/> fought against it as their ancestors had done at home. It is the story

of these sturdy "Regulators" that we have here to tell.



It was not the tyranny of king or parliament with which these

liberty-lovers had to deal, but that of Governor Tryon, the king's

representative in this colony, and one of the worst of all the royal

governors. Bancroft has well described his character. "The Cherokee

chiefs, who knew well the cruelty and craft of the most pernicious beast

of prey in the mountains, ceremoniously distinguished the governor by

the name of the Great Wolf." It was this Great Wolf who was placed in

command over the settlers of North Carolina, and whose lawless acts

drove them to rebellion.



Under Governor Tryon the condition of the colony of North Carolina was

worse than that of a great city under the rule of a political "Boss."

The people were frightfully overtaxed, illegal fees were charged for

every service, juries were packed, and costs of suits at law made

exorbitant. The officers of the law were insolent and arbitrary, and by

trickery and extortion managed to rob many settlers of their property.

And this was the more hateful to the people from the fact that much of

the money raised was known to go into the pockets of officials and much

of it was used by Governor Tryon in building himself a costly and showy

"palace." Such was the state of affairs which led to the "rebellion" in

North Carolina.



Many of the people of the mountain districts organized under the name of

"Regulators," binding themselves to fight against illegal taxes and

fees, and not to pay them unless forced to do so. The first outbreak

took place in 1768 when a Regulator rode into Hillsborough, and Colonel

Fanning wantonly seized his horse for his tax. It was quickly rescued by

a mob armed with clubs and muskets, some of which were fired at

Fanning's house.



This brought matters to a head. Supported by the governor, Fanning

denounced the Regulators as rebels, threatened to call out the militia,

and sent out a secret party who arrested two of the settlers. One of

these, Herman Husbands, had never joined the Regulators or been

concerned in any tumult, and was seized while quietly at home on his

own land. But he was bound, insulted, hurried to prison, and threatened

with the gallows. He escaped only by the payment of money and the threat

of the Regulators to take him by force from the jail.



The next step was taken after Governor Tryon had promised to hear the

complaints of the people and punish the men guilty of extortion. Under

this promise Husbands brought suit against Fanning for unjust

imprisonment. At once the governor showed his real sentiment. He

demanded the complete submission of the Regulators, called out fifteen

hundred armed men, and was said to intend to rouse the Indians to cut

off the men of Orange County as rebels.



In spite of this threatening attitude of the governor, Husbands was

acquitted on every charge, and Fanning was found guilty on six separate

indictments. There was also a verdict given against three Regulators.

This was the decision of the jury alone. That of the judges showed a

different spirit. They punished Fanning by fining him one penny on each

charge, while the Regulators were each sentenced to fifty pounds fine

and six months' imprisonment. To support this one-sided justice Tryon

threatened the Regulators with fire and sword, and they remained quietly

at home, brooding moodily over their failure but hesitating to act.



We must now go on to the year 1770. The old troubles had

continued,--illegal fees and taxes, peculation and robbery. The

sheriffs and tax-collectors were known to have embezzled over fifty

thousand pounds. The costs of suits at law had so increased that justice

lay beyond the reach of the poor. And back of all this reigned Governor

Tryon in his palace, supporting the spoilers of the people. So incensed

did they become that at the September court, finding that their cases

were to be ignored, they seized Fanning and another lawyer and beat them

soundly with cowhide whips, ending by a destructive raid on Fanning's

house.



The Assembly met in December. It had been chosen under a state of

general alarm. The Regulators elected many representatives, among them

the persecuted Herman Husbands, who was chosen to represent Orange

County. This defiant action of the people roused the "Great Wolf" again.

Husbands had been acquitted of everything charged against him, yet Tryon

had him voted a disturber of the peace and expelled from the House, and

immediately afterward had him arrested and put in prison without bail,

though there was not a grain of evidence against him.



