THE SETTLEMENT OF CAROLINA.
We must now leave for the present the States of New England, austere
alike in character and clime, and turn to those summer realms of the
South which excited the cupidity of the early French and Spanish
adventurers. We must become more intimately acquainted with the region
where De Soto wandered in search of the land of gold; where the good
Coligny planted his settlements of persecuted Huguenots; where catholic
bigotry dyed the soil with their blood; and where, also, the brave
Raleigh planned magnificent schemes of colonisation, and reaped only the
fruits of disappointment and sorrow.
The vast territory of North America was, for half a century after the
English began to colonise it, divided into two districts, called North
and South Virginia; “all lands lying towards the river St. Lawrence,
from the northern boundaries of the province now called Virginia,
belonged to the northern, and all those to the southward, as far as the
Gulf of Florida, to the southern district.”
The French colonists first gave the name of CAROLINA to the country
which is still so designated, in honour of their worthless monarch,
Charles IX. In 1630, Charles I. of England granted a tract of land south
of Chesapeake Bay to Sir Robert Heath, his attorney-general, under the
name of Carolana; but owing to the political agitations in England, the
projected colonisation of this country was never carried out. With the
Restoration, the English reasserted their claim to that portion of
America which had been known under the designation of South Virginia,
and the fertility and desirableness of which was now an established
fact. Somewhat before the time, therefore, when the restored monarch
made a grant to his brother of the Dutch possessions of New Netherlands,
he conferred the vast territory comprised between Albemarle Sound,
southward to the river St. John, under the name of Carolina, upon eight
proprietors, among whom were some of his principal courtiers; that is to
say, Clarendon, the prime minister; General Monk, now Duke of Albemarle;
Lord Craven, the supposed husband of the Queen of Bohemia; Lord Ashley
Cooper, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury; Sir John Colleton, Lord John
Berkeley, his brother, Sir William, governor of Virginia, and Sir George
Carteret. The grant made to these proprietaries constituted them
absolute sovereigns of the country. Their right, however, was
immediately disputed both by the Spaniards—whose fort of St. Augustine
was considered to establish actual possession—and by the assigns of Sir
Robert Heath; but neither claimants could stand before the new and more
powerful patentees. Besides these, other parties of a much more sturdy
and unmanageable character had already established themselves on its
coasts. New England, which possessed within itself not only an expansive
principle, but one which took deep root on any soil which it touched,
had planted not only a little settlement on Cape Fear, which had been
fostered in its distresses by the mother-colony, but had sown the seeds
of democratic liberty, from which, in part, must be traced the resolute
spirit which distinguished the colony of North Carolina in the long
struggle through which it had to pass.
Virginia, too, was “the mother of colonies;” and in 1622, “the
adventurous Porey, then secretary of Virginia, travelled overland to the
banks of the Chowan, or South River, reporting on his return most
favourably of the kindness of the natives, the fertility of the country,
and the happy climate, which yielded two harvests in the year.” During
the succeeding forty years, his explorations were followed up, and when
religious persecution took place in Virginia, dissenters emigrated
largely. The country around Albemarle Sound was established by
Nonconformists, who had purchased a right to their lands from the
aborigines. These settlements were claimed by the new proprietaries of
Carolina, and Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia and one of the
joint proprietors, was ordered by his colleagues to assume jurisdiction
over them in their name.
Berkeley, however, who knew too well the character of these
pioneer-settlers, did not venture to enforce his orders too strictly.
Instead of this, he appointed William Drummond, one of the settlers, “a
man of prudence and popularity,” to be the governor; and instituting a
simple form of government, a council of six members, and an easy tenure
of land, left the colony to take care of itself, to enjoy liberty of
conscience and the management of its own affairs. “Such,” says Bancroft,
“was the origin of fixed settlements in North Carolina. The child of
ecclesiastical oppression was swathed in independence.”
Besides these settlements of New England and Virginia, several planters
of Barbadoes had purchased from the Indians a tract of land thirty-two
miles square on Cape Fear River, where the New Englanders had first
settled themselves, and now applied to the new proprietaries for a
confirmation of their purchase and a charter of government. All their
wishes were not granted, but Sir John Yeamans, a cavalier and the head
of these Barbadoes planters, was appointed governor, with a jurisdiction
extending from Cape Fear to the St. Matheo, the country being called
Clarendon. This settlement absorbed that of the New Englanders, who,
however, were so far respected that Yeamans was instructed to be “very
tender” towards them, to “make things easy to the people of New England,
that others might be attracted there.” The colony immediately applied
itself to the preparation of boards, shingles and staves, to be shipped
to the West Indies, and the same continues to this day to be the staple
of that region of pine forests and sterile plains.
The proprietaries in the meantime having ascertained the character of
their territory, and become better acquainted with its geography,
obtained, in 1665, a second charter, in total disregard of all other
claims, and this time their grant was extended half a degree further
north, so as to include the settlements on the Chowan, and a degree and
a half further south, including the Spanish colony of St. Augustine and
part of Florida, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. This vast
grant in fact comprised all the present territory of North and South
Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas,
a considerable portion of Florida and Missouri, nearly all Texas and a
large part of Mexico. Nor was this all; an additional grant shortly
afterwards added the group of the Bahama Isles, then famous as the
resort of buccaneers, to the vast realms which their charter already
included.
