Some historical and global examples of tax resistance →
United States →
Regulator movement (North Carolina), 1767–71
I also found some documents concerning the “Regulator” movement in North Carolina.
The rebellion of these “Regulators” against the corrupt colonial administration from presages the American Revolution.
It began with organized groups of rural North Carolinans refusing to pay inflated taxes to corrupt authorities, and eventually built to an armed rebellion (which was crushed).
Here’s the Sandy Creek Resolution of :
We, the underwritten subscribers, do voluntarily agree to form ourselves into an Association to assemble ourselves for conferences for regulating Publick Grievances and Abuses of Power in the following particulars, with others of like nature that may occur:
1st.
That we will pay no taxes until we are satisfied they are agreeable to Law and Applied to the purpose therein mentioned, unless we cannot help and are forced.
2nd.
That we will pay no Officer any more fees than the Law allows, unless we are obliged to do it, and then to show a dislike to it & bear open testimony against it.
3rd.
That we will attend our meetings of Conference as often as we conveniently can or is necessary in order to consult our representatives on the amendments of such Laws as may be found Grievous or unnecessary, and to choose more suitable men then we have heretofore done for Burgesses and Vestrymen, and to petition His Excellency our Governor, the Hon’ble Council and the Worshipful House of Representatives, His Majesty in Parliament, &c., for redress of such grievances as in the course of this undertaking may occur, and inform one another & to learn, know and enjoy all the Privileges & Liberties that are allowed us and were settled on us by our worthy ancestors, the founders of the present Constitution, in order to preserve it in its Ancient Foundation, that it may stand firm and unshaken.
4th.
That we will contribute to collections for defraying necessary expenses attending the work according to our abilities.
5th.
That in cases of difference in judgment we will submit to the Majority of our Body.
To all of which we do solemnly swear, or, being a Quaker or otherwise scrupulous in Conscience of the common Oath, do solemnly Affirm that we will stand true and faithful to this cause until We bring them to a true Regulation according to the true intent & meaning of it in the judgment of the Majority.
Whereas, the Taxes in the County are larger according to the number of Taxables than adjacent Counties, and continues so year after year, and as the jealousy still prevails amongst us that we are wronged, & having the more reason to think so, we have been at the trouble of choosing men, and sending them after the civilist manner, that we could know what we paid our Levy for, but could receive no satisfaction for.
James Watson was sent to the Maddock’s Mills, and said that Edmund Fanning looked upon it that the country called him by authority, or like as if they had a right to call them to accompt.
Not allowing the country the right, as they have been accustomed to as English subjects, for the King requires no money from His subjects but what they are made sensible what use it’s for, we are obliged to seek redress by refusing to pay any more until we have a full settlement for what we have paid in the past, and have a true regulation with our Officers, as our grievances are too many to notify in one piece of writing.
We desire that you, our Assemblymen and Vestrymen, may appoint a time before our next Court at the Court House, and let us know by the Bearer, and we will choose men to act for us, and settle our grievances until such time as you will settle with 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 to our satisfaction; and as the nature of an Officer is a servant of the publick, we are determined to have the Officers of this country 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 enquire into the nature of our constitution and Disbursements of our funds as those of the 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 you in every particular point that is a matter of doubt with us, so fail not to Answer by the Bearer; if no answer, we shall take it for Granted that we are disregarded in this request again for the Publick.
The “Regulator Oath” was as follows:
I, —— —— do promise and swear that if any sheriff, county officer, or any other person, shall attempt to collect taxes unlawfully levied, or make distress on any of the goods or chattels or other estate of any person sworn herein, being a subscriber, for the non-payment of said unlawful tax, that I will, with the aid of other sufficient help, go and take, if in my power, from said officer, and return to the party from whom taken; and in case any one concerned should be imprisoned, or under arrest, or otherwise confined, or if his estate, or any part thereof, by reason or means of joining this company of Regulators, for refusing to comply with the extortionate demands of unlawful tax gatherers, that I will immediately exert my best endeavors to raise as many of said subscribers as will be force sufficient, and, if in my power, I will set the said person at liberty; and I do further promise and swear that if, in case this, our scheme, should be broken or otherwise fail, and should any of our company be put to expense or under any confinement, that I will bear an equal share in paying and making up said loss to the sufferer.
All these things I do promise and swear to do and perform, and hereby subscribe my name.
Whether the Regulators were fools who followed a cowardly and ego-mad demagogue, or whether their brave stand against tyranny provided the inspiration for American patriots, the story of their organized tax resistance campaign is an interesting one — and the defeat of the movement when it turned from nonviolent to violent resistance is a useful cautionary tale.
A while back, I started looking for examples of ways tax resisters have organized mutual aid pacts to help diffuse the effects of government retaliation.
In the course of doing the research, though, I started collecting examples instead of a larger variety of collective projects resisters and their sympathizers have used in support of tax resistance.
Here are some of the examples I found:
Tax resister “insurance”
For instance, the Breton Association in
France, which organized to “form a common stock or fund… to indemnify the
subscribers for any expense they may be put to by their refusal to pay any
illegal contributions imposed upon the public.”
Another example was the Association
of Real Estate Taxpayers in
Chicago, which formed a cooperative legal fund to fight an offensive legal
battle against the tax.
American war tax resisters today can use the War Tax Resisters Penalty
Fund to defray penalties and interest seized by the
IRS.
The fund is raised as-needed by asking subscribers to contribute an equal
amount.
The oath of the Regulator tax resistance movement in the North Carolina
colony bound its signers to “bear an equal share in paying and making up
[the] loss” if “any of our company be put to expense or under any
confinement.”
Communes, collectives, and co-housing projects.
Some tax resisters have formed mutual support communities.
Whiteway Colony
was founded to try to live up to Tolstoyan ideals. The members of the
Bijou and
Agape communities live below a taxable
income so as to avoid paying taxes.
Supporting resisters as an employer
Some members of the Restored Israel of
Yahweh ran a construction business and agreed not to withhold federal
taxes from the wages of those employees who were fellow-members and who were
resisting taxes.
Vivien Kellems refused to withhold
taxes from her employees’ wages, saying: “They are all free American
citizens, thoroughly capable of performing all of the duties and
responsibilities of citizenship for themselves. And so, from this day, I am
not collecting nor paying their income taxes for them.”
Charles Kanjama recently urged Kenyans
to begin a tax resistance campaign, and said that to foil pay-as-you-earn
withholding, “participating employers and employees can enter into a
voluntary contract to convert monthly employment into quarterly or
half-yearly employment, thus effectively delaying tax liability for several
months.”
British nonconformists and women’s suffrage activists a century ago also
used this tactic. Auctions became rallies, with speeches and banners and
crowds that could number in the thousands. Supporters would pack the auction
house and refuse to leave their seats. On some occasions, violence broke
out. In some cases, auctioneers refused to handle goods that had been seized
for tax refusal.
Simply boycotting the auctions and refusing to buy seized goods is one way
communities offer support. It was part of the Quaker “Discipline” to refuse
to buy seized goods. When Valentine Byler’s horse was seized for non-payment
of the social security tax, “no Amish came to bid on the horses and, due to
a lack of bidders, they went for a good price, with the harnesses ‘thrown
in’ by the auctioneer.”
Pay cash so as not to leave a paper trail
Jessica Ramer and a
Claire
Files contributor brought this idea up. If you pay in cash
whenever you can, you give the recipient the opportunity to decide whether
or not to declare the income.
Cash tips are easy to under-report. I asked about that recently and was
told that most people pay with credit card/debit card and that the
government now uses a percentage method for tips. They look at the charged
meals, look at the number of total meals served, and then look at the
charged tips to figure out how much cash tips you received.
(100 meals served. 50 paid with card, tipping 15%. the government
calculates 15% from 100 meals even if cash tips are only 10%)
You can help out by tipping more when paying with cash or better yet, when
you pay with card, put 1% tip on it and put the rest out as cash. I even
leave a note for the server saying “this is your money, don’t
tell your boss, or the government. share it with the buss boy if that is
the policy.” This will help lower the average tip figures, but
still give the nice server what they have earned.
Use barter to avoid taxable/seizable transactions
Karl Hess found people willing to barter with him as he was dodging
IRS
seizures:
The other day I welded up a fish-smoking rack for a family in Washington,
D.C. It will earn me a year’s supply
of smoked fish. At about the same time, I helped a friend dig a foundation.
He’ll help me lay the concrete blocks for a workshop. Part of my pay for a
lecture at a New England college was the use of the school’s welding shop,
to make some metal sculptures. Three such sculptures have paid my
attorney’s fees in maintaining the tax resistance which is the reason
barter has become such an integral part of my life.
Manufacture and sell goods as alternatives to taxed products
Before the American Revolution, colonists who opposed Britain’s economic
control boycotted British products and began to produce homespun cloth,
alternatives to tea, and so forth. Gandhi’s independence campaign in India
made the wearing and production of homespun cloth central to the opposition,
and the Salt March was focused on the illegal production of untaxed,
non-foreign-monopoly salt.
An example today is home-brewed beer (which beats the excise tax on
alcoholic beverages).
Buycotts and boycotts that favor resisting businesses
One report from World War Ⅰ-era America noted that this was a technique used
by those who opposed the “Liberty Bonds”:
Efforts to prevent banks from handling the bonds have centered chiefly in
Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Missouri and
Oklahoma. The President of a Wisconsin bank has advised the Treasury that
his depositors, mostly Germans, or of German parentage, have withdrawn
many thousands of dollars from his bank because he aided the First Liberty
Loan.
These depositors, he added, had taken their accounts to two rival banks on
the understanding that those banks would not aid the second Liberty Loan.
The two banks, he reported, were not aiding the loan in any way.
Many banks have felt the pressure of German influence in this propaganda,
reports indicate. So pronounced was the movement that the States of
Minnesota, North and South Dakota, and Montana recently decided that they
would withdraw State funds from any bank which did not support the loan.
Social boycotts / shunning / noncooperation with tax collectors
Adolf Hausrath writes of Roman-occupied Judaea,
The people knew how to torment these officials of the Roman customs with
the petty cruelty which ordinary people develop with irreconcilable
persistency, whenever they believe this persistency to be due to their
moral indignation. In consequence of the theocratic scruples about the
duty of paying taxes, the tax-gatherers were declared to be unclean and
half Gentile.… among the Jews the words
“tax-gatherersand sinners,”“tax-gatherers and Gentiles,”“tax-gatherers and harlots,”
“tax-gatherers, murderers and robbers,” and similar insulting
combinations, were not only ready on the tongue and familiar, but were
accepted as theocratically identical in meaning. Thrust out from all
social intercourse, the tax-gatherers became more and more the pariahs of
the Jewish world. With holy horror did the Pharisee sweep past the lost
son of Israel who had sold himself to the Gentile for the vilest purpose,
and avoid the places which his sinful breath contaminated. Their
testimony was not accepted by Jewish tribunals. It was forbidden to sit
at table with them or eat of their bread. But their money-chests
especially were the summary of all uncleanness and the chief object of
pious horror, since their contents consisted of none but unlawful
receipts, and every single coin betokened a breach of some theocratic
regulation. To exchange their money or receive alms from them might
easily put a whole house in the condition of being unclean, and
necessitate many purifications. From these relations of the tax-officials
to the rest of the population, it can be readily understood that only the
refuse of Judaism undertook the office.
A social boycott of tax collectors was practiced in the years before
the American revolution. John Adams wrote:
At Philadelphia, the Heart-and-Hand Fire Company has expelled Mr. Hughes,
the stamp man for that colony. The freemen of Talbot county, in Maryland,
have erected a gibbet before the door of the court-house, twenty feet
high, and have hanged on it the effigies of a stamp informer in chains,
in terrorem till the Stamp Act shall be repealed; and
have resolved, unanimously, to hold in utter contempt and abhorrence
every stamp officer, and every favorer of the Stamp Act, and to
“have no communication with any such person, not even to speak to
him, unless to upbraid him with his baseness.” So triumphant is the
spirit of liberty everywhere.
Harassment of tax collectors was a signature action of the Whiskey
Rebellion. An early published resolution of the rebels read in part:
[W]hereas some men may be found amongst us, so far lost to every sense of
virtue and feeling for the distresses of this country, as to accept
offices for the collection of the duty:
Resolved, therefore, That in future we will consider such persons as
unworthy of our friendship; have no intercourse or dealings with them;
withdraw from them every assistance, and withhold all the comforts of life
which depend upon those duties that as men and fellow citizens we owe to
each other; and upon all occasions treat them with that contempt they
deserve; and that it be, and it is hereby most earnestly recommended to
the people at large to follow the same line of conduct towards them.
Tax collectors were tarred-and-feathered in America, both before and after
the revolution — the violent expulsion of tax collectors was a frequent
technique of the Whiskey rebels. Tax collectors have been the targets of
violent reprisal at many times and in many places. Because of this,
governments have often had to pay high salaries — or, frequently,
percentages of the take — to convince collectors to take on the job, which
only increases the resentment of those being collected from.
During the French Revolution and its aftermath, customs houses were burned
by mobs, tax rolls were destroyed, excise collectors were made to renounce
their jobs and then were run out of town — or in some cases killed.
The first Boer War was triggered when an armed group of Boers seized a
wagon that was being auctioned after it was distrained for resisted taxes.
The Whiskey rebels threatened to destroy the stills of those distillers
who complied in paying the excise tax.
Boycotts / social boycotts of non-resisters
If a tax resisting movement is large enough, it may be able to dissuade
people from paying taxes through boycotts or social boycotts of people
who are tax compliant. In Massachusetts, a group enforced a boycott of
taxed British imports by declaring that
…we further promise and engage, that we will not purchase any goods
of any persons who, preferring their own interest to that of the public,
shall import merchandise from Great Britain, until a general importation
takes place; or of any trader who purchases his goods of such importer:
and that we will hold no intercourse, or connection, or correspondence,
with any person who shall purchase goods of such importer, or retailer;
and we will hold him dishonored, an enemy to the liberties of his country,
and infamous, who shall break this agreement.
Maintain solidarity in the face of divide-and-conquer tactics
In
Germany, the government attempted to break a tax resistance movement by
offering to moderate its enforcement efforts against people who could show
that they had limited means. Karl Marx, who was promoting the resistance at
the time, saw this as a divide-and-conquer tactic:
The intention of the Ministry is only too clear. It wants to divide the
democrats; it wants to make the peasants and workers count themselves as
non-payers owing to lack of means to pay, in order to split them from
those not paying out of regard for legality, and thereby deprive the latter
of the support of the former. But this plan will fail; the people realizes
that it is responsible for solidarity in the refusal to pay taxes, just as
previously it was responsible for solidarity in payment of them.
Keep a record of the “sufferings” of resisters
The Quakers responded to persecution by keeping careful records of
individuals who had suffered thereby. In the archives of Quaker meetings,
you can find lists of people who had resisted militia taxes or tithes for
establishment church ministers, and what property was distrained by which
tax collector.
Sign petitions and public advertisements, engage in public protests
When the American Amish were trying to resist compulsory enrollment in the
social security system, 14,000 of them signed a petition to Congress.
During the Vietnam War, public advertisements were taken out by tax
resisters. In , for instance,
448 writers and editors put a full-page ad in the New
York Post declaring their intention to refuse to pay taxes for the
Vietnam War. The signatories included James Baldwin, Noam Chomsky, Philip K.
Dick, Betty Friedan, Allen Ginsberg, Paul Goodman, Paul Krassner, Norman
Mailer, Henry Miller, Tillie Olsen, Grace Paley, Thomas Pynchon, Susan
Sontag, Benjamin Spock, Gloria Steinem, Norman Thomas, Hunter S. Thompson,
Kurt Vonnegut, and Howard Zinn.
Protests, rallies, pickets, and the like have been a part of many
large-scale tax resistance campaigns.
Hold resisters’ property as an informal trustee
Some resisters who are vulnerable to property seizure find sympathetic
friends who are willing to hold the resisters’ property in their
names as a way of foiling seizure. Some war tax resister
alternative funds function
partially as “warehouse banks” that hold deposits of war tax resisters.
When a frustrated tax collector seized Ammon Hennacy’s protest signs
as he was picketing the
IRS
office — claiming that he planned to auction them off to pay Hennacy’s tax
debt — a friend of Hennacy helped him make new signs, each one marked “this
sign is the personal property of Joseph Craigmyle.”
Keep in contact with resisters and express support
After the press reported that Valentine Byler’s horse had been seized by the
IRS
as he was plowing his field, he got letters of support from all across
the country.
Form groups for mutual support & coordinated decision-making
Here there are too many examples to list.
Give financial aid to evicted rent strikers
When the Irish Land League launched its rent strike, it claimed that
“The funds will be poured out unstintedly to all who may endure
eviction in the course of the struggle. Our exiled brothers in America may
be relied on to contribute, if necessary, as many millions in money as they
have thousands, to starve out the landlords and bring the English tenantry
to its knees.”
Comfort and aid imprisoned resisters
The trick to supporting imprisoned tax resisters is to respect their real
needs and desires. When “someone interfered,” as Thoreau put
it, and paid his taxes in order to spring him from his night in jail, they
thought wrongly that they were doing Thoreau a favor, “for they
thought that my chief desire was to stand the other side of that stone wall.”
Juanita Nelson tells of the support she received in jail, where she had
been taken in her bathrobe from her home. Her supporters took the time to
learn how to support her in a way that was appropriate to her resistance:
Two fellow pacifists, one of them also a tax refuser, had been permitted
to come to me, since I would not go to them. I asked them what was
uppermost in my mind, what they’d do about getting properly dressed?
