51. The North Carolina Regulation

0:00Volume 3, Chapter 51, The North Carolina Regulation. Inspired by the success of the South Carolina regulators, a group of citizens of St. George's Parish in backcountry Georgia formed an association movement in the late spring of 1768. The aim of the association was armed action against Indians in the locality, fearful of a full-scale Indian war Governor Wright promptly told the local militia captains to order the association to disperse on paying of prosecution. The associators apparently obeyed the order as nothing more was heard of them. The term regulator, however, found its most important place in history in a movement that had only that name in common with the South Carolina organization. This movement, the regulators of The roots of the North Carolina back country also adopted the name in April 1768, but its nature and purposes differed radically from those of its southern neighbor.

1:11One of the early roots of the North Carolina regulation lay in land monopoly. Large tracts of land had been arbitrarily granted to one George Selwyn. In Mecklenburg County in western North Carolina, numerous settlers and squatters refused to acknowledge Selwyn's claim or to pay him for the land. When in May 1765, Selwyn sent his agent, Henry McCullough, and a group of surveyors to Mecklenburg to enforce payment or eject the settlers, the latter rose up in defense of their land. A mob of settlers, by Thomas Polk set upon and severely whipped the surveyors and threatened McCullough with death.

1:58The North Carolina Council refused to the request of the governor to intervene against the settlers. Another route of the regulation emerged also in the spring of 1765. In Orange County and in Granville County near the Virginia border, disturbances arose from the exactions of excessive and even illegal fees by county officials. The Nutbush paper issued by George Sims, schoolmaster of Nutbush, Granville County, in June, denounced extortionate court fees imposed upon the public. The author pointed out that to pay a debt judgment of five pounds, a man had also to to pay more than 41 shillings, or over 40% of the amount to the county clerk, and thus was forced to contribute his labor to the clerk for 21 days.

2:54In addition, the debtor was enslaved for 19 days to pay legal fees, and a further 19 days to pay the sheriff for prosecuting him. The climax arrived when the author peacefully drew up a petition protesting these outrages. Not only was the petition ignored, but the said government officials sued the petitioners for libel and imprisoned the author. These incidents were illustrative of the intense resentments and grievances of the back country against the government of North Carolina. And the major grievances were specifically against government, against excessive taxes and Quit rents against extortionate fees and against dishonest and extortionate sheriffs and other appointed government officials.

3:51Nearly all government officials in North Carolina were paid in fees, and the fees were of course exacted from the hapless inhabitants of whatever locality the officials ruled. Indeed, as the historian John S. Bassett wrote, as soon as frontier counties were organized, sheriffs, clerks, registers and lawyers swooped down upon the defenseless inhabitants like wolves. The various ranks of fee-charging officials conspired together. For example, lawyers and officials of county and superior courts collaborated to delay pay cases and thus collect increased fees.

4:38Another major grievance of the people of the North Carolina backcountry stemmed from poll taxes, which constituted virtually the only tax and the bulk of the revenues in the province. The poll tax bore most heavily upon the poor. The settlers were plagued with quit rents and high fees and taxes. To compound the evils, the people were plagued by dishonest and oppressive sheriffs. A common practice of the sheriff was to call upon a farmer without advance warning and demand that he pay his poll tax immediately. Refusing to give the farmer a chance to borrow in order to pay the tax, the sheriff would promptly seize the property and then quickly sell it But cheaply to a friend of his before the farmer could come up with the money.

5:31To add grave insult to grievous injury, the sheriff charged the farmer an extra fee for the trouble of calling at the latter's house. As icing on the cake of the sheriff's calling, the lawmen generally embezzled the revenues that they thus collected. Conditions, in short, were becoming ripe for rebellion in the North Carolina backcountry by the mid-1760s. The conflict reached the stage of definite organization in the Sandy Creek movement of the late summer of 1766. In late August, the leaders of the Libertarian Reform Movement in Orange County concentrated in the County seat, called a county-wide meeting of the delegates from each neighborhood to meet at Maddox Mills at Sandy Creek on October 10. No county officials sanctioned the unauthorized meeting, which nevertheless went ahead and hailed the recent victory of the Sons of Liberty against the Stamp Act and called for extension of this concept of liberty closer to home.