The governor followed this act of violence with a "Riot Act" of the most

oppressive and illegal character. Under it if any ten men assembled and

did not disperse when ordered to do so, they were to be held guilty of

felony. For a riot committed either before or after this act was

published any persons accused might be tried before the Superior Court,

no matter how far it was from their homes, and if they did not appear

within sixty days, with or without notice, they were to be proclaimed

outlaws and to forfeit their lives and property. The governor also sent

out a request for volunteers to march against the "rebels," but the

Assembly refused to grant money for this warlike purpose.



Governor Tryon had shown himself as unjust and tyrannous as Governor

Berkeley of Virginia had done in his contest with Bacon. It did not take

him long to foment the rebellion which he seemed determined to provoke.

When the Regulators heard that their representative had been thrown into

prison, and that they were threatened with exile or death as outlaws,

they prepared to march on Newbern for the rescue of Husbands, filling

the governor with such alarm for the safety of his fine new palace that

he felt it wise to release his captive. He tried to indict the sturdy

Highlander for a pretended libel, but the Grand Jury refused to support

him in this, and Husbands was set free. The Regulators thereupon

dispersed, after a party of them had visited the Superior Court at

Salisbury and expressed their opinion very freely about the lawyers, the

officials, and the Riot Act, which they declared had no warrant in the

laws of England.



As yet the Regulators had done little more than to protest against

tyranny and oppression and to show an intention to defend their

representative against unjust imprisonment, yet they had done enough to

arouse their lordly governor to revenge. Rebels they were, for they had

dared to question his acts, and rebels he would hold them. As the Grand

Jury would not support him in his purpose, he took steps to obtain

juries and witnesses on whom he could rely, and then brought charges

against many of the leading Regulators of Orange County, several of whom

had been quietly at home during the riots of which they were accused.



The governor's next step was to call the Grand Jury to his palace and

volunteer to them to lead troops into the western counties, the haunt of

the Regulators. The jurymen, who were his own creatures, hastened to

applaud his purpose, and the Council agreed. The Assembly refused to

provide funds for such a purpose, but Tryon got over this difficulty by

issuing a paper currency.



A force of militia was now raised in the lower part of the colony and

the country of the Regulators was invaded. Tryon marched at the head of

a strong force into Orange County, and proceeded to deal with it as if

it were a country conquered in war. As he advanced, the wheat-fields

were destroyed and the orchards felled. Every house found empty was

burned to the ground. Cattle, poultry, and all the produce of the

plantations were seized. The terrified people ran together like sheep

pursued by a wolf. The men who had been indicted for felony at Newbern,

and who had failed to submit themselves to the mercy of his packed

juries and false witnesses, were proclaimed outlaws, whose lives and

property were forfeit. Never had the colonies been so spoiled on such

slight pretence.



Thus marching onward like a conquering general of the Middle Ages,

leaving havoc and ruin in his rear, on the evening of May 14, 1771,

Tryon reached the great Alamance River, at the head of a force of a

little over one thousand men. About five miles beyond this stream were

gathered the Regulators who had fled before his threatening march. They

were probably superior in numbers to Tryon's men, but many of them had

no weapons, and they were principally concerned lest the governor "would

not lend an ear to the just complaints of the people." These "rebels"

were certainly not in the frame of mind to make rebellion successful.



The Regulators were not without a leader. One of their number, James

Hunter, they looked upon as their "general," a title of which his

excellent capacity and high courage made him worthy. On the approach of

Tryon at the head of his men James Hunter and Benjamin Merrill advanced

to meet him. They received from him this ultimatum:



"I require you to lay down your arms, surrender up the outlawed

ringleaders, submit yourselves to the laws, and rest on the lenity of

the government. By accepting these terms in one hour you will prevent an

effusion of blood, as you are at this time in a state of war and

rebellion."



Hopeless as the Regulators felt their cause, they were not ready to

submit to such a demand as this. There was not an outlaw among them, for

not one of them had been legally indicted. As to the lenity of the

government, they had an example before their eyes in the wanton ruin of

their houses and crops. With such a demand, nothing was left them but to

fight.