They said that this was something I would have to settle for myself. I
sensed that they thought it the better part of wisdom and modesty for me
to be dressed for my appearance in court. They were more concerned about
the public relations aspect of getting across the witness than I was. They
were also genuinely concerned, I knew, about making their actions truly
nonviolent, cognizant of the other person’s feelings, attitudes and
readiness. I was shaken enough to concede that I would like to have my
clothes at hand, in case I decided I would feel more at ease in them. The
older visitor, a dignified man with white hair, agreed to go for the
clothes in a taxicab.
They left, and on their heels came another visitor. She had been told that
in permitting her to come up, the officials were treating me with more
courtesy than I was according them. It was her assessment that the chief
deputy was hopeful that someone would be able to hammer some sense into me
and was willing to make concessions in that hope. But he had misjudged
the reliance he might place in her — she was not as critical as the
men. She did not know what she would do, but she thought she might wish to
have the strength and the audacity to carry through in the vein in which I
had started.
And she said. “You know, you look like a female Gandhi in that robe.
You look, well, dignified.”
That was my first encouragement. Everyone else had tended to make me feel
like a fool of the first water, had confirmed fears I already had on that
score. My respect and admiration for Gandhi, though not uncritical, was
deep. And if I in any way resembled him in appearance I was prepared to
try to emulate a more becoming state of mind. I reminded myself, too, that
I had on considerably more than the loincloth in which Gandhi was able to
greet kings and statesmen with ease. I need not be unduly perturbed about
wearing a robe into the presence of his honor.
Support the families of imprisoned resisters
When Gandhi was preparing the groundwork for a tax refusal campaign in
India, he noted that the Indian National Congress “should undertake
to feed the wives and families of those who may be imprisoned.”
Study the law, give legal support
When Elizabeth Cady Stanton was contemplating a tax resistance campaign for
women’s suffrage in the United States, she noted, “One thing is
certain, this course will necessarily involve a good deal of litigation,
and we shall need lawyers of our own sex whose intellects, sharpened by
their interests, shall be quick to discover the loopholes of retreat.”
Combine redirected taxes for dramatic charity giveaways
Larry Rosenwald wrote, of this technique, “To sit on the Grants and
Loans Committee of New England War Tax Resistance, and to dispense the
interest on refused taxes to a youth group in Chelsea, a video for cable
television on United States involvement in Central America, and a
people’s garden in Roxbury is to be reminded of the ideal community,
however blurred and fragmented, that war tax resistance is done on behalf
of, in the hope of helping to make it clear and whole.”
Today I’ll reproduce some excerpts from that book that speak to Quaker tax resistance in the years before the American Revolution.
Some of this I may end up cutting from the book I’m preparing on Quaker war tax resistance because it deals with the tangential (but interesting to me) issue of the Regulator War and the Whiskey Rebellion, both of which were tax rebellions, and in both of which a certain fighting Quaker — Hermon Husband — played a prominent role.
Before the Revolution
Southern Quakers have been pretty uniform in their testimony against war.
Their position met with small respect in any of these colonies.
They refused to train and were fined.
They refused to pay the fine and it was collected by distress or they were imprisoned.
They were alike unmoved by distress or imprisonment.
The officers were forced to abandon persecution by the firm meekness of the persecuted.
Friends were always careful to put their sufferings on record.
Whatever else the Quaker might suffer, he could not bear for the shade of oblivion to come over the record of his testimonies.
They seem to have suffered from militia laws at an earlier period in Virginia than in North Carolina.
The first law that comes under our notice is the one of , which recites that “divers refractory persons” have “refused to appear upon the days of exercise and other times when required to attend upon the public service,” and then imposes on them for each neglect a fine of 100 pounds of tobacco.
The new militia act of makes no exemption of Quakers.
The fine was the same as before.
It was collected by distress, or imprisonment was inflicted, and the records indicate that Friends suffered from the law.
The first trial of this kind in North Carolina dates from .
In the Culpeper rebellion in this colony in , Friends first gave their allegiance to the government of Miller and Eastchurch.
When the party of the people came into power, in accord with their well-known principles of non-resistance, they submitted to it; but declared themselves a “separated people,” and that they “stood single from all the seditious actions” which had taken place in Albemarle in .
“Then some suffering fell upon friends which we not finding in ye old Book, we thought good to insert here; so that it may be seen generations to come,” says the chronicler, writing of the year .
“It was thus, the government made a Law that all that would not bear arms in ye Muster-field, should be at ye Pleasure of ye Court fined, accordingly friends not bearing arms in ye field; they had several friends before ye Court, and they fined them he that had a good Estate a great sum & ye rest according to their estates; and Cast them into prison, & when they were in prison, they went & levied their fines upon their estates; There were nine friends put in prison, viz. William Bundy John Price, Jona Phelps James Hogg John Thusstone Henry Prows Rich.
Byer Saml Hill Steven Handcock.
They were put in prison about .”
This record of persecution comes to us from the manuscript records of the Society.
It is a new one, and one which the author is inclined to attribute entirely to the disordered state of the colony.
The “rebellion” of Culpeper was at an end, but its leaders were still the controllers of the policy of the government, and the persecution may have been due to vindictiveness against the publishers of the protest which we have noticed.
This is borne out by the fact that of the nine Friends imprisoned, the names of three, perhaps of five, were signed to the protest.
There seems to have been no further persecution.
The North Carolina Quakers were prominent in the first part of the “Cary Rebellion,” .
This was a war of words only….
They refused to fight in the Indian war of .
They steadily exhorted each other not to go to this war, and even punished such of their members as paid the five pound penalty attached to the refusal.
As soon as the Government ceased to persecute them, they settled down to quiet and made good citizens.
North Carolina Quakers seem to have had a comparatively easy time.
In theory they were under disadvantages from muster laws, but in reality they suffered little.
In they protest against the tax levied to provide a magazine for each county, for that would be “to wound” their tender conscience.
In they consult London Friends as to paying the tax levied in provisions to support troops.
We do not know the answer.
Committees were appointed from time to time to confer with the authorities on this and similar matters.
They seem to have come to little conclusion.
Muster fines, sometimes collected by distress, are reported at nearly every meeting, but they were small in amount, and the muster law, like the tithe law, seems to have been spasmodically enforced.
In Virginia, on the other hand, Friends had a harder road to travel.
Fines were heavier and were more rigidly collected.
As early as the Yearly Meeting recorded that “Friends are generally fined for not bearing arms and that grand oppression of priests wages, though the magistrates are pretty moderate at present and truth gains ground.”
In Governor Spotswood came in conflict with Friends over this testimony.
He undertook to force assistance from them on the ground that otherwise the lazy and cowardly would plead conscience; some Friends yielded so far as to assist in building forts.
The sense of the Yearly Meeting was “that those Friends who have given away their Testimony, by hiring, paying, or working, to make any fort, or defense against enemies, do give from under their hands to the monthly meeting for the clearing the truth.”
It is to be understood, of course, that there was no recognition or exemption of dissenting ministers in the military acts.
The military law of exempted “ministers,” while that of confined it to ministers of the Church of England.
This indicates that dissenting ministers had claimed exemption under the broader law, and that the Assembly was not willing to recognize them.
The act of , exempted all Quakers from personal service, but required them to furnish a substitute, or to be fined for neglect.
This law, while seeming to be one looking toward recognition of the peculiar views of Friends, was not in reality such.
To a society which condemns war and all its paraphernalia in toto, personal exemption can be no favor.
It was no favor to a Quaker to allow him to send a substitute or pay a fine.
In they record that their sufferings had been “very considerable,” both on account of “militia and priests’ wages,” and are of the opinion that they “are likely to increase greatly on that account.”
In they say “the men in military power act toward us in several counties with as much lenity and forbearance as we can reasonably expect, as they are ministers of the law; though in some places they are not so favorable,” and Friends had been in prison for neglect of military duties during the visit of Bownas.
and the period just preceding it were times of great trial to Friends in this matter.
The English settlers believed that French agents were trying to stir up the Indians, and that in the onslaught against English civilization the Indians would be led by Frenchmen, little more civilized or humane in their conduct of war than the savages themselves.
To guard against this the Assembly of Virginia passed various acts in , , , , , , , for raising levies and recruits, for the better training of militia, and keeping them in readiness.
The Assembly also undertook to increase the number of available troops, and, to fill the quotas of the militia, passed laws in and , requiring the members of the county militia who had no wives or children to stand a draft; but any person drafted might secure a substitute, or be released on the payment of ten pounds.
If they refused they were imprisoned until they agreed to serve, to procure a substitute, or paid the fine.
From time to time it voted various sums to be expended on these matters and on the better defense of the province.
The tax, since it was laid for war purposes, was a source of trouble.
But Friends generally complied in paying this tax without inquiring too closely into the way it was spent.
English Friends wrote that this was their custom, and it was also the custom of the Pennsylvania Friends.
This caused some of the Friends who were not anxious to pose as martyrs to treat the fine for refusing to stand the draft or procure a substitute as a part of the general levy.
This fine when paid also went for war purposes, but the Society as a whole denounced the practice and warned their members against it.
The act of , did not exempt the Quakers.…
Here, a footnote reads: “The next act, for ‘the better regulating and training the militia,’ in prescribing accoutrements says ‘that every person so as aforesaid enlisted (except the people commonly called Quakers, free mulattoes, negroes and Indians),’ etc., which indicates that they were not on the same footing as others, but that this did not mean exemption is shown clearly from their records.
Nor are they included in the list of exempted persons mentioned in section three of the same act.”
…An act of , provided that every twentieth man of the county militia should be drafted and sent to the frontier at Winchester under Col. Washington.
This is followed by another for “better regulating and disciplining the militia,” which exempted ministers of the Church of England, but no dissenting ministers.
Nor were Quakers mentioned in the section directing the accoutrements, as was done in the similar act of .
They were shown no favors, and the Yearly Meeting records of state that seven young men had already been carried to the frontier.
They asked advice of London Yearly Meeting in the case.
They exhorted the men thus tried to remain faithful to their testimony, took up a collection for their relief, and recorded that Friends were “pretty generally faithful.”
In their epistle to London Yearly Meeting in they stated that those Friends were now released who had been imprisoned the year before, that application had been made to the Assembly about this requirement, and that the officers now had a more favorable opinion of Friends.
This was probably the severest trial through which Virginia Friends were called to go because of this testimony.
The North Carolina Quakers also thought it necessary for them to attend the courts-martial in and give the reasons of Friends for not attending musters, and likewise to send a petition to the Governor against the militia law, but it does not appear that they were brought to trial on these points during the French and Indian war.
In Virginia Quakers appointed a committee to petition the Assembly for relief from military fines, etc. This petition may have had influence on the law passed in .
By this law Quakers were exempted from appearing at private or general musters, and were not required to provide a set of arms as all other exempts were.
So far the law is good; it is further provided that the chief militia officer in each county should list all Quakers of military age, and if needed, these would have to go into actual service just as other persons, except that they might furnish a substitute or pay a fine of ten pounds.
But the number of Quakers who were thus required to serve or find substitutes was not to exceed the proportion the whole number of Quakers bore to the whole number of other militia.
The law required also that no Quaker should be exempted from musters unless he produced a testimonial that he was a bona fide Quaker.
This law was a decided gain for the Quaker, although it was not a complete recognition of his position on war.
It recognized this position absolutely in times of peace by exempting him from musters, and even gave him a privilege over other exempts by relieving him from the requirement to furnish a set of arms. But it failed him entirely in time of war.
As early as an attempt had been made in North Carolina to get a law exempting Quakers, but it was opposed by the Council, who offered to substitute in place of the regular equipment of the soldier that of the pioneer — axe, spade, shovel or hoe.
This failed to become law; but by the terms of a special act, which is substantially a copy of the Virginia law of , passed in for five years, Quakers were released from attendance on general or private musters, provided that they were regularly listed and served in the regular militia in case of insurrection or invasion.
From a petition which the Quakers presented to the Governor and the Assembly of North Carolina in , we may conclude that Tryon had in some cases exempted them from the penalty of the laws.
We find also certificates of unity given to some of their members, who were liable to military duty, in .
These certificates seem to have relieved them practically from all militia requirements.
At the beginning of the Revolution, Friends had been exempted from attending musters in Virginia and North Carolina, but not from being enrolled in the militia or from serving in case of insurrection.
I have found no indications that Quakers had been exempted at this time from military laws in South Carolina and Georgia.
They were too weak in both of these provinces to affect their legislation.
There had been some suffering in South Carolina on account of this testimony about the time of the Yemassee war in .
Quakers kept a careful record of all the fines they suffered by distress or otherwise.
These sufferings varied from year to year according to the personal feeling of the officers.
They were heavier in Virginia than in North Carolina; only in do we find an entry in that State of sufferings amounting to £85 and over for tithes and “malissia” fines.…
I have no idea what a “malissia” fine is.
Any clue?
Oh.
I get it.
It’s a phonetic spelling of “militia” by someone who was unfamiliar with the word.
…The chief cause of suffering there was for tithes.
In Virginia, on the other hand, the fines seem to have been about equally divided.
Another footnote here: “They have recorded fines for neglect of military duty in Virginia as follows: , £12 5s.; , £84 11s. 5d.; , £61 1s.; , £131 8s. 1d.; , £59 14s. 8d.; , £10 9s. 2d.; , £16 14s.; , £4 11s. 6d.; , £86 19s. 4½d., mostly military.
From this time there is no distinction between ‘priest’s wages’ and militia fines.
The sums are as follows: , £98 13s. 5d.; , £108 6s. 10d.; , £90 14s.; , £80 13s.; , £103; , £74 12s. 6d.; , £113 11s. 10d.; , £109; , £133; , £67; , £3 5s.”
There has been an extensive belief that Friends were active in the War of the Regulation in North Carolina in .
This belief is founded partly on the charge of Governor Tryon, that the Regulators were a faction of Baptists and Quakers who were trying to overthrow the Church of England.
This charge, like the similar charge made by the aristocracy in North Carolina in , is more easily made than proved.
The Quakers are easily shown from their records not to have been Regulators.
There were, of course, individual Quakers who took part in the Regulation; many more no doubt sympathized with the principles advocated; but no complicity with the events of was tolerated by the meetings in their organic capacity.
The foundation for this charge lies, no doubt, largely in the fact that Hermon Husband, the leader of the Regulators, had been a Quaker.
He had been disowned by the Society, however, but not for immorality, as Governor Tryon states.
Since no North Carolina Quaker is more widely known than Husband, it is desirable that we know as many facts as possible of his life.
Hermon Husband was born , in all probability in Cecil County, Md. His grandfather, William Husband, made a will, .
He writes himself as of “Sissil” County, Maryland; he had cattle, “Hoggs and sheape,” and negroes, and speaks of “the Iron works that belongs to me.”
He had a good deal of land.
William, the father of Hermon, was also of Cecil County.
His will was probated .
He also had negroes, and was not a Quaker.
His son Joseph, born , was the first of the family to turn Quaker.
His convincement influenced Hermon among others.
Hermon became a prominent man among the Quakers of East Nottingham, Md. He once got a certificate to visit Barbadoes.
He was first in North Carolina about , when he removed to Carver’s Creek Monthly Meeting in Bladen County.
How long he remained here we do not know, but on , he presented a certificate of removal to Cane Creek Monthly Meeting.
He returned from Cane Creek to Nottingham in , and, on , presented a certificate of removal from Cane Creek to West River Monthly Meeting, Md. He got a certificate to go back to Cane Creek, , and on , Friends report to Cane Creek that the marriage of Hermon Husband and Mary Pugh had been orderly.
Footnote: “At this period Husband also set up some claims to authorship, as the following title will show: Some | Remarks | on | Religion, | With the Author’s Experience in Pursuit thereof, | For the Consideration of all People; | Being the real Truth of what happened.
| Simply delivered, without the Help of School-Words, or Dress | of Learning.
| Philadelphia: | Printed by William Bradford for the Author.
| .
Octavo, pp. 88. (Hildeburn’s Issues of the Press in Pa.) The copy in Library Company of Philadelphia has the author’s name noted on the title-page in the handwriting of Du Simitiere.
At the end of the tract it is said to have been ‘written about .’ ”
This year a commotion began in Cane Creek Monthly Meeting which led to the disownment of Husband, the suspension of others, and involved the monthly meeting, the quarterly meeting, and even the Yearly Meeting, in a religious wrangle.
The origin of this trouble was as follows: In , Rachel Wright, a member of Cane Creek Monthly Meeting, committed some disorder.
She offered a paper condemning the same.
This seems to have been accepted, and in she asked for a certificate of removal to Fredericksburg, S.C. But some members of the monthly meeting thought she was not sincere in the paper offered and did not wish to give her the certificate.
A wrangle resulted, and the case was appealed to the quarterly meeting, which recommended that the certificate be given.
Husband, evidently a man who was accustomed to speak fearlessly, was thereupon “guilty of making remarks on the actions and transactions” of the meeting; he spoke “his mind,” and was guilty of “publicly advertising the same”; for this he was disowned by Cane Creek Monthly Meeting, .
But in the meantime his party had grown, and a number of Friends signed a paper in which they expressed dissatisfaction with the disowning of Husband.
The quarterly meeting then appointed a committee to advise with the malcontents, of whom the leaders were said to be Hermon Husband, Joseph Maddock, Isaac Vernon, Thomas Branson, John and William Marshill, and Jonathan Cell, “with divers others.”
In , the committee report “that it would be of dangerous consequences to allow them the privilege of active members, or to be made use of as such in any of our meetings of business until suitable satisfaction is made for their outgoings.”
Maddock, Cell and the Marshills felt “uneasy and aggrieved with the proceedings and judgment of this meeting,” and filed notice of an appeal to the Yearly Meeting.
