Chapter V: The Carolinas (1)

BY PROFESSOR WILLIAM J. RIVERS.

NORTH CAROLINA: PROPRIETARY GOVERNMENT.—It was certainly manifest to England that her claim to vast regions of valuable territory would be substantiated, and her commerce and political power augmented, by the settling of her subjects in North America. Yet the history of her colonies bears, on many pages, evidence of the indifference and inexcusable neglect of the mother country. Instead of a liberal contribution of arms and munitions of war, the means of sustenance, and the protection of her ever-present sovereignty to all who were willing to leave the comforts of home and risk their lives in her service, far away across the Atlantic, enough appeared to have been done if lavish gifts of land were bestowed upon companies, individuals, or proprietors, for their especial emolument, and through them some paltry acres offered to emigrants, with promises of a little more religious freedom and a little larger share of political privileges than they were permitted to enjoy at home. The genesis of a new and potent nationality may be said to have been involved in the acceptance, by the colonists, of these conditions, as inducements to emigration, with all else dependent on their own manly courage.

[This is a sketch of the map in Hawks’ _North Carolina_, ii. 570, showing the grants and divisions from 1663 to 1729.

Quaritch in his _Catal._ for 1885, no. 29,516, prices at £25 a MS. map of the south part of Virginia (North Carolina), showing the coast line from Cape Henry to Cape Fear, and signed “Nicholas Comberford, fecit anno 1657.” It measures 18¾ × 14 inches.—ED.]]

One of the colonies that struggled, through neglect and almost insurmountable hardships, into permanent existence was Carolina. Before its settlement, other colonies had successfully established themselves in New England, and in Maryland and Virginia. In 1663, Charles II., in the second year after his restoration, granted the region south of Virginia and extending from 31° to 36° north latitude, and westward within these parallels across the continent, to some of his adherents, to whom he was indebted for distinguished services. It is stated in the grant that this extensive region is called “Carolina,” a name used before, and now, no doubt, retained in honor of the king.[704] The favored noblemen are thus introduced to us: “our right trusty and right well-beloved cousins and counsellors, Edward, Earl of Clarendon, our High Chancellor of England, and George, Duke of Albemarle, Master of our Horse and Captain-General of all our Forces, our right trusty and well-beloved William Lord Craven, John Lord Berkeley, our right trusty and well-beloved counsellor, Anthony Lord Ashley, Chancellor of our Exchequer, Sir George Carteret, Knight and Baronet, Vice-Chamberlain of our Household, and our trusty and well-beloved Sir William Berkeley, Knight, and Sir John Colleton, Knight and Baronet;” who, we are deliberately informed, “being excited with a laudable and pious zeal for the propagation of the Christian faith, and the enlargement of” the British dominions, humbly besought leave of the king, “by their industry and charge, to transport and make an ample colony” of his subjects, “in the parts of America not yet cultivated or planted, and only inhabited by some barbarous people who have no knowledge of Almighty God.”[705] Had these high functionaries of the realm acted in accordance with this solemn announcement of their pious zeal for the propagation of Christianity, the blessing of Heaven would, no doubt, have rested more largely upon their noble enterprise.

An adverse claim was soon made to the same territory under a grant obtained in 1629,[706] by Sir Robert Heath, attorney-general of Charles I. But he had failed to form a colony, and the claims of those to whom he had conveyed his rights were on that account set aside. The Proprietors under the new charter began to make immediate exertions to form a settlement, that the king might see they did not “sleep with his grant, but were promoting his service and his subjects’ profit.”[707]

These follow fac-similes given in the _Charleston Year Book_, 1883.]

Before this, settlers from Virginia had moved at various times southward and taken up their residence on some good lands on and near the river Chowan, in what is now the northeastern part of North Carolina. Among these was a considerable number of Quakers, at that time subject to religious persecution. It happened that Sir William Berkeley, one of the new Proprietors, was governor of Virginia. He was empowered by the other Proprietors to form a government forthwith in this settlement, and appoint its officers; the appointment of surveyor and secretary alone being reserved to the Proprietors in England. “We do likewise send you proposals to all that will plant, which we prepared upon receipt of a paper from persons that desired to settle near Cape Fear, in which our considerations are as low as it is possible for us to descend. This was not intended for your meridian, where we hope to find more facile people, who, by your interest, may settle upon better terms for us, which we leave to your management, with our opinion that you grant as much as is possible rather than deter any from planting there.” Sir William, it is inferred, followed these instructions. William Drummond was appointed governor;[708] the tract of land, at first forty miles square, was named Albemarle in honor of the duke, and a council of six was constituted to make laws with the consent of the delegates of the freemen. These laws were to be transmitted to England for approval by the Proprietors. Lands were granted to all free of rent for three years; and such lands as had been taken by previous settlers were confirmed to them.