The infant settlement of Albemarle continued to receive accessions from
Virginia and New England; and from Bermuda, already famous for the
building of fast-sailing ships, came a colony of ship-builders. In 1669,
the first laws were enacted by an assembly composed of the governor
Stevens, who had succeeded Drummond, a council of six, and twelve
delegates chosen by the people. According to the laws of Virginia, land
was offered to all new-comers, and immigrant debtors were protected for
five years, against any suit for debt contracted beyond the colony. The
governor and court constituted a court of justice, and were entitled to
a fee of thirty pounds of tobacco on every suit; and the colony, being
without any minister of religion, marriage became a civil rite. Three
years afterwards the proprietaries solemnly confirmed the settlers in
possession of their lands, and granted to them the right of nominating
six councillors in addition to the six nominated by the patentees. The
right of self-government was thus established on the soil of North
Carolina.
In the meantime the ambition of the proprietaries, extending with the
extent of their charter, a magnificent scheme of sovereignty was
conceived, which was intended not only to give them the wealth of
empires but the fame of legislators. All that philosophic intellect and
worldly sagacity could do to frame a model government was now done. The
Earl of Shaftesbury was deputed by his fellow-proprietaries to frame for
this infant empire a constitution commensurate with its intended
greatness; and he employed his friend and _protégé_ John Locke,
afterwards so well known for his philosophical writings, as his agent
for this purpose.
Locke commenced his labours on the principle that “compact is the true
basis of government, and the protection of property its great end.” Cold
and calculating, with no generous enthusiasm of soul, no sympathetic and
aspiring impulses, guided alone by intellect and conventionality, it is
no wonder that the “Grand Model,” as the constitution of Carolina was
called, failed of practical application, and was, finally, after the
vain attempt of many years to enforce it, abandoned as totally
inapplicable to its purpose.
It has been well remarked that “the formation of political institutions
in the United States was not effected by giant minds or nobles after the
flesh. Their truly great legislators became as little children.”
But, futile as was this Grand Model constitution, we must give some idea
of it to our readers, to show how little intellect merely and political
wisdom can comprehend the principles of successful government or the
basis of a prosperous and happy social state.
“The interests of the proprietaries, a government most agreeable to
monarchy, and a careful avoidance of a numerous democracy,” are the
avowed threefold objects of the Carolina constitution. The
proprietaries, eight in number, were never to be increased or
diminished; their dignity was hereditary. The vast extent of territory
was to be divided into counties, each containing about seven hundred and
fifty square miles; to each county appertained two orders of nobility, a
landgrave or earl, and two caciques or barons; the land was to be
divided into five equal parts, one of which became the inalienable right
of the proprietaries, another equally inalienably the property of the
nobility, and the remaining three-fifths were reserved for the people,
and might be held by lords of manors who were not hereditary
legislators, but, like the nobility, exercised judicial powers in their
baronial courts. The number of three nobles for each county was to
remain unalterable; after the current century no transfer of lands could
take place. Each county being divided into twenty-four parts, called
colonies, were to be cultivated by a race of hereditary leetmen, or
tenants, attached to the soil, each holding ten acres of land at a fixed
rent; these tenants not being possessed of any political franchise, but
being “adscripts of the soil under the jurisdiction of their lord,
without any appeal;” and it was added that “all the children of leetmen
shall be leetmen, and so to all generations.”
The political rights of the great body of the people being thus disposed
of, and a legislative barrier placed, as it were, against progressive
popular improvement and enlightenment, a very complicated system of
government was framed for the benefit of the privileged classes.
“Besides the Court of Proprietors, invested with supreme executive
authority, the president of which was the oldest proprietor, with the
title of Palatine, there were seven other courts, presided over by the
remaining seven proprietors, with the titles respectively of Admiral,
Chamberlain, Chancellor, Chief Justice, High Steward, and Treasurer;
besides the president, each of these courts had six councillors
appointed for life, two-thirds, at least, of whom must be nobles.” There
is something almost childish and ludicrous in the business of some of
these supreme and pompous dignitaries of an infant settlement, the
inhabitants of which lived in log cabins scattered through the
wilderness. The Court of the Admiral had cognisance of shipping and
trade; the Chamberlain’s, of pedigrees, festivals, sports, and
ceremonies; the Chancellor’s, of state affairs and license of printing;
the Constable’s, of war; the Chief Justice’s, of ordinary judicial
questions; the High Steward’s, of public works; the Treasurer’s, of
finance.
“All these courts united,” says the excellent historian Hildreth, “were
to compose a grand council of fifty members, in whom was vested
exclusively the right of proposing laws, which required, however, the
approval of a parliament of four estates, proprietors, landgraves,
caciques, and commoners, to render them valid.