The Yearly Meeting decided that Western Quarterly Meeting did wrong in granting a certificate to Rachel Wright, “if it was to be made a precedent,” and that the minute of the quarterly meeting which suspended from active membership those who had signed the other paper expressing dissatisfaction with the disowning of Hermon Husband should be reversed.
The quarterly meeting thereupon acknowledged itself wrong in the matter of Rachel Wright; Fredericksburg Monthly Meeting was informed of the conditions surrounding the certificate, and the parties under ban were restored to active membership, for we find Joseph Maddock and William Marshill serving as representatives from Cane Creek Monthly Meeting to Western Quarterly Meeting in .
But this did not restore Husband.
He had been formally disowned, and disappears from this time from the records of North Carolina Quakerism.
It is probable that some of these discontented Friends were led by this trouble to join the Regulators.
It does not appear that the trouble was healed, for we find that two men, Joseph Maddock and Jonathan Sell, laid the foundation of the Georgia settlement of Friends in .
They were no doubt the same as the persons who have just been mentioned.
It is probable that they carried a considerable contingent of settlers with them from Cane Creek.
It is now time for us to return to Hermon Husband and the part taken by Friends in the War of the Regulation.
Caruthers, who gives the traditions among the people who knew him, characterizes Husband as a man of superior mind, grave in deportment, somewhat taciturn, wary in conversation, but when excited, forcible and fluent in argument.
He was a man of strict integrity and firm in his advocacy of the right.
He had considerable property, and took the part of the people in their complaints against the extortions of the officers.
He was a member of the Assembly in .
His participation in the Regulation movement brought the Government down on him, and he was imprisoned for more than fifty days, awaiting trial on charges on which the grand jury could not agree to return an indictment.
He was also presented for riot under an ex post facto law, and was six times acquitted by juries in Craven and Orange counties of all offenses alleged against him.
He was expelled from the Assembly, and after the battle of the Alamance, at which he was not present, was outlawed, and a reward of $100, or 1,000 acres of land, was offered for his arrest, dead or alive.
He soon left North Carolina, returned to Pennsylvania, and became prominent in the Whiskey Rebellion in .
Footnote: “I find in the minutes of Western Quarterly Meeting in a notice of the disorderly marriage of ‘Amey Allin now Husbands.’
Was this a second wife of Hermon Husband?
In , William Husband was disowned by Cane Creek for fighting.
Was he a son of Hermon?”
Husband’s career was clearly inconsistent with the unwarlike creed of the Quakers.
His intentions were probably good, but because he had been a Quaker, the Society has had the credit of being a leader in the movement that culminated in the battle of the Alamance on .
Without entering at all into the merits of that struggle, it is sufficient to say that Friends, as a body, had nothing to do with it, and in their official capacity condemned it to the fullest extent.
A few extracts from their records will show this clearly.
Cane Creek Meeting was in the center of the disturbance.
The first mention we find of the troubles is in , when seven members were disowned for attending a “disorderly meeting,” probably one of the mass-meetings with which the country was then alive.
In two Quakers were complained of for joining a body of persons to withdraw from the paying of the taxes.
They were disowned.
In Hermon Cox was disowned for joining the Regulators.
In denials were published against Benjamin and James Underwood, Joshua Dixon, Isaac Cox, Samuel Cox and his two sons, Hermon and Samuel, James Matthews, John and Benjamin Hinshaw, William Graves, Nathan Farmer, Jesse Pugh, William Tanzy, John and William Williams, who all seem to have been Regulators.
Thomas Pugh was also disowned for joining, and Humphrey Williams for aiding them.
Three men were disowned by New Garden Monthly Meeting for joining, and a fourth condemned himself in meeting for aiding “with a gun.”
These are all the cases I have found that indicate the participation of the Quakers in the political and civil troubles of the day.
They remained faithful to the Government.
Governor Tryon made a requisition on them for twenty beeves and ten barrels of flour for his army.
They agreed to furnish the things demanded, but pleaded that they could not do it within the limits of time set.
In Friends asserted their loyalty and attachment to George Ⅲ., and at the beginning of the Revolution the Yearly Meeting, in its letter to the Society in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, gave forth their “testimony against all Plotting, Conspiracies, and insurrections against the king and government whatsoever as works of darkness.”
The Regulation, no doubt, had a bad effect on the Society in this section.
The minutes of Cane Creek Monthly Meeting , fill but two pages, as if outside matters were attracting their attention.
There were, moreover, many removals and few arrivals at Cane Creek.
These troubles caused, no doubt, a considerable exodus of Quakers to Bush River, S.C., and to Wrightsborough, Ga., just as they sent many members of the Sandy Creek Baptist Association from the same section to the banks of the Watauga in Eastern Tennessee.
In North Carolina, for nearly three-quarters of the first century of its settlement the Government was the veriest farce imaginable.
During that time not merely all political authority but all private property in the soil as well, was vested in the Lords Proprietors, as they were called; yet it was said that one of them if here “would be regarded no more than a ballad singer would be.” Under their rule “the people of North Carolina were confessedly the freest of the free.” Generally speaking, they were sarcastically said to recognize no authority not derived from themselves and to have deposed their Governors until they actually thought they had a right so to do.
Rebellions, too, so-called, were the order of the day.
That passage comes from an address by William L. Saunders, then the Secretary of State of North Carolina, in .
Saunders had been a commander in Robert E. Lee’s rebel army, and was a North Carolina patriot.
His address sought to trace the ornery and independence-minded Carolina character back to the early history of the colony.
In the course of this, he includes these descriptions:
The first outbreak under royal rule was brought about by the attempt of Governor [Gabriel] Johnston to force the people to bring their rents to the collectors at places designated by the Government.
In this connection it must be remembered that in those days the people did not own their lands in fee-simple as we do now, but were tenants and held them upon payment of an annual rent of so much per hundred acres.
Owing to the lack of a sufficient currency, at a very early day laws were passed making these rents payable in produce and collectible on the premises.
The trouble began in and several years elapsed before it was ended.
In the year the people thought forbearance had ceased to be a virtue, and having exhausted all peaceable means, began to resort to force.
In that year, at the General Court at Edenton, a man was imprisoned for contempt of Court, but the people of Bertie and Edgecombe, which then covered substantially all the settled territory to the westward, hearing that he was imprisoned for refusing to deliver his rents at the appointed places, rose in arms to the number of 500 and marched on the town, intending to rescue the man by force from the Court, in the meantime cursing the King and uttering a great many rebellious speeches.
When within five miles of Edenton they learned the truth, and that the man having made his peace with the Court, had been discharged from custody.
The “mob” thereupon dispersed, threatening, however, “the most cruel usage to such persons as durst come to demand any rents of them for the future.” This was the account of the affair the Governor himself gave, to which he added a declaration of his inability to punish them if they carried out their threats.
The trouble did not end here nor for several years.
In this same Governor Johnston attempted to
deprive the old counties of the province of their immemorial right to send
five delegates each to the Assembly, and issued writs of election for only
two members to the county. The result was that the old counties refused to
regard his writs of election, and when they voted each voter put on his
ballot the names of five men already agreed upon and the sheriffs so
returned. The Legislature thereupon declared the elections void. But the
people would vote in no other way, and in consequence the old counties for
eight years were not represented in the Assembly, and not being represented,
refused to pay taxes or to do any other act that recognized the authority of
the Assembly. The new counties that sent only two members, seeing what the
old ones were doing, said it was not fair to make them bear the whole burden
of the Government, and they, too, refused to pay taxes. And this was the
condition of the Province for eight years, at the end of which time full
representation was restored. And the Governor was powerless to change it.
The next serious trouble grew out of the opposition to the notorious Stamp Act.
This was an act of the British Parliament requiring everything to be stamped just as has been the case here under the Internal Revenue System.
The stamp masters were seized and forced to swear they would have nothing to do with the stamps, and it being known when the vessel bringing the stamps would come up to Wilmington, Colonels Ashe and Waddell, having called out the militia from Brunswick and the adjoining counties to the number of some 700 men, seized the vessel and held her until her commander promised not to permit the stamps to be taken from her.
Tryon, the new Governor, was a prisoner in his own house and utterly powerless.
Nor was this all.
The royal sloop Viper, then on duty in the river, having seized several vessels for want of stamped papers, the inhabitants of Wilmington entered into an agreement not to supply his Majesty’s ships with provisions until such seizures were stopped; and the boatmen sent for supplies were put in jail.
This agreement was carried out until the Viper, after being entirely without rations for a day or two, was driven to terms and stopped her seizures.
This was in the winter of –.
There was neither disguise nor concealment about all this. Everything was
done in the broad open day, by men perfectly well known, and in the very
presence of the Governor, as it were.
Immediately after this period, the Regulator movement began its tax resistance campaign in North Carolina.
Saunders notes that among the items on the agenda of the North Carolina rebels during the American Revolution was the legal rehabilitation of the Regulators, who had been defeated and forced to sign loyalty oaths.
People will be less reluctant to take risks in a tax resistance campaign if
they know other people are willing to share those risks. One way of providing
this sort of reassurance is for resisters to join together in a mutual
insurance plan, so that if the government takes legal action against a
resister, or retaliates against them in some other way, they won’t have to
bear these consequences alone.
Today I’ll review some examples of how a variety of tax resistance campaigns
have created mutual insurance plans to protect resisters.
War Tax Resisters Penalty Fund
The War Tax Resisters Penalty Fund
reimburses American war tax resisters who have penalties & interest
seized by the
IRS.
The fund is operated by a team of resisters and sympathizers, and has hundreds
of subscribers:
In a core group of 83 people across the
country decided we could easily share $463.14 in penalties and interest
incurred by a few military tax resisters who appealed to the war tax
resistance community for help. The more people we could recruit to shoulder
the penalties and interest of resisters, the lighter the burden for everyone.
With the modest help we could provide, conscientious resisters were able to
keep on keeping on.
The penalty fund had the added benefit of making us all tax resisters, not
just those who withheld all or a portion of their income taxes. The base list
of supporters has been as high as 800 people sharing the weight. In nearly
every appeal, at least 200 people respond, usually more. In all we’ve paid
out about $250,000 to help resisters stay in the struggle.
Resisters who have had money seized by the
IRS
send the fund documentation showing how much of the seizure was the result
of interest and penalties, and then the fund sends out an appeal to its
members to help reimburse the cost:
We divide the total amount for all resisters by the number of active names on
the membership list to arrive at a “share.” We then send out an appeal to
both actives and inactive members. Each contributor pays all of a share or
whatever amount she can afford. Some pay more than a share. If we collect 75
percent of the total we ask for, each resister gets 75 percent of the amount
they requested. We cannot promise that we will collect the total amount
requested; usually, however, we can reimburse between 50% and 80% of each
appeal.
I have personal experience with this mutual insurance plan. In
the
IRS
seized some bank accounts of mine to recover taxes I had refused to pay. This
included $813 in interest and penalties. I applied to the War Tax Resisters
Penalty Fund, which sent me a check for $649 from the amount the subscribers
to the fund pledged.
Irish Land League
When the
National
Land League launched a rent strike targeting English absentee landlords in
Ireland in , it made sure resisters knew
it would have their backs if the landlords tried to evict them. The leaders
of the League issued a rent strike manifesto from Kilmainham Jail that
declared:
If you only act together in the spirit to which within the last two years
you have countless times pledged your vows, they can no more evict a whole
nation than they can imprison them.
The funds of the National Land League will be poured out unstintingly for the
support of all who may endure eviction in the course of the struggle. Our
exiled brothers in America may be relied upon to contribute if necessary as
many millions of money as they have contributed thousands to starve out
landlordism and bring English tyranny to its knees.
One of the ways this played out was for evicted tenants to be temporarily
put up, along with their livestock if any, on the property of unevicted
tenants and sympathetic landowners, in what came to be called “Land League
Villages.” Each family was given a small monthly allowance from the Land
League.
Dublin Water Charge Strike
In , the resistance campaign against the
water charge in Dublin initiated a mutual insurance fund. One of the campaign
leaders recalls:
Obviously the council/government tactic was to try to individualise their
intimidation. By summonsing individuals to court maybe they could bypass the
mass participation that the protests against disconnections had seen. The
campaign immediately took a decision that when any individual was summonsed
to court, we would turn up and contest every case — and that we would turn up
in force. It was at this time that we made a decision which would prove
crucial to the success of the campaign. We decided to initiate a membership
of the campaign at £2 per household. This money would go into a warchest to
pay legal fees so that no individual would be left facing a legal bill. The
idea that the individuals being taken to court were representing all of us
was paramount. Within weeks 2,500 households had paid the £2 membership fee,
and within 12 months there were over 10,000 paid-up households making the
campaign without doubt the biggest to have existed in decades.
Breton Association
When Charles Ⅹ of France attempted to bypass the legislature and enact his own
taxes in , French liberals in the Breton
Association organized tax resistance and created a fund to defray the costs of
any tax resisters who were prosecuted. By the terms of the Association’s
manifesto:
We declare… [t]o subscribe individually for ten francs… This subscription
will form a common stock or fund for all Brittany, destined to indemnify the
subscribers for any expense they may be put to by their refusal to pay any
illegal contributions imposed upon the public…
And this is how the fund was to be administered:
[Elected procurators are to] receive the subscriptions, to afford indemnities
conformably to the [section quoted above], at the request of any subscriber
prosecuted for the payment of illegal contributions; to sue in his name…
for justice against the exactors by all possible means allowed by law…
War of the Regulation
The Regulator movement, a tax resistance rebellion in pre-American Revolution
North Carolina, had an oath that members took that committed each of them to
come to the aid of any others who might be arrested or whose property was
being seized for nonpayment:
I will, with the aid of other sufficient help, go and take, if in my power,
from said officer, and return to the party from whom taken; and in case any
one concerned should be imprisoned, or under arrest, or otherwise confined,
or if his estate, or any part thereof, by reason or means of joining this
company of Regulators, for refusing to comply with the extortionate demands
of unlawful tax gatherers, that I will immediately exert my best endeavors to
raise as many of said subscribers as will be force sufficient, and, if in my
power, I will set the said person at liberty…
The oath also created a mutual insurance pledge:
I do further promise and swear that if, in case this, our scheme, should be
broken or otherwise fail, and should any of our company be put to expense or
under any confinement, that I will bear an equal share in paying and making
up said loss to the sufferer.
Reformed Israel of Yahweh
Members of the small Christian group called the Reformed Israel of Yahweh
were, like its founder, conscientious objectors to military taxation. When
some of the members of the group were convicted on tax evasion charges, the
Reformed Israel of Yahweh organization paid their fines.
Pacific Yearly Meeting
A committee of the collection of American Quaker congregations known as the
Pacific Yearly Meeting administers something it calls “the Fund for Concerns:”
Its purpose is to assist members and attenders of Monthly Meetings to follow
individual leadings arising from peace, social order, or spiritual concerns.
… Up to $100 per fiscal year per person will be available to help with the
interest and penalty expenses of war tax resisters who are members or regular
attenders of a Monthly Meeting. The Monthly Meeting must indicate approval
and provide matching funds.
New York Yearly Meeting
During the Vietnam War, the New York Yearly Meeting advocated war tax
resistance and “promised financial help through special committees if [Quaker
resisters] changed jobs or refused to pay taxes in protest against the war.”
Papuan Courier
In 1919, Papua, which had been a territory occupied and run by the German
Empire until World War Ⅰ when Australia took over, began to agitate against
taxation without representation, and many people refused to pay.
The Papuan Courier, which was sympathetic to the
tax resisters,
…as evidence of its bona fides on the question, has decided, to form a fund
for the defence of any resident who may by victimised, persecuted, or
prosecuted for failure to pay the tax, and to that end we open the list with
a contribution of Five Guineas.
Tithe War
In , Irish Catholics rebelled
against paying government-mandated tithes to the Anglican church. In this
case, the Catholic church itself provided some insurance to the resisters.
The Anglican archbishop Richard Whately complained:
Every possible legal evasion has been resorted to to prevent the incumbent
from obtaining his due. A parish purse has been raised to meet law expenses
for this purpose, and the result has been that in most instances nothing
whatever, in others a very small proportion of the arrears, has been
recovered. … [One Anglican clergyman] instituted a tithe-suit which was
decided in his favour; but, instead of receiving the amount, he was met by an
appeal to the High Court of Delegates, and is informed that a continued
resistance to the utmost extremity of the law is to be supported by a parish
purse.
Addio-Pizzo Movement
In , a number of individuals and businesses
opposed to paying mafia protection money began to use a number of techniques
to interrupt the payments and to support those resisters whom the mafia was
threatening with reprisals. The mayor of Palermo, Diego Cammarata, pledged
€50,000 to assist merchants who had been victims of extortion.
Peacemakers
The group “Peacemakers,” which launched the modern American war tax resistance
movement , had a mutual
insurance component from the beginning:
Peacemakers at the Ohio cell… established the Peacemaker Sharing Fund, a
mutual aid plan designed to insure aid to dependents of imprisoned
Peacemakers and to help finance group projects. During the Vietnam war, the
sharing fund became the main vehicle for donations to meet the needs of war
resisters’ families.
Penalty Sharing Community
The Iowa Peace Network maintains a mailing list of persons who have made a
commitment to the Penalty Sharing Community
to share in the penalties assessed to individuals and families who have
chosen to resist war taxes or have participated in civil disobedience or
non-violent direct action. When a request for assistance is received, a
mailing is sent out which explains the resister’s situation and the amount of
money needed. For example, if the resister was assessed a $300.00 penalty,
each of the persons in the Community would pay an equal portion of the
$300.00. Thus if there were 200 people in the Community, each would pay
$1.50. The Iowa Peace Network will also add into the amount requested its
costs for printing and mailing. Such costs have proven to be minimal.