Almost simultaneously another colony (Clarendon) was settled in what is now North Carolina. As early as 1660 some adventurers from Massachusetts had gone to the Cape Fear, sometimes called the Charles, River, and purchased lands from the Indians; but in a few years abandoned the situation, leaving their cattle and swine in care of the natives. To the same locality the attention of the inhabitants of Barbadoes[709] was directed on the grant of the territory to the powerful noblemen whose names are given in the charter. The passage already quoted from the letter to Sir William Berkeley had reference to them and their proposal. Explorers, employed by “several gentlemen and merchants” of Barbadoes, were sent out (1663) under command of Hilton, who ascended the Cape Fear far inland, and formed a more favorable opinion of the country than the New Englanders had been enabled to form near the mouth of the river. They purchased from the Indians “the river and land of Cape Fair,” as they express it, and returned to Barbadoes on January 6, 1664. An account of their exploration was published the same year, to which were appended proposals from the Proprietors, through their commissioners, Thomas Mudyford and Peter Colleton, to all who should settle, at their own hazard and expense, south and west of Cape Romano, sometimes called Cape Carteret. This was a bid for volunteer settlers south of the Cape Fear settlement. Nothing whatever, it appears, was accomplished under this offer of the commissioners. In a _Description of the Province_, with liberal privileges offered to settlers, issued also in London (1666), it is stated that a new plantation had been begun by the English at Cape Fear on the 29th of May, 1664. In the following November, Robert Sandford was appointed secretary and John Vassall surveyor of “Clarendon County.”[710] It was time the Proprietors should agree upon some definite and satisfactory terms for settlement in their territory. While they did not sanction the purchase of lands from Indians, as they had also disallowed the claims of the New England adventurers, they made to all colonists, from Barbadoes and elsewhere, liberal offers for settlement; and under “concessions and agreement” a method of government was framed, and John Yeamans of Barbadoes was knighted by the king (through means of Sir John Colleton), and commissioned, in January, 1665, governor of the newly formed Clarendon County[711] and of the territory southward as far as Florida; for in this direction the Proprietors designed to place a third colony or county.

The two counties, Albemarle and Clarendon, were formed under the charter of 1663. Another charter was granted by the good-natured king in June, 1665, enlarging the limits of the province to 36° 30´ on the north, and on the south to 29°. This extension may be ascribed to the desire of the Proprietors to secure beyond doubt the section on which the Chowan colony happened to be formed near Virginia, and to embrace, southwardly, the limits claimed with respect to Spanish Florida.

We have very little knowledge concerning the administrations of Drummond and of Yeamans. It is said that the latter, being near the sea, began at once to export lumber and opened a trade with Barbadoes; and reports so favorable were carried thither, and so many were induced to follow the first emigrants, that the authorities of the island interposed, and forbade, under severe penalties, “the spiriting off” of their people. In Albemarle, Drummond was succeeded by Samuel Stephens as governor in 1667. In Clarendon, the colony soon ceased to prosper, and most, if not all, of the colonists had abandoned it in 1667. We shall understand better why they did so if we bear in mind that the territory of the Lords Proprietors was very extensive. There were other places, not yet explored, more convenient for commerce, more defensible, more fruitful, more desirable in all respects; the advantages of which would naturally draw off settlers from the less favorable localities selected before a thorough knowledge of the country was obtained. The Proprietors, as we have said, thought of forming, with larger preparations, a colony still further south. The famous harbor of Port Royal, in what is now South Carolina, was the locality they desired to occupy and (with unusual display of wisdom) to fortify. For reasons, however, which will appear hereafter, when we treat of South Carolina, the colonists, after visiting Port Royal, and after a temporary settlement at Albemarle Point on the western bank of the Ashley River, finally settled down on the opposite side, at the confluence of the Ashley and Cooper rivers, and founded the present city of Charleston. There was, indeed, enough to discourage the settlers at Cape Fear independently of the more extensive preparation by the Proprietors to place a colony in a better situation. Secretary Sandford (in his _Relation_ of his voyage in 1666) incidentally mentions: “Wee were in actuall warre with the natives att Clarendon, and had killed and sent away many of them, for they [the more southern Indians] frequently discoursed with us concerning the warre, told us the natives were noughts, their land sandy and barren, their country sickly.” Surveyor-General Vassall, in a letter from Virginia (Oct. 6, 1667), speaks of the loss of the plantation on Charles River and his furnishing shipping to carry away “such weak persons as were not able to go by land.” And a letter from Boston (Dec. 16, 1667) states that Cape Fear was deserted, and the settlers “come hither, some to Virginia.”[712]

Here let us notice the policy and plans of the Proprietors with respect to their distant colonies. The two charters differ only in a few particulars. The second increases the extent of territory, its main object, gives power to subdivide the province into distinct governments, and is a little more explicit with regard to religious toleration. No person was to be molested for difference of religious opinion or practice who did not actually disturb the peace of the community. With regard to political privileges, there is an important clause in both charters conferring upon the Proprietors power to ordain any laws and constitutions whatsoever (if consonant to reason and, as far as possible, to the laws and customs of England), but only “by and with the advice, assent, and approbation of the freemen,” or the majority of them, or of their delegates or deputies, who, for enacting such ordinances, were to be duly assembled from time to time. These privileges, we shall see in the history of the colony, were maintained by the people with a pertinacity commensurate with their importance, whenever their lordships attempted to control the colonists without due regard to their approbation and consent. The charter reserved to the king only allegiance and sovereignty; in all other respects the Proprietors were absolute lords, with no other service or duty to their monarch than the annual payment of a trifling sum of money, and in case gold or silver should be found a fourth part thereof.