Tryon began the action by firing a field-piece into the group of

Regulators. At this the more timid of them--perhaps only the unarmed

ones--withdrew, but the bold remainder returned the fire, and a hot

conflict began, which was kept up steadily for two hours. The battle, at

first in the open field, soon shifted to the woodland, where the

opponents sheltered themselves behind trees and kept up the fight. Not

until their ammunition was nearly gone, and further resistance was

impossible, did Hunter and his men retreat, leaving Tryon master of the

field. They had lost twenty of their number besides the wounded and some

prisoners taken in the pursuit. Of Tryon's men nine were killed and

sixty-one wounded. Thus ended the affray known as the battle of the

Alamance, in which were fired the first shots for freedom from tyranny

by the people of the American colonies.



The victorious governor hastened to make revengeful use of his triumph.

He began the next day by hanging James Few, one of the prisoners, as an

outlaw, and confiscating his estate. A series of severe proclamations

followed, and his troops lived at free quarters on the Regulators,

forcing them to contribute provisions, and burning the houses and laying

waste the plantations of all those who had been denounced as outlaws.



On his return to Hillsborough the governor issued a proclamation

denouncing Herman Husbands, James Hunter, and some others, asking "every

person" to shoot them at sight, and offering a large reward for their

bodies alive or dead. Of the prisoners still in his hands, he had six of

them hung in his own presence for the crime of treason. Then, some ten

days later, having played the tyrant to the full in North Carolina, he

left that colony forever, having been appointed governor of New York.

The colony was saddled by him with an illegal debt of forty thousand

pounds, which he left for its people to pay.



As for the fugitive Regulators, there was no safety for them in North

Carolina, and the governors of South Carolina and Virginia were

requested not to give them refuge. But they knew of a harbor of refuge

to which no royal governors had come, over which the flag of England had

never waved, and where no lawyer or tax-collector had yet set foot, in

that sylvan land west of the Alleghenies on which few besides Daniel

Boone, the famous hunter, had yet set foot.



Here was a realm for a nation, and one on which nature had lavished her

richest treasures. Here in spring the wild crab-apple filled the air

with the sweetest of perfumes, here the clear mountain-streams flowed

abundantly, the fertile soil was full of promise of rich harvests, the

climate was freshly invigorating, and the west winds ripe with the seeds

of health. Here were broad groves of hickory and oak, of maple, elm,

and ash, in which the elk and the red deer made their haunts, and the

black bear, whose flesh the hunter held to be delicious beyond rivalry,

fattened on the abundant crop of acorns and chestnuts. In the trees and

on the grasses were quail, turkeys, and pigeons numberless, while the

golden eagle built its nest on the mountain-peaks and swooped in circles

over the forest land. Where the thickets of spruce and rhododendron

threw their cooling shade upon the swift streams, the brook trout was

abundant, plenty and promise were everywhere, and, aside from the peril

of the prowling savage, the land was a paradise.



It was not in Kentucky, where Boone then dwelt alone, but in Tennessee

that the fugitive Regulators sought a realm of safety. James Robertson,

one of their number, had already sought the land beyond the hills and

was cultivating his fields of maize on the Watauga's fertile banks. He

was to become one of the leading men in later Tennessee. Hither the

Regulators, fleeing from their persecutors, followed him, and in 1772

founded a republic in the wilderness by a written compact, Robertson

being chosen one of their earliest magistrates. Thus, still defiant of

persecution, they "set to the people of America the dangerous example of

erecting themselves into a separate state, distinct from and independent

of the authority of the British king."



Thus we owe to the Regulators of North Carolina the first decided step

in the great struggle for independence so soon to come. And to North

Carolina we must give the credit of making the earliest declaration of

independence. More than a year before Jefferson's famous Declaration the

people of Mecklenburg County passed a series of resolutions in which

they declared themselves free from allegiance to the British crown. This

was in May, 1775. On April 12, 1776, North Carolina authorized her

delegates in the Continental Congress to declare for independence. Thus

again the Old North State was the first to set her seal for liberty. The

old Regulators had not all left her soil, and we seem to hear in these

resolutions an echo of the guns which were fired on the Alamance in the

first stroke of the colonists of America for freedom from tyranny.