Pioneer Valley War Tax Resisters
Members of the Pioneer Valley War Tax Resisters redirected their federal taxes
into an “alternative fund” that served partially as an escrow account, and
partially as a way of redirecting some of the money to charitable
organizations. Part of the fund was reserved to help defray any legal costs
incurred by members in the course of their resistance.
“New Rush” Resisters
White miners at the “New Rush” in Kimberly, South Africa, voted in
to form “a Defence League and Protection
Association… not to assail the Government, but to protect individuals if
assailed unrighteously by the Government.” The pledge of the association said
in part:
I shall to the utmost of my power, with purse and person, protect any and
every officer and member of the League against coercion or consequences of
what nature soever arising out of the action necessitated by this pledge.
The pledge had a clause that made it binding when it would be signed by 400
men, whereupon:
The Government will be defied if they dare to touch a single claim for
non-payment of license. The diamond buyers will refuse to pay further license
and will be defended from harm.
Ruhrkampf
When the Ruhr region of Germany began resisting reparation payments to the
victorious nations of World War Ⅰ, France and Belgium occupied the region
to take the payments by force. Germans responded with a campaign of mass
nonviolent resistance, including tax resistance, and were backed up by their
own government.
One of the ways the German government supported the campaign was by paying
the strikers itself, to the tune of 715 million marks. It did this in part by
printing off more currency, which helped fuel the hyperinflation of
(itself a sort of resistance strategy that
made it difficult or impractical to account for reparations payments).
Louisiana Anti-Reconstructionists
During the “Reconstruction” period after the American Civil War, white
supremacists in Louisiana refused their allegiance to a federally-backed,
mixed-race state government, and demonstrated this through tax resistance.
Several attorneys issued a statement offering to “engage themselves, without
compensation, and as a matter of public service, to defend professionally all
[tax resisters].” A mass-meeting issued a tax resistance pledge, and resolved:
That a committee of five be appointed to draw up a plan by which the citizens
may co-operate, to employ counsel and mutually assist each other in their
refusal to pay taxes.
Satyagraha in South Africa
Gopal Krishna Gokhale, an officer in the Indian National Congress fighting
for the independence of India, pledged £2,000 a month to support Indian
satyagrahis in South Africa who were engaged in tax resistance and other
tactics under Gandhi’s direction.
There are many ways to support tax resisters when they are targeted by the
police or courts, including:
Today I’ll finish off this series by mentioning some other examples of ways
sympathizers, supporters, and organized campaigns have responded to the arrest,
trial, or imprisonment of tax resisters.
Mass action in response to arrests
When elderly pensioner Sylvia Hardy was imprisoned for refusing to
continue to pay her ever-rising council tax, supporters started a daily
vigil outside Exeter Cathedral to bring attention to her plight. “Judging
from the passers-by,” one said, “most people are fully aware of what’s
happened to her and we’ve had a lot of sympathy and interest.”
When Australian miners refused to pay a license tax in
, they resolved that if any one of them
were arrested: “it should be reported to the [tax resistance] committee by
the nearest observer; they would immediately call a monster meeting, and
the whole of the people would deliver themselves into custody.”
In , Australian miners were at it again,
this time resisting the income tax. They voted on a resolution that said,
in part, that upon “any member being sent to prison for refusing to pay,
that all unionists be called on immediately to stop work, and refuse to
recommence until such member is released, or the garnished money is
refunded.”
In Beidenfleth, Germany, between the World Wars, farmers were unable to
keep up with their tax payments, and decided to strike rather than see
themselves further impoverished. When fifty-seven were indicted for
interfering with a tax seizure, hundreds of others who either had been
involved with that action (or who wished they could have been), demanded
to be tried alongside them:
[A] fever seemed to grip the countryside. From far and wide the peasants
poured into Itzehoe, where the case was to be tried, with wild cries of
self-accusation. The public prosecutor could not walk down the streets
without being at once mobbed by powerful, earnest men begging him to
lift the heavy weight of guilt from their shoulders and to restore their
inner peace of mind by issuing a writ against them.
Honor prisoners
While people were desperately trying to get themselves indicted for tax
resistance in Beidenfleth, those who succeeded were honored:
The Beidenfleth Heifer Case developed into a regular popular festival.
Maidenly hands strung garlands about the necks of those enviable
peasants who had achieved the honour of receiving a writ.
I’ve mentioned before the badges awarded by the Women’s Tax Resistance
League to those who had gone to prison in the course of the campaign, and
how those so awarded were given the place of honor at campaign events
(see The Picket
Line for ).
It was also common for the League to throw luncheons or other such events
to honor imprisoned resisters upon their release.
The annuity tax resisters in Edinburgh, Scotland, honored one imprisoned
resister with “a piece of plate for his conduct on this occasion.” Another
time, they passed the hat for contributions, which, when the money was
given to resister Thomas Russell, he said: “We shall give it to the
Annuity Tax League, to enable them to carry out their operations in the
abolishment of the tax.”
A plaque on the Cass County, Missouri courthouse building honors the five
county judges who were imprisoned for contempt for refusing to order the
county to collect taxes to pay off fraudulent railroad bonds
.
Formal shows of support
When John Brown Smith, a lone Christian anarchist tax resister who was
imprisoned for tax resistance for about a year
, a convention of
“Liberalists” in Boston passed a resolution in support of Smith’s stand,
saying: “That in suffering eight months’ imprisonment in the orthodox
Republican hell of Northampton, rather than pay his taxes, John Brown Smith
has shown discerning wisdom and invincible courage, which place him high
among the world’s benefactors, and disclose a practical way to vanquish
sanguinary forces without shedding innocent or vicious blood.”
One of the Cass County judges who went to jail for refusing to obey a
higher court order to impose taxes on the county to pay for fraudulent
railroad bonds, was elected to the state legislature by the citizens of
the county while he was in prison.
When war tax resister Zerah C. Whipple was in jail for his stand, the
Connecticut State Peace Society passed a series of resolutions in support.
For example: “Resolved: That it is a great, previous, and sanctifying
privilege of us all, to feel that in his bonds we are bound with him, and
to pour our heart’s holiest sympathies into his cup of trial.”
The Women’s Tax Resistance League and allied organizations would pass
resolutions in support of imprisoned resisters, send telegrams of
congratulation to resisters who were being jailed for the cause, and hold
meetings to especially commemorate and support their stand.
Petition the government for leniency
When a number of young Quaker men were imprisoned for failure to pay a
militia exemption tax in , David Cooper
followed them to jail, and met with the officers who were holding them
captive. He wrote:
I had much conversation with them; they appeared very moderate, but were
very earnest for me to pay the fine, and not suffer our sons to be
committed to prison. I told them they were aware that our religious
principles forbade it; the young men were in their possession, and I had
no desire to persuade them to deviate from what they believed their duty
as officers required; but only wished them to use their power in a
manner that would afford peace hereafter. It was a matter of conscience;
they ought therefore to be very tender, and not use rigor. If they were
committed I saw no end. They could never pay the fines without wounding
their own minds, nor could their friends do it for them. They appeared
friendly, and the young men being under the Sheriff’s care, he directed
them to go home, and meet him at Woodbury at an appointed day. He
afterwards sent them word they need give themselves no further trouble
till he called for them. So the matter rested.
The Women’s Tax Resistance League would write letters of inquiry to
government officials whenever one of them was imprisoned. For instance,
when Kate Harvey was jailed, Charlotte Despard wrote to her representative
in Parliament to point out the discrepancy between her cruel sentence and
the wrist-slaps given to men for similar offenses. “I cannot believe,
sir,” she wrote, “that you will permit this injustice to be done. … Mrs.
Harvey is one whose time, service and money are given to the rescue of
little destitute children, and to the help of those not so fortunately
placed as herself. While such injustices as these are permitted by the
authorities, can you wonder that women are in revolt?” League member Marie
Lawson started what she called a “snowball” protest — a sort of chain
letter that sympathizers were supposed to send to their friends that
included a postcard-sized petition they could send to various government
figures.
When American war tax resister Maurice McCracken was imprisoned, supporters
sent a telegram to President Eisenbower, asking him to release the
prisoner (they got a vague, noncommittal reply).
Somewhat related to this is that when the American Revolution broke out,
one item on the agenda of the revolutionaries from North Carolina was the
legal rehabilitation of the tax rebels who had been convicted at the end
of the Regulator movement of
.
, I’m finishing off Violence Week here at The Picket Line.
Violence certainly can be an effective way to disrupt the tax collecting bureaucracy.
Most tax collectors are not particularly enthusiastic about their calling, and so a little intimidation can go a long way in discouraging them.
This in turn makes tax collection more expensive for the government, decreasing its return-on-investment and compelling it either to tighten its belt or to resort to higher taxes and thereby expand the ranks of resisters.
The IRS even now is complaining of “a surge of hostility towards the federal government” that threatens its employees.
“Attacks and threats against IRS employees and facilities have risen steadily in recent years.”
Taxation is such a political hot potato, and politicians are so venal, that the people who most profit from taxes are often the first ones to fan the flames of hostility.
Violence also has a way of backfiring.
Tax resistance campaigns often show great success right up to the point where they start relying on violent tactics, whereupon they lose popular support, become subject to an easier-to-justify draconian crack-down, or reinvigorate their opponents.
Violence also, in a less-obvious way, harms the body politic by increasing fear, divisiveness, and tension, by giving precedent to people who already have tendencies to resolve conflicts violently, by making it harder for opposing sides to come to a reconciliation, and so forth.
And of course, in many cases, it is just cruel and wrong in its own right.
I have presented examples this week largely without passing judgment as to whether they were justified or helpful to their cause.
Some examples, for instance the Rebecca Riots, are hard to imagine without violence.
Other examples, for instance the Regulator movement in colonial North Carolina, seemed to me to be cases where violent tactics were counterproductive to the point of being disastrous.
And in some cases, the violence was so cruel or misdirected that even if you were being generous about the ends justifying the means, you would be hard-pressed to defend it.
(You can read my personal views about whether violence directed at tax collectors can be justified or helpful at an earlier Picket Line post.)
A good example of violence being used successfully is also an unsavory one.
White supremacists in the defeated states of the Confederacy after the U.S. Civil War used violent white militias to back up their tax resistance campaign against the reconstruction state governments that were being propped up by the victorious Union forces.
In Louisiana, dozens of armed men from the paramilitary “White League”…
…came to prevent the deputy tax-collector effecting a sale, armed with revolvers nearly all.
Mr. Fournet came and threatened the deputy and tax-collector.
The deputy and tax-collector ran into their offices.
I came down and called upon the citizens to clear the court-house, but could not succeed.
I then called upon the military, but they had no orders at that time to give me assistance to carry out the law.
When the deputy tax-collector attempted to make a sale Mr. Fournet raised his hand and struck him.
The deputy then shoved him down.
As soon as this was done forty, fifty, or sixty men came with their revolvers in hand.
White supremacist paramilitary groups went from terrorizing tax collectors and auctioneers to intimidating voters, assassinating office-holders, and massacring blacks.
Their terror campaign was ultimately successful at wearing down the will of the North.
The U.S. withdrew federal troops, whereupon the white supremacist forces retook political control, the white paramilitaries were absorbed into the state militias, and the white supremacists held absolute political control for generations after.
So, yes, sometimes the terrorists do win, and sometimes violence is successful, for some definitions of “success.”
Here are a few examples of attacks on tax officials that I wasn’t sure how to categorize… I include them below in a sort of catch-all miscellany category:
In one of the more amusing cases in my archive, when colonial Governor John Evans tried to impose a tax on shipping on the Delaware river, in violation of the colonial charter, and to enforce this by firing cannons on vessels that tried to pass his fort without paying, Richard Hill decided to defy the tax.
First he sent men “with the ship’s papers to the fort, to show that the vessel had been regularly cleared at the custom-house, and to endeavour to persuade the officer to suffer her to pass without molestation,” but that didn’t work.
Then he just tried to sail by, “steering as near to the opposite side as he safely could,” and almost got through “without damage, except [for] the main-sail, which was shot through.”
Then:
The officer at the fort, not willing to miss his prize, immediately had his boat manned and went in pursuit.
[Hill’s] ship’s sails were now slackened, and the boat was allowed to come alongside, and having fastened a rope to the ship, the officer and his men came on board.
Whilst engaged in a warm controversy with the owner and his friends, some one on board (no doubt advisedly) quietly loosed the boat and let her drift astern.
The ship was now under full sail, and when the officer at length discovered that he was in danger of a voyage to the West Indies, and that all his hopes of retreat were cut off, his courage failed, and he suffered himself to be led as a prisoner into the cabin.
Hill landed on the Jersey side of the river, run by Evans’s rival-governor Lord Cornbury, “who claimed in his own right the exclusive jurisdiction of the river” and, being “a proud and haughty man, on hearing the case, was quite indignant at this encroachment on his prerogative, and he threatened the officer in no measured terms of rebuke, who now became seriously alarmed at his situation, and sued for pardon, making many professions of sorrow for the offence he had committed.
At length, having promised never to attempt the like again, he was suffered to depart.”
Evans then gave up on his pet tax.
When a higher court ordered county court judges in Missouri to institute taxes there to pay off the owners of fraudulently-issued railroad bonds, “a gang of armed men rode into the county seat of Osceola and held tax officials at gunpoint while its members stole all the official tax records.
The gang warned the county court judges that they would be lynched unless they resigned immediately.
Lawmen recognized individuals in the gang but took no action because they knew residents admired the gang more than they did the court.
… All three judges resigned and, at a special election, voters selected three dedicated Greenbackers, one of them a relative of train robber Cole Younger who could presumably be trusted not to ally with railroads” … “Under renewed popular threats of physical harm, county courts in Knox and Macon devised schemes in that prevented the county treasuries from ever having enough funds to pay railroad debts.”
British Constitutionalists last year stormed a courtroom where a man was challenging his council tax bill and attempted to place the judge under citizens’ arrest.
“In chaotic scenes, police rescued Judge Michael Peake from the clutches of a mob and escorted him safely from the County Court…”
Charles-Town (S. Carolina) .
— The people called regulators have lately severely chastised one Lum, who is come to town; but we have not yet learnt the real cause of this severity to him.
A letter from Pine-Tree-Hill (now called Camden) dated , contains the following intelligence, viz. “The regulators have fixed upon to have a meeting here, to draw up their grievances, in order to be laid before the new assembly, 2500 or 3000 of them, from St. Mark’s and St. David’s parishes, are to rendezvous, on , at Eutaw, and thence proceed to Charles-Town, to pursue the proper measures for redress.
The regulators from the Congaree, Broad and Saludy rivers, are not to proceed to town, unless sent for by their brethren; but 1500 of them are to hold themselves in readiness, in case they should be wanted.
They do not intend the least injury to any person in town, desiring only provisions and quarters till their complaints shall be heard.
The confusion in North-Carolina is still greater than in this province, where the people of Orange county again threaten Col. Fenning [Edmund Fanning], and refuse paying any taxes till an act granting an enormous sum for building a house for the Governor be repealed; so that Governor [William] Tryon has been obliged to draught 2000 men from Mecklenburg and Dobbs counties to overawe them, who are to march from the town of Mecklenburg .
Two of their leaders have been secured, but its apprehended they will be released before they can be brought to trial, as the people in general complain loudly of the above mentioned act as a great grievance, as well as of that laying a duty on paper, glass, &c. which will soon drain from them the little specie they have.
Their paper currency being mostly sank, and a poll tax of eleven shillings proclamation money does not fail to add to the distresses of the country.”
The Colonial Williamsburg site has posted many issues of the Virginia Gazette, which was published in America during that included events like the French & Indian War, the Regulator rebellion, and the American Revolution.
Today I’ll summarize some of its coverage of the first stage of the Regulator movement:
A dispatch dated is the
earliest mention of the Regulators I found, but it starts off matter-of-factly about “the diſturbances in our back ſettlements” and “all the prudent ſteps that have or can be taken by the government to ſupreſs them” so the trouble had evidently been brewing for a while.
The article describes “the people called regulators” as vigilantes who have taken justice into their own hands, and describes a gun fight between John Bowels and a Mr. Woodward (described as “one of the leaders of the people called regulators”).
Bowels shot first, but Woodward’s shot hit its mark.
A dispatch dated tells of
“the diſtreſſed ſituation of [North Carolina], occaſioned by the reſtrictions on their trade, and the arbitrary conduct of ſome, who were intruſted with the liberties of their country, [which] had cauſed great commotions,” for instance, “that great numbers of the inhabitants in the back parts [of the province] had aſſembled together in order to get their aggrievances redreſſed, and that they had ſent an expreſs to the Governour, who is gone to inquire into the cauſe of their complaint.”
This issue quotes from a letter dated that reads, in part:
The regulators have fixed upon to have a meeting here [Camden, South Carolina], to draw up their grievances, in order to be laid before the new assembly, 2500 or 3000 of them, from St. Mark’s and St. David’s pariſhes, are to rendezvous, on , at Eutaw, and thence proceed to Charles-Town, to purſue the proper meaſures for redreſs.
The regulators from the Congaree, Broad and Saludy rivers, are not to proceed to town, unleſs ſent for by their brethren; but 1500 of them are to hold themſelves in readineſs, in caſe they ſhould be wanted.
They do not intend the leaſt injury to any perſon in town, deſiring only proviſions and quarters till their complaints ſhall be heard.
The confuſion in North-Carolina is ſtill greater than in this province [South Carolina], where the people of Orange county again threaten Col. Fenning, and refuſe paying any taxes till an act granting an enormous ſum for building a houſe for the Governor be repealed; ſo that Governor Tryon has been obliged to draught 2000 men from Mecklenburg and Dobbs counties to overawe them, who are to march from the town of Mecklenburg .
