The Lannisters/Freys are doing a terrible job w/the smallfolk in the Riverlands (Spoilers Extended)

The Brotherhood without Banners has begun its reign of terror on the Riverland overlords killing numerous Freys (Merrett/Petyr/Ryman) and the Lannisters/Frey/etc. can't seem to figure out why the smallfolk is supporting them.

Background & History

The riverlands have begun to strongly support the Brotherhood of Banners. Not openly in all cases (the lords can't, but the smallfolk do), as the primary goal is the removal of the Lannisters/Freys from power in the region.

If interested: The Grand Riverland Conspiracy

It also should be noted that it seems that some of the smallfolk have converted to the Lord of Light in the region as well: The Lord of Light in the Riverlands

Arthur Dayne and the Kingswood Brotherhood

At one point we see Jaime comment on the best way to get the smallfolk to stop supporting the "robin hood" type outlaws when Jaime explains how they solved the problem to the dinner party at Darry**:**

"If you want their help, you need to make them love you. That was how Arthur Dayne did it, when we rode against the Kingswood Brotherhood. He paid the smallfolk for the food we ate, brought their grievances to King Aerys, expanded the grazing lands around their villages, even won them the right to fell a certain number of trees each year and take a few of the king's deer during the autumn. The forest folk had looked to Toyne to defend them, but Ser Arthur did more for them than the Brotherhood could ever hope to do, and won them to our side. After that, the rest was easy." -AFFC, Jaime IV

Jon Connington and the Stoney Sept

We see a somewhat parallel situation during Robert's Rebellion when Jon Con and the loyalists searched for Robert at the Stoney Sept:

And so he swept down on Stoney Sept, closed off the town, and began a search. His knights went house to house, smashed in every door, peered into every cellar. He had even sent men crawling through the sewers, yet somehow Robert still eluded him. The townsfolk were hiding him. They moved him from one secret bolt-hole to the next, always one step ahead of the king's men. The whole town was a nest of traitors. At the end they had the usurper hidden in a brothel. What sort of king was that, who would hide behind the skirts of women? Yet whilst the search dragged on, Eddard Stark and Hoster Tully came down upon the town with a rebel army. Bells and battle followed, and Robert emerged from his brothel with a blade in hand, and almost slew Jon on the steps of the old sept that gave the town its name.

For years afterward, Jon Connington told himself that he was not to blame, that he had done all that any man could do. His soldiers searched every hole and hovel, he offered pardons and rewards, he took hostages and hung them in crow cages and swore that they would have neither food nor drink until Robert was delivered to him. All to no avail. -ADWD, The Griffin Reborn

Tywin Lannister

Tywin likely uses an alternate solution:

"Tywin Lannister himself could have done no more," he had insisted one night to Blackheart, during his first year of exile.

"There is where you're wrong," Myles Toyne had replied. "Lord Tywin would not have bothered with a search. He would have burned that town and every living creature in it. Men and boys, babes at the breast, noble knights and holy septons, pigs and whores, rats and rebels, he would have burned them all. When the fires guttered out and only ash and cinders remained, he would have sent his men in to find the bones of Robert Baratheon. Later, when Stark and Tully turned up with their host, he would have offered pardons to the both of them, and they would have accepted and turned for home with their tails between their legs."-ADWD, The Griffin Reborn

Current Events w/the BwB

Amory Lorch

Amory Lorch (killer of Yoren and Rhaenys) kills smallfolk along with Beric (in one of Beric's 7 deaths):

Lord Beric touched the spot above his left ear where his temple was caved in. "Here is where Ser Burton Crakehall broke helm and head with a blow of his mace." He unwound his scarf, exposing the black bruise that encircled his neck. "Here the mark the manticore made at Rushing Falls. He seized a poor beekeeper and his wife, thinking they were mine, and let it be known far and wide that he would hang them both unless I gave myself up to him. When I did he hanged them anyway, and me on the gibbet between them." He lifted a finger to the raw red pit of his eye. "Here is where the Mountain thrust his dirk through my visor." A weary smile brushed his lips. "That's thrice I have died at the hands of House Clegane. You would think that I might have learned . . ." -ASOS, Arya VII

Black Walder

Resorts to torture in order to get the peasants to snitch:

"So we thought, at first." Though Lady Mariya's hair was streaked with grey, she was still a handsome woman. "The killers scattered when they left Oldstones. Lord Vypren tracked one band to Fairmarket, but lost them there. Black Walder led hounds and hunters into Hag's Mire after the others. The peasants denied seeing them, but when questioned sharply they sang a different song. They spoke of a one-eyed man and another who wore a yellow cloak . . . and a woman, cloaked and hooded." -AFFC, Jaime IV

Lyle Crakehall aka Strongboar

Strongboar (who is hunting the "Hound") urges torture as well:

Some of the river lords are hand in glove with Lord Beric's men as well."

"The smallfolk too," sniffed her daughter. "Ser Harwyn says they hide them and feed them, and when he asks where they've gone, they lie. They lie to their own lords!"

"Have their tongues out," urged Strongboar.

"Good luck getting answers then," said Jaime. -AFFC, Jaime IV

If interested: The (Strong)Boar & the "Hound"

TLDR: The Lannisters/Freys are doing a terrible job of managing the smallfolk in the Riverlands (a region that they seem to control in name only). This is obvious, but I thought it would be interesting/fun to show their failures quote by quote on they question the smallfolk about the Brotherhoood without Banners.