By Lindy Cummings, Research Historian, Tryon Palace
Outlander season is upon us once again. For fans of Diana Gabaldon’s best-selling books and STARZ series, season 7’s premier on June 16 picked up with Clare Fraser jailed on murder charges. Even if Clare escapes the hangman’s noose, she and her loved ones will be subsumed into the war for independence.
Every story needs a good antagonist. Season 7 picks up with Royal Governor Josiah Martin, William Tryon’s successor and the last royal governor. King George III’s representatives have along served as proxies for the wrongs laid at his feet. Tryon and Martin are no exceptions. In the historical and fictional narratives built up around them, they become caricatures with few redeemable qualities.
Tryon and Martin were more complicated humans than we recognize. Take, for example, the issue of currency in Provincial North Carolina. The 1764 Currency Act prohibited the printing of paper money by North American colonies. Counterfeiting eroded the value of earlier currency. The Assembly was desperate to secure permission to print new. Siding with the Assembly, Tryon petitioned London officials to allow it. New currency would ease the shortage partly feeding Regulator discontent.
Likewise, Tryon had little power to correct the abuse of the sheriffs who collected taxes—and extorted already cash-poor farmers. Tryon recommended corrections to the Assembly, but the Assembly was not obligated to adopt them.
When Josiah Martin arrived in 1771, he was young and politically inexperienced, with a grandiose vision of his role as royal governor. He also arrived in the wake of the Regulator uprising and immediately demanded an end to extortion and the public posting of all fees. It signaled to backcountry residents that he took seriously the abuses of power by local officials. He traveled to the backcountry and met with residents. He even petitioned his superiors to restore the property of families whose husbands and fathers executed for taking part in the uprising.
Tryon and Martin make good foils for the unfolding fictional dramas like Outlander. They were also complicated individuals serving as government representatives at a time when the fabric of the colony was unraveling.
Tryon Palace offers two Outlander Tours, Spark of the Rebellion and Storm of Revolution, monthly on the third Saturday of the month. For more information, www.tryonpalace.org/calendar/outlander.