Two of their leaders have been ſecured, but it[’]s apprehended they will be releaſed before they can be brought to trial, as the people in general complain loudly of the above mentioned act as a great grievance, as well as of that laying a duty on paper, glaſs, &c. which will ſoon drain from them the little ſpecie they have.
Their paper currency being moſtly ſank, and a poll tax of eleven ſhillings proclamation money does not fail to add to the diſtreſſes of the country.
This issue quotes from a letter dated that reports on the “diſturbances” in North Carolina, which it says were “occaſioned by ſome late act or acts of Aſſembly, impoſing taxes that are very diſagreeable.”
It notes that Governor Tryon has called out the militia.
This issue quotes from a letter from North Carolina dated
, as follows:
In one of our weſtern counties we have had a very dangerous mob.
A number of armed men, calling themſelves Regulators, and refuſing to pay any debts of taxes, declaring no court ſhould be held, nor any executions levied by the ſheriff, put all buſineſs to a ſtand for ſome time.
The militia were called, to the amount of 1500 men, with the Governour, and ſeveral of his Council, at their head, and encamped in the town of Hillſborough, where they threw up ſome breaſtworks.
The Regulators encamped about three miles from the Governour and his party, and it is ſaid their numbers were nearly equal to his.
After lying in this manner for a conſiderable time, on ſome remonſtrances made to the Regulators they diſperſed, giving up ſome of their headmen; and although no blood was ſhed, it is looked upon as a ſerious affair, and by an eſtimate lately made it is thought will coſt the province 10,000l. The greateſt grievance complained of by theſe deluded people is the want of a paper currency, or ſome medium to anſwer the trade of the country.
Where theſe matters will end I know not, but this ſpirit of regulating ſeems too general, which makes property in this country very precarious.
On the Governor
addressed the colonial Assembly, which address was reprinted in this issue.
The first item on his agenda was “the late diſturbances in the back frontier ſettlements in this province” which he described as “licentuous and tumultuous meetings, that have been ſo frequently held, by a large body of inſurgents in thoſe parts.”
He notes that he has received “ſeveral petitions, papers and addreſſes” from them, and promises to do something about it, “should it appear upon enquiry, that the inhabitants labour under actual grievances, not within the remedy of the laws in force,” but he is more concerned with praising the militia and urging the Assembly to authorize more force (and to authorize funds to pay for the militia’s recent adventure).
The Assembly replied to the Governor , saying that they “have the fulleſt conviction of the neceſſity there was for marching a body of militia into Hillſborough, to oppoſe the intentional outrages of a ſet of men, who, forgetful of the duty they owed their Sovereign, inſenſible of the happineſs of your Excellency’s adminiſtration, and in defiance of the laws under which they lived, were purſuing meaſures deſtructive to the felicity, and dangerous to the conſtitution of their country.”
They went on to kiſs a great deal of aſs, and to agree with the governor on every point… except to say that they’ll have a hard time raising funds to pay off the militia if they cannot get something done about the currency crisis.
The governor in turn responded to this, and gave some more insight into how the lack of currency was causing trouble on the ground:
Tho’ your petition to his Majeſty for the emiſſion of a paper currency has not met with the deſired ſucceſs, I ſincerely hope no impending ruin awaits this province from its failure.
From the information I received in ſeveral parts of this province through which I have travelled, I am inclined to believe many of the inhabitants are great ſufferers, from the heavy burden of their private obligations, which, by the ingenuity of their creditors, can only be diſcharged with caſh: This puts it out of the power of the former to extricate themſelves from the load under the preſent great ſcarcity of money.
A dispatch dated
covers what I think were the same disturbances from described above, but gives this description of how the clash between the Regulators and the militia was averted: “they came to a parly, and upon aſſurances given the regulators by the Governor, that methods ſhould be taken for their relief, they ſeparated, and returned to their ſettlements.”
The paper praises Tryon for using the militia to confront the rebellion rather than calling out the redcoats (rebellious Boston, Massachusetts, in contrast, was being occupied by British troops at the time).
1769
Things seemed to have quieted down, but nothing was really resolved.
The Governor apparently said some reassuring and sympathetic things to the rebels, enough to dissuade them from risking a bloodbath, but then he came home full of bluster and without much enthusiasm for doing anything concrete about their grievances.
The Assembly fell all over itself in gushing praise for the Governor and militia, and didn’t seem much to care about the troubles of the “back parts” of the colony either.
The Regulators had reason to believe that they had been right all along to try to take justice into their own hands.
A brief, undated note in this issue reads: “They write from North Carolina, that the body of Regulators, ſtill continue to increaſe, and exceeded 5000 men.”
This issue gave these updates on the Regulator movement:
.
…we have been amuſed with a variety of reports, not unalarming, in conſequence of the arrival of an expreſs from the weſtern frontiers, repreſenting affairs in thoſe parts again in ſo critical a ſituation as to have rendered an application for aſſiſtance from hence [Charlestown] neceſſary, to bring to town ſome of the people ſtiled Regulators, who had been taken up by virtue of warrants iſſued from the court here.
Upon the ſuppoſition that thoſe repreſentations might be juſt, we hear his Excellency the Governour, by the advice of his Council, was pleaſed to inquire what voluntary aſſiſtance could be expected from the Charlestown militia, when, to the honour of the Artillery Company, commanded by Captain Owen Roberts, who have diſtinguiſhed themſelves upon former occaſions, that corps, being aſſembled moſt readily, agreed to go upon this ſervice.
A conſiderable number of Gentlemen, of rank and property, alſo offered themſelves as volunteers, and every thing was preparing for their ſetting out on next; but this evening a ſtop was put to their further proceeding, by the arrival of the priſoners, conſiſting of five men, viz.
Rudolph [illegible], John Fulman, Bartholomew Cogman, Chriſtopher Smith, and Thomas Trap, who have been conducted [illegible] under a guard of only eight men, without the leaſt attempt having been made to reſcue them.
John Frazer, another of the [illegible], was left behind on the road, having been dangerouſly wounded in the head in taking of him.
.
On a party of the militia arrived [illegible], with five of the people ſtiled Regulators, who had been [illegible] up as mentioned in our laſt [letter].
After examination they were committed to jail, to take their trials at the next court of general [illegible], which begins on .
Their arrival [rendered?] the marching any body of men from town unneſſary; for which ſervice the Artillery Company, commanded by Capt. Owen Roberts, and ſeveral other volunteers, ovvered themſelves.
The regulating work, as they term it, is not however at an end: Thoſe people will not ſuffer any proceſs, civil or criminal, to be executed; and frequent accounts are received of their exerciſing their aſſumed authority, by whipping ſuch as they deem delinquents, and of other diſturbances.
This dispatch, dated is,
unfortunately, nearly impossible to read.
It concerns the “preſent inſurrection, or rather rebellion” in Orange county, caused by people who for a “long time oppoſed paying all manner of taxes” and seems to describe a violent attack of some sort.
Contains a brief note that “[t]here have been freſh diſturbances in North Carolina, by the people who ſtile themſelves Regulators. Col. Fanning, of Orange county, who had his houſe demoliſhed, and all his furniture broke to pieces, [illegible] ripped open, &c. by theſe regulating gentry.”
The other day I received an open letter from you, by the hand of Mr. John Butler, and obſerve the contents.
You ſay it is an anſwer to a letter you received from a perſon who ſtiles himſelf A True Regulator, and ſuppoſe it to be from Mr. [Herman] Huſbands and me.
As to the letter I know nothing about it, or the author, I having always ſubſcribed my name to all the letters I ever wrote; however, as your anſwer relates to the regulation, I ſhall chearfully undertake to anſwer it, eſpecially as you have charged us with what we are wholly innocent of, and ſome things we are wholly unacquainted with.
You charge Huſbands and me with being the eſſence of that regulation, which has produced ſo much irregularity in the province.
If you would only turn yourſelf round, and view the many enormities, extortions, and exactions, daily practiſed on us by lawyers, clerks, regiſters, ſheriffs, &c., I am ſure you could not in truth count us the eſſence of it.
As to charging you with writing friendly to Col. Fanning, I never charged you or any other man about it, except Col. Fanning himſelf, for expoſing your private letter.
However I obſerve you plead on his behalf, to excuſe his extortion, even to the calling our laws and table of fees intricate and confuſed; ſo that no two judges can agree in the conſtruction of them, and then recommend us to uſe charity on his plea of ignorance &c. Pray, Sir, uſe that ſame charity towards us and our ignorance, and I am ſure you will not wonder the people are confuſed alſo under ſuch laws, eſpecially as we have ſo many ſimilar caſes of convulſions and confuſions daily publiſhed in every news-paper.
But pray, Sir, obſerve, by the way, Fanning had not one ſimilar caſe in the whole province, not even his prececeſſors; and it is obſervable alſo that he could not poſſibly raiſe ſuch a fortune from nothing in a few years, and maintain ſuch extravagance as he did, but by extortion, and grinding the face of the poor.
Beſides, he endeavoured to engage the regiſters in ſome other counties to follow his example, but none of their conferences proved large enough.
As to Tyrel’s caſe, I always through his crime did not deſerve to take his life, nor indeed all his fortune, And as to Mr. Huſbands’s caſe, almoſt every man in the whole country was eye and ear witneſs to it themſelves; and ever ſo much ſcholaſtic ſtating of facts, that you or any other can contrive, will not beat us out of a known truth.
How were Milner and Naſh ſtrangers to them that impriſoned Huſbands?
You ſay Huſbands, you believe, was impriſoned at the ſuit of the Crown; but I believe the Crown had commenced no ſuit againſt him til after the giving them bonds.
He was impriſoned by guards, procured by lawyers, clerks, and other extortionate officers, collected for that purpoſe; and ſuch officers got his bonds, and was there in company with them.
How is the caſe then juſt as you have ſtated it?
Everybody believes there was a joint confederacy of extortionate officers to cow him from bringing their extortions to light; and I believe, had evidence been allowed, it would have appeared ſo to the jury.
How could it appear otherwiſe?
He was firſt taken without a warrant, not by any ſheriff or civil officer, but by a banditti of lawyers, clerks, tavern keepers, &c., ſent to gaol without a mittimus, then taken out at midnight, put under guard, tied his feet under the horſe’s belly, a gallows fixed in the gaol, and his trial to be under the mouths of cannon, and could not even walk within the limits aſſigned him, but bayonets thruſting at him, and other weapons of war; and, after all, not one jot or tittle could be proved againſt him.
You ſay Mr. Hooper well knew that no ſuch allegation as dureſs could be proved againſt Mr. Milner.
It was not poſſible Mr. Hooper could well know any ſuch thing.
Huſbands had ſeveral meſſages ſent him before the court that 300l. was the ſum agreed on for him to pay.
This firſt put it in his head that that ſum would pacify them, for it was no matter to whom it was paid, ſo it went among the fraternity; and I verily think, on the whole, it would have appeared dureſs to every man who had the ſmalleſt degree of candour or humanity in their compoſition.
So much for that caſe: And now I will endeavour to anſwer in order every queſtion you have aſked, that I am, or ſo far as I am concerned.
And as to your firſt queſtion, I can take God to witneſs that it was for the ſake of public juſtice that we proſecuted every officer, and not for reſentment, ſpite, malice, nor gain; but the motive that ſtirred me up, was the repeated cries of the poor oppreſſed people.
2dly, It was for the reformation of Magiſtrates, and other officers, that we ſued on the penal laws, and not for the ſake of the penalty.
We had bound ourſelves up not even to bear expences with the money, but to apply it to pay off extortionate fees.
You took care, however, among you, that we ſhould get little money that way, or let many of them be reformed, but they were rather eſtablished in their curſed evil extortionate practices.
3dly, In anſwer to your third queſtion, Solomon ſays: “Oppreſſion will make a wiſe man mad, and if you tread upon a worm it will turn and fight.”
We were wholly deprived of juſtice.
I dare ſay, try it when you will, three fourths of the people in this country will ſay, even on oath, that they verily believe we were deprived of juſtice.
4thly, As to the ambuſcade being laid for Mr. Henderſon and Fanning, the report is entirely groundleſs, at leaſt as far as I know.
5thly, I can truly ſay it is out of pure love to ourſelves, our neighbours, and our poſterity, that we contend unwearied for our conſtitutional rights and privileges, and not to protect any particular or private property whatſoever.
6thly, It is in ſupport of government that we chuſe to keep our money until we have ſome probability or aſſurance that it will be applied towards the ſupport of government.
Can any juſt man blame us for this, or ſay we have not a juſt cauſe to withhold it, when we have had but one ſheriff theſe thirteen years who have ſettled their public accounts.
As to the 7th queſtion, I am not concerned to anſwer it, having never beat a ſheriff in my life; and as to Demoſthenes, Cicero, or the P.S. of the letter, I know nothing about, nor who they was: And I ſhould think it the happieſt day I ever ſaw, if I could with ſecurity to my property betake myſelf to a quiet and honeſt induſtry, it is all my heart’s deſire.
And as to running the country to 7 or 8000l. coſt, it is aſtoniſhing to think that any government ſhould run to ſuch coſt purely to [illegible] and uphold a lawleſs pack of unjuſt extortionate officers, inſolvent ſheriffs, roguiſh bombs, &c., and as to quelling us by a military force, rather than allow us the juſt execution of that confuſed law you ſpeak of; for that, juſtly executed, would ſatisfy every one.
But if we muſt fall a ſacrifice to that military force, we ſall not be the firſt, but muſt bear it, for death itſelf is better than ſuch ſlavery.
Is it poſſible you cannot know our juſt complaint, or are you willfully blind and deaf to our calamities?
Some for a debt of 43s. has paid 36l. coſt, and 148l. more.
Another lent a horſe to an Attorney, and for aſking him again was put in priſon and ruined.
But what am I going to undertake?
It would take a large folio volume to contain our complaints of that nature.
You ſay if any perſon has been unjuſtly dealt by, let him apply to the law, and he ſhall be redreſſed.
Alas!
Sir, ſome of us have attended court, court after court, this two years and upwards, with our complaints, to your knowledge, and has almoſt brough ourſelves to the brink of ruin, by attending court, and paying the coſt of malicious proſecutions; and are no nearer redreſs than we were at firſt.
I ſhall now in return aſk you a few queſtions, and ſhall be glad to receive diſtinct anſwers to them.
1ſt When the Governor had promiſed us the Attorney General’s aſſiſtance, ſignifying the King hated nothing more than extortion in his officers, why did you put off the trials, except a few againſt Col. Fanning, the firſt court, court after court, till the evidences were tired out, and then ſhew ſuch a diſlike to our proſecuting them as you did, both perſonally in court, and by this your letter?
2dly, Why was you ſo careful on every of the ſaid trials, except the firſt, as to hide from us the juſt fees?
Was not this to keep us juſt where we were, at an uncertainty what they ought to take, that they might ſtill carry on their extortion?
3dly, Why was the ſuit againſt Mr. Huſbands, continued from court to court, and never ſuſſered to come to trial?
Was it not becauſe the laws are ſo clear in their favour, that they would certainly be cleared, and the country then would be afraid no longer to proſecute officers?
Many of theſe queſtions I might aſk, but leaſt I ſhould tire your patience I conclude, and ſubſcribe myſelf
Sir, Your humble ſervant, James Hunter.
P.S. There is one queſtion occurs, which I think too material to be omitted; that is, when you ſhewed ſo much earneſtness to proſecute rioters, on the ſide of the country, and yet when Fanning and [Hart?], who were officers, were indicted for a riot, and the bill found, why was them ſuits never ſuffered to come to trial at all?
J.H.
Herman Husband
is a major player in the Regulator phenomenon, and was at the time a member of North Carolina’s colonial assembly, representing part of what was then considered the “back parts” of the colony.
The government didn’t take kindly the insolence of Hunter and Husband, as is shown in…
This issue reprints the resolution of the North Carolina Assembly to
expel Hermon Husband, as passed on .
Excerpts:
Reſolved, That it appears to this committee, that Hermon Huſband, a member of the committee, is one of the people who denominate themſelves Regulators, and that he hath been a principal mover and promoter of the late riots and ſeditions in the county of Orange, and other parts of this province.
Reſolved, That it appears to this committee, that a letter publiſhed in the North-Carolina gazette, of , directed to the Honourable Maurice Moore, Eſq., at Newbern, and ſigned by James Hunter, is a falſe, ſeditious, and malicious libel.
Reſolved, That it appears to this committee, that the above named Hermon Huſband, was the publiſher of the ſaid label.
Reſolved, That it appears to this committee, that the ſaid Hermon Huſband was guilty of groſs prevarication and falſhood on his examination before the committee of propoſitions and grievances, relative to the ſaid libel.
Reſolved, That it appears to this committee, that the ſaid Hermon Huſband hath inſinuated in converſation, that in caſe he ſhould be confined by order of the Houſe, he expected down a number of people to releaſe him.
Reſolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, that ſuch an inſinuation is a faring inſult offered to this Houſe, and tending to intimidate the members from a due diſcharge of their duty.
, the Assembly
put an exclamation mark at the end of it, by resolving “[t]hat in caſe the inſurgents ſhould be inſolent, and deſperate enough to make any attempts againſt the honour and dignity of government, or the peace or ſafety of the community, that this Houſe will, to the utmoſt of their power, ſupport his Excellency in any meaſures he may think neceſſary to take on ſuch an important occaſion” — the sort of open-ended authorization for use of military force that is so popular with frightened governments everywhere.
Backing up a bit, chronologically speaking, a brief note in this issue
shows that the Governor was already on the case:
The Regulators of North Carolina having threatened, we hear, to pay the Aſſembly a viſit at Newbern, in order to force them to enact what laws ſuit their notions of government, his Excellency Governour Tryon has ordered the militia of ſeveral counties to repair to that place, and to remain there during the ſeſſion.