6:43The meeting delivered a trenchant attack upon the corruption of power. Take this as a maxim, that while men are men, though you should see all those sons of liberty, who has, just now redeemed us from tyranny, set in offices and vested with power, they would soon corrupt again and oppress if they were not called upon to give an account of their stewardship. The Sandy Creek meeting called for annual meetings of such delegates in a continuing voluntary association of the people to keep check on the activities of their representatives and appointed rulers. Chief Officer of the county and chief enemy of the Sandy Creek Association was the roundly hated Edmund Fanning.

7:36Fanning, a native New Yorker and a graduate of Yale, was a prototype of the provincial bureaucrat and the leader of the courthouse ring in his county. A favorite of Governor William Tryon, young Fanning had managed to acquire a justice ship of the peace and numerous important county offices, Judge of the Superior Court, Register of Deeds, Militia Colonel and Member of the Assembly. Colonel Fanning denounced the Sandy Creek meeting as insurrectionary and threatened its leaders with punishment. Yet the leaders of the North Carolina protest movement were at this early stage far from revolutionary. The main leader of the Sandy Creek organization was Herman Husband, an intelligent and learned Quaker from Orange

8:58The position to North Carolina government grew. Brunswick, Cumberland and other counties refused to pay their taxes, and petitions similar to Sandy Creek's were submitted and similarly ignored in Anson, Granville and Halifax counties, and in the Piedmont of North Carolina. But Orange County remained the focus of conflict. In 1767, a justice of the county court found a very scarce copy of the laws of North Carolina and discovered that the extortionate court fees of the province were illegal. Rather than mend its illegal ways, the tight-knit bureaucratic oligarchy of Orange County threatened the judge with arrest for contempt of court. The judge quickly fell

10:19at Sandy Creek and had suggested reforms. Their protests had been brusquely ignored. It was now evident that stronger and more radical measures of protest were required. Leadership of the liberal protest movement of backcountry North Carolina now passed into more vigorous and determined hands, those of James Hunter, the general of the movement, of William Butler, The next phase of the protest movement was touched off in early 1768 when Sheriff Tyree Harris of Orange County posted the taxes for the coming year. Poll taxes had to be paid at a few centralized locations. Any tax paid at a different location would be automatically This penalty tax was soon raised even higher by Colonel Fanning.

11:18Public opinion was further inflamed by an assembly appropriation of the large sum of five thousand pounds to build a palace for Governor Tryon, a boondoggle of which one of the chief sponsors was Edmund Fanning. In ensuing years, 10,000 pounds more was appropriated for home for the governor. The higher taxes and the generous perquisites granted to the governor initiated the development of a new association in Orange County, first known informally as The Mob, and then borrowing the name of regulators from the successful South Carolina movement. The first thing that the mob did in Orange and other counties was to announce its refusal to pay taxes until its grievances were redressed and government fees and taxes lowered. Similar meetings were held in the spring of 1768 in counties west of the Hall River, and the various regulator associations took oaths to pay no taxes or illegal fees until redress was achieved.

12:31South and West of Orange County, sympathy for the movement was expressed in Anson and Rowan Counties. The Sandy Creek Organization, incidentally, far from leading the new regulator movement, lagged behind this new radicalization and refused to join the tax strike as too hot and rash and, in some respects, not legal. Orange County, however, remained the heart and Center of the Growing Regulator Movement. Once again, as has happened so often in history, actual armed hostilities were opened by the men in power, by the panicky forces of counter-revolution. On April 4, a meeting of Orange regulators asked the sheriff and vestrymen of the county to meet with the regulator committee to give a full account of their use of public monies.

