derived from the substantial number of “Clarks & Sherrifs” who sat on the juries. (CRNC, 70). Regulators therefore defined themselves against non-agrarian laborers. The forces arraigned against the Regulators were a legal and mercantile elite, they envisioned, whose avarice and lack of scruples left their “whole properties… quite insecure.” (CRNC 233).

Just as the Regulators understood their movement as a defense of the planter class, likewise anti-Regulators understood the Regulation as an uprising against the legal and mercantile elites. Richard Henderson, a judge during the Hillsborough Riots, described how the Regulators deliberated targeted Hillsborough merchants. Only the merchants returned to town to find their windows shattered. (CRNC, 244). A keeper of the Atkin Ferry claimed that the Regulators were eager “to kill all the Clerks and Lawyers,” denouncing an Assembly that “made just such Laws as the Lawyers wanted.” (TC, 623). And Colonel Fanning worried that Regulators would punish the local Leaders, whom he identified as the “Clerks Sheriffs Registers Attornies and all Officers of every Degree and Station.” (TC, Fanning Letter 23 April 1768).

Religion – A Dissenters' Insurrection

Religious dissidence not only supplied the content of Regulator demands, but it also shaped the form of Regulator protest. Thus the October 1769 petition from Rowan county petitioned for “A Repeal of the Act, prohibiting Dissenting Ministers from marrying according to the Decretals, Rites and Ceremonys, of their Respective Churches,” a request that appeared after the petition to dismiss all the Clerks. (TC, 376). Even redress of the more economic and legal grievances bore religious undertones. Over taxation would be resolved by producing lists of Taxables for all to view. (CRNC 702). Not only could every farmer grasp the tax laws, but the act of revelation served as the appropriate method of correction. Fanning captured this dynamic with the greatest clarity, disclaiming that the county “Leaders” would “be arraigned at the Bar of their Shallow Understanding” and “be punished and regulated at their Will, & in a Word for them to become the Sovereign Arbiters of Right & Wrong.” (TC, Fanning Letter April 23, 1768).

Causes of the Regulation

Tax and Debt Collection

Much as local officials used tax collection for private profit, so too did these officials deploy debt collection as a means of personal aggrandizement. Clerks and attorneys overcharged for court fees. Colonel Fanning, for example, charged twice the normal court fees for a wealthy widow. (CRNC, 69). Regulator petitions and advertisements frequently objected to court offices collecting fees that exceeded the legal prescription. (CRNC 733). Legal mechanisms for satisfying debts provided additional opportunities for gain. Sheriffs collected twice for the same debts (CRNC 775), collected amounts that exceeded the value of outstanding debts (CRNC 776), and distrained goods and chattel to pay debts for which no writs could be located (CRNC 777). Governor Martin acknowledged these practices, declaring the “demands of Court officers for Fees… exorbitant, oppressive and extra-legal (CRNC 762). Echoing Regulator complaints, Martin condemned Sheriffs for collecting “Double, Trebble, nay even Quadruple the value of the… debt” (CRNC 763). Even Governor Tryon refused to defend the local officials, instead recommending that the Regulators find redress within “the Laws of the Country” (CRNC 793), and even going so far as to instruct his attorney general to prosecute any officer guilty of extortion (CRNC 794). Finally, the House even suggested reforming the laws governing fee collection because the “exactions of officers” seemed “penal” (CRNC 322). At the time it issued this proposal, anti-Regulators represented the backcountry, with Colonel Fanning himself representing Orange Country.

Control Over Backcountry Debt

Conclusion

Assorted Documents

• Governor_Tryons_Letter,_4_July_1767.pdf: Governor Tryon describes the embezzlement of taxes.

• Letter_from_Edmund_Fanning_to_Governor_Tryon,_23_April_1768.pdf: Letter from Edmund Fanning to Governor Tryon, detailing the objects of Regulator hostility.

• Letter_to_Governor_Tryon,_28_April_1768.pdf: Letter from Samuel Spencer, county clerk and assembly member. Spencer describes the Regulators' refusal to pay taxes, and their desire to inspect the court records.

• Letter_from_William_Tryon,_16_June_1768.pdf: Letter from Governor Tryon to the Earl of Hillsborough, describing the Regulator demands.

• Exchange_between_Anson_County_Regulators_and_Governor_Tryon,_15_Aug_1768.pdf: Exchange between Anson Country Regulators and Governor Tryon. In response to the Regulator accusations of extortion, Tryon recommends that they prosecute the offending officials.

• Governor_Tryons_Letter,_20_March_1769.pdf: Governor Tryon describes religious dissenters in the backcountry.

• Regulator_Petitions,_October_1769.pdf: Several Regulator petitions, demanding that: lawyers be barred from the House of Representatives; clerks receive salaries rather than fees; dissenting ministers be allowed to marry their followers; taxation proportional to estates; and several other items.

• House_Recommendations,_31_Oct_1769.pdf: Recommendations from the House of Representatives concerning record keeping for the public funds.

• Letter_to_Governor_Tryon,_13_March_1770.pdf: Letter to Governor Tryon explaining describing the religious dissenters' obstruction of a Vestry vote.

• Deposition_of_a_Backcountry_Resident,_8_March_1771.pdf: Deposition of a backcountry resident, describing the Regulator reaction to the Johnston Riot Act.

Herman Husband's "An Impartial Relation"

Herman Husband's "A Fan for Fanning"