This issue reprints the address with which the Governor opened the
Assembly session that he’d called out the militia to defend and that would expel Herman Husband.
The address was delivered on .
He chastised the government of the colony, and particularly “the Officers of the Revenue” for sloppy bookkeeping, leading to loss of funds and of public trust.
Then, referring to the Regulators directly, he recommended that the colony raise an army, march on the areas in insurrection, put down the rebellion, and punish the “Ringleaders.”
He confidently predicted success: “Government has already ſhown itſelf able to controul them, and, when armed with your manly Determinations, has ſufficient Force, under the Providence of God, effectually to ſuppreſs theſe dangerous Commotions.”
He then thanked the Assembly for voting to build him such a nice house — “a Palace that is a publick Ornament and Credit to the Colony… a Laſting Monument of the Liberality of this Country.”
(The Assembly, in its reply, put it this way: “We are not ignorant how much the Publick is indebted to your Excellency for adopting the Plan and Conſtruction of a Palace which will remain as a Monument equally expreſſive of their Bounty and of your Excellency’s correct and judicious Application of it.”!)
In the Regulator rebellion became a hot war, but that story will have to wait for another day…
I summarized some of the Gazette’s coverage of the first stage of the Regulator movement, .
Today I’ll pick up where I left off and continue the story :
Reprints an address from the North Carolina assembly to Governor William
Tryon, expressing their “indignation” over the “Outrages lately committed at Hillſborough, by a deluded People, under the Direction of their ſeditious Leaders” and says further that “we aſſure your Excellency that we will, with our utmoſt Zeal, join in any Meaſure that may beſt tend to wipe away a Stain thrown upon an Adminiſtration which every honeſt and intelligent Man among us muſt confeſs has, with uniform Uprightneſs, ſought the Proſperity and Perfection of this Community.”
They also congratulate him on the new “Palace” he’s built for himself (with public funds).
A second such address admits that “The Conduct of publick Officers in ſome Parts of this Province, perhaps, has given juſt Cauſe of Complaint,” and suggests this this is “the Conſequence of an inconſiſtent and oppreſſive Fee Bill [which] annexed Fees to unneceſſary Services, which in this Country are never performed; yet, ideal as they are, they are carefully attended to, and often received.”
They promise to do something about it.
They also suggest that the government consider redeeming all the paper currency in the province and removing it from legal tender as a way of ending a counterfeiting crisis.
They then return to condemning the regulators: “The late daring and inſolent Attack made on the Superiour Court at Hillſborough, by the People who call themſelves Regulators, we hold in the utmoſt Deteſtation and Abhorrence.
The deliberate and preconceived Malice with which it was contrived, and the brutal Fury with which it was executed, equally beſpeak them unawed by the Laws of their Country, inſenſible to every moral Duty, and wickedly diſaffected to Government itſelf.
The diſſolute Principles and licentious Spirit by which theſe People are actuated, and ſtand united, render them too formidable for the ordinary Proceſs at Law.
Senſible of this, Sir, we owe it to our Sovereign, our Conſtituents, and ourſelves, to adopt Meaſures at once ſpirited and effective.”
A dispatch dated from
Williamsburg says: “We hear that the North Carolina Aſſembly have voted the Inſurgents in that Province Rebels, and intend purſuing vigorous Meaſures to reſtore the publick Tranquillity.
Herman Huſband, one of the Ringleaders, and who is one of the Aſſembly, is committed to Priſon.”
This issue gives a report of a grand jury held in Newbern district on
to consider “a great Number of Bills of Indictment, againſt the People called Regulators, ſixty one of which they found.”
Some excerpts from their “Preſentment”:
Whereas a Number of unthinking and deluded People, Inhabitants of the County of Orange, and of the neighbouring Counties in this Province, under the Influence and Direction of ſeveral wicked, ſeditious, evil deſigning, and diſaffected Perſons, have aſſumed to themſelves the Title of Regulators, and in open Defiance of the Laws of the Land, in great Numbers, under Arms, aſſembled together, violently reſiſted, inſulted, and beat, the Sheriffs and other Officers in the Execution of their Office, and expreſsly refuſed to pay their Shares of the publick Taxes laid by the General Aſſembly of the Province for the Support of Government; and at the laſt Superiour Court of Juſtice held for the Diſtrict of Hillſborough, in , aſſembled together, in a riotous and tumultuous Manner, barbarouſly inſulted and broke up that Court, cruelly beating and wounding the Officers thereof, deſtroying and pillaging the Houſes of ſuch Perſons as were obnoxious to their Ring-leaders, and have lately aſſembled themſelves in great Numbers, armed and arrayed in warlike Manner, and publickly avowing their Intention of marching to Newbern, and of carrying into Execution by Force their hoſtile Measures: We, the Grand Jury… do therefore preſent all ſuch wicked, ſeditious, evil deſigning, and diſaffected Perſons… as being Enemies to his Majeſty’s Perſon and Government…
The Grand Jury also “drew up an Aſſotiation” — a militia of sorts, I gather — “which Aſſotiation was immediately ſigned by his Excellency the Governour, the Preſident, and Gentlemen of his Majeſty’s Council, the Speaker of the Houſe of Aſſembly, the Members of the Grand Jury, and a great Number of others.”
Herman Huſbands, ſaid to be chief Ringleader in the late Commotions in North Carolina, and one of the Aſſembly, having been taken and impriſoned at Newbern, the Inſurgents (as they are called) ſo ſeriouſly threatened to beſiege that Town, to releaſe him, that a Body of Militia was raiſed to oppoſe them.
On a Bill of Indictment was prefered againſt the ſaid Huſbands, at the Court of Oyer and Terminer; but the Grand Jury not finding the Bill, he was diſcharged, and the Quiet of the Province is ſaid to be reſtored.
Apparently the release of Husband didn’t quite mollify the rebels.
An
dispatch from New York says:
A Gentleman, in about eight Days from Newbern (in North Carolina) reports that the Regulators, who upon the Releaſe of Huſbands ſeemed to have been appeaſed, had begun a new Inſurrection; and that Governour Tryon, with a conſiderable Body of the Militia, was preparing to march againſt them.
Describes the departure, from Newbern, on , of “his Excellency the Governour, attended by ſeveral of the Members of his Majeſty’s Council, and the principal Gentlemen of the Town, …at the Head of near three Hundred Men, a Train of Artillery, and a Number of Baggage Waggons, for the Settlements of the Regulators, in the Heart of which his Excellency will ſoon be encamped at the Head of two Thouſand Men, which are collected from the ſeveral Counties of this Province…” The article goes on to describe the Regulators as “a Body of Men, who, under Colour of redreſſing nominal Grievances, have had Nothing more in View than overturning the civil Government of this Province, and reducing it to a State of Anarchy and Confuſion.”
This issue gives the first account of the Battle of Alamance:
By Letters from Orange County, in North Carolina, we learn that Governour Tryon and the Regulators met on .
The Regulators were aſſembled to the Number of twelve or fifteen Hundred Men; and their two Chiefs, Huſbands and Hunter, had a Conference with the Governour, who allowed them two Hours to lay down their Arms and repair to their reſpective Homes, otherwiſe he ſhould treat them as Rebels.
The Time being very near expired, and Nothing done on the Part of the Regulators, and the Governour finding, by their Motions, that they were determined to give him Battle, in which Caſe he ſhould have to cope with almoſt three to one, his Party not conſiſting of more than five Hundred Men, a few Minutes before the Expiration of the Time his Excellency gave Directions for his little Army to open to the right and left and uncover the Artillery, which they did in the utmoſt good Order, and immediately poured in upon the Regulators a moſt dreadful Fire from their Cannon and Muſketry, which did great Execution, there not being above fifty Yards Diſtance between the two Parties; and killed, it is ſaid, to the Amount of a Hundred and ſixty Men.
Although the Regulators were thrown into the greateſt Confuſion, they returned the Governour’s Fire, killing ſeven of his Men, and wounding about forty.
Near a Hundred of the Regulators are taken Priſoners.
We have not been able to learn what has happened ſince the Battle; but it is ſaid the two Chiefs of the Regulators had ſent a Challenge to the Governour to fight him and his Party that Day ſe’nnight.
another article in that paper reprints a letter from Richmond, dated . The section about the battle is very difficult to read but seems to largely repeat the same information as in the excerpt above.
Includes this more thorough description of the battle:
An Authentick Relation of the Battle of Alamance,
.
On , his Excellency received certain Information that the Inſurgents were aſſembled at about ſix Miles from the Camp at Great Alamance.
A Council of War being called, it was unanimouſly reſolved to march againſt them.
Accordingly, on , the Army leaving the Tents ſtanding, and all the Baggage and Proviſions in Camp, under the Guard of a Field Officer and about fifty Men, began to march at about eight o’Clock in the Morning, and advanced to an old Field within Half a Mile of the Rebels; when his Excellency formed the Order of Battle, in two Lines, Part of the Artillery on each Wing, and the Remainder in the Center of the firſt Line.
His Excellency then ſent one of his Aid de Camps, and the Sheriff of Orange, with a Letter to the Rebels, requiring them to lay down their Arms, ſurrender their outlawed Ringleaders, and ſubmit themſelves to the Laws of their Country, allowing them one Hour to accept of the Terms, to prevent the effuſion of Blood, which muſt enſue, as they were at that Time in a State of War and Rebellion againſt their King, their Country, and their Laws.
In the mean Time, the Army kept advancing nearer to the Enemy.
The Meſſenger ſoon afterwards returned, and reported to his Excellency that the Rebels had received his Offers with Diſdain; and the general Cry among them was, Battle!
Battle!
Immediately after a conſiderable Body of them appeared in Sight, and waved their Hats, daring the Men to advance; upon which the Army continued moving towards them, until they were within thirty Yards of the Enemy, when his Excellency ſent an Aid de Camp to inform them that the Hour was elapſed, and that he ſhould immediatley fire.
They called out that he might fire and be damned.
Upon the Return of the Aid de Camp the Action began, and a hot Fire was kept up on both Sides for about an Hour and a Quarter, when it abated a little from the Enemy.
The Cannon was ordered to ceaſe firing, and the whole Army to advance.
Then the firſt Line, after engaging three Quarters of an Hour longer, drove the Enemy out of the Field, and gained a complete Victory.
Their Camp was taken, with many Horſes, Arms, Ammunition, Clothes, and Proviſions.
The Army, after having Care taken of their Wounded, got back to their Camp by Sunſet.
It is computed that the Rebels muſt have had killed in the Battle about one Hundred Men, two Hundred more wounded, and upwards of twenty taken Priſoners.
The Loſs of the Loyaliſts was nine killed, and about ſixty wounded.
The Number of the Rebels in the Battle, from the beſt Information, could not be leſs than two Thouſand three Hundred.
Our Army did not exceed one Thouſand Men, of which not more than ſix Hundred were engaged.
The Artillery was well ſerved, and did great Execution.
The Behaviour of the Officers and Men, on this Occaſion, will appear by what the Governour gave in Orders the next Day.
This issue gives yet another account, dated that contradicts in many details both of the above (already mutually contradictory) accounts, and reads even more like it came from the Governor’s press secretary:
His Excellency having reached Hillſborough, with about one Thouſand three Hundred of the Troops, and finding the Regulators were at about forty Miles Diſtance above him, embodied and in Arms, to oppoſe the provincial Forces under his Command, immediately marched from thence to attack them, in Caſe they ſhould refuſe to comply with the Terms he offered them; which were, to give up their Principals, lay down their Arms, and ſwear Allegiance to his Majeſty.
On , being within a Mile of them, his Excellency received a Meſſenger from them, with Terms of an Accommodation; but they, being wholly inadmiſſible, he marched to within a ſmall Diſtance of them and formed, in one Line about Half his Men, the other Half forming a ſecond Line, at about two Hundred Yards Diſtance, by Way of Reſerve.
The Regulators, to the Number of at leaſt two Thouſand five Hundred, immediately formed within twenty or thirty Paces Diſtance, and behaved in a moſt daring and deſperate Manner.
His Excellency again propoſed Terms to them, which they ſpurned at, and cried out for Battle.
His Excellency then immediately ordered the Signal of Battle to be given, which was a Diſcharge of the Artillery, when inſtantly enſued a very heavy and dreadful Firing on both Sides, for near two Hours and a Half; when the Regulators, being hard preſſed by our Men, and ſorely galled by the Artillery, which played inceſſantly on them with Grape Shot, gave Way on all Sides, and were purſued to the Diſtance of a Mile through the Woods and Buſhes, our Troops making great Slaughter among them, as they did not make a regular Retreat, but ran in great Confuſion to all Quarters from whence they apprehended the leaſt Danger.
The Killed and Wounded on our Side, in this Battle, through the immediate Interpoſition of divine Providence, are very inconsiderable; the Killed not exceeding ten, and the Wounded about ſixty, among which is the Honourable Samuel Cornell, Eſquire, of this Town [Newbern], who received a ſlight Wound in his Thigh.
But of the Regulators three Hundred were found dead on the Field next Morning, and a very great Number wounded.
About twenty or thirty were made Priſoners; and chief of their Ammunition and Baggage, conſiſting of hunting Shirts, Wallets of Dumplings, Jackets, Breeches, Powder Horns, Shot Bags, &c. were taken, with a Number of Horſes.
The glorious and ſignal Victory of this Day, gained over a very formidable Body of lawleſs Deſperadoes, under divine Providence, is much to be attributed to the cool, intrepid, and Soldier-like Behaviour of his Excellency the Governour, who was in the Centre of the Line during the whole Engagement, and in the moſt imminent Danger, having had his Bayonet ſhot away with a Muſket Ball.
Nothing could equal the Firmneſs and Intrepidity with which our Troops behaved, the Craven and Beaufort Detachments, on the right Wing, ſuſtaining a very heavy Fire for near Half an Hour, and the Carteret and Orange Detachments, on the left Wing, performing Wonders, for raw and unexperienced Militia, who ſcarce have had Time ſince their enliſting to learn the Exerciſe.
We have the greateſt Probability to think that this ſignal Victory will cool the regulating Spirit, and put a final End to the moſt formidable and dangerous Rebellion that ever aroſe in America; but if they are ſtill infatuated, and will ruſh on to their Deſtruction, his Excellency is now joined by the Wake, Johnſton, and Cumberland Detachments, alſo by Colonel Waddell from Saliſbury, and in a much better Condition to reduce them to Obedience.
A second dispatch in the same issue, from Williamsburg, reported that the news being repeated there went something like this:
We hear from North Carolina that the Regulators have entirely diſperſed ſince their late Defeat; that their Ringleaders have fled to the Miſſiſippi; that one of them has been executed, and it was expected more would undergo the ſame Fate; and that Numbers of them had come in, taken the Oaths to the Government, as required of them by his Excellency Governour Tryon, and made the proper Submiſſion.
This issue reprints the first real dissent from the official story, what
it describes as an “Extract of a letter from the back parts of North-Carolina, .”:
If Governor Tryon had been as fond of checking the officers of government for their unheard of oppreſſions to the poor back inhabitants, as he was of ſhooting thoſe unhappy people, Carolina would not now have felt the horrors of her children murdering one another.
He pretended to give the oppreſſed people two hours to conſider, whether they would fight or ſurrender, but as ſoon as their chief men got into a conſultation, he began with a dreadful fire on them, from his artillery, with grape ſhot which did great execution.
A more thorough dissent, this time in the form of an “Extract of a letter
from a perſon in Carolina to his friend in Pennſylvania, dated ”:
I am ſorry I have to inform you, that our country and the Governor have come to open war.
The juſtneſs of the cauſe, on the ſide of the country, during a conteſt for this year or two paſt, has gained them ſuch a majority all over this province, that it was in vain the Governor and officers tried to raiſe the militia, before the laſt ſitting of our Aſſembly, when a law paſſed, under the title of a Riot Act; whereby, they ſay, the Governor is inveſted with as arbitrary a power as the King of France has.
However that may be, it is fact, that he has collected, out of the meaner ſort, an army of 1500 or 2000 men, by way of enliſting for bounty money and high wages, and promiſes of equal ſhare of plunder; with which army he is paſſing through the country, deſtroying houſes, fields of wheat, corn and orchards, and taking from the inhabitants all manner of proviſions.
This uſage, never heard of in America before, ſuddenly raiſed the country very unanimouſly, who firſt ſurrounded a party of about 4 or 500, commanded by Col. Waddel, and prevailed on him to retreat, convincing him and his officers, that there was not occaſion for ſuch hoſtile proceedings; and a few days after met the Governor, hoping to prevail with him in the ſame manner; but he ſoon fired on them, with both great and ſmall arms, about 15 minutes after they had his promiſe of an hour to conſider of his terms. The country, who had not the leaſt order or diſcipline, but as every man had ran together, as it were, to quench, devouring flames, the moſt part without arms or ammunition, fled at the firſt fire.
About 300 ſtood and returned the fire for three quarters of an hour, in which time the Governor ſtruck his colours [?], hoiſted a white flag, and beat a parley, but the country, being quite ignorant of any ſignals or terms of war, kept a conſtant firing, as long as their ammunition laſted, and then left the ground.
There were ſeven killed on the ſpot, and two more fell, after running ſome diſtance; eight more are ſince dead of their wounds, and two or three more not yet out of danger.
The number of ſlain on the Governor’s ſide is uncertain, as he keeps it as much as poſſible a ſecret; but, by the beſt accounts, it amounted to 57 on the ſpot, with a proportionable number of wounded.
The Governor took 20 or 30 priſoners, one of whom he hanged the next day.
