USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods 1584 1783, Volume I > Part 7
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The valiant captain was as good as his word. Four days after issuing his challenge, he led a band of armed fol- lowers into Currituck precinct, broke up the precinct court then sitting, made two of the magistrates prisoners, and issued an order forbidding any court "to sitt or act by any Commis- sion but his." But if he expected a popular uprising in his behalf, such as had followed the "Remonstrance" of the "Pasquotankians" against Miller in 1677, he was doomed to disappointment. The people, conciliated by the attitude of the Lords Proprietors in the Sothel affair, were in no mood for further violence or rebellion; indignant at the outrage perpe- trated upon their court, they rallied to the support of lawful government, sprang to arms, and chased "Governor Gibbs" and his band out of the province. Gibbs took refuge in Vir- ginia where Governor Nicholson, at Ludwell's request, took a hand in the affair and speedily brought him to terms. Both Ludwell and his bellicose rival thereupon embarked for Eng- land to lay their dispute before the Lords Proprietors who promptly repudiated the latter.
Upon his return from England, in 1691, Ludwell brought a new set of instructions based, as the Lords Proprietors pri- vately informed him, not upon the Fundamental Constitu- tions, but upon their charter from the Crown. This was an important concession to the political sentiment of the people who had never accepted the Fundamental Constitutions, and its practical effect was to relegate that document to its place among the many abortive schemes which well-meaning theor- ists since the beginning of time have devised for the govern- ment of mankind. One of the objects of the new instructions was to strengthen the colonial government, a necessity plainly demonstrated by recent events in both the Carolinas. Greater dignity was to be given the executive authority by placing both North Carolina and South Carolina under a single gov- ernor whose hands were to be strengthened by eliminating Vol. I-5
GOVERNOR PHILIP LUDWELL From a portrait in possession of Bennehan Cameron
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from the Council the five members chosen by the General Assembly, thus leaving the Council to be composed exclusively of the deputies of the Lords Proprietors. The legislative de- partment was to undergo a similar consolidation. There was to be but one General Assembly for the two colonies to which each of the four counties of Albemarle, Colleton, Berkeley, and Craven was to send five representatives. Such at least was the plan on paper, but it was never carried into effect because upon second thought the Lords Proprietors saw insu- perable difficulties in the way. Additional instructions, therefore, were issued providing that, if it was found "Im- practicable for to have the Inhabitants of Albemarle County to send Delegates to the General Assembly held at South Carolina," each colony should continue to hold its own As- sembly. At the same time the governor was authorized to appoint a deputy-governor for North Carolina, a provision later extended to South Carolina also. The two governments, therefore, continued separate and independent of each other.
The development of North Carolina had been too slow to keep pace with the plans and expectations of the Lords Proprietors, who sharply reprimanded the Albemarle planters for their failure to open up the wilderness between Albemarle and Charleston. But the Lords Proprietors did not under- stand the difficulties in the way. Wide sounds, broad rivers, dense forests, almost impenetrable swamps made progress difficult. Shallow inlets and shifting sands barred access to the markets of the world, placed the trade of North Carolina at the mercy of competing Virginia planters and shrewd New England merchants, and retarded the development of agri- culture and commerce. Hostile Indians roamed the wilder- ness, committed many depredations and murders, and twice during the decade from 1665 to 1675 openly went on the war- path. There were, too, as we have seen, numerous causes for discontent which discouraged immigration and deterred the settlers already in Albemarle from undertaking new enter- prises. Culpepper's Rebellion completely disorganized the government and for more than two years kept the colony in turmoil. The land question also checked immigration. Since the terms on which land was granted in Albemarle were less favorable than those which prevailed in Virginia, people were naturally slow to abandon the older colony for the new one; and even after the Great Deed partially removed this discrimi- nation, the uncertainty of the titles by which the Albemarle planters held their lands discouraged others from joining them. Still another deterrent to new enterprises was the
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rumor that the other Lords Proprietors intended to sell their interests in Albemarle to Sir William Berkeley. In spite of all these difficulties, a few adventurers, hardier and bolder, or more restless than their fellows, pushed across Albemarle Sound and attempted to open the way for settlements to the southward; but they were "with great violence and Injustice deprived of any power to proceed any further * * *
and were commanded back to your [their ] great prejudice and in- convenience" by colonial officials "who had ingrosit ye Indian trade to themselves & feared that it would be intercepted by those who should plant farther amongst them."