“The four estates composing the parliament were to sit in one chamber,
each landgrave and cacique being entitled to a seat, but the
proprietors, if they chose, to sit by deputy. Four commoners for each
county were the representatives of the commons; the possession of five
hundred acres being, however, requisite to qualify for a seat, and fifty
acres of land to give an elective vote. The proprietaries in their
separate courts had a veto on all acts.”
The people had thus no share whatever in the executive, judicial, or
legislative authority.
“The four-and-twenty colonies of each county were divided into four
precincts, each precinct having a local court, whence appeals were to
lie to the court of Chief Justice. Juries were to decide by majority.”
To plead for money or reward in any court was denounced as “base and
vile,” an enactment little in accordance with the interests of the
lawyer.
“None could be freemen who did not acknowledge God and the obligation of
public worship. The Church of England—against the wishes of Locke, who
wished to put all sects on the same footing—was to be supported by the
state. Any seven freemen might, however, form a church or religious
society, provided its members admitted the rightfulness of oaths—which
clause at once excluded the Quakers. By another provision, every freeman
of Carolina, of whatsoever opinion or religion, possessed absolute power
and authority over his negro slaves.”
This “Grand Model Constitution,” which was extravagantly praised in
England, was signed in March, 1670, and Monk, Duke of Albemarle, as the
oldest of the proprietaries, was appointed Palatine.
Whilst this pompous scheme of legislature was occupying the wisest heads
in England, three vessels conveyed out emigrants, at the expense of
£12,000 to the proprietaries, under the command of William Sayle, who
established themselves on the old site of Port Royal.
The grand aristocratical constitution was sent over in due form to
Carolina, but neither was it found more suitable at Albemarle, in the
north, than by Sayle’s colony in the south. The character of the people
of Albemarle rendered its introduction impossible; “those sturdy
dwellers in scattered log cabins of the wilderness could not be
noblemen, and would not be serfs.” This unfortunate constitution, which
made John Locke a landgrave, and the noble proprietaries in succession
palatines, led to a long and fruitless struggle of its founders to force
upon the settlers a form of government incompatible with their
circumstances, and from which they had nothing to gain, but everything
to lose. The contest continued for three-and-twenty years, when the
Grand Model, baseless as a fabric of mist, was formally abrogated.
About the time when the new constitution was first exciting the derision
and abhorrence of the sturdy Nonconformists of Albemarle, distinguished
ministers among the Quakers travelled from Virginia into North Carolina,
and were received “tenderly” by a people naturally religious, but among
whom, at that time, was no minister of Christ. Unlike the Puritans of
Massachusetts, they warmly welcomed these later apostles of religious
and civil liberty; and whilst they sturdily rejected a form of
government which was at variance with all their principles of social and
political life, received gladly “the authority of truth,” and so the
“Society of Friends” were the first to organise a religious government
in this portion of America.
In the autumn of 1672, George Fox himself visited Carolina, travelling
across “the great bogs” of the Dismal Swamp, “commonly, as he relates,
wet to the knees, and lying abroad at nights in the woods by a fire,
until reaching a house where the woman had the sense of God upon her, he
was indulged in the luxury of a mat to lie upon by the fireside.”
Carolina, like Rhode Island, was a place of refuge for schismatics of
all kinds, who now “lived lonely in the woods, with great dogs to guard
their houses;” men and women of thoughtful minds “open to the conviction
of truth,” and who received the preachings and teachings of George Fox
and his brethren with great joy; and not only they of the poorer sort,
but the richer and more influential inhabitants of the province, heard
him gladly and received him as an honoured guest to their houses.
The plantations of that day, we are told, lay along the bay and the
rivers that flow into it, and these and the inlets were the highways of
Carolina; therefore we find George Fox and his friends taken, on one
occasion, in a boat lent them by a kind-hearted man, a captain of the
country, to the house of the governor, who, with his wife, received them
very lovingly, and the next morning accompanied them courteously two
miles through the woods to the water’s edge, and so on to the house of
Joseph Scot, one of the representatives of the county, where they had “a
sound and precious meeting, and the people were very tender.” Again, he
was at the house of the secretary, to arrive at which, however, they had
“much ado, for the water was shallow and the boat could not come ashore,
but the secretary’s wife, he being from home, seeing their strait, put
out in her little canoe and brought them to land.” These little touches
of life and character are worth pages of laboured description; they show
the spirit of the people; they show the joy with which Fox and his
friends were welcomed, when the wife of the chief secretary herself
paddled her little canoe to bring them safely on shore. It is a genuine
picture of simple primeval life. And not alone did George Fox preach to
the white settlers of “the light of the Spirit of God which is in every
one,” but to the natives of the wilderness also, who approved of what he
said, and “received the truth lovingly; the Indian priests themselves
sitting soberly among the people listening to the words that were
spoken.”
Willing disciples of George Fox, as the people of North Carolina proved
themselves to be, were sure to protest against and oppose a constitution
like that of Shaftesbury and Locke. The introduction of it was not only
difficult, but was soon rendered impossible, by the accession of
dissenters from England, and so-called “runaways, rogues, and rebels”
from Virginia, who, on the suppression of an insurrection there, of
which we shall speak anon, fled daily to Carolina as their common place
of refuge. Another cause of dissatisfaction with the English government,
and of constant irritation, was the enforcement of the Navigation Laws.