The ſlain, on the ſide of the country, lay unburied, except two, who were ſtolen away by their families.
The Governor makes all the advantage he can of this affair, and it is ſupposed aims to have all their lands forfeited; the conſequence of this affair is yet unknown, numbers are coming in, and ſubmitting to certain terms, &c. others are ſtanding out, and collecting in bodies, and many people are of opinion, that the moſt of the inhabitants will leave this province, before they will live under the intolerable oppreſſion and ſlavery that naturally muſt attend a conqueſt, made by men of ſuch principles.
There never was any people more abuſed by authority than this country has been, which would be too tedious to relate in a letter, but in a very ſhort way The main ſubſtance of the difference was in the ſheriffs of moſt counties not having ſettled their accounts for 8 or 10 years paſt; nor the Treaſurers having ſettled accounts with the public for upwards of 20 years paſt; ſo that by computation they were, on the whole, eighty or one hundred thouſand pounds behind.
The honeſt party in the adminiſtration, appeared to the country to be too weak to bring theſe over-grown members to an account; therefore, to ſtrengthen their hands, great part of the country ſtopped payment of any taxes but what were agreeable to law, and this of conſequence could not be known, till theſe public accounts were ſettled.
Next to this the officers had extorted unlawful fees, in an unreaſonable manner, and when the country proſecuted them, could get no redreſs, or any kind of fair trial, but on the contrary, the proſecutors were like to be ruined, by ſuits commenced againſt them by officers, for damages, ſcandal, &c. and by means of picked juries, compoſed of the officers themſelves, who were indicted, and liable to indictments; ſo that a General Court writ, againſt ever ſo innocent a man, became as dangerous and dreadful as a piſtol clapped to his breaſt by a robber, for nothing would ſatisfy but a ſurrender of all you poſſeſſed; this cauſed riots, tumults, &c.
In the Aſſembly it was propoſed to ſend a committee of enquiry into thoſe counties where the tumults happened, but was ſtrenuouſly oppoſed by the courty party, and put aſide; but in a private conference among the members, Mr. Knox, and Mr. Lewis, were appointed, and they rid up to the next General Court, to be held in Rowan county, for the diſtrict of Saliſbury, when the whole body of officers of that diſtrict, conſcious of their guilt, and convinced of the upright and good intentions of the country, came to an amicable and firm agreement, under hand and ſeal, to refund back all they had extorted and taken contrary to law, which was to be decided by arbitrators, unanimously choſen by either ſide; both officers and people were heartily ſincere in this agreement; but the Governor and officers in the five other diſtricts of the province, reſented it in the higheſt degree, and immediately entered into an aſſociation to prevent its taking place, by ruſhing up into the ſettlements of the inſurgents, as they call them, with an armed force, and reſtoring peace on conſtitutional principles, as the Governor termed it in a letter to Col. Trohawk, wherein he told him, he ſhould anſwer for entering into that agreement at the tribunal of his country.
It is matter of fact, that the officers of this district had inclined to comply, and make the country reſtitution, above a year before this, but were deterred by the officers of the other five diſtricts, no doubt, from a fear they muſt come to do the ſame juſtice.
Huſbands, who was a principal man in proſecuting every legal method for juſtice and redreſs, has been accuſed as principal in the acts of riots, &c. he has been made priſoner, and ſtood trial three times on that account, and cleared each time by proclamation.
The Court party, deſpairing of finding him guillty in the ordinary courſe of proceedings, and according to the Engliſh laws, makes a particular law for that purpoſe, to continue one year, by which law, without any precept, or his knowledge, and unheard, finds a bill againſt him for a riot, aſſault, &c. for which they came with the aforeſaid army, and deſtroyed his houſe, plantation, and goods; from which, I ſuppoſe, it is to be granted now that he is guilty in the eye of that particular law, though he is really clear, and quite innocent of the charge.
Many others, as well as he, have ſhared the ſame fate; ſome were 40 miles diſtant from the place, at the time the crimes laid to their charge were committed.
This issue includes an article that tries to patch up the official account
of the battle.
It also includes “a Letter from Brunſwick County, dated ” that says:
I can give you no particular Account of the Action between the Governour and Mob in Carolina, only that the latter were defeated, with the Loſs of about two Hundred Men in killed and wounded.
It is ſaid they are ſtill in Arms, and that there is Reaſon to apprehend another Engagement.
The patching, which comes “From the different Accounts we have been able to collect,” went like this:
That Governour Tryon had under him a Thouſand Men, and that the Regulators amounted to three and twenty Hundred; that his Excellency was much inſulted by them, particularly on Fellow, whom he ſhot dead on the Spot, as he was approaching him; that this happened but a very ſhort Time before the Expiration of the two Hours allowed them by the Governour, upon which the Engagement began; that both Parties fought with great Animoſity, for two Hours and upwards; that the Artillery was diſcharged ſix and thirty Times, and that one Shot ſtruck a Tree, which in its Fall killed thirty odd of the Regulators; that the Governour had his Horſe killed under him, and the Breech of the Gun he had in his Hand ſhot away; that a Hundred and ſixty of the Regulators were killed, and two Hundred wounded, forty of whom were taken Priſoners; that the Regulators were badly conducted, and fought in the utmoſt Confuſion, their Ranks being, in ſome Places, a Hundred Men deep, and that many of them were unarmed; that the Governour had only two Men killed, and ſixty wounded.
One Man, it is ſaid, of the Governour’s Party, was ſo much incenſed againſt the Regulators, by whom he had been threatened, that he was determined upon an ample Revenge, or loſing his Life; for it is thought he killed upwards of thirty with his own Hands, walking backwards and forwards on the Flanks of his Party during the Engagement, and charging with as much Coolneſs as if hunting of Squirrels.
The Regulators have loſt a Number of Horſes, Guns, and Carriages; to the Amount, it is ſaid, of more than a Thouſand Pounds.
— The Families of theſe poor deluded People are much to be pitied, as they muſt be reduced to very great Diſtreſs.
The Province likewiſe, in general, is in the greateſt Diſorder.
And however faulty thoſe who ſtile themſelves Regulators may have been, as we learn that the Cauſe of their Complaints has been removed (their Leaders, it is probable, being bad Counſellors, and to have urged them on from one Step of Rebellion to another) it ought to be a Leſſon for all good Governments to ſuffer no Set of Men, under the Sanction of Authority, to fleece the People.
The same article reprints an undated “Extract of a Letter from North Carolina” that reads:
We have juſt received an Account that the Regulators have been attacked and defeated by Colonel Waddell.
The Engagement was long and obſtinate.
The Conquerors were but four Hundred in Number, and the vanquiſhed a Thouſand.
The Ringleaders of the Regulators have all abſconded.
The Gazette adds: “This Engagement, it is ſuppoſed, muſt have been ſubſequent to the above.”
This article highlights the ruthlessness with which Tryon’s forces pursued
their aims. Tryon would get a reputation for usual cruelty toward civilian populations when he led Loyalist troops during the American Revolution, but it seems he already had tendencies in this direction:
Newbern, .
Since our laſt the Honourable Samuel Cornell, Eſquire, returned home from our Troops in Orange County, and brings a certain Account of the Regulators being entirely broken and diſperſed; and that [ſome?] thirteen or fourteen Hundred of them have laid down their Arms, taken the Oaths of Allegiance to his Majeſty, and returned to their Habitations in Peace.
His Excellency the Governour, after the Battle, marched into the Plantations of Huſbands, Hunter, and ſeveral others of the outlawed Chiefs of the Regulators, and laid them waſte; they having moſt of them eſcaped from the Battle, and are ſince fled.
A Reward of one Thouſand Acres of Land, and one Hundred Dollars, is offered by his Excellency for Huſbands, Hunter, Butler, and Rednap Howell; and ſeveral of the Regulators have been premitted to go in Queſt of them, on leaving their Children Hoſtages.
The Lands of the outlawed Regulators are to be ſold by the Sheriff of the County where they lie, agreeable to Act of Aſſembly; and many of these are of great Value, being perhaps the beſt Lands on this Continent, particularly Herman Huſbands’s, who had growing on his Plantation about fifty Acres of as fine Wheat as perhaps ever grew, with Clover Meadows equal to any in the northern Colonies; but (infatuated, unhappy Men) about four Hundred Head of Horses, which were turned in upon it by our Troops, in a few Days left it without a Spear of Corn, Graſs, or Herbage growing, and without a Houſe or Fence ſtanding.
A melancholy Conſideration, but made neceſſary by the Laws of War.
Thus has his Excellency the Governour, at the Head of a Handful of Troops, compared to the Number of the Regulators, through the immediate [?] of divine Providence, broke this dangerous and daring Confederacy…
A brief note, datelined from Williamsburg, confirms that most Regulators
have surrendered and taken a loyalty oath, but notes that Tryon and Waddell have moved on to Saliſbury for a mopping up operation “upon receiving Advice that a large Body of Regulators, who had not been out before, were aſſembled in that Neighbourhood, and intended giving him Battle.”
Reprints a letter to Governor
Tryon from “Leonidas” (now believed to be Thomas Young, or so I hear, who would later play a prominent role in the Boston Tea Party) printed in the Massachusetts Spy (which also apparently championed the Regulators on other occasions, but I haven’t looked into those archives yet):
Sir,
As we hear the Preſſes in North Carolina are entirely at your Devotion, and even theſe confeſs it is dangerous to reaſon in Reach of your Artillery, I will preſume to aſk you ſome Queſtions in this Channel, which, though ſurrounded by Ships of War, dares tell the boldeſt Tyrant he is a Traitor and a Villain.
Theſe Queſtions you may anſwer as you pleaſe; or, being so notable a Patron of Pettifoggers, you may, by a Salary, prevail on our redoubted Impavidus to vindicate your Avarice, Ambition, Injuſtice, Perjury, Perfidy, and Murder.
Query 1. Was it not the evident Deſign, and an Object that lay near the Heart of that Father of his People, George the ſecond, that the Carolinas ſhould be ſettled with induſtrious Huſbandmen?
Query 2. Would not your Fame have had a better Chance of reaching future Generations, in the Condition a good Man ſhould wiſh, had you encouraged this gracious Undertaking by a ſtrict and impartial Adminiſtration of Juſtice among your People, than by managing their Repreſentatives in ſuch a Manner as to impoveriſh a whole Province in building a Palace for you?
Query 3. Is not your avowed Connivance at the enormous Villainies of the Banditti of Robbers, your Judges, Sheriffs, and Pettifoggers, a Tranſlation of all their accumulated Iniquities to yourſelf.
Query 4. By what Laws do you vindicate the Trial of an able and generous Planter by a Court Martial, and actually inflicting a Hundred Laſhes upon him, for refuſing to take Arms againſt his Brethren, drove by your intolerable and multiplied Oppreſſions to defend themſelves?
Query 5. How do you account for the acknowledged Perfidy of opening on a People with a full Diſcharge of Artillery, &c. while under the ſacred Bond of a Treaty, the Obſervance of which might have been expected even from a Saracen?
Query 6. What ſhall we in future think of the Term Loyaliſt, ſhould it continue any Time to be excluſively applied to Extortioners, Traitors, Robbers, and Murderers?
Your direct and ſatisfactory Anſwer to each of theſe intereſting Interrogatories is demanded by — Leonidas.
The lickspittle North Carolina Assembly was so annoyed by this that they had a copy of this issue of the Spy burned by the state executioner on the public scaffold.
This issue has a brief note saying that Governor Tryon had left for New
York (where he had been appointed to be Governor before the battle of Almance broke out).
“Six of the Regulators have been executed; and it is ſaid that Hunter, one of their Chiefs, is taken.”
This issue prints some fairly transparent propaganda, datelined Newbern,
, to the effect that all of the Regulators have “opened their Eyes” and realized their wrongs, while “ſeveral intercepted Letters from the Regulating Chiefs” expose “that they intended to ſeize the Government, though it was a profound Secret among themſelves, and not ſuffered to tranſpire among the common People, who were to have been led on by Degrees, with the Pretence of redreſſing Grievances, till their Succeſſes againſt the Provincial Forces (which they made no Doubt of) ſhould have infatuated their Minds and ripened them for the Execution of the grand Plot.”
Courts Martial continued to persecute dissidents in North Carolina,
according to another Newbern dispatch, dated :
We are adviſed from Dobbs County that ſince the Return of the military Gentlemen of that County from the Expedition very ſpirited Meaſures have been purſued with a Number of Gentry who have been diſcovered to have held regulating Principles, and were ready to have joined the Regulators had they ſucceeded againſt the Provincial Forces.
About ten of theſe People have been apprehended, tried by a Court Martial, and ſeverely flogged at the Halberts; and, what is very amazing, a Perſon of that County, of conſiderable Property, has thought proper to decamp rather than undergo the Diſcipline of the Halbert, which he muſt have ſubmitted to, for being very deeply tinged with regulating notions.
That the Idle, the Diſſolute, and Abandoned, who have Nothing to loſe, ſhould join in oppoſing Government, excites no Wonder, becauſe, in the general Confuſion, they have a Chance to mend their Fortunes; but the Man of real Property to riſks his Life and Fortune on ſo precarious a Tenure muſt be a Fool or a Madman, or actuated by ſome malignant Principle of Revenge or Ambition, that degrades human Nature, and places him below the Brute Creation, the Ferocity of whoſe Nature prompts them to devour their own Species.
Well, you know where he stands, anyway.
He goes on to attack the Boston Gazette for calling the North Carolina press servile (makes me suspect where the Virginia Gazette got its Newbern correspondent from) and for calling Tryon “a Murderer, a Horſeſtealer, an avaricious Plunderer;” and then recounts how a “unanimous” gathering of “Gentlemen” had recently met at the King’s Arms Tavern to condemn the Spy for its attacks on Tryon, reprints the resolutions of that gathering protesting that the North Carolina press is so free and that Tryon is good and just and noble and that the Spy should be “publickly burnt under the Gallows, by the common Hangman,” adds a letter to the publisher of the Spy making much the same claims and responding to the “Queries” by asserting an account of the Battle of Alamance that is by far the most generous to the Governor of those yet seen (I won’t bother to reprint it here), and for good measure adds a fantasized news account of that publisher (Isaiah Thomas) and two of the pseudonymous commentators at the Spy being executed (a copy of their paper apparently being an available stand-in for the real thing) at Newbern for their libels!
An interesting note here, from our now-familiar Newbern partisan,
datelined , but partially obscured by a blot:
By a Veſſel in a ſhort Paſſage from Philadelphia we have a certain Account that Harmon Huſband is now at Wilmington, a little Town juſt below Philadelphia, goes much in Publick, and is highly careſſed by a Multitude, who he every Day entertains with the tragical Story of Governour Tryon’s Maſſacre of his Brethren in Iniquity in North Carolina, and is undoubtedly the Author of the many extraordinary Publications we find in the Pennſylvania Journal.
It ſhould ſeem exceedingly unaccountable that a Perſon of Harmon Huſband’s Addreſs and Penetration ſhould be able to induce [?] a Number of People, whom we find eſpouſing his Cauſe, to [?]
Governour of this Province, chief of his Majeſty’s [?] forty Members of the Aſſembly, and a very conſiderable [?] gentlemen of the firſt Fortunes and Families in this Province, [?] the Battle of Alamance, ſhould all be corrupted, all in League [?] and oppreſs a Set of harmleſs induſtrious Men, who were ſtriving hard againſt the Iron Hand of Oppreſſion! The Doctrine is abſurd, and ridiculous.
The leaſt Reflection muſt compel a Belief that Something was wrong, Something amiſs among theſe People; eſpecially when among the provincial Laws of the Province, publiſhed by Authority, are to be found Acts for redreſſing and removing every Grievance that could poſſibly have an Exiſtence among them.
This issue prints a letter from “Atticus” (who has not been
authoritatively identified as far as I know) to Governor Tryon, lambasting him for promoting submission to the Stamp Act, and for wasting public money on his own personal mansion, thereby provoking the Regulator rebellion.
Here is how the letter-writer describes that rebellion, and the character of the man who suppressed it:
Four or five Hundred ignorant People, who called themſelves Regulators, took it into their Head to quarrel with their Repreſentative, a Gentleman particularly honored with your Excellency’s Eſteem.
They fooliſhly charged him with every Diſtreſs they felt; and, in Revenge, ſhot two or three Muſket Balls through his Houſe.
They at the ſame Time reſcued a Horſe, which had been ſeized for the publick Tax.
Theſe Crimes were puniſhable in the Courts of Law, and at that Time the Criminals were amenable to legal Proceſs.
Your Excellency and your confidential Friends, it ſeems, were of a different Opinion.
All your Duty could poſſibly require of you on this Occaſion, if it required any Thing at all, was to direct a Proſecution againſt the Offenders.
You ſhould have carefully avoided becoming a Party in the Diſpute.
But, Sir, your Genius could not lie ſtill; you enliſted yourſelf a Volunteer in this Service, and entered into a Negotiation with the Regulators, which at once diſgraced you and encouraged them.
They deſpiſed the Governour who had degraded his own Character by taking Part in a private Quarrel, and inſulted the Man whom they conſidered as perſonally their Enemy.
The Terms of Accommodation your Excellency had offered them were treated with Contempt.
What they were, I never knew; they could not have related to publick Offences; theſe belong to another Juriſdiction.
All Hopes of ſettling the mighty Conteſt by Treaty ceaſing, you prepared to decide it by Means more agreeable to your martial Diſpoſition, an Appeal to the Sword.
You took the Field in at the Head of ten or twelve Hundred Men, and publiſhed an oral Manifeſto, the Subſtance of which was, that you had taken up Arms to protect a Superior Court of Juſtice from Inſult.
