War with the southern Indians.... Dissatisfaction of
Carolina with the proprietors.... Rupture with Spain....
Combination to subvert the proprietary government....
Revolution completed.... Expedition from the Havanna against
Charleston.... Peace with Spain.... The proprietors
surrender their interest to the crown.... The province
divided.... Georgia settled.... Impolicy of the first
regulations.... Intrigues of the Spaniards with the slaves
of South Carolina.... Insurrection of the slaves.
{1715}
In Carolina, the contests between the inhabitants and the proprietors,
added to the favour with which the Queen heard the complaints of the
dissenters, had turned the attention of the people towards the crown,
and produced a strong desire to substitute the regal, for the
proprietary government. This desire was increased by an event which
demonstrated the incompetency of their government.
[Sidenote: War with the Indians.]
The Yamassees, a powerful tribe of Indians on the north east of the
Savanna, instigated by the Spaniards at St. Augustine, secretly
prepared a general combination of all the southern Indians, against
the province. Having massacred the traders settled among them, they
advanced in great force against the southern frontier, spreading
desolation and slaughter on their route. The inhabitants were driven
into Charleston; and governor Craven proclaimed martial law. He also
obtained an act of assembly empowering him to impress men; to seize
arms, ammunition, and stores; to arm such negroes as could be trusted;
and, generally, to prosecute the war with the utmost vigour. Agents
were sent to Virginia and to England to solicit assistance, and bills
were issued for the payment and subsistence of the army.
At the same time, the Indians entered the northern part of the
province, and were within fifty miles of the capital. Thus surrounded
by enemies, the governor took the course which was suggested equally
by courage and by prudence. Leaving the less active part of the
population to find security in the forts at Charleston, he marched
with the militia, towards the southern frontier, which was invaded by
the strongest body of Indians; and, at a place called Salt Catchers,
attacked and totally defeated them. The victors pursued them into
their own country, expelled them from it, and drove them over the
Savanna river. The fugitives found protection in Florida, where they
made a new settlement, from which they continued long afterwards, to
make distressing incursions into Carolina.
The agent who had been sent by the legislature to England to implore
the protection of the proprietors, had received ulterior instructions,
should he not succeed with them, to apply directly to the King. Being
dissatisfied with his reception by the proprietors, he petitioned the
house of commons, who addressed the King, praying his interposition,
and immediate assistance to the colony. The King referred the matter
to the lords commissioners of trade and plantations, whose report was
unfavourable to the application, because the province of Carolina was
a proprietary government. They were of opinion that, if the colony was
to be protected at the expense of the nation, its government ought to
be vested in the crown. On receiving this opinion, the proprietors, in
a general meeting, avowed their inability to protect the province, and
declared that, unless his majesty would graciously please to
interpose, they could foresee nothing but the utter destruction of his
faithful subjects in those parts.
A government unable to afford protection to the people, was ill
adapted to the situation of Carolina.
The dissatisfaction growing out of this cause was still farther
augmented by the unpopular, and, in some instances, unwise acts of the
proprietors.
To relieve the distress produced by war, considerable sums of paper
money had been issued; and the proprietors, on the complaint of the
merchants, of London engaged in the trade of the province, had given
instructions to reduce the quantity in circulation.
{1715 to 1717}
The assembly had appropriated the country of the Yamassees, to the use
of such of his majesty's European subjects, as would settle it.
Extracts from the law on this subject being published in England, and
in Ireland, five hundred men from the latter kingdom emigrated to
Carolina. The proprietors repealed this law; and, to the utter ruin of
the emigrants, as well as to the destruction of this barrier against
the savages, ordered the lands to be surveyed, and erected into
baronies, for themselves.
While the population was confined to the neighbourhood of Charleston,
all the members of the assembly had been elected at that place. As the
settlements extended, this practice became inconvenient; and an act
was passed, declaring that every parish should choose a certain number
of representatives, and that the elections should be held, in each, at
the parish church. As if to destroy themselves in the province, the
proprietors repealed this popular law also.
Heavy expenses being still incurred for defence against the inroads of
the southern Indians, the people complained loudly of the
insufficiency of that government which, unable itself to protect them,
prevented the interposition of the crown in their favour.