13:27The reply of Sheriff Harris was typically swift and brutal. The horse and saddle of a regulator were seized and sold for non-payment of some governmental levy. Here was the spark of armed rebellion in North Carolina. A crowd of nearly 100 armed regulators rode to the county seat of Hillsboro, seized the sheriff, rescued the horse and saddle, and returned them to to their owner. After an official threatened to fire at the crowd, they shot up the roof of Colonel Fanning's house. Colonel Fanning was not the sort of Tory oligarch to take such an incident lying down. First, he had to gain the wholehearted support of Governor Tryon. Hysterically, Fanning falsely claimed to Tryon that the regulators were insurrectionaries who had sworn to pay no no more taxes, to kill all tax collectors, to burn Hillsboro, and to become sovereign arbiters of right and wrong.

14:31Tryon and the Council then agreed to authorize Fanning to call out the militia to suppress the rebellion. Striking back with all the might of government, Fanning ordered the arrest of the three leaders Regulators of the Regulator Rescue Party, William Butler, Peter Craven and Norman Bell Hamilton. Seven companies of militia were now called up to suppress the regulation. Only 120 people appeared, and very few of these could be relied upon to fight the people of the county. About one-half of the people of Orange County were ardent regulators, and The regulators called a confederation of inhabitants throughout the county to maintain enforcement of their tax strike and to prepare for a march in force on Hillsboro.

15:31But the regulator resolved to press its advantage was tragically weakened by the advice of such The peace meeting was scheduled for May 11, but no officials deigned to appear, and while the bemused regulators peacefully elected delegates and waited for the peace meeting, Colonel Fanning seized the opportunity to swoop into the meeting room. Hoppe, down upon them, denouncing the regulators as traitorous dogs, Fanning seized the startled regulator leaders on May 2, arresting Butler and Husband. The two were given a quick kangaroo trial and promptly imprisoned at Hillsborough. The seizure of Husband and Butler was enough to rouse the ire of all the populace, regulator and non-regulator alike. Seven hundred men and March to Hillsboro and forced Fanning to release the prisoners. Seeing the might of the regulator uprising, Governor Tryon used his wiles to lure the regulators again into passivity. He promised the regulators that if they behaved properly and returned to their homes to confine themselves to drawing up a petition, he would seek redress of their

17:00The Regulators naively agreed, forgetting the great principle of the English rebels of old, that grievances must be redressed before the keen edge of protest is allowed to soften. Once again the bemused regulators allowed their movement to retreat to the naive petitioning of Sandy Creek days. At the end of May, the Orange regulators drew up a petition signed by Hunter, Howell and 450 others, and Hunter and Howell were selected to present it to the Governor and Council. Meanwhile, Fanning had tried hard to split the regulators and to induce them to sign a humble and contrite petition confessing their sins and errors and throwing themselves upon the mercy of the Governor.

17:56Otherwise, he threatened the protesters. He would urge Tryon to regard them as traitors. Fanning's efforts were partly successful in weakening the timber of the regulator petition. But Governor Tryon and the council, sending weakness in the popular opposition and largely forgetting the governor's promises, replied on June 25 by hinting at treason and demanding total submission and contrition by the regulators. All future meetings of regulators were banned, and they were ordered to pay their taxes. At the same time, local governmental fees were raised still higher. Although the regulators had been lured again into dispersing their armed force, they did Hold a Trump Card Continued Refusal to Pay Taxes Though nonviolent, this step was far from passive. In fact, such refusal struck aggressively at the root of the oligarchic power structure of North Carolina.

19:01The regulators continued to meet and continued to refuse taxes. At a regulator meeting on On August 1, Tryon sent a sheriff to demand submission and the payment of taxes, but the people continued adamant. Four hundred men quickly met and unanimously resolved to refuse tax payment and to kill any man who seized property for taxes due. Five hundred regulators gathered a week later at Peds, threatening to burn the county seat at Hillsboro, and and began to march on the town. Rapidly the confrontation escalated. Tryon called out the militia, and an armed populace gathered in a meeting of 1,000 regulators. Cowed once again by force majeure, Tryon, on August 11, again turned wheedling and conciliating, and promised that the sheriffs would now satisfy the people and give them an accounting at and a general meeting on August 17, provided that the armed regulators would again disperse.

