Road to Revolution

Law and Disorder: The North Carolina Stamp Act Crisis

BY DONNA J. SPINDEL^*

[Vol. 57 (1980), 1-16]

An attitude of antiauthoritarianism in North Carolina appeared soon after the founding of the colony. Between 1677 and 1760 three major antigovernment uprisings occurred in addition to other instances of popular unrest.¹ While these events have been subjects of scholarly study, one facet of colonial resistance remains virtually unexplored: the extent to which the peace-keeping system actually shaped opposition to Britain.²

Several recent studies examine the peace-keeping system as a reflection of the colonial social order and analyze the consequences of civil disturbances that law enforcers failed to quell.³ But few historians focus directly on the relationship between law enforcement practices and the development of anti-British activities.⁴ This study attempts such an approach for the colony of North Carolina during the Stamp Act period. Two questions will be considered: first, what kind of law-enforcement system existed in colonial North Carolina; and, second, what effect did it have on the evolution of opposition to the Stamp Act. Because peace-keeping procedures varied little from one British-American colony to another, the questions considered here may provide a starting point for a more comprehensive study of the relationship between colonial law enforcement and the development of resistance to Britain.

The colonial peace-keeping system was patterned after the British model and suffered from all the shortcomings of its prototype.⁵ In the absence of formal police training, the task of preserving law and order fell to constables, sheriffs, and justices of the peace—men of varying ability who ranged in social standing from the lowly constable to the prominent justice of the peace.⁶ In colonial North Carolina there are few historically important figures among appointed constables. Most apparently served their brief terms and then returned to their former occupations. The office of constable, filled annually by the county court, was a burdensome one.⁷ These local peace-keepers executed warrants, arrested suspects, suppressed riots, broke up fights, and assisted justices of the peace.⁸ Considering their many responsibilities and generally low community standing—a fact that may have hindered them from enforcing the law against more prominent townspeople—it is not surprising that some chose to pay a fine rather than serve.⁹

The peace officer to whom the constable was directly responsible was the sheriff.¹⁰ Appointed by the county court to a one-year term, sheriffs were generally men of higher social and economic standing in the community than were constables. They were assigned by law the same duties as constables plus an array of tasks stemming from their position as “principal Conservator of the Peace within [the] County.”¹¹ Just a few of their duties included maintaining prisons, summoning juries, attending court, collecting taxes, and keeping the accounts of the county. Some men apparently found the job too onerous, for as in the case of constables, the courts imposed a fine on those who refused to serve.¹²

In each county the highest ranking law-enforcement officer was the justice of the peace, also a judge of the precinct court, who was usually a prominent individual. His duties were even more numerous than those of the sheriff and constable. In his capacity as a law-enforcement officer, a justice issued warrants, arrested suspects, executed court judgments, and prevented breaches of the peace.¹³ As a judge of the county court, he heard and determined cases involving small debts and lesser criminal offenses.

On a routine basis, the North Carolina peace-keeping system worked well enough, but the emergence of widely supported anti-British uprisings of the pre-Revolutionary period severely strained the institutional structure for dealing with such crises.¹⁴ Moreover, instead of simplifying the job of the North Carolina peace-keeper, the English law for suppressing disorders made his work more complicated. As defined in the English Riot Act of 1714 (I George I, c. 5), enforceable in British America, many of the disturbances of the pre-Revolutionary period, including the Stamp Act disorders which broke out along the Cape Fear River, constituted riots. These disorders involved three or more people who attempted to commit some unlawful act by using threats, turbulent behavior, or actual force.¹⁵ Before taking action against such rioters, magistrates were required by law to warn them to disperse.¹⁶ If the disorder persisted, peace officers were authorized to try to stop it “in any Manner whatever.” Apprehended rioters could be jailed until the next meeting of the superior court at which their cases would be tried, or they would be released pending a court appearance by providing sureties for their good behavior.¹⁷ Accused rioters could be convicted without a trial through a complicated procedure. If, in the midst of a riot, two justices and a sheriff were able to record the event “upon their own View,” and would then certify the record at the next superior court, the record would serve as a summary conviction of the accused.¹⁸