On August 6, 1663, a letter to the Proprietors, from members of a Cape Fear company of New England adventurers, claimed full liberty to choose their governors, make and confirm laws, and to be free from taxes, except such as they might impose on themselves, and deprecated “discouragement in reference to their government” as to the accustomed privileges of English colonists. While their claims were not conceded, this letter was answered generally by their lordships, on August 25th, announcing their concessions to all wishing to settle in Carolina.[713] The New England claim of privileges is worthy of notice for what we now call “advanced ideas.” And if we compare the charters of Connecticut (1662) and Rhode Island (1663) with that of Carolina (1663), it will appear that the self-interest of Clarendon[714] and his associates stood in the way of their securing to their colony some civil privileges which it would not have seemed strange at that time to concede. And it may as well be stated here, at once, that besides considerations of self-interest it was also the express policy of their lordships to “avoid erecting a numerous democracy” in their province. To carry out this policy, a grand scheme of government, called the Fundamental Constitutions, was framed by Shaftesbury and the philosopher Locke, and solemnly confirmed as a compact among themselves,—the Proprietors,—and which was to be unalterable forever. A scheme more utopian, more unsuited to the actual condition of the colonists, could hardly have been devised. Yet its adoption by the people was recommended, ordered, stubbornly insisted on by their lordships at the risk of balking—as, for a while, it did balk—the prosperity of their colony. The first set of the unalterable Constitutions is dated 21st July, 1669; the second was issued in March, 1670,—and so on till a fifth set had been constructed. Under the right conferred by the charter, respecting the consent of the freemen, or their delegates, in establishing laws and constitutions, such consent was never formally given; and the code was, at least in South Carolina, again and again rejected. It was a gage of political contention foolishly thrown down; but in taking it up, the colonists were made ardent students of political rights.

By these Constitutions, the eldest Proprietor was made Palatine,—a sort of king of the province. The other seven Proprietors were to be high functionaries: admiral, chamberlain, constable, chief justice, chancellor, high steward, and treasurer.[715] There was to be a Parliament: eight superior courts, one to each Proprietor according to his high office; county and precinct courts; and a grand Executive Council, among whose duties was the preparation and first enactment of all matters to be submitted to Parliament. Among the carefully composed articles in these Constitutions should be noticed such as enjoin that no person above seventeen years of age could have the benefit and protection of the law who was not a member of some church; and no one could hold an estate or become a freeman of the province, or have any habitation in it, who did not acknowledge a God and that He is publicly and solemnly to be worshipped. Moreover, in the set of the Constitutions printed and sent over for adoption, the Church of England[716] was made the established church, and “it alone shall be allowed to receive a public maintenance by grant of Parliament.” It was also enjoined that no one seventeen years old should have any estate or possession or the protection of the law in the province, unless he subscribed the Fundamental Constitutions and promised in writing to defend and maintain them to the utmost of his power.

Their lordships in England, and most, if not all, of their appointed officers in the colonies, as in duty bound, contended strenuously for the adoption of this preposterous form of government till the year 1698; and hardly then did the incontrovertible logic of events convince them of their folly. A late historian of North Carolina remarks, “Their lordships theorized, the colonists felt; the Proprietors drew pictures, but the hardy woodsmen of Carolina were grappling with stern realities. Titles of nobility, orders of precedence, the shows of an empty pageantry, were to them but toys which might amuse children; but there was no romance in watching the savage, or felling the forest, or planting the corn, or gathering the crop, with the ever-present weapon in reach of the laboring hand.”

There was another cause of irritation on the part of the colonists, both in North and South Carolina. The terms of the tenure of land were of paramount interest to them and their children. The quantity offered in 1663 was augmented in 1666, and two years later, by the “Great Deed of Grant,” the fear of forfeiture was removed for not clearing and planting a specified portion of the land; in other words, settlers were permitted to hold lands as they were held in the adjoining royal province of Virginia. At first each freeman received one hundred acres, the same for his wife, each child and manservant, and fifty for each woman-servant; paying a half-penny per acre. After the expiration of servitude, each servant received a liberal quantity of land with implements for tillage.[717] In 1669, in the settling of the colony at Ashley River, one hundred and fifty acres were offered to all free persons above sixteen years of age, and the same for able-bodied men-servants; and a proportionate increase for others, if they arrived before the 25th of March, 1670; then a less number of acres for subsequent arrivals. The annual rent was a penny or _the value of a penny_ per acre (as also announced in the unalterable Constitutions); payments to begin September, 1689.[718] When Governor Sayle died (a year after settling on Ashley River), Sir John Yeamans came from Barbadoes to the new settlement; and having been made a landgrave claimed the government as vice-palatine under the Fundamental Constitutions. Such claim was denied by the colonists;[719] but he soon received a commission, and his first measure, on assuming control, was to have an accurate survey made and a record of lands held by settlers in South Carolina, with a view to the collection of quit-rents for the Proprietors. When ten years of outlay for their province had brought them no pecuniary return, they began to think “the country was not worth having at that rate.” They removed their former favorite Yeamans, because further outlays were incurred, and placed West in authority, who had attended more successfully to their interests. In November, 1682, all prior terms for granting land were annulled, and if a penny an acre (the words “or the value of a penny” being omitted) was not paid, a right of reëntry was claimed: “to enter and distraine, and the distress or distresses then and there found to take, lead, and carry and drive away and impound, and to detain and keep until they shall be fully satisfied and paid all arrears of the said rent.” This produced inequality of tenure, or operated to the injury of many who had previously taken up, on more liberal terms, only part of the lands they were entitled to.[720] Their lordships were too just to interfere with the stability of titles, but the alteration of the tenure for new grants or of the mode of conveyance, from time to time, was at least unwise. Besides, there was scarcely any coin in the province, and the people found it hard that they could no longer pay in merchantable produce. To their reasonable request for relief and a better encouragement to new settlers came the reply, “We insist to sell our lands our own way.” With this reply a peremptory order was sent that the third set of the unalterable Constitutions should be put in force.