Permit me here to aſk you, Sir, why you were apprehenſive for the Court?
Was the Court apprehenſive for itſelf?
Did the Judges, or the Attorney-general addreſs your Excellency for Protection?
So far from it, Sir, if theſe Gentlemen are to be believed, they never entertained the leaſt Suſpicion of any Inſult, unleſs it was that, which they afterwards experienced from the undue Influence you offered to extend to them, and the military Diſplay of Drums, Colors, and Guards, with which they were ſurrounded and diſturbed.
How fully has your Conduct, on a like Occaſion ſince, teſtified that you acted in this Inſtance from Paſſion, and not from Principle!
In the Regulators forcibly obſtructed the Proceedings of Hillſborough Superior Court, obliged the Officers to leave it, and blotted out the Records.
A little before the next Term, when their Contempt of Courts was ſufficiently proved, you wrote an inſolent Letter to the Judges, and Attorney General, commanding them to attend to it.
Why did you not protect the Court at this Time?
You will bluſh at the Anſwer, Sir.
The Conduct of the Regulators, at the preceding Term, made it more than probable that thoſe Gentlemen would be inſulted at this, and you were not unwilling to ſacrifice them to increaſe the Guilt of your Enemies.
Your Excellency ſaid, that you had armed to protect a Court.
Had you ſaid to revenge the inſult you and your Friends had received, it would have been more generally credited in this Country.
The Men for the Trial of whom the Court was thus extravagantly protected, of their own Accord, ſqueezed through a Crowd of Soldiers, and ſurrendered themſelves, as if they were bound to do ſo by their Recognizance.
Some of theſe People were convicted, fined and impriſoned; which put an End to a Piece of Knight Errantry, equally aggravating to the Populace and burthenſome to the Country.
On this Occaſion, Sir, you were alike ſucceſſful in the Diffuſion of a military Spirit through the Colony and in the warlike Exhibition you ſet before the Publick; you at once diſpoſed the Vulgar to Hoſtilities, and proved the Legality of arming, in Caſes of Diſpute, by Example.
Thus warranted by Precedent and tempered by Sympathy, popular Diſcontent ſoon became Reſentment and Oppoſition; Revenge ſuperſeded Juſtice, and Force the Laws of the Country; Courts of Law were treated with Contempt, and Government itſelf ſet at Defiance.
For upwards of two Months was the Frontier Part of the Country left in a State of perfect Anarchy.
Your Excellency then thought fit to conſult the Repreſentatives of the People, who preſented you a Bill which you paſſed into a Law.
The Deſign of this Act was to puniſh paſt Riots in a new Juriſdiction, to create new Offences and to ſecure the Collection of the publick Tax; which, ever ſince the Province had been ſaddled with a Palace, the Regulators had refuſed to pay.
The Juriſdiction for holding Pleas of all capital Offences was, by a former Law, confined to the particular Diſtrict in which they were committed.
This Act did not change that Juriſdiction; yet your Excellency, in the Fullneſs of your Power, eſtabliſhed a new One for the Trial of ſuch crimes in a different Diſtrict.
Whether you did this through Ignorance or Deſign can only be determined in your own Breaſt; it was equally violative of a ſacred Right, every Britiſh Subject is entitled to, of being tried by his Neighbors, and a poſitive Law of the Province you yourſelf had ratified.
In this foreign Juriſdiction, Bills of Indictment were preferred, and found as well for Felonies as Riots againſt a Number of Regulators; they refuſed to ſurrender themſelves within the Time limited by the Riot Act, and your Excellency opened your third Campaign.
Theſe Indictments charged the Crimes to have been committed in Orange County in a diſtinct Diſtrict from that in which the Court was held.
The Superior Court Law prohibits Proſecution for capital Offences in any other Diſtrict than that in which they were committed.
What Diſtinctions the Gentlemen of the Long Robe might make on ſuch an Occaſion I do not know, but it appears to me thoſe Indictments might as well have been found in your Excellency’s Kitchen; and give me Leave to tell you, Sir, that a Man is not bound to anſwer to a Charge that a Court has no Authority to make, nor doth the Law puniſh a Neglect to perform that, which it does not command.
The Riot Act declared thoſe only outlawed who refuſed to anſwer to Indictments legally found.
Thoſe who had been capitally charged were illegally indicted, and could not be Outlaws; yet your Excellency proceeded againſt them as ſuch.
I mean to expoſe your Blunders, Sir, not to defend their conduct; that was as inſolent and daring as the deſperate State your Adminiſtration had reduced them to could poſſibly occaſion.
I am willing to give you full Credit for every Service you have rendered this Country.
Your active and gallant Behaviour, in extinguiſhing the Flame you yourſelf had kindled, does you great Honour.
For once your military Talents were uſeful to the Province; you bravely met in the Field, and vanquiſhed, an Hoſt of Scoundrels, whom you had made intrepid by Abuſe.
It ſeems difficult to determine, Sir, whether your Excellency is more to be admired for your Skill in creating the Cauſe, or your Bravery in ſuppreſſing the Effect.
This ſingle Action would have blotted out for ever, Half the Evils of your Adminiſtration; but alas, Sir! the Conduct of the General after his Victory, was more diſgraceful to the Hero who obtained it, than that of the Man before it had been to the Governour.
Why did you ſtain ſo great an Action with the Blood of a Priſoner who was in a State of Inſanity?
The Execution of James Few was inhuman; that miſerable Wretch was entitled to Life till Nature, or the Laws of his Country, deprived him of it.
The Battle of the Alamance was over; the Soldier was crowned with Succeſs, and the Peace of the Province reſtored.
There was no Neceſſity for the infamous Example of an arbitrary Execution, without Judge or Jury.
I can freely forgive you, Sir, for killing Robert Thompſon, at the Beginning of the Battle; he was your Priſoner, and was making his Eſcape to fight againſt you.
The Laws of Self Preſervation ſanctified the Action, and juſtly entitle your Excellency to an Act of Indemity.
The Sacrifice of Few, under its criminal Circumſtances, could neither atone for his Crime nor abate your Rage; this Taſk was reſerved for his unhappy Parents.
Your Vengeance, Sir, in this Inſtance, it ſeems, moved in a retrograde Direction to that propoſed in the ſecond Commandment againſt Idolaters; you viſited the Sins of the Child upon the Father, and, for Want of the third and fourth Generation to extend it to, collaterally divided it between Brothers and Siſters.
The heavy Affliction with which the untimely Death of a Son had burthened his Parents, was ſufficient to have cooled the Reſentment of any Man whoſe Heart was ſuſceptible of the Feelings of Humanity; yours, I am afraid, is not a Heart of that Kind.
If it is, why did you add to the Diſtreſſes of that Family?
Why refuſe the Petition of the Town of Hillſborough in Favour of them and unrelentingly deſtroy, as far as you could, the Means of their future Exiſtence?
It was cruel, Sir, and unworthy a Soldier.
Your Conduct to others after your Succeſs, whether it reſpected Perſon or Property, was as lawleſs as it was unneceſſarily expenſive to the Colony.
When your Excellency had exemplified the Power of Government in the Death of a Hundred Regulators, the Survivors to a Man became Proſelytes to Government; they readily ſwallowed your new coined Oath, to be obedient to the Laws of the Province, and to pay the publick Taxes.
It is a Pity, Sir, that in deviſing this Oath you had not attended to the Morals of thoſe People.
You might eaſily have reſtrained every criminal Inclination, and have made them good Men, as well as good Subjects.
The Battle of the Alamance had equally diſpoſed them to moral and to political Converſion; there was no Neceſſity, Sir, when the People were reduced to Obedience, to ravage the Country or to inſult Individuals.
Had your Excellency Nothing elſe in View than to enforce a Submiſſion to the Laws of the Country, you might ſafely have diſbanded the Army within ten Days after your Victory; in that Time the Chiefs of the Regulators were run away, and their deluded Followers had returned to their Homes.
Such a Meaſure would have ſaved the Province twenty Thouſand Pounds at leaſt.
But, Sir, you had farther Employment for the Army; you were, by an extraordinary Buſtle in adminiſtering Oaths, and diſarming the Country, to give a ſerious Appearance of Rebellion to the Outrage of a Mob; you were to aggravate the Importance of your own Services by changing a general Diſlike of your Adminiſtration into Diſaffection to his Majeſty’s Perſon and Government, and the riotous Conduct that Diſlike had occaſioned into premeditated Rebellion.
This Scheme, Sir, is really an ingenious One; if it ſucceeds you may poſſibly be rewarded for your Services with the Honor of Knighthood.
, you were buſied in ſecuring the Allegiance of Rioters, and levying Contributions of Beef and Flower.
You occaſionally amuſed yourſelf with burning a few Houſes, treading down Corn, inſulting the Suſpected, and holding Courts Martial.
Theſe Courts took Cognizance of civil as well as military Offences, and even extended their Juriſdiction to ill Breeding and Want of good Manners.
One Johnſton, who was a reputed Regulator, but whoſe greateſt Crime, I believe, was writing an impudent Letter to your Lady, was ſentenced, in one of theſe military Courts, to receive five Hundred Laſhes, and received two Hundred and fifty of them accordingly.
But, Sir, however exceptionable your Conduct may have been on this Occaſion, it bears little Proportion to that which you adopted on the Trial of the Priſoners you had taken.
Theſe miſerable Wretches were to be tried for a Crime made capital by a temporary Act of Aſſembly, of twelve Months duration.
That Act had, in great Tenderneſs to his Majeſty’s Subjects, converted Riots into Treaſons.
A rigorous and punctual Execution of it was as unjuſt, as it was politically unneceſſary.
The Terrour of the Examples now propoſed to be made under it was to expire, with the Law, in leſs than nine Months after.
The Sufferings of theſe People could therefore amount to little more than mere Puniſhment to themſelves.
Their Offences were derived from publick and from private Impoſitions; and they were the Followers, not the Leaders, in the Crimes they had committed.
Never were Criminals more juſtly entitled to every Lenity the Law could afford them; but, Sir, no Conſideration could abate your Zeal in a Cauſe you had tranſferred from yourſelf to your Sovereign.
You ſhamefully exerted every Influence of your Character againſt the Lives of theſe People.
As ſoon as you were told that an Indulgence of one Day had been granted by the Court to two Men to ſend for Witneſſes, who actually eſtabliſhed their Innocence, and ſaved their Lives, you ſent an Aid de Camp to the Judges, and Attorney General, to acquaint them that you were diſſatiſfied with the Inactivity of their Conduct, and threatened to repreſent them unfavorably in England if they did not proceed with more Spirit and Diſpatch.
Had the Court ſubmitted to Influence, all Teſtimony on the Part of the Priſoners would have been excluded; they muſt have been condemned, to a Man.
You ſaid that your Solicitude for the Condemnation of theſe People aroſe from your Deſire of manifeſting the Lenity of Government in their Pardon.
How have your Actions contradicted your Words!
Out of twelve that were condemned, the Lives of ſix only were ſpared.
Do you know, Sir, that your Lenity on this Occaſion was leſs than that of the bloody Jeffries in ?
He condemned five Hundred Perſons, but ſaved the Lives of two Hundred and ſeventy.
In the Execution of the ſix devoted Offenders, your Excellency was as ſhort of General Kirk in Form, as you were of Judge Jeffries in Lenity.
That General honoured the Execution he had the Charge of with play of Pipes, Sound of Trumpets and Beat of Drums; you were content with the ſilent Diſplay of Colors only.
The diſgraceful Part you acted in this Ceremony, of pointing out the Spot for erecting the Gallows, and clearing the Field around for drawing up the Army in Form, has left a ridiculous Idea of your Character behind you, which bears a ſtrong Reſemblance to that of a buſy Undertaker at a Funeral.
This Scene cloſed your excellency’s Adminiſtration in this Country, to the great Joy of every Man in it, a few of your contemptible Tools only excepted.
Were I perſonally your Excellency’s Enemy, I would follow you into the Shade of Life, and ſhow you equally the Object of Pity and Contempt to the Wiſe and Serious, and of Jeſt and Ridicule to the Ludicrous and Sarcaſtick.
Truly pitiable, Sir, is the pale and trembling Impatience of your Temper.
No Character, however diſtinguiſhed for Wiſdom and Virtue, can ſanctify the leaſt Degree of Contradiction to your political Opinions.
On ſuch Occaſions, Sir, in a Rage, you renounce the Character of a Gentleman, and precipitately mark the moſt exalted Merit with every Diſgrace the haughty Inſolence of a Governor can inflict upon it.
To this unhappy Temper, Sir, may be aſcribed moſt of the Abſurdities of your Adminiſtration in this country.
It deprived you of every Aſſiſtance Men of Spirit and Abilities could have given you, and left you, with all your Paſſions and Inexperience about you, to blunder through the Duties of your Office, ſupported and approved by the moſt profound Ignorance and abject Servility.
Your Pride has as often expoſed you to Ridicule as the rude Petulance of your Diſpoſition has to Contempt.
Your Solicitude about the Title of Her Excellency for Mrs. Tryon, and the arrogant Reception you gave to a reſpectable Company at an Entertainment of your own making, ſeated with your Lady by your Side on Elbow Chairs, in the middle of the Ball Room, beſpeak a Littleneſs of Mind, which, believe me, Sir, when blended with the Dignity and Importance of your Office, renders you truly ridiculous.
Includes a letter from “Phocion” responding to “Aristides” (whose letter I
haven’t found).
Phocion deprecates Husband, defends Tryon, insists that there were plenty of useful legal avenues for the Regulators to have used to satisfy their grievances, and claims that the military repression was necessary for the defense of the colonial government.
He adds nothing really in terms of new facts, just his opinion.
Phocion is back to respond to another author, this time “Honestus” (whose
own letter I haven’t found).
Again, there isn’t much new here.
“I have not perſonally been concerned in any Circumſtance which I related, but am as certain of the Truth of each as I can be of any to which I am not a poſitive Witness,” he says.
He claims that the North Carolina legislature was not biased against the Regulators, but indeed was sympathetic to their complaints at first and only reluctantly passed the Riot Act.
Willie Jones also rebuts Honestus.
Jones was one of Tryon’s soldiers, and
gives this account of part of what happened:
You honour me, among others who were concerned in breaking open Mr. [Thomas] Person’s Deſk, with the Apellation of a Ruffian.
In the late Expedition againſt the Regulators, I ſerved merely as a common Soldier; and never adviſed, nor was conſulted in, any one Step that was taken.
I had not been in the Camp, nor exchanged a Word with the Governour, for upwards of a Week preceding the Orders for that Tranſaction.
The Governour deſired me to attend Captain Bullock, who headed the Party, without explaining the Nature of the Service; and I readily aſſented.
When Captain Bullock told me our Deſtination, I declared it was the only diſagreeable Duty I had been put upon, and that I was not ſatiſfied of the Legality of the Meaſure.
We arrived at Mr. Perſon’s Plantation in the Night, and having previouſly ſearched the Outhouses for one Winkler, a Captain of the Regulators, who lived there, civilly demanded Entrance into the Dwellinghouse, and were admitted.
After Break of Day, Captain Bullock made known to Mrs. Perſon the Purpoſe of our coming, and requeſted the Keys of the Deſk, which ſhe refuſed to deliver, alleging that ſuch Proceeding was determined to be illegal in the Caſe of Mr. Wilkes.
I told her, although there was an obvious Diſtinction between the two Caſes, I myſelf was not ſatisfied of the Propriety of the Meaſure; but, as Soldiers, we were bound to obey our Orders.
Captain Bullock then forced one Lock, after which I requeſted her to ſave us the Trouble of breaking a ſecond, ſince the civil Rights of her Husband were as effectually invaded by that ſingle Act as by a Repetition of the ſame Thing twenty Times over; and ſhe complied.
Mrs. Perſon, I am confident, will be ſo candid as to own that our Behaviour was polite to her, and that our Conduct in the Search was moderate, flowing from the abſolute Neceſſity of complying with our Orders, as Soldiers, and not from Malice to her Huſband, as Men.
Had we ſought this Occaſion to gratify a pitiful Reſentment, we ſhould have eagerly pried into every Hole and Corner; on the contrary, we examined Nothing more than her Deſk and a Book Caſe, and barely looked into an old Cheſt that ſtood unlocked.
From this State of the Matter, I ſurely do not deſerve the Name you ſo politely beſtow on me.
I am not, I aſſure you, a Friend to Oppreſſion.
If any great Occaſion ſhould call for Reſiſtance againſt arbitrary Meaſures, I am bold to ſay that I will go at leaſt as far in aſſerting the Liberty of my Country as Honeſtus ſhall dare to lead.
If that Willie Jones is the same as this Willie Jones, he was as good as his word, serving in the American Revolutionary government a few years later, and then joining Thomas Person as a Jeffersonian anti-Federalist.
Reprints an account from Colonel & Lieutenant Putnam, who had just
returned from an exploration of the Mississippi, concerning a robbery of a French riverboat and the murder of its crew the previous .
“The Villains who perpetrated this Crime are ſuppoſed to be Joſhua Haywood, Earneſt Hooper, Charles Holmes, Reaſon Young, Richard Holloway, and Abſalom Hooper; moſt of whom, if not all, were of the Regulators of North Carolina, except Haywood, who was Servant to Colonel Fanning.”
And that’s all I see about the Regulators until , when this appears:
Notes that a revolutionary convention in North Carolina has agreed to
raise 2,000 men and has appointed officers to lead them, and then adds: “There has been a conference held with the Chiefs of the regulators.
They have ſome ſcruples about the oath adminiſtered to them by Governor Tryon; but ſome of them have ſigned a teſt or aſſociation, and are now ſigning, and apprehend no danger from them.”
This seems to indicate that the Regulators were still an organized society even at this late date.