A serious obstacle to the growth and prosperity of North Carolina was the hostile conduct of Virginia throughout the proprietary period. From her superior position as a crown colony, Virginia looked down with unconcealed disdain upon all the proprietary colonies around her, but North Carolina was the special object of her aversion. The very existence of that colony was an affront to Virginia. It had been carved out of her ancient domain. It had been populated largely at her expense. It offered keen competition in the staple upon which her prosperity was founded. Its free and democratic society was in sharp contrast to the more aristocratic sys- tem that prevailed in the Old Dominion. Whatever checked the growth and development of North Carolina, therefore, Virginians regarded as indirectly promoting the interests of Virginia. This end they sought to accomplish in various ways. They spread abroad evil reports of the people of North Carolina. They attempted to undermine her economic pros- perity by hostile legislation forbidding the shipment of North Carolina tobacco through Virginia ports. They encouraged Indians to advance claims to lands which the latter had form- ally ceded by treaty to the Lords Proprietors, and shielded Indian thieves who preyed upon the horses, cattle and hogs of North Carolina planters. They pretended ignorance of the charter of 1665 and laying claim to the region which that char- ter had added to the Carolina grant, undertook to close it to North Carolina settlers.
Two laws passed by the Albemarle Assembly in 1669 de- signed to encourage immigration,-i. e. the stay-law and the law exempting new settlers from taxation for one year-were especially resented by the Virginians, who declared that they were nothing less than open invitations to rogues and vaga- bonds. Yet the former was an exact copy of the Virginia statute of 1642 which the Virginia Assembly carefully re- enacted in 1663 because it had been inadvertently omitted
.
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from a printed collection of the Virginia laws. The Albe- marle Assembly even copied the Virginia preamble which set forth as the reason for the statute that many people had "through their engagements in England, forsaken their native country and repaired hither, with resolution to abide here, hoping in time to gain some competency of subsistence by their labors, yet, nevertheless, their creditors, hearing of their abode in the colony, have prosecuted them with their actions to the ruin of said debtors." Unquestionably some scoundrels took advantage of the Albemarle statute, just as others had taken advantage of the Virginia law, but hardly enough of them came to justify Virginia's taunts and re- proaches. "Rogues Harbour" was a favorite Virginia epi- thet for Albemarle. Advertent to the opportunities the stat- ute offered to persons in an adjoining community to defraud their creditors, and attentive to the complaints of their neigh- bor, the North Carolina Assembly in 1707 exempted settlers from Virginia from the protection of the statute; nevertheless this friendly act did not sooth the ruffled feelings of the Vir- ginians, and the "substantial planters" and industrious serv- ants whom they earnestly tried to keep in Virginia continued to become immediately upon crossing the boundary line into North Carolina "idle debtors," "theeves," "pyrates," and "runaway servants." The people of North Carolina naturally resented these misrepresentations, and finally Governor Walker was goaded by Governor Nicholson's continued "inti- mations concerning runaways" into sharply repelling the "imputation of evil neighbourhood" which he had cast upon the colony.
Not content with fixing a bad name upon North Carolina, the Virginians undertook to destroy the source of her eco- nomic welfare. Tobacco was the staple of both colonies and the Virginia planters early became alarmed at the competition to which the increasing production of Albemarle subjected them. In 1679, the commissioners of the customs wrote that "the quantity of Tobacco that groweth in Carolina is considerable & Increaseth every year but it will not appear by the Customhouse bookes what customes have been received in England for the same for that by reason of the Badness of the Harbours in those parts most of the Tobaccos of the growth of those Countreyes have been and are Carryed from thence in Sloops and small fetches to Virginia & New Eng- land & from thence shipped hither. So that the Entries here [London] are as from Virgina & New England although the Tobacco be of the growth of Carolina & Albemarle." The
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Virginia planters had long sought a way to destroy this com- petition, and finally in 1679 the Assembly came to their relief by forbidding the importation of tobacco from Carolina into Virginia, or its exportation through Virginia ports. This act was re-enacted in 1705, and again in 1726. It was a liard blow for North Carolina and did not tend to improve her relations with her neighbor.
Another cause for indignation against Virginia was her action in taking under her protection a band of straggling Me- herrin Indians who, near the close of the seventeenth century, had moved from "their ancient place of habitation" north of the Meherrin River, and placing themselves at its mouth, had "planted corne and built Cabbins" on the lands which the Chowanocs, after the war of 1675-76, had ceded to the Lords Proprietors of Carolina. Their presence there was a con- stant menace to the peace of the province. They preyed upon the planters, drove off their hogs and cattle, destroyed their crops, and committed numerous murderous assaults upon their persons, and the planters retaliated with usury. To remove the danger, the North Carolina authorities negotiated a treaty with the Indians which required them "to return to the place of their former habitation," but the Virginia gov- ernment intervened, assured the Meherrins of its support and protection, and induced them to refuse to carry out their agreement. Col. Thomas Pollock was then sent to remove them by force. With a band of sixty men, he attacked their town, took a large number of prisoners, and threatened "to burn their Cabbins and destroy their Corne if they did not remove from that place." Virginia promptly called upon North Carolina to disavow Pollock's act and demanded his punishment. That colony set up a claim to the lands on which the Meherrins had settled, declared that "the said Indians have their dependence upon and are under the protection of this Government," and denounced the "Clandestine Treaty" between them and the North Carolina government as deroga- tory to the rights and dignity of Virginia. The Virginia Council dismissed with contempt the statement of facts, as well as the arguments, of the North Carolina government, although as stated by the latter the question involved was "whether near a hundred familys of her Majty's subjects of Carolina should be disseased of their freehold to lett a few vagrant and Insolent Indians rove where they please without any Right and Contrary to their Agreement." Encouraged by Vir- ginia's attitude, the Meherrins continued over a period of years to disregard their treaty, and growing more and more
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insolent, committed repeated depredations upon the property and assaults upon the persons of the Carolina planters, "sup- posing," as Governor Hyde complained in a letter to the gov- ernor of Virginia, "they can have protection from you."