Under English law, then, local magistrates could, perhaps, quell an uprising of a few people that seemed to threaten the order of the community. However, if a substantial part of the community supported an insurrectionary action, as happened during the North Carolina Stamp Act crisis of 1765-1766, even the most diligent local peace-keepers might be virtually powerless to act. At least in theory, the one colonial institution capable of buttressing the local peacekeeping system was the militia.¹⁹ In North Carolina at the time the Stamp Act was passed the militia consisted of all free men and servants between the ages of sixteen and sixty.²⁰ Although each local troop was to muster twice each year, long periods of peace led to a decline in the militia’s preparedness, and training days became little more than social events. Colonial governors had the authority to call up the militia in case of “insurrection.”²¹ However, even if citizen soldiers could be mobilized quickly enough to be useful, in times of popular unrest they might sympathize with rioters and refuse to act, or they even might participate in the disturbances themselves.²²

As commander in chief of all armed forces in the colony, the governor was ultimately responsible for keeping the peace. If an uprising occurred, he could raise an armed force to quell the insurrection, but the money and legal means to do so depended upon an unreliable source—the assembly.²³ Facing an uncooperative legislature, the governor could, with the approval of the council, seek aid from British troops stationed in America. In most cases, however, immediate assistance was unavailable, for British soldiers were garrisoned far from the settled parts of the American colonies. Moreover, in times of crisis colonial governors rarely asked for outside help because English people traditionally abhorred a standing army and the presence of military contingents in an American colony might cause more harm than good.²⁴

More so than perhaps any other episode of the pre-Revolutionary period, the Stamp Act crisis of 1765-1766 reveals the weakness of the colonial law-enforcement system and shows how this weakness affected opposition to Britain. The Stamp Act, passed by Parliament on March 22, 1765, became effective on the following November 1. It provided for various duties, payable in hard currency, on such items as playing cards, legal documents, ship clearances, and newspapers. Revenues would be spent in America to support the British troops stationed there.²⁵ Although the Stamp Act provided for the first direct parliamentary tax on the American colonies, most British and American officials expected little opposition. In fact, strong resistance to the new law was not immediately expressed. But as the summer of 1765 approached, a widespread colonial argument for repeal gradually began to emerge. Opponents of the law claimed that the Stamp Act violated an important principle—Britain could levy and collect duties in American ports to regulate trade, but it was their belief that the power to levy internal taxes for revenue resided solely with colonial assemblies. Some colonists feared that the payment of the tax in specie would lead to a scarcity of currency. Others opposed the law because merchant violators would be tried without a jury by a vice-admiralty court in Halifax, Nova Scotia. These arguments against the Stamp Act were at first peacefully presented in the form of pamphlets, petitions to Parliament, and proposed boycotts of British goods. Violent protest finally emerged on August 14, when a Boston crowd hanged the stamp distributor in effigy, destroyed his warehouse (in which stamps were apparently to be stored), and forced him to resign.²⁶ Other colonies, North Carolina included, soon followed the Boston example by forcing stampmen to resign or flee and by symbolically burning bales of stamped paper. From Nova Scotia to the British West Indies, crowds held mock hangings and funerals, engaged in midnight raids on the homes of stampmasters and other British officials, and destroyed private property.²⁷ In almost every case local peace-keepers either sympathized with the disorders or were powerless to act against widely supported Stamp Act resistance.