A part of this manifest diminution of the generosity of the Proprietors and their unwillingness to bestow further concessions may be accounted for by the opposition their favorite scheme of government had encountered in both colonies, and especially by a rebellious outbreak which had just occurred in Albemarle County. Clarendon County at Cape Fear had broken up and disappeared, as we have related; and henceforth our attention must be directed to Albemarle at the northern end of the province and the Ashley River colony at the south, remote from each other, with a vast forest intervening, the dwelling place of numerous tribes of Indians. Before the province was authoritatively divided (1729), it had divided itself, as it were, into North and South Carolina; and it is best that, in this narrative, we should begin to call them so.

In North Carolina, the Quakers, who were in close association and unison, and so far influential in action,[721] opposed the Fundamental Constitutions and the Church of England establishment; and all the settlers looked upon the enforcement of the recent orders of the Proprietors—the displacement of an easy and liberal method of government without asking their assent—as a violation of the terms of settlement, and of the inducements at first held out to them.[722] Governor Stephens endeavored to enforce the orders of the Proprietors, but he died soon after receiving them, and was succeeded by Carteret, president of the council, till an appointment should be made. Carteret appears not to have been of a nature to contend against the disaffection and turbulence which had arisen, and, in 1675, went to England to make known personally, it is said, the distracted condition of the colony. But two of the colonists, Eastchurch and Miller, had also gone over to represent, personally, the grievances of the people. They seemed, to the Proprietors, the ablest men to carry out their instructions; and the former was made governor and the latter deputy of Earl Shaftesbury and secretary of the province; he was also made, by the commissioners of the king’s revenue, collector of such revenue in Albemarle. They sailed for Carolina in 1677, but the new governor remained a long while in the West Indies (winning “a lady and her fortune”), and died soon after reaching Albemarle. Miller as representing Eastchurch, but really without legal authority to act as governor, ruled with a high hand. He had gone to represent the grievances of his fellow colonists; he returned to harass them still more. The new “model” of government, the denial of “a free election of an assembly” (as the Pasquotank people complained), the attempt to enforce strictly the navigation laws, the collection of the tax on tobacco at their very doors,[723] his drunkenness and “putting the people in general by his threats and actions in great dread of their lives and estates,” as the Proprietors themselves express it, became intolerable to the colonists.

The New Englanders, with their characteristic enterprise, had long been sailing through the shallow waters of the Sound in coasting vessels, adapted to such navigation, and had largely monopolized the trade of North Carolina; buying or trafficking for lumber and cattle, which they sold in the West Indies, and bringing back rum, molasses, salt, and sugar, they exchanged these for tobacco, which they carried to Massachusetts, and shipped thence to Europe without much regard to the navigation laws. Miller, according to instructions sent to Governor Eastchurch, sought to break up this thriving and lucrative business, and to introduce a more direct trade with England. The populace generally, including the Quakers, had their own grievances, and fraternized with the New England skippers. Gillam, one of these bold captains, arrived with his vessel laden with the commodities the people needed, and armed, this time, with cannon. A wealthy Quaker, Durant, was on board with him. On land, John Culpepper, who had lately left South Carolina, where he had created commotions, became a leader of the malcontents. Influenced, no doubt, by the recent rebellion of Bacon in Virginia, some participators in which had taken refuge among them, and led on by men of courage whose hard-earned emoluments were threatened with ruin, the insurgents seized and imprisoned Miller and seven of the proprietary deputies, and took from the former a large amount of money which he had collected for the king. They had won over to their side the remaining deputy, the president of the council; and together they now governed the colony as seemed best to them. But they were aware that violence and usurpation could not be passed over with impunity by higher authority; and as Miller and some of his adherents had escaped and gone to England, Culpepper and Holden were also sent to the Proprietors on a mission of explanation. The explanation of neither party was entirely satisfactory. Miller lost his offices, and Culpepper, though he was unpunished by the Proprietors, was seized by the Commissioners of the Customs to answer for the revenue money which had been used in the time of the disorders. He was put on trial, in 1680, for “treason committed without the realm.” It is said by Chalmers that the judges ruled that taking up arms against the proprietary government was treason against the king. Notwithstanding this view of the case, Culpepper was acquitted of treason, because Shaftesbury asserted that the county of Albemarle had not a regular government, and the offence of the prisoner amounted to no more than a riot.[724]

At this time the Earl of Clarendon sold his proprietary share to Seth Sothel, who was appointed governor. Mr. John Harvey, as president of the council at Albemarle, was to exercise the functions of governor till Sothel’s arrival. The latter, on his voyage, was captured by an Algerine corsair; Harvey died; Jenkins was made governor, and was deposed by the people without reprimand from the Proprietors; and in February, 1681, Wilkinson was appointed. These sudden changes in executive authority were unfortunate for the prestige of proprietary power in the colony; for all this while and until Sothel came in 1683, the old adherents of the Culpepper party, or the popular party, held control in Albemarle. But still more unfortunate for the Proprietors was the coming of Sothel. He seems to have purchased his place as Proprietor and to have come as governor in order to have a clear field for the exercise of his rapacity. If he was “a sober, moderate man,” as his colleagues thought when they intrusted their interests and the welfare of the county to his hands, his association with the Algerines must have materially changed his character. In 1688, the outraged colonists seized him, intending to send him to England for trial. On his appeal this was not done, but the case referred to the colonial assembly, who condemned him. His sentence, however, amounted only to banishment for twelve months and perpetual deposition from authority, Proprietor though he was. He went to South Carolina, and his further career will be noticed when we review the history of that colony.