20:10And once again the regulators, at the brink of victory, gullibly gave credence to Tryon's promises. Once again they weakened their pressure to shift suddenly to peaceful and passive of Tactics. Once again, when the naively confident regulators assembled on the 17th, they were stunned to find a severe condemnation by Tryon, denouncing them as criminal and illegal insurrectionaries and demanding a bond to ensure that no attempt would be made to rescue the imprisoned butler and husband. Tryon then proceeded to raise a mighty force of militia from all over the in North Carolina Backcountry.

20:57But while Trion was raising his counter-revolutionary forces far and wide, people from other counties were increasingly joining Orange in the regulator protest. For instance, people from Anson County in southwest North Carolina. Anson County was tightly governed by a ruling clique of three men, Samuel Spencer, county clerk, assemblyman, and Colonel of the Militia, and two embezzling ex-sheriffs who had moved up to become county judges. A Citizens Association was formed in early 1768 to oppose this oligarchy. The Anson Association of Regulators, headed by Charles Robinson, pledged to refuse payment of Taxes, to rescue any imprisoned members and to retake any property seized for non-payment of taxes. In April, 100 Anson regulators gathered at the county court, drove the tyrannical judges off the bench and made ready to run Robinson for assembly. Governor Tryon was also moved to promise Anson County regulators redress of grievances if they would disperse.

22:14Turning to the Orange Regulation for advice, the regulators received counsel that sowed dangerous illusions, disarmed the movement, and crippled its momentum. They were advised to abandon violence for a peaceful and friendly petition of grievances. One hundred and twenty people of Anson signed this petition during August, but Tryon's only acknowledgement was to hail Anson County's submission. When Anson County found the governor calling out the militia in force, five hundred men of the county resolved unarmed self-defense against the government forces. Moreover, in Johnston County, close to the Low Country, a mob of eighty regulators threatened to oust their judges. But here the judges The Mises were able to mobilize governmental forces to defeat the rebels. Another regulator failure occurred in near Lowland, Edgecombe County, where 30 men tried unsuccessfully to release an insurgent leader from jail. Throughout the latter part of August and September of 1768, both sides gathered their forces in the rapidly polarizing conflict. Rowan in Mecklenburg Counties in the southwestern backcountry sent particularly ardent pro-government

23:39militia, which were all assembled at Hillsboro in the heart of the regulator rebellion. The counter-revolutionary militia were bolstered and egged on by four leading Presbyterian ministers of the backcountry, who called for steadfast support of government on principle, And in this call they were backed up by Baptist and German ministers. All in all, Trion was able to gather by the beginning of September nearly 1,500 militia. The main clue to their recruitment was the enormous proportion of top-ranking officers, largely politicians and bureaucrats. Fully one-quarter of the assembled militia were officers, and thirty-four The 34 leaders of the North Carolina oligarchy who headed the assembly at Hillsboro to defend One of their vested privileges against the regulators included John Rutherford, President of the Council, five other counselors, Edmund Fanning, Samuel Spencer, and a Superior Court Justice, Maurice Moore.

25:12ranged against the militia was a massive force of some 3,700 regulators, but the regulators, timorous and lacking determined and efficient revolutionary leadership, pleaded for negotiation. The only terms that Governor Tryon would consider were that the regulators disarmed themselves, The regulators did not agree to pay all taxes, swear oaths of loyalty and allegiance to their rulers, and surrender nine of their leaders for trial, in addition to the still incarcerated husband and butler. The regulators did not agree to these arrogant and insulting terms, but neither were they brave enough to use their overwhelming force.

26:00The regulators disbursed, with 30 of them accepting the terms of submission. Pressing his advantage, Tryon quickly sent troops to round up and arrest the regulator leaders. They met with no resistance from the demoralized regulators, and 13 leaders were placed on trial. The regulators, moreover, resumed payment of their taxes. The second phase of the regulator protest movement had ended in total and abject failure. Governor Tryon's shrewd and cunning strategy had been met by bumbling confusion and ineptitude on the part of the popular opposition. Of the regulator leaders, William Butler was convicted for riot and rescue of confiscated property and sentenced to six months' imprisonment.