North Carolinians launched Stamp Act protest in the summer of 1765 with the publication of a pamphlet by Maurice Moore entitled The Justice and Policy of Taxing the American Colonies in Great-Britain, Considered. In this work of sixteen pages, Moore argued against the principle of virtual representation in Parliament and claimed that the Stamp Act was “impolitic” and “inconsistant with the rights of the Colonists,” who, as Englishmen by birthright, were “constitutionally entitled to be taxed only by their own Consent.”²⁸ Moore’s pamphlet offered strong intellectual support for more active opposition. In fact, the governor of the colony, William Tryon, anticipated trouble before the effective date of the Stamp Act and very quickly tried to discourage resistance before it had a chance to develop.²⁹ When members of the assembly officially registered their disapproval of the new law in May, 1765, Tryon exercised his prerogative as governor by dissolving the legislature.³⁰ Thus, the North Carolina assembly was in recess in June, 1765, when the Massachusetts legislature circulated to all of the colonies an invitation to send delegates to a congress to be held in New York in October to present a united protest to Britain against the new law. Inasmuch as the assembly could not legally reconvene unless summoned by the governor, there was no way for the legislature to elect delegates to attend the New York meeting. By the fall of 1765, however, North Carolinians began to hear reports of “extraordinary exertions of Spirit in the different parts of America,” and their own growing resentment against the new law was soon to be expressed.³¹

Active resistance to the Stamp Act in North Carolina began at Wilmington on October 19, 1765. A crowd of 500 people hanged in effigy an unidentified “Gentleman” who had expressed support of the new law. Within a few days Edenton, New Bern, and Cross Creek also held mock executions. On Halloween night, just before the Stamp Act took effect, a solemn crowd again assembled in Wilmington, this time to the accompaniment of drums and muffled bells. Toward midnight “a great Number of People” gathered at the churchyard to lower a symbol of liberty to its grave.³²

The first day of November passed peacefully in North Carolina. Stamp papers had not yet arrived from Britain, and no stampmaster was yet available to receive and distribute the stamps.³³ Governor Tryon suspended court proceedings that required stamped papers and ordered all trading vessels to remain at anchor.³⁴ At this point, the effectiveness of the peace-keeping system was sorely tested, for the suspension of commerce in the Lower Cape Fear heightened tensions, and peaceful Stamp Act opposition gave way to more vigorous protest. For example, a militia officer who claimed that he would enforce the Stamp Act found his home broken into and robbed. Apparently treated more harshly was a judge of the superior court in New Bern. One evening a band of men calling themselves “Sons of Liberty” converged on his home, dragged him from his bed, and made him promise to resume the business of the court without the required stamps.³⁵

Still another victim of Stamp Act protest was Dr. William Houston, a surgeon from Duplin County. Although Houston had never sought the office, he was informed by letter in mid-November that the British government had appointed him stamp distributor for North Carolina.³⁶ When he rode into Wilmington on November 16 to attend to personal business, the town had already learned of his appointment. Houston, who months later found himself “Hated Abhor’d and Detested...,” remembered that on the day he entered Wilmington “The Inhabitants immediately assembled about me & demanded a Categorical Answer whether I intended to put the Act relating [to] the Stamps in-force. The Town Bell was rung Drums beating, Colours flying and [a] great concourse of People [were] gathered together.” Later, Houston was taken from his lodgings to the courthouse “where he signed a Resignation satisfactory to the whole.” As he explained in a letter to the British ministry, no other response would have served “to quiet the Minds of the inraged and furious Mobb of Sailors &c.”³⁷

Houston may well have recognized seamen in the crowd, for Wilmington was a seaport, and sailors were particularly vulnerable to the governor’s suspension of maritime commerce. Some sailors probably joined the Stamp Act crowd for excitement, but others may have done so with a particular purpose in mind. Forcing the stamp distributor to resign was one possible way of restoring maritime trade and returning to their jobs.³⁸ Although Houston identified only members of the under class in the Stamp Act crowd, the “better sort” apparently participated as well. Other contemporary sources indicate that among those who demanded Houston’s resignation were Moses DeRossett, an alderman of Wilmington, and Frederick Gregg, the mayor—men who were supposed to enforce the law, not break it.³⁹

The Stamp Act demonstration at Wilmington on November 16 struck the peace-keeping system of the town at its weakest point. When officials expected to uphold law and order were the very ones who disrupted it, the fragile system collapsed. By participating in the Stamp Act demonstration, leaders of the town condoned it. Sheriffs, constables, and militiamen were noticeably absent in their official capacities and may, as private citizens, have joined the crowd. Even the town records for the day following Houston’s resignation provide no hint that anything unusual had occurred.⁴⁰ Thus, civil authorities not only failed to subdue early Stamp Act protest in the Lower Cape Fear, but they also seemed to have consciously ignored it. By failing to take a firm stand initially, they may well have shaped the direction of future opposition to the law.⁴¹