The next year Philip Ludwell, of Virginia, was made governor, and after four years was transferred to South Carolina and appointed governor of both colonies. For more than twenty years North Carolina was governed by a deputy of the governor at Charleston, or (when there was no deputy appointed) by the president of her own council. The Albemarle colony had become to the Proprietors only a source of vexation. At any rate, they acted wisely in leaving its management, in some measure, under the control of those more conversant with its affairs than their lordships in England could possibly be. Their own mismanagement, in truth, was the principal cause of the turbulent spirit of the people.[725]

After Sothel’s banishment the executive authority belonged, as a rule, to the president of the council till Ludwell received it in 1689. On the latter’s removal to Charleston, S. C., Lillington acted as deputy in Albemarle. In 1695, Thomas Harvey became deputy governor by appointment from Archdale, the Quaker Proprietor (who was sent over to heal grievances in both colonies), and was followed in 1699 by Henderson Walker, president of the council. In 1704, Robert Daniel was appointed deputy by Governor Johnson, of South Carolina. John Porter, a Quaker, or sympathizer with the Quakers (sent to England to complain of Daniel and legislation in favor of the Church of England in the colony by “The Vestry Act”), with the assistance of Archdale, prevailed on the Proprietors to order Daniel’s removal, and Governor Johnson appointed (1705) Thomas Carey in his place. He was as little acceptable to the Quakers in North Carolina as his predecessor had been, and through their influence in England at this conjuncture the appointment of a deputy by the executive in South Carolina was suspended, Carey was removed, and a new Proprietary Council formed, including Porter and several Quakers. Porter returned to North Carolina in 1707, and called together the new council, who chose William Glover, a Churchman, president, and, as such, acting governor. He, however, as Carey had done, required conformity to the English laws respecting official oaths, which were displeasing to the Quakers; and Porter in opposition declared Glover’s election as president illegal, formed a coalition with Carey, whom he had before caused to be displaced, and secured his election to the presidency of the council. There were now two claimants for executive authority, and no power at hand to decide between them. Carey and Glover sat in opposite rooms with their respective councils. Daniel, being a landgrave, and having thereby a right to a seat in the Upper House,—as the council with the governor was styled,—sat alternately with one and the other, and no doubt enjoyed their altercations.

A new rebellion, so-called, now broke out, based apparently on local party strife. At first Carey and his Quaker supporters opposing Glover and his party sought and obtained control of the assembly; and when Edward Hyde came from England with letters on authority of which he claimed executive power,[726] the Carey party, at first favorable to him, finally, on losing control of the next assembly, directed itself against him. Hyde’s life was endangered by Carey’s armed opposition; and Spotswood, the energetic governor of Virginia, sent him military aid and put down his opponents.[727] Carey, on his way through Virginia, was arrested by Spotswood and sent to England for trial. This was the occasion of Lord Dartmouth’s circular letter to all the colonies “to send over no more prisoners for crimes or misdemeanors without proof of their guilt.”

According to the latest history,—that of Rev. Dr. Hawks,—another result of this acrimonious contest was the deplorable massacre of hundreds of defenceless white settlers, men, women, and children, by the Tuscarora Indians. This is doubtless merely _post hoc ergo propter hoc_. We must ascribe hostilities solely to encroachments on the lands of the natives; to ill treatment by traders and others; and to the killing of one of their number, which called for revenge. The Tuscaroras, it was thought, could muster 1,200 warriors. They suddenly made their onslaught at daybreak, September 22, 1711. Their special task in the diabolical conspiracy was to murder all the whites along the Roanoke, while other tribes conducted a simultaneous attack upon other sections. The wielding of the blood-dripping knife and tomahawk, the conflagration of dwellings and barns, the murderous rush upon the victims who, here and there, had hidden themselves and who ran out from the blazing fires to a fate scarcely less dreadful, with other horrors we are unwilling to relate, continued for three days. One hundred and fifty were slain on the Roanoke, more than sixty at Newbern, an unknown number near Bath; and the carnage was stopped only by the exhaustion and besotted drunkenness of the bloodstained savages. Governor Hyde was powerless to confront the foe. He could not raise half the number of men the enemy had. The Quakers were non-combatants; and with them were affiliated many others who opposed the government. Governor Hyde was compelled to resort to arbitrary measures in impressing vessels and in procuring provisions for such troops as he could muster; and these were so inadequate, and so wide-spread was the Indian combination, that he called for assistance from Virginia and South Carolina. Both responded with alacrity. While Spotswood could not supply troops, he checked the further combination of tribes in his direction. South Carolina sent troops onward through the forests, under Colonel Barnwell, who defeated the Tuscaroras and put an end to the war for the time being. But after he retired to South Carolina, suffering with wounds, the Indians treacherously renewed hostilities; and it was believed they would soon be joined by more powerful northward tribes. To add to the calamities of the people, an epidemic (said to be yellow fever) broke out. The mortality was fearful, and among the victims was the governor of the colony. The council elected Colonel Pollock as their president and to act as commander-in-chief. The following mournful picture is given us from manuscripts left by Colonel Pollock: “The government was bankrupt, the people impoverished, faction abundant, the settlements on Neuse and Pamlico destroyed, houses and property burned, plantations abandoned, trade in ruins, no cargoes for the few small vessels that came, the Indian war renewed, not men enough for soldiers, no means to pay them, the whole available force under arms but one hundred and thirty or forty men, and food for the whole province to be supplied from the northern counties of Albemarle only.” South Carolina, being again called on for help, sent Colonel James Moore, eldest son to Colonel James Moore, late governor of the colony. On the 20th of March, 1713, he conquered the last stronghold of the savages, who soon after, broken and disheartened, left the province in large numbers, and joined themselves with the Iroquois in what is now the State of New York. Such of them as remained in North Carolina entered into a treaty of peace with the whites. During these exhausting calamities the Proprietors were appealed to; and it was a poor response to refer the matter to General Nicholson “to enquire into the disorders of North Carolina.”