In this temper, governor Johnson, son of the former governor of that
name, found the province. He met the assembly with a conciliatory
speech, and received an answer expressing great satisfaction at his
appointment. His original popularity was increased by the courage he
displayed in two expeditions against a formidable band of pirates who
had long infested the coast, which he entirely extirpated.
{1717}
These expeditions occasioned still farther emissions of paper money.
The governor, being instructed to diminish its quantity, had influence
enough with the assembly to obtain an act for redeeming the bills of
credit, in three years, by a tax on lands and negroes. This tax
falling heavily on the planters, they sought to elude it by obtaining
an act for a farther emission of bills. The proprietors, being
informed of this design, and also of an intention to make the produce
of the country a tender in payment of all debts, at a fixed value,
enjoined the governor not to give his assent to any bill, until it
should be laid before them.
About the same time, the King, by an order in council, signified his
desire to the proprietors, that they would repeal an act passed in
Carolina, for imposing a duty of ten per centum on all goods of
British manufacture imported into the province. The repeal of this
act, and of one declaring the right of the assembly to name a receiver
of the public money, and of the election law, were transmitted to the
governor, in a letter directing him to dissolve the assembly, and to
hold a new election at Charleston, according to ancient usage.
{1718}
The assembly being employed in devising means for raising revenue,
their dissolution was deferred; but the repeal of the law imposing
duties, and the royal displeasure at the clause laying a duty on
British manufactures, were immediately communicated, with a
recommendation to pass another act, omitting that clause.
Meanwhile the governor's instructions were divulged. They excited
great irritation; and produced a warm debate on the right of the
proprietors to repeal a law enacted with the consent of their deputy
in the province.
{1719}
About this time, chief justice Trott, who had become extremely
unpopular in the colony, was charged with many iniquitous proceedings;
and the governor, the major part of the council, and the assembly,
united in a memorial representing his malpractices to the proprietors.
Mr. Young was deputed their agent to enforce these complaints.
Soon after his arrival in London, he presented a memorial to the
proprietors, detailing the proceedings of Carolina, and stating the
objections of the assembly to the right of their lordships to repeal
laws, which had been approved by their deputies.
This memorial was very unfavourably received, and the members of the
council who had subscribed it, were displaced. The proprietors
asserted their right to repeal all laws passed in the province,
approved the conduct of the chief justice, censured that of the
governor in disobeying their instructions respecting the dissolution
of the assembly, and repeated their orders on this subject.
However the governor might disapprove the instructions given him, he
did not hesitate to obey them. The new council was summoned, the
assembly was dissolved, and writs were issued for electing another at
Charleston.
[Sidenote: War with Spain.]
The public mind had been gradually prepared for a revolution, and
these irritating measures completed the disgust with which the people
viewed the government of the proprietors. An opportunity to make the
change so generally desired was soon afforded. A rupture having taken
place between Great Britain and Spain, advice was received from
England of a plan formed in the Havanna for the invasion of Carolina.
The governor convened the council, and such members of the assembly as
were in town, and laid his intelligence before them. He, at the same
time, stated the ruinous condition of the fortifications, and proposed
that a sum for repairing them should be raised, by voluntary
subscription, of which he set the example by a liberal donation.
The assembly declared a subscription to be unnecessary, as the duties
would afford an ample fund for the object. The repeal of the law
imposing them was said to be utterly void, and would be disregarded.
[Sidenote: Combination to subvert the government.]
The members of the new assembly, though they had not been regularly
convened at Charleston, had held several private meetings in the
country to concert measures of future resistance. They had drawn up an
association for uniting the whole province in opposition to the
proprietary government, which was proposed to the militia at their
public meetings, and subscribed almost unanimously. This confederacy
was formed with such secrecy and dispatch, that, before the governor
was informed of it, almost every inhabitant of the province was
engaged in it.
The members of the assembly, thus supported by the people, resolved to
subvert the power of the proprietors.
The governor, who resided in the country, had no intimation of these
secret meetings and transactions, until he received a letter from a
committee of the representatives of the people, offering him the
government of the province under the King; it having been determined
to submit no longer to that of the proprietors.