Despite the unpopularity of the Stamp Act and the unreliability of local peace-keepers, Governor Tryon was determined to enforce the law. At first he resorted to the most practical deterrent he had—persuasive argument. In mid-November, he invited the leading citizens of the Lower Cape Fear to his home in Brunswick. While his guests enjoyed a lavish meal, Tryon urged them to set an example for the colony by obeying the Stamp Act. He even offered to “make a Present of stamped Licenses to the Tavern-Keepers, and give up all Fees particularly belonging to him.”⁴² But the governor’s entreaties were in vain. His guests “refused to have anything to say to [him] or to be answerable for the consequences in case [the stamps] were landed.”⁴³ When the stamped papers finally did arrive aboard the Diligence on November 28, Tryon ordered Captain Constantine Phipps to keep the papers aboard ship, and there they remained for the duration of the crisis.⁴⁴

No further Stamp Act incident occurred in the Lower Cape Fear until December 20, when a crowd assembled at Wilmington for the ceremonial publication of Tryon’s commission as governor. Samuel Johnston, an Edenton lawyer and a shrewd observer of colonial affairs, described the events of the day:

Capt. Phipps brought the Gov^.r up from Brunswick [located 15 miles south of Wilmington on the Cape Fear River] to Wilmington in his Barge with all the parade peculiar to that kind of Gentry .... That the Ceremony might be attended with the greatest Pomp the Militia of the Neighborhood to the No of ab^.t 2000 as is said appeared under Arms to receive his Excelly ....⁴⁵

According to an account of the event published in the Maryland Gazette, the New Hanover militia as well as the mayor, aldermen, and “Gentlemen” of the town lined the streets leading from the wharf to the governor’s house and saluted Tryon “by the Discharge of 17 Pieces of Artillery.”⁴⁶ Although at first welcomed by the people of Wilmington, Tryon changed their mood when he stressed in his inaugural speech “the Necessity of America’s helping her Mother” and begged the people to “receive the Stamps.” The audience responded “with a general Hiss” which became an ominous cheer when a merchant ship in the harbor, in violation of naval law, unfurled the Irish national flag.⁴⁷ According to the account of Samuel Johnston, this act of defiance “nigh turned the Coronation Farce into a very Serious Tragedy.” When Captain Phipps, the British officer despised by local residents because of his attempt to land stamped papers, ordered his men to seize the Irish flag, a number of townspeople decided to get it back. Johnston’s chronicle of the ensuing events is full of detail and drama:

[Phipps’s capture of the Irish flag] so affronted not only the sailors but the Townsmen and Militiamen that they insulted the Capt. as he went to his Lodgings, hauled up the Boat to the Court house and were about to set fire to her when it was proposed by some of the more moderate to spare the boat for the Captain’s Releasing the Colours which was agreed to on Condition it was done within 15 Minutes, this was complied with. They then manned the Boat as if on the Water and dragged her round the Town till they came under the Window of Capt. Phipps’ Lodgings where they made a stand to insult him, The Gov^.r who was in the house harangued the mob from one of the Windows in such a State as exasperated them as much agst. him as they had been agst. the Capt. they then Launched the Boat into the water and collected themselves Round an Ox and 6 or 7 Barrells of punch which had been given by his Excelly. they immediately broke in the heads of the Barrels of Punch and let run into the street, put the head of the Ox in the Pillory and gave the Carcass to the Negroes. This was what the Gov^.rs Vanity could by no means brook in so much that when the Corporation of Wilmington offered to address him in order to exculpate themselves he refused to see their Recorder or hear their Address and it’s said he’d determined to leave that place and settle at New Bern. Capt. Phipps went down to bring up his ship [from Brunswick] in order to blow the Town to pieces and when my informer came from Wilmington had got as far as the Flats [at Old Town Creek] where he was taking out his Ballast...⁴⁸