The next year (May, 1714) Charles Eden, an excellent officer, was appointed governor. The adherents of Carey, or the popular party, however, seemed to be actuated against all who were sent to rule the colony. What grievances they had to palliate or justify their conduct, on this occasion, we know not; but soon their active opposition had to be dealt with by the constituted authorities. We shall see, when we treat of South Carolina, that a few years later the colonists, in that section, threw off, effectually, the inefficient rule of the Proprietors, and placed themselves under the immediate control of the Crown; deposing the last proprietary governor, and electing Colonel Moore governor in the king’s name. It is probable that the same spirit actuated the people in North Carolina. Yet her historians have not made it evident that the continued disaffection and turbulence and rebellion of the people are indications of their readiness to act as their more southern brethren acted. Perhaps they had not, at that conjuncture, the same amount of provocation. When we read the letter of the Lords Proprietors to the council and assembly (June 3, 1723),[728] “We received an address from you, transmitted some time since by our late governor, Mr. Eden, wherein you signified to us your great dislike to the rebellious and tumultuous proceedings of several of the inhabitants of South Carolina, and your constant and steady adherence to our government and the present constitution,” we are to bear in mind that this governor and council were the appointed officers of their lordships. We are to ask, Where are the records of the assembly,[729]—records of the thoughts and actions of the representatives of the people? These, no doubt, will show, if they can be found, that a spirit of local self-government actuated the people, and is the thread of development to be followed by the future historian of the State. We need the testimony of Porter, of Carey, of the able and virtuous Edward Moseley (chief justice from 1707 to 1711), and of other leaders of the people against the repressive policy of their lordships in England and their governors and councils.

Some interesting subjects, indicative of the condition of the colony in these early times, must be briefly noticed: the emission of paper money consequent upon the expenses of the Indian war; the occasional rating of commodities for exchange; the indigenous products of the soil and staples of export; the forwarding of tobacco abroad through Virginia, and troubles about boundary lines; the customs and modes of life among the gentry or planters and the humbler classes, and among their close neighbors, the Indian tribes; the visits of pirates to the coast, both in North and South Carolina, notably Teach or Blackbeard, and the romantic defeat of him in Pamlico Sound; the settling, at first, along the streams, which became the principal highways for travel and commerce; the ill effects necessarily resulting from the habitations being far apart, and from the fact that there was very little social intercourse; the transmission of letters only by special messengers; the disadvantageous nature of the coast section, retarding the prosperity of the colony.

During the proprietary period, or the first sixty-six years of the colony, the people clung to the seaboard and that part of it which had no good port of entry. This was as great a misfortune as it was to cling to the border line of Virginia. The accession of population, including foreigners, came chiefly through that border. In 1690 and again in 1707, bodies of French Protestants arrived, and settled in Pamlico and on the Neuse and Trent; and three years after some Swiss and Germans settled at Newbern. The whites in the province numbered at this time about 5,000. Large tracts of unoccupied land lay between the selected points of settlement. A few towns had been begun: the first, forty-two years after the first settling in the province. If a good harbor had been selected and a town properly fortified built there for exports, the progress of North Carolina might have been more rapid and substantial. The metropolis was Edenton (founded 1715) on the Chowan. The legislature met there. It contained forty or fifty houses. There was no church there. The Rev. Dr. Hawks says: “For long, long years there were no places of worship. They never amounted to more than some half dozen of all sorts, while the Proprietors owned Carolina; and when their unblessed dominion ended, there was not a minister of Christ living in the province.” There had been, however, missionaries sent out by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel; and there were some pious gentlemen in the colony who gave them welcome and all the assistance in their power. But while a few of the missionaries were exemplary and accomplished much good, others were a positive hindrance to “the propagation of the gospel.”