The population of the whole state as yet, in 1677, amounted to little
more than 4,000; “a few fat cattle, a little maize, and 800 hogsheads of
tobacco, formed all their exports,” and the few foreign articles which
they required were brought to them by the traders of Boston. Yet, small
as this traffic was, it was envied by the English merchants; the
Navigation Law was ordered to be strictly enforced, the New England
trader was driven from their harbour by unreasonable duties, and the
Carolinians themselves had no other free market for their few exports
than England. Miller, a man who had already become extremely unpopular,
returned from England to Carolina, as chief magistrate and collector of
the royal customs, empowered to levy one penny on every pound weight of
tobacco exported to New England. But spite of this, and spite of
attempts to excite ill-feeling between the two colonies, Carolina
continued to trade with Boston, and the traffic grew in defiance of
imposts, which only served to render both colonies more determined and
more averse to the parent state.
The attempts at enforcing the Navigation Laws hastened an insurrection,
which was fostered by the refugees from Virginia and the men of New
England, and which justified itself by the publication of the first
American manifesto. The threefold grievances of the colony were stated
herein to be—excessive taxation; the abridgment of political liberty by
the altered form of government, with the denial of a free election of an
assembly; and the unwise interruption of the natural channels of
commerce. The head of this insurrection was John Culpepper, a man
stigmatised by the English party as one “who deserved hanging, for
endeavouring to set the poor to plunder the rich.” The whole body of the
settlers was insurgent; Miller, the chief object of their hatred, and
seven proprietary deputies, were arrested and imprisoned, courts of
justice established and a parliament called. With a popular government,
anarchy was at an end; though, when the new governor Eastchurch arrived,
none would acknowledge his authority. The following year, Culpepper and
another were sent to England, to negotiate a compromise with the
proprietaries and to obtain the recal of Miller.
Miller, however, and his companions having escaped from prison, met the
deputies in England, and as the supporters of the Navigation Laws were
sustained by a powerful interest there, Culpepper when about to embark
for America was arrested in his turn on the charge of interrupting the
collection of duties and their embezzlement. He demanded his trial in
Carolina, where the act was committed. “Let no favour be shown,” cried
the adverse party; and he was brought to trial. Shaftesbury, however,
then in the zenith of his popularity, appeared on his behalf, declaring,
“that there never had been a regular government in Albermarle; that its
disorders were only feuds among the planters, which could not amount to
treason,”—and he was acquitted.
On the acquittal of Culpepper, the proprietaries found themselves in a
difficult position. After looking at the question in every point of
view, excepting that which was simple and straightforward, “they
resolved,” says Chalmers, in his “Political Annals of Carolina,” “to
govern in future according to that portion of obedience which the
insurgents should be disposed to yield.” The wise exclaiming, in the
language of prediction, that a government actuated by such principles
cannot possibly be of long continuance.
Means were now employed to heal former disorders; and upon members of
the insurgent party high offices in the state were conferred. The
proprietaries bade them “settle order among themselves,” and they did
so, by establishing “a wise moderation in government,” though some
charge, it is true, stands against them, of a persecuting spirit towards
their political opponents.
Mild as had appeared the temper of the proprietaries, it seemed,
however, as if they had determined severely to punish the offending
colony, when in 1683 they sent over Seth Sothel as governor. Sothel,
like Cranfield in New Hampshire, was an adventurer, whose aim being the
acquisition of wealth, he had no conscience as to the means by which it
was acquired. He appears, by the report of all parties, to have been of
that scoundrel class by which human nature is degraded. He was himself
one of the eight proprietaries, and he accepted office merely for sordid
purposes. “The annals of delegated authority,” says Chalmers, “have not
recorded a name so deserving of infamy as that of Sothel. Bribery,
extortion, injustice, rapacity, with breach of trust and disobedience of
orders, are the crimes of which he was accused during the five years
that he misruled this unhappy colony. Driven almost to despair, the
inhabitants at length seized his person, in 1688, in order to send him
to England to answer their complaints.” On his entreaties, however, with
a moderation which is highly creditable to their Christian power of
forbearance, he was permitted to meet their accusations at the next
assembly. Sothel fled, fearing less to face the men whom he had injured,
than they whose interests he had betrayed. The assembly gave judgment
against him in all the above particulars, and compelled him to abjure
the country for twelve months and the government for ever. The
proprietaries, though they heard with indignation of the sufferings
which Sothel had inflicted on the colony, were yet displeased that the
colony through its assembly had assumed supreme power, which act was
regarded as “prejudicial to the prerogative of the crown, and to the
honour of the proprietaries.”
