Rough and tumble, or gouging, is a form of fighting in the back-country United States, often characterized by the objective of gouging out an opponent's eye, and typically takes place in order to settle disputes.

Gouging is common by the 1730s in southern colonies.

An act passed by the Virginia Assembly in 1752 begins by remarking that many mischievous and ill disposed persons have of late, in a malicious and barbarous manner, maimed, wounded, and defaced, many of his majesty's subjects, then very specifically makes it a felony to put out an eye, slit the nose, bite or cut off a nose, or lip, among other offenses.

The Assembly will go on to amend the act in 1772 to make it clear that this included gouging, plucking or putting out an eye.

Court cases and legal rulings from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Tennessee, South Carolina, and Arkansas will provide ample evidence of the history of this type of fighting.