Captain Phipps never carried out his threat to fire on the town, nor did any official in London, so far as is known, ever learn about the ill-starred inauguration of the governor. Tryon cryptically wrote the British ministry on December 26 that North Carolinians had “been as assiduous in obstructing the reception of the Stamps as any of the Inhabitants.”⁴⁹ But he withheld any details of their rebellious activities. The governor may have hoped to avoid discrediting his government by deliberately failing to mention the lawless behavior of the colony. Yet, if Tryon lost face in Wilmington on December 20, he retaliated in a way that truly harmed the town. Residents hoped that the town would be chosen as the site for the proposed new capital, but after his stormy inauguration there, Tryon and the assembly apparently decided to establish the colonial capital at New Bern.⁵⁰

The explosive incident at Wilmington on December 20 offered striking proof that in certain circumstances even the governor of North Carolina, the colony’s chief police officer, would do nothing to preserve order. The New Hanover militia, ordinarily an arm of the law, had insulted a captain of the royal navy and made a mockery of the governor’s inaugural celebration, accomplishing all without any obvious fear of reprisal. On the following day, according to Samuel Johnston’s missive of January 9, 1766, the corporation of Wilmington did attempt to extend an official apology to the governor, but apparently no persons were arrested, no townspeople were punished.

In view of the freedom with which North Carolinians expressed opposition to the Stamp Act, it is not surprising that their defiance of Britain was carried even further. In January, 1766, Captain Jacob Lobb of the Viper sparked resistance in the Lower Cape Fear when he seized two sloops, the Dobbs and Patience, for failing to have “their clearances on stamp paper.”⁵¹ Lobb delivered the papers of the seized vessels to Customs Collector William Dry who in turn asked Robert Jones, Jr., the attorney general of the colony, to issue a statement on the status of the vessels. Jones declared that the Dobbs and Patience had violated the Stamp Act and should, as the law directed, be sent with their cargoes to Halifax, Nova Scotia, for legal proceedings.⁵² This particular provision of the law, in the view of Stamp Act opponents, violated their constitutional right to a trial by jury because the accused shipowners were to be tried by a vice-admiralty court without benefit of a jury. When Lobb sent a crew in a small boat to Wilmington for supplies, the townspeople seized the seamen and placed them temporarily in jail.⁵³ Two weeks later a delegation of prominent citizens of the Cape Fear region threatened to prevent the removal of the Dobbs and Patience to Halifax. On February 19, as William Dry later realized, several hundred people surrounded his house and entered “as many as could get in ... broke open my desk” and stole the papers of the two vessels.⁵⁴ In the evening more than 100 people converged on the governor’s house in search of Captain Lobb. Upon failing to find the captain there, the crowd rushed off to Brunswick but left behind a small party to “guard” the executive residence. Governor Tryon, a virtual prisoner in his own home for most of the night, finally managed to escape in the early morning after the “guard” dispersed. Later, he met for several hours with an armed contingent of citizens and finally agreed to release the captured sloops. Tryon returned home believing that the insurrection was over. But the next day a crowd of several hundred citizens rounded up the comptroller of customs and other British officials and forced them all to take an oath not to enforce the Stamp Act.⁵⁵

Governor Tryon acted to reestablish order by allowing commerce on the Cape Fear River to resume without use of the required stamps. In late winter he considered the possibility of sending for British troops, but the repeal of the Stamp Act on March 18, 1766, made such an unprecedented action unnecessary.⁵⁶

The climactic episode of the Stamp Act crisis in North Carolina, according to Governor Tryon, involved “580 men in arms, and upwards of 100 unarmed.”⁵⁷ How could this insurrection and the other unlawful incidents that preceded it have occurred? One explanation may be that North Carolinians carried Stamp Act protest further than most other American colonists because they had more at stake. In their view the new law was responsible for disrupting the maritime trade upon which the livelihood of the Lower Cape Fear depended.⁵⁸ And to make matters worse, Brunswick, the commercial hub of the region was closed to trade longer than any other port in the thirteen colonies.⁵⁹ Clearly, economic considerations were important in determining Stamp Act opposition. But also suggested here is the possibility that resistance to the Stamp Act was shaped in part by the response of the peace-keeping system.

