Regulators of North Carolina

Progress Report

The analysis is still a work in progress. I have posted most of the available primary source material on the Regulation, principally from the Colonial Records of North Carolina and Governor Tryon's collected works. I have also attached two tracts written by Herman Husband. The remainder of the primary source material seems to be archived in North Carolina. I have one mechanical question about linking to primary source material - should I link the primary source material to text I have written, or should I instead include all the primary source material in a separate section at the end of the wikipage?

Project Description and Research Questions

Project Description

For my project, I intend to study anti-creditor movements during the pre-Revolutionary war period. More specifically, I plan to study the Regulator movement in North Carolina, identifying its causes, Regulator demands and responses to the movement.

Research Questions

Who were the Regulators? What were their grievances? How did this movement seek to address these grievances? What did the insurrection's ultimate failure demonstrate about the colony's economic, political and legal structure?

Introduction to the Regulation

The Regulation arose in the western counties of North Carolina during the spring of 1768. Composed primarily of middling farmers, the Regulators demanded a public accounting of the taxes paid, as well as an end to the extortionate fees that local clerks and sheriffs charged in debt prosecution and collection. Regulator tactics varied. At first convening assemblies, the Regulators requested “settlement” with local officials, to determine the amount of taxes collected and the proper court fees. Rebuffed, the Regulators intensified their agitation. After closing the courthouse and refusing to pay further taxes, Governor Tryon threatened reprisal. Temporarily subdued, the Regulators then petitioned the Governor and House of Representatives, sought prosecution of local officials, and even elected sympathetic representatives to the Assembly. The Governor and his anti-Regulator supporters responded decisively. Rejecting their petitions, stymieing their prosecutions and ousting their representatives, Tryon initiated a violent confrontation. At the Battle of Alamance on May 16, 1771, Tryon routed the Regulators. Facing criminal prosecution for riot, Regulator leaders dispersed, and the movement dissipated.

The Regulation represented a conflict over which social groups would control the debt of the North Carolina Piedmont, and with the debt, dominate the economic and political structure of the backcountry. Whereas relatively modest farmers comprised the Regulator Association, merchants and lawyers led the anti-Regulator faction. By the late 1760s, these non-agrarian elites had secured control of the Hillsborough Courthouse and consequently the backcountry debt. The effective exclusion of farmers from the courthouse, as well as the erratic and extortionate fees that increasingly indebted farmers to lawyers and court officials, threatened the fabric of backcountry production and commerce. Piedmont farmers stood at risk of losing their farms, crops and livestock to a non-agrarian, creditor class, while simultaneously unable to prosecute debts against fellow farmers.

Who Were the Regulators?

The Geography of the Regulation – A Western Insurrection Against Westerners

The Regulation enjoyed its greatest support in the western counties, specifically Orange, Rowan and Anson counties, as evidenced by the volume of Regulator petitions and advertisements originated in these counties. By contrast, not a single Regulator advertisement or petition issued from the coastal countries. Even coastal Whig leaders, such as James Iredell, denounced the Regulation as “desperate diseases” warranting “desperate Remedies” (CRNC 270).

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

The Regulation drew the greatest concentration of supporters from middling farmers. While most tax lists from the Regulation did not survive, the 1779 tax list for Orange Country remains extant. This list shows that 3.6 percent of the wealthiest 10 percent of Orange Country residents identified as Regulators, and only 23.2 percent of the poorest 30 percent so identified. By contrast, 37.5 percent of taxables in the 30th to 60th percentile signed Regulator petitions, and 35.7 percent of taxables from the 60th to 90th percentile. (Whittenberg 220).

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

The Regulation was fundamentally an agrarian movement. Of the Orange County residents whose political affiliations could be determined, all twelve merchants and all twelve lawyers opposed the Regulation. Nor did any of the twelve sheriffs, clerks, registers or coroners side with the Regulators. Similar numbers prevailed in Rowan and Anson Counties. (Kay, 82). That merchants, lawyers, sheriffs and clerks supported the anti-Regulators does not entail that most anti-Regulators belonged to these classes. Those who opposed the Regulation were mostly farmers. Nevertheless, leading anti-Regulators like Colonel Fanning did not work the land.

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

The Regulation thrived amidst religious dissent. The religious dissenters in the backcountry successfully “evaded the Vestry Act by electing the most right dissenters for Vestrymen who would not qualify.” (CRNC, 241). Tryon himself noted the difficulty the near impossibility of inducting ministers in the backcountry, reporting the “cruel Treatment” ministers received from their Parishiners, particularly at the hands of the “Quakers and Annabaptists” (TC, 314). So strong was the religious dissenters support for the Regulation that Presbyterian Pastors felt compelled to chastise their members who swore the Regulator oath (CRNC, 315). Governor Tryon shared this perception that religious dissent fueled the Regulation, and encouraged the Assembly to pass an act authorizing Presbyterian ministers to solemnize marriages as a means of purchasing Presbyterian sympathy (Find quote). Notably, Colonel Fanning introduced this act concurrently with a series of acts targeting Regulator grievances, including regulation of official fees.

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

Extortionate tax and debt collection drove the Regulators to rebellion. Sheriffs who collected taxes for the sinking fund kept a substantial portion of what they collected. The Regulators consistently demanded an accounting of the public taxes to determine how much had been collected, and to what purposes the money had been applied (CRNC 732). Governor Tryon substantially agreed with the Regulators, reporting in private correspondences that “the Sheriffs have embezzled more than one half of the Public Money ordered to be raised and collected by them” (TC, 531). Tryon’s successor, Governor Martin, concurred. Martin claimed that sheriffs collected “Double, Treble, nay even Quadruple the value of the Tax” (CRNC 763). Although neither the Regulators nor the Provincial leadership suggested that this embezzlement represented a new behavior, the practice may have proved particularly onerous during the Regulation, due to the increasing tax burden. (Kay, “Payment of Provincial and Local Taxes in North Carolina, 1748-1771, pages 226-227).

