ich staples might be
accepted, while familiar on the coast, did not apply to the interior.
The specie was exceedingly difficult to obtain; in lack of it, the
farmer saw the sheriff, who owed his appointment to the dominant lowland
planters, sell the lands of the delinquent to his speculative friends.
Lawyers and court fees followed.

In short, the interior felt that it was being exploited,[118:3] and it
had no redress, for the legislature was so apportioned that all power
rested in the old lowland region. Efforts to secure paper money failed
by reason of the governor's opposition under instructions from the
crown, and the currency was contracting at the very time when population
was rapidly increasing in the interior.[119:1] As in New England, in the
days of Shays' Rebellion, violent prejudice existed against the
judiciary and the lawyers, and it must, of course, be understood that
the movement was not free from frontier dislike of taxation and the
restraints of law and order in general. In 1766 and 1768, meetings were
held in the upper counties to organize the opposition, and an
"association"[119:2] was formed, the members of which pledged themselves
to pay no more taxes or fees until they satisfied themselves that these
were agreeable to law.

The Regulators, as they called themselves, assembled in the autumn of
1768 to the number of nearly four thousand, and tried to secure terms of
adjustment. In 1770 the court-house at Hillsboro was broken into by a
mob. The assembly passed some measures designed to conciliate the back
country; but before they became operative, Governor Tryon's militia,
about twelve hundred men, largely from the lowlands, and led by the
gentry whose privileges were involved, met the motley army of the
Regulators, who numbered about two thousand, in the battle of the
Alamance (May, 1771). Many were killed and wounded, the Regulators
dispersed, and over six thousand men came into camp and took the oath of
submission to the colonial authorities. The battle was not the first
battle of the Revolution, as it has been sometimes called, for it had
little or no relation to the stamp act; and many of the frontiersmen
involved, later refused to fight against England because of the very
hatred which had been inspired for the lowland Revolutionary leaders in
this battle of the Alamance. The interior of the Carolinas was a region
where neighbors, during the Revolution, engaged in internecine conflicts
of Torie