The failure of North Carolina peace-keepers to stem the tide of opposition to the Stamp Act may help to explain not only the intensity of resistance but also why resistance failed to produce any serious violence. Extant records show that no sheriff or justice of the peace made an attempt to arrest the insurrectionaries or penalize them after illegal incidents occurred. In fact, militiamen and justices of the peace joined in the disorders.⁶⁰ Hugh Waddell of Brunswick County and John Ashe of New Hanover apparently led their militia companies to Brunswick in November to prevent the stamps from being landed.⁶¹ The New Hanover militia may have marched again in February to join in Stamp Act opposition.⁶² Involved in the resistance to the seizure of the Dobbs and Patience were at least two militia officers—Hugh Waddell and John Ashe—and nine justices of the peace—William Campbell, John DuBois, Alexander Duncan, Frederick Gregg, Cornelius Harnett, Alexander Lillington, John Lyon, William Purviance, and Moses John DeRosset.⁶³ Some participants in Stamp Act disorders also held positions in local government. Frederick Gregg, for example, was the mayor of Wilmington; and a number of justices of the peace involved in resistance served simultaneously as aldermen of the town. Thus, it seems probable that law enforcers failed to act either because they lacked the means to do so or because they supported the disturbances themselves. And their failure to respond firmly against the rebellion when it began may have legitimized further resistance.⁶⁴ Yet, the absence of a more forceful response on the part of civil power may also explain why more serious violence did not occur: as a recent study of social behavior indicates, the degree to which authorities and protestors interact can determine the intensity of a conflict.⁶⁵ Certainly interaction between civil power and Stamp Act protesters took place in North Carolina. But the actions of civil authorities were mainly of a passive nature—never did the governor, officers of the royal navy, or customs officials attempt to impose the Stamp Act by force. Thus, it is probable that the response of the peace-keeping system to the Stamp Act in North Carolina as in other colonies helped “to retard ... a rapid escalation of killing and violence ....”⁶⁶

In evaluating the decisive role that law enforcers can play in a popular protest, a comparison between the response of the peace-keeping system to Stamp Act resistance and to a serious disturbance five years later—the Regulation—may be useful. Whereas in the earlier protest law enforcers failed to act, in May, 1771, Governor Tryon effectively used the militia, which consisted of a number of men who had actively opposed the Stamp Act, to suppress those colonists who were rebelling against corrupt local government. In just two hours at the Battle of Alamance, eighteen men were killed and many more wounded.⁶⁷ Later, fourteen Regulators were tried for treason—six were executed. In this episode, then, law enforcers acted decisively with the support of the community. Their efforts quashed the disorder, and in the interaction between protesters and authorities serious violence occurred. But five years earlier, when men charged with enforcing the law resisted it, the law-enforcement system collapsed, and no serious violence took place. The character and outcome of these two episodes—the Stamp Act crisis and the Regulation—thus depended at least in part on the response of the law-enforcement system.

It is hoped that this study of the Stamp Act crisis in North Carolina will open the way for a different understanding of colonial resistance to Britain. Offered here is another dimension—the law-enforcement system—from which to examine the activities of the patriots. Were anti-British activities generally restrained because of the “desire to maintain the orderly rule of law,” as one historian suggests, or because the response of law enforcers made serious violence less likely to occur?⁶⁸ Did the early patriots carry anti-British activities to the brink of revolution because of their patriotic ardor or because no civil power forcefully tried to stop them? Clearly, a broader vision of the pre-Revolutionary decade is needed. If anything, the Stamp Act crisis in North Carolina underscores the assumption behind this study, that any valid analysis of the development of opposition to Britain must take into account the nature of the colonial peace-keeping system.

Footnotes