Mr. Johnson resolved to suppress this spirit of revolt, and hastened
to town in order to lay the letter before his council. They advised
him to take no notice of it, until the legislature should be regularly
convened. On meeting, the assembly declared, "that the laws, pretended
to be repealed, continued to be in force; and that no power, other
than the general assembly, could repeal them: That the writs under
which they were elected were void, inasmuch as they had been issued by
advice of an unconstitutional council: That the representatives
cannot, therefore, act as an assembly, but as a convention delegated
by the people to prevent the utter ruin of the government: And,
lastly, that the lords proprietors had unhinged the frame of the
government, and forfeited their right thereto; and that an address be
prepared to desire the honourable Robert Johnson, the present
governor, to take on himself the government of the province in the
name of the King." The address was signed by Arthur Middleton, as
president of the convention, and by twenty-two members.
After several unavailing efforts, on the part of the assembly, to
induce Mr. Johnson to accept the government under the King; and, on
his part, to reinstate the government of the proprietors; he issued a
proclamation dissolving the assembly, and retired into the country.
The proclamation was torn from the hands of the officer, and the
assembly elected colonel James Moore chief magistrate of the colony.
[Sidenote: Revolution completed.]
After proclaiming him in the name of the King, and electing a council,
the legislature published a declaration stating the revolution that
had taken place, with the causes which produced it; and then
proceeded, deliberately to manage the affairs of the province.
[Sidenote: The proprietors surrender to the crown.]
While Carolina was effecting this revolution, the agent of the colony
obtained a hearing before the lords of the regency and council in
England, (the King being then in Hanover) who were of opinion that the
proprietors had forfeited their charter. They ordered the attorney
general to take out a _scire facias_ against it, and appointed Francis
Nicholson provisional governor of the province under the King. He was
received with universal joy; and the people of Carolina passed, with
great satisfaction, from the proprietary government to the immediate
dominion of the crown. This revolution was completed by an agreement
between the crown and seven of the proprietors, whereby, for the sum
of seventeen thousand five hundred pounds sterling, they surrendered
their right and interest both in the government and soil. This
agreement was confirmed by an act of parliament; soon after which John
Lord Carteret, the remaining proprietor, also surrendered all his
interest in the government, but retained his rights of property.[132]
[Footnote 132: History of South Carolina.]
{1721}
{1732}
[Sidenote: The province divided.]
Carolina received with joy the same form of government which had been
bestowed on her sister colonies. The people pleased with their
situation, and secure of protection, turned their attention to
domestic and agricultural pursuits; and the face of the country soon
evidenced the happy effects which result from contented industry,
directed by those who are to receive its fruits. For the convenience
of the inhabitants, the province was divided; and was, thenceforward,
distinguished by the names of North and South Carolina.[133]
[Footnote 133: Idem.]
[Sidenote: Georgia settled.]
About this period, the settlement of a new colony was planned in
England. The tract of country lying between the rivers Savanna and
Alatamaha being unoccupied by Europeans, a company was formed for the
humane purpose of transplanting into this wilderness, the suffering
poor of the mother country. This territory, now denominated Georgia,
was granted to the company; and a corporation, consisting of
twenty-one persons, was created under the name of "trustees for
settling and establishing the colony of Georgia." Large sums of money
were subscribed for transporting, and furnishing with necessaries,
such poor people as should be willing to pass the Atlantic, and to
seek the means of subsistence in a new world. One hundred and sixteen
persons embarked at Gravesend, under the conduct of Mr. James
Oglethorpe, one of the trustees, who, after landing at Charleston,
proceeded to the tract of country allotted for the new colony, and
laid the foundation of the town of Savanna, on the river which bears
that name. A small fort was erected on its bank, in which some guns
were mounted; and a treaty was held with the Creek Indians, from whom
the cession of a considerable tract was obtained.
The trustees continued to make great efforts for the accomplishment of
their object, and settled several companies of emigrants in Georgia.
Unfortunately, the wisdom of their regulations did not equal the
humanity of their motives. Totally unacquainted with the country they
were to govern, they devised a system for it, rather calculated to
impede than to promote its population.
{1733}
[Sidenote: Impolicy of the first regulation.]
Considering each male inhabitant both as a soldier and a planter, to
be provided with arms and ammunition for defence as well as with
utensils for cultivation, they adopted the pernicious resolution of
introducing such tenures for holding lands as were most favourable to
a military establishment. Each tract granted, was considered as a
military fief, for which the possessor was to appear in arms, and take
the field, when required for the public defence. The grants were in
_tail male_; and, on the termination of the estate, the lands were to
revert to the trust, to be re-granted to such persons as would most
benefit the colony. Any lands which should not be enclosed, cleared,
and cultivated, within eighteen years, reverted to the trust. The
importation of negroes, and of rum, was prohibited; and those only
were allowed to trade with the Indians, to whom a license should be
given.