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

This section will discuss the political and legal struggle for the backcountry debt.

Conclusion

This section will touch upon the consequences of the Regulation, including how the Regulation affected political sympathies during the Revolutionary War.

Primary Source Documents

Assorted Documents

• Letter_Describing_Religious_Dissenters,_20_July_1766.pdf: Letter describing the religious dissenters in the North Carolina backcountry.

• Regulator_Advertisement,_August_1766.pdf: Regulator Advertisement from Orange County.

• Governor_Tryons_A_View_of_the_Polity.pdf: Governor Tryon's description of the political, legal and economic structure of the economy.

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

• Regulator_Advertisement,_15_Jan_1768.pdf: A Regulator advertisement.

• Regulator_Advertisement,_4_April_1768.pdf: A Regulator advertisement.

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

• Regulator_Advertisement,_25_April_1768.pdf: A Regulator advertisement.

• 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.

• Regulator_Advertisement,_30_April_1768.pdf: Regulator Advertisement, with instructions for the Regulator Convention attendees.

• Regulator_Advertisement,_Petition_and_Letter.pdf: Regulator advertisement, petition and letter to Hermon Husband.

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

• Tryons_Response_to_Regulator_Petitions,_13_August_1768.pdf: Tryon's response to the Regulator petitions. These documents also includes some exchanges between Tryon and the Regulators while Tryon was in Hillsborough.

• 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.

• Article_from_Boston_Chronicle,_7_Nov_1768.pdf: Article printed in the Boston Chronicle, reporting on the poll taxes levied to pay for Governor Tryon's house.

• Petition_and_Depositions_from_Orange_County.pdf: Petition from Orange Country residents and accompanying depositions, describing the extortionate practices of Orange County court officials.

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

• Fanning_Trial,_22_March_1769.pdf: Trial of Colonel Fanning for extortion.

• Letter_to_Herman_Husband,_14_Sept_1769.pdf: Letter to Herman Husband, detailing the difficulties that some backcountry farmers experienced in suing for extortion at the local courthouse.

• 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.

• Assembly_Resolutions,_06_Nov_1769.pdf: Assembly resolutions discussing the collection of public funds, and subsequent address by Governor Tryon.

• Tax_Collection,_Rowan_County_1770.pdf: Sheriff describes Regulators' refusal to pay taxes in Rowan County

• Orange_County_Petitions.pdf: Petitions from Orange County

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

• Hillsborough_Riots_24_Sept._1770.pdf: An account of the Hillsborough Riots, which took place on September 4, 1770.

• Tryons_Response_to_the_Hillsborough_Riots.pdf: The Attorney General describes the incident as a riot - which does not amount to treason - and consequently recommends that the Assembly pass a Riot Act

• Anti-Regulator_Petition.pdf: An anti-Regulator petition, signed by Edmond Fanning.

• Minutes_from_the_Assembly,_17_Dec_1770.pdf: Minutes from the Assembly following the Regulator insurrection. The Assembly addresses fraudulent land conveyances, official fees, the expansion of inferior courts, and empowering Presbyterian ministers to solemnize marriages.

• Petition_from_Orange_Country.pdf: Petition to empower justices of the peace to hear small claims.

• Johnston_Riot_Act.pdf: The Johnston Riot Act, enacted on January 15, 1771.

• Letter_from_James_Iredell,_21_Dec_1770.pdf: Letter from James Iredell describing the Johnston Riot Act.

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

• Tax_Collection_in_Bute_County,_23_April_1771.pdf: A sheriff describing his difficulty in collecting taxes.

• Letter_from_Governor_Martin,_30_Aug_1772.pdf: Letter from Governor Martin describing his tour through the Western counties, and assessing the causes of insurrection.

• Letter_from_Governor_Martin,_16_March_1775.pdf: Letter from Governor Martin assessing political sympathies on the eve of the Revolution.

Herman Husband's "An Impartial Relation"

• An_Impartial_Relation,_First_Part.pdf: Herman Husband's "An Impartial Relation," printed in 1770. This document contains pages 1-25.

• An_Impartial_Relation,_Second_Part.pdf: Herman Husband's "An Impartial Relation," printed in 1770. This document contains pages 26-50.

• An_Impartial_Relation,_Third_Part.pdf: Herman Husband's "An Impartial Relation," printed in 1770. This document contains pages 51-75.

• An_Impartial_Relation,_Fourth_Part.pdf: Herman Husband's "An Impartial Relation," printed in 1770. This document contains pages 76-104, the final page in the tract.

Herman Husband's "A Fan for Fanning"

• A_Fan_for_Fanning,_First_Part.pdf: The first part of Herman Husband's "A Fan for Fanning."

• A_Fan_for_Fanning,_Second_Part.pdf: The second part of Herman Husband's "A Fan for Fanning."

• A_Fan_for_Fanning,_Third_Part.pdf: The third part of Herman Husband's "A Fan for Fanning."

• A_Fan_for_Fanning,_Fourth_Part.pdf: The fourth part of Herman Husband's "A Fan for Fanning."

-- ChrisFasano - 27 Nov 2009