26:53John Philip Hartzow and Samuel Davini received three months. Herman Husband was acquitted on the charge of riot. James Hunter was convicted but freed at a new trial. The three convicted leaders had their sentences suspended and were finally pardoned at the King's instructions in September 1769. Meanwhile, Edmund Fanning was convicted of extorting illegal fees

27:51The Governor had promised to bring extortionate officials to trial. The trial of Fanning was, in particular, a mockery of that pledge. Other regulator charges against officials were systematically obstructed by the government. Complaining witnesses were driven away by the guards and ordered out of town and grand juries were systematically packed with government officials. The abject crumbling of the regulator movement did nothing, of course, to allay the grievances of the backcountry. After a lull of many months, regulator agitation welled up once more.

28:36In the spring of 1769, Orange County Sheriff John Lee, trying to arrest Ninian Hamilton and other regulator leaders, The legislature leaders was set upon and severely whipped by a mob led by Hamilton and Devaney. But this was an exceptional incident. The regulators generally turned to concentrate on political action, specifically to try to change assembly policies in the July elections. The regulators of Orange, Anson and Rowan counties formulated their political program in Petitions, Asking for an End to Poll Taxes, and a Shift to Property Taxes, Drastic Limitations on Legal Fees, Payment of Taxes in Kind, Lower Quit Rents, a Cutback of Land Grants to Counselors and Other Governmental Favorites, and a Secret Ballot for Assembly Elections. In contrast was the petition of 1,000 Presbyterians in backcountry Mecklenburg County. The petitioners proclaimed their loyalty to the government and requested repeal only of the Anglican establishment in their counties. The July elections did result in a general overturn of the North Carolina legislature. Of 77 assemblymen, 45 were new. Only a handful

30:01All of the new representatives were regulators, but regulators did sweep the elections in Orange, Granville, and Halifax counties in the northern back country and Anson County in the southwest. Rowan County also returned the ardent regulator Christopher Nation. Orange County for its part elected Herman Husband to the assembly, while Hyde-bound Mecklenburg County remained committed to the status quo. After the flush of enthusiasm over their political victory, the regulators found to their dismay that their victory had won them nothing. The assembly did nothing to redress their grievances. Indeed, the elections of the spring of 1770 only weakened regulator strength in the assembly.

30:52The regulators were neither the first nor the last revolutionary movement to become disillusioned with the Fruits of Political Action and defined that voting and politics were just another blind alley to blunt their effectiveness, deflect them from their course and weaken their purpose. The regulators, in fact, had tried every form of legal or nonviolent protest, petitioning, suits in court, tax strikes and political action. Each in its turn had totally failed. The regulators were finally learning that only one course of action remained to them, armed rebellion. Matters came to a head, inaugurating the fourth phase of the North Carolina Regulation in late September 1770. The incident began on September 24 when James Hunter and other orange regulators presented a petition at Hillsboro against the peculation and systematic bias of the county sheriffs, officers and juries.

32:03Backing up the petition was a determined crowd of 150 regulators led by Hunter, Butler and Howell who invaded the county courtroom. The crowd threatened Judge Richard Henderson who fled town and began to set upon its enemies. The courthouse lawyer, John Williams, was beaten up and leading county bureaucrats were given a severe trouncing. The crowd also proceeded to the highly satisfactory whipping of their archenemy, Colonel Fanning. Fanning was generously permitted to flee town and his new pretentious house reviled as being built from illegal fees was thoroughly burned to the ground. The same treatment was meted out to Judge Henderson's house in Granville County some weeks later.