However specious the arguments in support of these regulations might
appear to the trustees, human ingenuity could scarcely have devised a
system better calculated to defeat their hopes.
The tenure of lands drove the settlers into Carolina where that
property might be acquired in fee simple. The prohibition of slavery
rendered the task of opening the country, too heavy to be successfully
undertaken in that burning climate; and the restriction on their trade
to the West Indies, deprived them of the only market for lumber, an
article in which they abounded.
{1734}
Mr. Oglethorpe's first employment was the construction of
fortifications for defence. He erected one fort on the Savanna, at
Augusta, and another on an island of the Alatamaha, called Frederica,
for defence against the Indians and the inhabitants of Florida. The
Spaniards remonstrated against them; and a commissioner from the
Havanna insisted on the evacuation of the country to the thirty-third
degree of north latitude, which he claimed in the name of the King of
Spain; but this remonstrance and claim were equally disregarded.
The restrictions imposed by the trustees, on the inhabitants of
Georgia, were too oppressive to be endured in silence. They
remonstrated, particularly, against the tenure by which their lands
were held, and against the prohibition of the introduction of slaves.
These complaints, the result of experience, were addressed to persons
ignorant of the condition of the petitioners, and were neglected. The
colony languished; while South Carolina, not unlike Georgia both in
soil and climate, advanced with considerable rapidity. Although
emigration was encouraged by paying the passage money of the
emigrants, by furnishing them with clothes, arms, ammunition, and
implements of husbandry, by maintaining their families for the first
year, and, in some instances, by furnishing them with stock; yet the
unwise policy, which has been mentioned, more than counterbalanced
these advantages; and for ten years, during which time the exports
from Carolina more than doubled, the settlers in Georgia could, with
difficulty, obtain a scanty subsistence.
{1737}
The differences between Great Britain and Spain not admitting of
adjustment, both nations prepared for war. The Spaniards strengthened
East Florida; and the British government ordered a regiment,
consisting of six hundred effective men, into Georgia. The command of
the troops, both of Georgia and Carolina, was given to major general
Oglethorpe, who fixed his headquarters at Frederica.
[Sidenote: Insurrection of the slaves.]
Before hostilities had commenced, the Spaniards at St. Augustine
engaged in criminal intrigues among the blacks of Carolina. Agents had
been secretly employed in seducing the slaves of that province to
escape to St. Augustine, where liberty was promised them, and where
they were formed into a regiment officered by themselves. Hitherto
these practices had been attended only with the loss of property; but,
about this time, the evil assumed a much more alarming form. A large
number of slaves assembled at Stono, where they forced a warehouse
containing arms and ammunition, murdered the whites in possession of
it, and, after choosing a captain, directed their march south
westward, with drums beating and colours flying. On their march, they
massacred the whites, seized all the arms they could find, and forced
such blacks as did not voluntarily join them, to follow their party.
Intoxicated with ardent spirits, and with their short lived success,
they considered their work as already achieved, and halted in an open
field, where the time which might have been employed in promoting
their design, was devoted to dancing and exultation. Fortunately, the
people of the neighbourhood had assembled on the same day, to attend
divine service; and, as was then directed by law, all the men came
armed. They marched immediately against the blacks, whom they
completely surprised. Many were killed, and the residue dispersed or
taken. Thus the insurrection was suppressed on the day of its
commencement; and such of its leaders as survived the battle were
immediately executed.
During the long repose, which the pacific temper of the duke of
Orleans, Regent of France during the minority of Louis XV. and the
equally pacific temper of sir Robert Walpole, minister of England,
gave to their respective countries, the British colonies in America
had increased rapidly in population and in wealth. Lands were cheap,
and subsistence easily acquired. From New York to Virginia inclusive,
no enemy existed to restrain new settlements, and no fears of
inability to maintain a family, checked the natural propensity to
early marriages. The people were employed in cultivating the earth,
and in spreading themselves over the vast regions which were open to
them; and, during this period, their history furnishes none of those
remarkable events which interest posterity.