Among the misfortunes of the colonists we must not fail to notice the incompetent governors sent from England. Favoritism, and not fitness for office, dictated the selection. Archdale, Hyde, and Eden are considered the only governors sent to the province who did it much service. The last two whom their lordships favored with the dignity of executive authority were Burrington, pronounced “a profligate blackguard,” and Sir Richard Everard, whom his superseded rival railed against as “a noodle and an ape,” and “no more fit to be a governor than Sancho Panza.” It was in the administration of Sir Richard that the colony passed by purchase under the immediate control of the king. Two thousand five hundred pounds sterling were paid for each of seven shares; Lord Carteret declining to dispose of his, as it had come to him by inheritance.[730] The claims for arrears of quit-rent due from settlers were also purchased. Before the surrender of the charter many changes had occurred in the ownership of shares in the province; and not one of the original Proprietors remained alive to witness the failure of their successors in the noble enterprise committed to their management by the munificence of Charles II.

ROYAL GOVERNMENT.—The method of the royal government will be noticed when we come to write of South Carolina. The more thoughtful in North Carolina no doubt felt relieved in escaping from the negligent rule of the Proprietors; but the transition from the old to the new form of administration appears to have been a matter of indifference to the people at large. All they saw in 1731 was that George Burrington, who had been displaced for Everard in 1725, came back with a commission as the first royal governor, to displace in turn his former rival. Burrington, favored for his father’s services to the king, was unsuited for his position, and soon became involved in disputes with his council, the assembly, and the judges. He appeared to think the foremost duty of the assembly was to provide for him a salary suitable to his new dignity, to raise money for other royal officers and an adequate and permanent revenue for the king. The assembly was prorogued for declining to do so. His violence and tyranny caused complaints against him to be sent, through Chief Justice Smith, to the authorities in the mother country. One service, however, he rendered, in conciliating the Indians on the western border. To this end he sent Dr. John Brickell with a party of ten men and two Indian hunters to assist them.[731] The account of the expedition adds to our knowledge of the condition of that remote section of the province, as the interesting work of Lawson does with respect to other sections. In 1734, on the return of the chief justice, the governor retired to Charleston and sailed thence to England. Soon afterwards he was found murdered in St. James’ Park, in London.[732] Nathaniel Rice, secretary of the province, and the first named of the councillors, administered the government from April till November, when Gabriel Johnston, a Scotchman and man of letters, received, through the influence of his patron, Lord Wilmington, the royal appointment. For nearly twenty years he prudently administered the affairs of the colony. At first he found a formidable obstacle to a successful management of the people in their disregard of laws and of gubernatorial dignitaries, imposed upon them by foreign authority. Many hard things have been said of the people by those who, perhaps, did not consider the neglect, mismanagement, and tyrannical provocation under which they lived for two generations, and the increasing intercolonial influences in behalf of popular sovereignty. One of the Virginia commissioners, for laying off (in 1727) the northern boundary, states that the borderers preferred to belong to the Carolina side, “where they pay no tribute to God or to Cæsar.” Governor Johnston, at this time, was in need of the latter kind of tribute. The salaries of the crown officers were to be paid from quit-rents due to the Crown, the collection of which depended on enactments of the assembly. The governor, finding great difficulty in having a satisfactory enactment passed, prorogued the assembly and attempted to collect the rents on his own authority. Not only was this resisted by the people, but the assembly, being again convened, denied the legality of the acts of the governor, and imprisoned his officers who had distrained for the rents.[733] The assembly was consequently dissolved (March, 1736). At the next session, in the following September, the governor addressed the representatives of the people on the general condition of the province, the lack of moral and educational advancement, and of proper regard for law and good order, and assured them “that while he was obliged by his instructions to maintain the rights of the Crown, he would show a regard to the privileges, liberties, and happiness of the people.” In the spirit of compromise a law was passed with the concurrence of the governor, but which the authorities in England rejected as yielding too much to the demands of the popular assembly.

At this time (1738) commissioners were empowered to run the boundary between North and South Carolina, and completed the work from the Atlantic as far westward as the Pee Dee. The original division of the coast section into three counties—Albemarle with six precincts, Bath with four precincts, and Clarendon with one (New Hanover)—was altered, and the precincts were denominated counties. The very names of the original counties disappeared. Soon other counties westward or inland were formed as the population increased, chiefly by overland immigration. To each county the governor appointed a sheriff, selected from three persons recommended by the county court. The judiciary system was modified to suit the new administration and augmentation of population. The governor had before (1736) deplored the fact that no provision had been made “or care taken to inspire the youth with generous sentiments, worthy principles, or the least tincture of literature;” but not until 1754 was an act passed to establish a public seminary. It did not receive the royal assent. That there were not many schools is doubtless due to the sparseness of settlements, and not to any general indifference to education.[734] During the period of the royal government there were two schools that we read of,—those at Newbern and Edenton. In the building of the former, a wooden structure, the lower house of assembly occasionally held its sessions. In 1749, printing was introduced at Newbern, from Virginia; and a weekly paper styled the _North Carolina Gazette_, issued “on a sheet of post-sized folio,”—“with freshest advices, foreign and domestic.” In 1752 appeared the first edition of the _Provincial Laws_.