Well, however, was it for North Carolina that she thus took the law into
her own hands; tranquillity was restored. Mighty changes were in the
meantime taking place in England; the Revolution of 1688 was overturning
not only political parties, but the very constitution itself. But
neither the strife of parties; nor the removal of the crown from one
royal head to another, mattered in North Carolina; where, at length,
peace and prosperity were established. “The settlers of North Carolina,”
we are told, “began now to enjoy to their hearts’ content liberty of
conscience and personal independence, the freedom of the forest and the
river. The country of itself was of the most agreeable character. From
almost every plantation they enjoyed the noble prospect of spacious
rivers, of pleasant meadows, of primeval forests, where the loftiest
branches of the tulip-tree or magnolia were wreathed with jessamines and
honeysuckles. For them the wild bee stored its honey in hollow trees;
for them, unnumbered swine fattened on the fruits of the forest, or the
heaps of peaches; for them, spite of their careless lives and imperfect
husbandry, cattle multiplied on the pleasant savannahs; and they desired
no greater happiness than they enjoyed. North Carolina was settled by
the freest of the free; they were not so much caged in the woods as
scattered in lonely granges. There was neither city nor township; there
was hardly even a hamlet, or one house within sight of another; nor were
there roads, except as the paths from house to house were distinguished
by notches on the trees. The settlers were gentle in their tempers, of
serene minds, enemies to violence and bloodshed. Not all the successive
revolutions had kindled vindictive feelings; the charities of life were
scattered at their feet like the flowers on their meadows; and the
spirit of humanity maintained its influence in the Arcadia, as royalist
writers will have it, of rogues and rebels in the paradise of
Quakers.”[6]
We have already related how, in 1670, the year in which the Grand Model
Constitution was signed, a company of emigrants were sent out, at the
expense of £12,000 to the proprietaries, under the command of William
Sayle, a military officer and Presbyterian, who, twenty years before,
had attempted to plant a colony in the Bahama Isles, under the somewhat
unintelligible title of an Eleutheria, and who, mere latterly, had been
employed by the proprietaries in exploring the coasts of their province.
These emigrants were accompanied by Joseph West, as commercial agent of
the proprietaries, authorised to supply the settlers with provisions,
cattle, implements and all other necessaries; a trade being commenced
for this purpose with Virginia, Bermuda and Barbadoes.
The vessels containing the infant colony, which was intended to be
constituted according to the Grand Model, entered the harbour of Port
Royal, on the shores of which, a century before, the Huguenots had
erected their fort—the early Carolina—and of which even yet, some traces
remained. The country around Port Royal, like that occupied by the early
New England settlers, was in a great measure depopulated of natives,
partly by an epidemic, and partly by sanguinary wars among themselves;
therefore but little apprehension was entertained from this quarter;
besides which, the good will of the neighbouring tribes was secured by
presents. Each settler was to receive 150 acres of land, and the
district thus taken possession of was called Carteret County.
It was soon discovered, as was to be expected, that the Grand Model was
far too complex a system of government even for this settlement sent out
by the proprietaries themselves; “yet, desiring to come as nigh to it as
possible,” says Chalmers, “five persons were immediately elected by the
freeholders, and five others chosen by the proprietaries, who were to
form a grand council, and these, with the governor and twenty delegates
elected by the people, composed a parliament which was invested with
legislative power. Such was the government which South Carolina chose
for herself, coming as nigh to the prescribed rules laid down for her as
she saw convenient and fitting.”
Scarcely had Sayle thus far fulfilled his office, when he fell a victim
to the effects of the climate, and died. Sir John Yeamans succeeded him,
and Clarendon county, in consequence, was annexed to Carteret. The same
year, 1671, the settlement removed from Port Royal to the banks of the
Ashley River, “for the convenience of pasturage and tillage,” and upon
the neck of the peninsula then called Oyster Point, between that river
and the Cooper—both thus called in honour of Shaftesbury—the foundation
of CHARLESTON, destined to be the capital of the Southern States, was
laid by the settlement there of a few graziers’ cabins. The situation
thus chosen, though full of natural beauty—the primeval forest, as we
are told, sweeping down to the river’s edge, laden with yellow
jessamine, the perfume of which filled the air—was not salubrious. The
place for many years indeed was considered so unhealthy during the hot
months of the year, that people fled from it at that time as from the
pestilence. But the clearing away of the woods, probably, and the
draining of the soil, so far altered its character in this respect, that
it is now rather singularly healthy than otherwise.
Spite of the shortcomings of the settlement as regarded the Grand Model,
Governor Yeamans was created landgrave, and Albemarle being dead, Lord
Berkeley had become palatine. Yeamans introduced negro slavery, bringing
with him a cargo of slaves from Barbadoes. The heat of the climate
rendered labour difficult to the whites, and from its first settlement,
South Carolina was a slave state; besides which, these settlers seem to
have been somewhat an improvident and shiftless set of people, deriving
their supplies for several years from the proprietaries, for which,
though obtained as purchases, they appear never to have paid;
complaining bitterly when the proprietaries, objecting naturally enough
to supply them on these terms, declared that “they would no longer
continue to feed and to clothe them.” To such men it would soon become
an object to possess negro slaves, without which, it was early said, “a
planter can never do any great matter.” The climate of South Carolina
was not only congenial to the negro, but, as we have seen, the temper of
the people made them willingly avail themselves of slave-labour, and
very soon the slave population far outnumbered the whites.
