Regulator–Moderator War

A land feud in Harrison and Shelby Counties in East Texas lasted from 1839 to 1844, eventually spreading to neighboring counties and requiring Sam Houston to order 500 militia to end it.

People involved

• John J. Kennedy
• Joseph U. Fields
• Sam Houston

When this happened

Regulator–Moderator War occurred in 1839 to 1844, during the antebellum period of American history. The event spanned from 1839 to 1844.

Where this happened

Regulator–Moderator War took place in Texas. Explore the full history of Texas and primary source records from this era.

The antebellum period (roughly 1820–1861) was defined by westward expansion, deepening sectional conflict over slavery, and the displacement of Indigenous peoples. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized the forced relocation of the Five Civilized Tribes — Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminole — from the Southeast to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi; the Cherokee removal (1838–1839), known as the Trail of Tears, killed an estimated 4,000 of 17,000 people. Texas annexation (1845) and the Mexican-American War (1846–1848) added the Southwest and California to the United States, reopening the slavery-in-new-territories debate. The Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), and the Dred Scott decision (1857) each failed to resolve the conflict, and Bleeding Kansas saw pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers fight a guerrilla civil war from 1854 to 1861. The publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry (1859), and Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860 accelerated Southern secession.

Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source: Wikipedia: Armed conflicts.