At the town of Wilmington, so named in honor of the Governor’s patron, and sometimes at Newbern, the assembly now met instead of at Edenton, near the Virginia boundary. A new assembly was convened at Wilmington, and an attempt was made to establish an equalization of representation, with a consequent diminution of the number of representatives from the old and more northern counties,—from five members each to two members.[735] Dissatisfaction was the result; and the six northern counties would neither recognize the assembly at Wilmington nor pay taxes, nor would the jurors attend the courts. The colony, however, was more thriving than it had been at any previous period. It was favored by the mother country with bounties on its exports; and the general prosperity was augmented by the coming in of the banished Highlanders and of emigrants from Ireland, and especially by the beginning of the great flow of overland immigration into the central and more western section of the province. Under the prudent management of Johnston, harmony at last prevailed, and such laws were enacted as were necessary. On the declaration of war between England and France, the defences of the coast received legislative attention, and a fort mounting twenty-four cannon was erected on the south bank of the Cape Fear, and called Fort Johnston, in honor of the governor.[736]

Governor Johnston died in August, 1752. What he had written to the Duke of Newcastle, in 1739, was now even more applicable, that after years of effort he had brought the colony “to system, where disorder had before reigned, and placed it on a firmer foundation.” The administration again devolved on Nathaniel Rice; and on his decease in January, Matthew Rowan, the next councillor, acted as governor till the arrival of Arthur Dobbs, in 1754. Rowan’s short term of service was distinguished by liberal contributions for building churches and purchasing glebe lands for the support of ministers of the gospel; and by the convening of the assembly to provide for aiding Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, by whose order George Washington had gone to examine the alarming movements of the French on the Ohio. The militia of North Carolina amounted at that time, as stated by Rowan, to 15,400 men.

Besides the early coast-line settlements, and those along the bottom lands of the northeastern streams, there came, mainly after Braddock’s defeat, a remarkable tide of immigration from the western frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania into central and western North Carolina. Between 1750 and 1790 the accession to the population is computed[737] to be as much as 300,000. Many seeking fertile lands moved over into the “Up Country” of South Carolina, and westward into Tennessee. These hardy and liberty-loving German and Scotch-Irish settlers formed a section of North Carolina which for a long time was “distinct in population, religion, and material interests.” Their final fraternization and blending in political union with the people of the eastern section is a subject for the later history of the province and State.

Governor Dobbs, a native of Ireland, and who had been a member of its Parliament, brought to the colony cannon and firelocks, as a present from the king; and, as a present from himself, “a number of his relations, who had hopes of offices and preferments.”[738] While, on the one hand, he sought to conciliate the Indian tribes, on the other he continuously embroiled himself in contests with the assembly and on trivial matters. It was, however, the irrepressible conflict of that day,—the conflict we have been expecting all along in this history,—the outgrowth of antagonism between the royal prerogatives and the rights and privileges of the representatives of the people. Contributions of men and money were called for by the governor for the general defence of the provinces, and for fortifications within the limits of North Carolina. The assembly were ever ready to defend their frontiers and render aid to the neighboring colonies. But in the acts for founding new counties, they disallowed “the royal prerogative of granting letters of incorporation, ordering and regulating elections, and establishing fairs and markets.” In enactments for a new court system, the further emission of paper money, and the appointment of an agent in England to solicit the affairs of the province, disputes ensued between the assembly and the executive. A new assembly being convened was equally jealous of its rights and privileges, and ably maintained them in lengthy communications to the governor, but without moving him from his convictions of duty under the royal instructions. The assembly was prorogued after appointing, by resolution, the agent to England, whom the governor had rejected. Upon reassembling, and again in a new assembly, on various bills the struggle for legislative rights was continued with the Upper House or council.

Two very different events here arrest our attention: the grant of the king, through Parliament, of £50,000 to indemnify Virginia, North and South Carolina, for their war expenses, and the proposal to the colonies to form a union for common defence against general attacks of the French and Indians; the one fostering attachment to the Crown, the other teaching the method of effectual resistance.

Governor Dobbs was now infirm and over eighty years of age, and, having obtained leave of absence, there was sent over, as Lieutenant-Governor, the able and energetic William Tryon, a colonel in the Queen’s Guards, who became, on the decease of Dobbs, in 1765, governor of North Carolina. He was succeeded by Martin, the last royal governor. We close this brief narrative, pondering upon the province’s progress in wealth, population, and political stability; on the intercolonial influences developing union and constitutional self-government; and on the portentous shadow of the approaching Revolution.[739]

SOUTH CAROLINA.

PROPRIETARY GOVERNMENT.—In 1665 the Lords Proprietors placed in charge of Sir John Yeamans—whom they had, in January, commissioned governor of Clarendon county at Cape Fear—the further discovery of the Carolina coast southward of the portion embraced in the report of Hilton, Long, and Fabian in 1663. Yeamans and his party left Barbadoes in three vessels in October. After separation by a storm, they all reached the Cape Fear or Charles River. But there a violent gale wrecked the vessel containing the greater part of their provisions, arms, and ammunition. Being in distress for supplies, their sloop was despatched to Virginia for aid, and Yeamans himself returned to Barbadoes, leaving Robert Sandford in commission to obtain a vessel and complete the exploration of the southern coast. Sandford appears to have first entered the North Edisto River, where he met the Cassique of Kiawah, who had traded with the settlers in Clarendon county, and who now invited Sandford to his country. But the explorers sailed on to Port Royal, arriving there early in July. Their reception was apparently very friendly, and Dr. Henry Woodward remained among the Indians to learn their language, while a nephew of the chief accompanied Sandford. They designed, on their return, to visit Kiawah; but by a mistake of the Indian who acted as guide, they passed beyond the entrance (now Charleston harbor) which led to that country, and the wind not being favorable for putting back, the voyagers proceeded northward and returned to Cape Fear.[740]