The management of Sir John, or Landgrave Yeamans not being by any means
satisfactory to the proprietaries, nor yet to the colony, he was
recalled in 1674, and Joseph West, whose conduct had been perfectly so
to all parties, was appointed governor and created landgrave, and to him
the proprietaries made over as salary their outstanding claims against
the colony—the surest means of trying his popularity. Nevertheless, we
find, at the end of ten years, that “he received the whole product of
his traffic, as the reward of his services, without any impeachment of
his morals.”
The proprietaries, seeing the character of the emigrants they had sent
over, encouraged settlers from the New England and the northern
colonies; and with a desire to promote the advantage of the industrious,
sent over further supplies, informing the colony, however, that they
must be paid, being determined “to make no more desperate debts.”
The fame of the beautiful land of South Carolina, “the region where
every month had its succession of flowers,” soon led to the attempt to
introduce and cultivate the olive, the orange, the mulberry for the
production of the silk-worm, and vines for the production of wine.
Charles II. himself sent over to the colony two small vessels with these
plants, and Protestants from the South of France for their cultivation;
he also exempted the province from the payment of duties on these
commodities for a limited time, which caused dissatisfaction at home,
and the remonstrance against “encouraging people to remove to the
plantations, as too many go thither already to the unpeopling and ruin
of the kingdom.” Emigrants continued to come over from England, and
these of various classes, not only impoverished cavaliers and
discontented churchmen, but the soundest element for colonisation,
sturdy dissenters, to whom their native land no longer afforded a secure
abode. Among other companies of emigrants, were a considerable number
from Somersetshire, who accompanied Joseph Blake, the brother of the
celebrated admiral, now dead. Blake was himself no longer young, but
unable to endure the present oppressions of England, and dreading still
worse from a popish successor to the crown, devoted the whole of the
vast fortune he had inherited from his brother to the purposes of
emigration. A colony of Irish went over, under Ferguson, and soon
amalgamated with the population. Lord Cardross also took over a company
of brave Scotch exiles, who had suffered grievously at home for their
religion—men who had been thumb-screwed and tortured for
conscience-sake, but they, having established themselves at Port Royal,
fell victims to the animosity of the Spaniards, who claimed that portion
of the district as appertaining to St. Augustine, and consequently
destroyed their settlement. Many returned to Scotland; the rest, like
the Irish, became blended with the original colonists.
From France also came great numbers of the best and noblest of her
people, men and women of whom she was not worthy, forced from their
country by the severity of laws which placed truth, sincerity and
uprightness before God and man, on a par with treason and murder. Louis
XIV., an old debauchee, sought to atone for a life of profligacy by
converting the Huguenots to the Catholic faith, even at the point of the
sword; their native land was made intolerable to them, and they sought
for peace by flight and voluntary exile. But flight and exile were no
longer permitted to them; to leave their native land was made felony.
Tyranny however, is powerless against the human will based on the rights
of conscience; and spite of the prohibitions of law, the persecuted
Calvinists fled in thousands to that happy land beyond the Atlantic, the
noblest privilege of which has ever been, that it furnished a safe
asylum to the truehearted and the conscientious of every European land,
and where men might worship their Maker according to the dictates of
their own souls. These refugees were warmly welcomed to New England and
New York, but the mild congenial climate of South Carolina was more
attractive to the exiles of France.
At the risk of prolonging somewhat this portion of our history, we must
be permitted to give an extract from the narrative of Judith Manigault,
the young wife of one of the exiles. It was felony, it must be
remembered, to leave their native land; therefore, says she, “we quitted
home by night, leaving the soldiers in their beds, and abandoning the
house with its furniture. We contrived to hide ourselves for ten days at
Romans, in Dauphiny, while a search was made for us, but our faithful
hostess would not betray us.” They reached the shore by a circuitous
journey through Germany and Holland, and thence to England, in the depth
of winter. “Embarking at London,” says the narrative, “we were sadly
off.” The spotted fever appeared on board the vessel, and many died of
the disease, among the rest our aged mother. We touched at Bermuda,
where the vessel was seized. Our money was all spent; with great
difficulty we procured a passage in another vessel. After our arrival in
Carolina, we suffered every kind of evil. In eighteen months our eldest
brother, unaccustomed to the hard labour which we were obliged to
undergo, died of a fever. Since leaving France we have experienced every
kind of affliction—disease, pestilence, famine, poverty, hard labour—and
have been six months without tasting bread, working the ground like
slaves; indeed, I myself have passed three or four years without having
it when I wanted it. “Yet,” adds she, in a noble spirit of resignation,
“God has done great things in enabling us to bear up under so many
trials.”