32:54Thus, the regulators followed the model of the Stamp Act rebels. The regulators were now feeling their oats. Determined violent action had redressed their grievances by forcibly stopping the machinery of government in the county. Although the two years delay had reduced the movement from several thousand to several hundred, the regulators, growing stronger by the day, threatened to storm the capital, New Bern, to be joined by the regulators of Butte and Johnston Counties to prevent the assembly from ceding Edmund Fanning from a newly created rotten borough of Hillsborough. The assembly, now genuinely alarmed, did a little to remedy the problems of the back country by increasing representation of the Piedmont in the assembly and limiting governmental fees. But most of its panicky reaction centered around savage repression of the regulator movement. Its resolve for repression was strengthened by a secret agreement with the Presbyterian In exchange for the assembly's permission to perform the marriage ceremony, Presbyterian ministers pledged their support against the regulation.

34:13With the back country thus split, the assembly passed a law on January 1771, sponsored by Samuel Johnston of Edenton, in the Lowcountry, for suppressing riots. The Death Penalty was decreed for any assemblage of ten or more people that refused to disperse. Anyone ignoring subpoenas for rioting would be declared an outlaw. The militia was authorized to enforce these decrees. Furthermore, any uplander could now be tried in low-country courts. And anyone opposing the militia would be deemed guilty of treason. Furthermore, the assembly arbitrarily expelled Hermann Husband for criticizing a reactionary assemblyman and then had Husband summarily arrested.

35:04The assembly finally released Husband after a couple of months when a grand jury refused to indict him. The release of Hermann Husband served to disperse a threatened regulator rescue march on New New Bern, but Tryon, furious at the release, determined to pursue a massive program of armed repression, there were several prongs to this campaign. First, Tryon called up the provincial militia, since the local back country militia was now ineffective. Second, the governor mobilized a private force of redressers, organized by Fanning, Thomas Hart and Alexander Martin, who had all been beaten up at Hillsboro in an armed association against the regulators.

35:51Particularly formidable was the aristocratic armed association of Cape Fear loyalists headed by General Hugh Waddell. Third, Tryon brazenly ordered the packing of all juries for Tryon regulators, with aristocratic gentlemen of the first rank, property and property, who would take care to hear only Pro-Official Witnesses The regulators of 1771 were not the regulators of three years earlier. Disappointments at suppression had radicalized them, and particularly infuriating was Tryon's raising of the massive provincial force against them. The people were incensed. Redknapp Howell composed forty Edmund Fanning was declared an outlaw, who could therefore be shot on sight by the regulators.

36:48One gauge of the intensity of regulation feeling was the refusal of militiaman Jeremiah Pritchett to obey military orders and his attempt to breed a mutiny in support of the regulation. Pritchett was sentenced to the huge total of 150 lashes. At Pritchett's public flogging, one of the spectators tried to get the crowd to pelt the floggers with eggs. The man was immediately arrested, and the colonel in charge threatened to run through any other heckler with his sword. Regulator forces sprang up in Halifax, Edgecombe, Butte, and Northampton In Rowan County, the people refused to pay fees and threatened to kill every clerk and lawyer in the area. The court at the Rowan County seat of Salisbury was threatened with the same treatment as at Hillsboro. Rowan County and other regulators nevertheless proposed to arbitrate their disputes, but Governor Tryon adopted an implacably hard-line anti-appeasement View. No negotiations were possible with rebels, he declared, nor would there be arbitration by any organization but the government. At this rebuff, the regulators protested that

38:05every man would rise up and defend his just rights. Our civil liberties are certainly more dear to us than the good opinion of a ruler. Governor Tryon tried to raise an armed Trion's force of 2,500 men. Despite determined efforts, including a subsidy to each volunteer, he could only raise less than 1,100 men, who were supplemented by General Waddell's irregulars of less than 300 men. Trion's force had no fewer than 150 officers and Waddell's nearly 50. Most of Trion's men came from Orange and Dobbs counties in the back country and Trion's and Waddell's forces were supposed to meet at Hillsborough, but Waddell's column was stopped by a large body of regulators on May 9 and forced to fall back to Salisbury. Waddell's ammunition had been destroyed by a heroic group of young rebels called the Black Boys of Cabarrus. Going to the rescue of his ally, Trion moved westward from Hillsborough to the Alamance River, reaching The regulators, though radicalized to the point of gathering an armed force, were still gravely undermined by the lack of firm and resolute leadership. There was no overall leader. The major leaders bickered among themselves and trepidated.

