Regulator Movement in North Carolina

Regulator Movement
Governor Tryon and the Regulators; engraving by A. Bollet Co.
Date 1766 – 1771 Location Central North Carolina Result Colonial government victory
Belligerents
Province of North Carolina	Regulators
Commanders and leaders
William Tryon Hugh Waddell	Herman Husband Benjamin Merrill (POW)  James Hunter
Strength
1,500	~2,300

The Regulator Movement in North Carolina, also known as the Regulator Insurrection, War of Regulation, and War of the Regulation, was an uprising in Provincial North Carolina from 1766 to 1771 in which citizens took up arms against colonial officials whom they viewed as corrupt. Historians such as John Spencer Bassett argue that the Regulators did not wish to change the form or principle of their government, but simply wanted to make the colony's political process more equal. They wanted better economic conditions for everyone, instead of a system that heavily benefited the colonial officials and their network of plantation owners mainly near the coast. Bassett interprets the events of the late 1760s in Orange and surrounding counties as "...a peasants' rising, a popular upheaval."^[1][2][3]