This family of Manigault was but one of many who escaped to Carolina,
and all had the same sad story, or even worse, to tell. Hither came
these fugitives from the most beautiful and fertile regions of
France,—“men,” says Bancroft eloquently, “who had all the virtues of the
English Puritans without their bigotry, to the land to which the
tolerant benevolence of Shaftesbury had invited the believers of every
creed. From a land, which had suffered its king to drive half a million
of its best citizens into exile, they came to the land which was the
hospitable refuge of the oppressed; where superstition and fanaticism,
infidelity and faith, cold speculation and animated zeal, were alike
admitted without question.” In this chosen home of their exile, lands
were assigned to them, on the banks of the Cooper River, and there they
soon established their homes. Their church was in Charleston, and
“thither,” says the same historian, who so keenly feels every beautiful
trait of humanity, “on the Lord’s-day, gathered from their plantations
on the banks of the river, and taking advantage of the ebb and flow of
tide, they might regularly be seen, parents with their children, whom no
bigot could wrest from them, making their way along the river, through
scenes so tranquil that the silence was broken only by the rippling of
the oars, and the hum of the flourishing villages that gemmed the
confluence of the rivers. Other Huguenot emigrants established
themselves on the south bank of the Santee.” Thus was the original
scheme of the Huguenot colonisation on this very soil, as entertained by
Coligny, at length accomplished, although a century later.
Liberal as was the Grand Model constitution as regarded religious
toleration, the spirit of the settlers was not equal to it in this
respect. The Huguenot colonists were not cordially received by them;
persecution was impossible, but hospitality was withheld; and though
they formed the most industrious, useful and sterling portion of the
population, it was many years before they were allowed the rights of
fellow-citizenship. As a striking instance out of many showing the noble
character of these emigrants, we may mention that, “when the great
struggle for American independence took place, the son of this Judith
Manigault intrusted the large fortune he had then acquired to the
service of the country which had received his exiled family.”
The province of South Carolina was divided, in 1683, into three
counties: Colleton, including the district around Port Royal; Berkeley,
embracing Charleston and its vicinity; and Craven; the district formerly
Clarendon, towards Cape Fear, the earliest settlement of the whole. But
Berkeley only as yet was sufficiently populous to afford a county-court.
West, who governed to the contentment of the settlers, failed to give
satisfaction to the proprietaries, and was superseded, in 1683, by
Moreton, a relative of Blake, and who was also created landgrave; the
next year, however, West was re-elected; a new governor was then sent
from England, but he died, and West remained in office; a second
governor came over, but he was soon deposed by the proprietaries, in
consequence of favouring the buccaneers, and Moreton again resumed
office. In six years the head of the government was changed five times.
The relationship between the colonists and the proprietaries increased
in difficulty every succeeding year. There was little that was
straightforward on either side, and where either apparently wished to do
right, they were counteracted by the other. For instance, the
proprietaries opposed and remonstrated against the practice of the
settlers, to carry on partisan war with the neighbouring Indians for the
purpose of kidnapping and selling them as slaves in the West Indies; but
the settlers persisted in it; nay, even Governor West himself was
accused of connivance at this barbarous practice. The payment of debts
which had been contracted out of the province could not be enforced; nor
would the more populous districts of Charleston, where the members of
assembly were elected, allow to the other provinces the same privilege,
when population extended, which they themselves enjoyed. There was a
lamentable want of high moral principle among these earlier settlers of
South Carolina.
Another serious charge against them is, the favour which they showed to
the buccaneers. “These remarkable freebooters,” says Hildreth, “a
mixture of French, English and Dutch, consisted originally of
adventurers in the West India seas, whose establishments the Spaniards
had broken up. Some fifty or sixty years before, contemporaneously with
the English and French settlements on the Caribbee Islands, they had
commenced as occasional cruisers on a small scale against the Spaniards,
in the intervals of the planting season. During the long war between
France and Spain, from 1635 to 1660, they had obtained commissions to
cruise against Spanish commerce, principally from the governors of the
French West India Islands. Almost anything, indeed, in the shape of a
commission was enough to serve their purpose. As an offset to that
Spanish arrogance which had claimed to exclude all other nations from
these West Indian seas, the Spanish commerce in those seas was regarded
by all other nations as fair plunder. The means and number of the
buccaneers gradually increased. The unquiet spirits of all countries
resorted to them. Issuing from their strongholds, the island of Tortugo,
on the west coast of St. Domingo, and Port Royal in Jamaica, they
committed such audacious and successful robberies on the Spanish
American cities, as to win almost the honours of legitimate heroes. They
were countenanced for a time by France and England; one of their leaders
was appointed governor of Jamaica, and another was knighted by Charles
II.”