39:47Hermann Husband would not fight at all. The other leaders naively counseled a token fight to induce Tryon to negotiate. They did not realize the absurdity of threatening or beginning the use of force without being prepared to use it effectively. Moreover, it was incredibly naive of them to still believe Tryon would negotiate honestly. James Hunter, when asked to take command of the regulators, replied in a magnificently individualistic but militarily ineffectual vein, We are all free men, and everyone must command himself.

40:34As a result, each company of regulators had a captain, but there was no overall commander. Shorn of any effective leaders on or off the field, the regulator movement had therefore no effective field command and no theoreticians to define their goals and purpose, their strategy and tactics. In such a case only one outcome was possible. On May 16, Triance forces advanced, demanded unconditional surrender and then, after a two-hour fight, routed the disorganized regulators into wild disorder. Thus ended the Battle of Alamance. Nine regulators were killed and many wounded and captured. Surprisingly, the brief regulator resistance also took a toll of nine killed and several score injured. Tryon now had the opportunity to wreak his One leader, young James Few, a prisoner of the battle, was executed the next day on the ground that he had been made an outlaw for ignoring a court subpoena for burning Fanning's house.

41:53Tryon, then joined by Waddell, marched unresisted through the back country, looting and burning the houses and plantations of the regulator leaders, In the brutal Tryon Victory March, thousands of settlers were forced to take an oath of allegiance to him, promising to pay their taxes and obey the laws in exchange for the governor's pardon. Tryon's largess, however, was not at all extended to the prisoners taken in battle. Summary, court-martials were held in mid-June, and twelve prisoners were sentenced to death for High Treason. Six of the convicted were pardoned, but the other six were publicly executed on the spot. One of the executed regulators was Captain Benjamin Merrill of the Rowan County Militia, who died supposedly repenting in order to allow his family to inherit his property. But another of the executed, James Pugh, remained steadfast to the end and indeed was hanged in the middle of a rebuke that he was delivering to Edmund Fanning.

43:05Assemblyman Thomas Person, who had been sympathetic to the regulators, was arrested by Tryon on his march but was ultimately acquitted. All the major leaders of the regulation had managed to escape capture. Redknapp Howell fled north to Maryland and eventually settled in New New Jersey, Herman Husband fled north to western Pennsylvania, other leaders escaped to South Carolina and thousands of regulators soon trekked westward over the mountains. The government quickly moved toward pardon of the regulator leadership. The implacable enemies of the regulators, Governor Tryon and Edmund Fanning, both left in the summer The governor of 1771, trying to become governor of New York, and fanning to be his secretary.

43:56The new governor of North Carolina accelerated the pardoning of the wanted leaders. The latter petitioned for mercy, and when the riot act expired in 1772, they were allowed to surrender, come into court, and be pardoned. James Hunter returned from Maryland to general acclaim and remained free. The returning William Butler crawled to the authorities for claiming his utmost abhorrence of the regulation. Soon, in fact, the King had pardoned all the old leaders except Herman Husband, who remained in Pennsylvania. The North Carolina regulators, as we have seen, were far different from their namesakes to the South. The South Carolina group arose In North Carolina, however, the major grievance was too much government, specifically too much revenue extracted from the public in taxes and fees.

45:10Hence the conflict was much more sectional than in South Carolina, where the local courthouse oligarchies in the back countries were appointed by the royal provincial officials in Charleston. Within the back country, the bulk of the split was waged between the people and the oligarchy of bureaucrats. The regulator conflict cannot be properly interpreted as many historians Presbyterians have done in religious terms. For example, as Low Country Anglican versus Back Country Protestant. As we have seen, the Presbyterian Church was very active in opposing the movement. Its ministers wrote a circular letter urging Presbyterians not to join the regulators. And of course, the established Anglican Church was also opposed to the regulators, but so too with the Baptist, who were almost all opposed. Indeed, pro-regulator Baptists were excommunicated from the Church. The German and Quaker sects also opposed the regulation.