You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.

In a lot of ways, they are, I think the best way to understand this is they are taking their labor back.

And it was a form of English protest when you look at other protests in New England and Maine and a few other places.

This idea of like taking the siding off of a house is kind of a thing people did.

And we're like,

we're not destroying property. We're just taking our labor back. Now, they do destroy a lot of property while they're at it, but.

Hello and welcome to episode 419 of Ben Franklin's World, the podcast dedicated to helping

you learn more about how the people and events of our early American past have shaped

the present day world we live in. And I'm your host, Liz Covart. What happens when the very

people meant to uphold justice become the ones exploiting it?

In 1760s, North Carolina, farmers watch sheriffs pocket their tax payments, judges rule in favor of corrupt land speculators, and government officials literally steal their land, all while claiming to represent the Crown's justice.

Today, we're finally going to dive into one of your most requested episode topics, the North Carolina Regulator Movement.

Now, it took some time to figure out how we might offer this topic, and I hope you'll think

that the weight has been worth it. Our guide for this exploration is Nathan Schultz, a public historian and the site manager of the Alamance Battleground State Historic Site in North Carolina.

Nathan brings his very deep understanding of the regulator movement to reveal why farmers in North Carolina's Piedmont region organized against corrupt officials and land speculators in the 1760s,

how these regulators built their own democratic agrarian resistance movement

while still claiming loyalty to the British crown,

and how the regulator movement culminated in a deadly confrontation at the Battle of Alamance

in May 1771.

But first, before we dive into this story

of the North Carolina regulators,

I'd like to acknowledge something special.

...