Charles, spite of the favour he had shown to the buccaneer chief, was
compelled however, by treaties with his allies and by the complaints of
his own subjects, whose commerce was injured by these illegal traders,
to use his most strenuous endeavours to put an end to them; and his
successor was even still more in earnest. In 1684, a law was passed
against pirates, which was confirmed by the proprietaries of South
Carolina, and their commands issued, that it should be rigorously
enforced within their jurisdiction. But this was not an easy matter. The
colonists not only favoured the bold buccaneer, who brought abundance of
Spanish gold and silver into their country, but they were irritated
against the Spaniards, who, justly perhaps, incensed by the English
encroachments on their borders, had destroyed the Scotch settlement at
Port Royal, and were glad of any means to make reprisals. Little
attention therefore was paid by the English to the suppression of
piracy. “The pirates,” says Hewitt, in his history of South Carolina,
“had already by their money, their gallant manners, and their freedom of
intercourse with the people, so ingratiated themselves into the public
favour, that it would have been no easy matter to bring them to trial,
and dangerous even to have punished them as they deserved. When brought
to trial, the courts of law became scenes of altercation, discord and
confusion. Bold and seditious speeches were made from the bar in
contempt of the proprietaries and their government. Since no pardons
could be obtained, but such as they authorised the governor to grant,
the assembly violently proposed a bill of indemnity, and when the
governor refused his assent to this measure, they made a law empowering
magistrates and judges to put in force the _habeas corpus_ act of
England. Hence it happened that several of those pirates escaped,
purchased lands from the colonists, and took up their residence in the
country. While money flowed into the colony by this channel, the
authority of government was too feeble a barrier to stem the tide and
prevent such illegal practices.” The very proprietaries themselves at
length, to gratify the people, granted an indemnity to all the pirates,
excepting in one case, where the plunder had been from the dominions of
the Great Mogul. Very justly does this historian remark, “that the
gentleness of government towards these public robbers, and the civility
and friendship with which they were treated by the people, were
evidences of the licentious spirit which prevailed in the colony.” And
not only an evidence of this, but of the enmity which existed towards
the Spaniards; so great indeed was this enmity, that but for the earnest
remonstrances of the proprietaries, which in this case were regarded,
they would have invaded Florida to drive the Spaniards thence, and that
even while the two nations were at peace.
Affairs became still more and more difficult; and in 1685, James II.
meditated a revocation of the charter itself. The Palatine Court,
wishful not to offend the king at this critical moment, and to satisfy
the English merchants who were jealous of the trade of South Carolina,
ordered the governor and council to use their diligence in collecting
the duty on tobacco transported to other colonies, and to seize all
ships that presumed to trade contrary to the acts of navigation. But
vain were these orders, which they had no power to enforce. The
colonists resisted every attempt of this kind, disregarding the dictates
of the proprietaries, and holding themselves independent almost of the
English monarch.
At a loss how to manage in these perplexed circumstances, and imagining
that the fault existed in the governor as well as in the people, the
proprietaries resolved to remedy one error at least, by sending out
James Colleton, brother of the proprietary, who, to sustain his dignity
of governor-landgrave, should be endowed with 48,000 acres of land. This
was like the reasoning of the founders of the Grand Model, with whom
“the aristocracy was the rock of English principles,” and “the object of
law the preservation of property.” Colleton arrived, armed with all the
dignity that could be conferred upon his office, intending to awe the
people into submission; and his first act was to come into direct
collision with the colonial parliament. A majority of the members
refused to obey the Grand Model constitution, and these men were
excluded by him from the house, as “sapping the very foundations of
government.” All returned to their several homes, spreading discontent
and disaffection wherever they came. A new parliament was called, and
only such members were elected to it as “would oppose every measure of
the governor.” He next attempted to collect the quit-rents due to the
proprietaries; but here again direct opposition met him: the people, in
a state of insurrection, seized upon the public records and imprisoned
the secretary of the province. Colleton not knowing how to deal with
such refractory elements, pretended danger from the Indians or
Spaniards; and calling out the militia, declared the province under
martial law. A more unwise step could not have been taken: for men of
their temper were just as likely to use their arms against a ruler whom
they at once despised and disliked, as against the general enemy. Any
further step in folly was saved him. The English Revolution took place;
William and Mary were proclaimed, and, as if in imitation of the
mother-country, Colleton was impeached by the assembly and banished the
province.
Political convulsions, however, were not wholly at an end; for in the
midst of the ferment, the infamous Seth Sothel, whom we have seen
banished from North Carolina, suddenly made his appearance in
Charleston, and thinking, probably, that this was a people kindred to
himself, seized the reins of government, and for some little time found
actually a faction to support him. But he was too bad even for South
Carolina. After two years’ rule, he was not only deposed by the people,
but censured severely and recalled by the proprietaries, who, though he
was still a member of their own body, treated him as “a usurper of
office.”
A new governor, Philip Ludwell, was appointed, with orders to “inquire
into the grievances complained of and to inform them what was best to be
done;” and in this respect they had at last discovered the true dignity
of the governor. A general pardon was granted, and in April, 1693, “the
Grand Model constitution” was abrogated, the proprietaries wisely
conceding, “that as the people have declared they would rather be
governed by the powers granted by the charter, without regard to the
fundamental constitutions, it will be for their quiet, and the
protection of the well-disposed, to grant their request.”
The remark of Chalmers is just, that “the Carolinian annals show all
projectors the vanity of attempting to make laws for a people whose
voice, proceeding from their principles, must be for ever the supreme
law;” adding further, “it was not till the Carolinas, North and South,
were blessed with a simple form of government, that they began to
prosper; when the one acquired the manufacture of naval stores, the
other the production of rice and indigo, which have made both, in modern
times, populous, wealthy and great.”