Virginia's concern for these Indians was not inspired by any philanthropic interest in their welfare, but by the fact that in their fate was involved her claim to the region which they had occupied .. This claim North Carolina disputed. The dispute arose from the fact that the exact location of the dividing line between the two colonies had never been ascer- tained and many of the settlers who entered lands along the frontier, ignorant that they were within the Carolina grant, had taken out patents from Virginia. Consequently when the Carolina government, in 1680, claimed jurisdiction over them and demanded payment of quit rents and taxes, Virginia en- tered a vigorous protest, declaring that those settlers were inhabitants of Virginia and must not "be in any sort molested disturbed or Griev'd" by the North Carolina authorities. The controversy thus precipitated was destined to strain the friendly relations of the two colonies for more than half a century. It grew in intensity as time passed and other ques- tions arose to add fuel to the flames. The jurisdiction of the courts became involved, and on one occasion at least, court officials of the two provinces actually came into armed con- flict.
The origin of the controversy may be traced to the change which the second charter of the Lords Proprietors made in the northern boundary of Carolina. The charter of 1663 fixed the boundary at the 36th parallel of northern latitude; the charter of 1665 fixed it in a line to be run from "the north end of Currituck river or inlet, upon a strait westerly line to Wyonoak creek, which lies within or about the degrees of thirty-six and thirty minutes, northern latitude, and so west, in a direct line, as far as the south seas." As early as 1681 the Lords Proprietors petitioned the Crown to have the line run as thus described; but Virginia having privately ascer- tained that such a line would defeat her claims, questioned the existence of the "p"tended latt" Grant to the Lords Pro- pryet's of Carolina." On this point, however, she was easily beaten by an inspection of the record. The dispute was there- upon shifted to the location of the natural objects along the line as described in the charter. The chief point at issue was the identity of Weyanoke Creek. Weyanoke Creek was doubtless a well known stream in 1665, but with the passage of years it had lost that name which by 1680 had disappeared
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from the map. Virginia maintained that it was identical with Wicocon Creek, while North Carolina as stoutly insisted that it was the same as Nottoway River, and both colonies easily secured testimony from early settlers to sustain their con- tentions. The difference was too considerable to be given up without a contest, since it involved a strip of territory fifteen miles in width.
The chief sufferers in these controversies were the inhabi- tants of the disputed territory who were of course anxious to have the line fixed. Accordingly in 1699 the Crown ordered that it be run as called for by the charter of 1665. Governor Harvey promptly sent Daniel Akehurst and Henderson Walker to Virginia as commissioners to represent North Carolina; but the Virginia officials alleging that Harvey had not been formally confirmed in his office by the king, refused to recognize his commissioners and informed him that "it is not convenient with us to treat with any person or persons by you appointed." After this experience, North Carolina, suspecting that Virginia's purpose was to resist indefinitely the settlement of the dispute and satisfied that her own claims were well founded, proceeded as if her title to the territory was beyond controversy. Virginia too began to sus- pect that she could not make good her pretensions. In 1705 the Virginia Council ordered the official surveyor of that province to ascertain "whether the line between this Govern- ment and North Carolina if run according to the patent of the Lords Proprietors may cut off any plantations held by titles from this Government," at the same time directing him "to keep secret the intentions of this Government * that the people of North Carolina may have no other suspi- cion than that those Surveyors are only going about laying the Maherin Indians lands."
Nothing more was done until 1709 when both colonies re- ceived orders from the queen to settle the dispute. North Carolina accordingly appointed John Lawson and Edward Moseley as her commissioners, while Virginia was repre- sented by Philip Ludwell and Nathaniel Harrison. After sev- eral failures to arrange a meeting, the commissioners finally came together at Williamsburg, August 30, 1710. The attitude of the Virginians doomed the enterprise to failure from the first. No good thing could come out of Nazareth. In every act of the Carolina commissioners, the Virginians detected some ulterior, dishonest motive. They accused both Lawson and Moseley of a secret purpose "to obstruct the Settling the Boundarys," charging that they were privately interested in
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the lands in dispute. The witnesses cited by the North Carolina commissioners were all "very Ignorant persons, & most of them of ill fame & Reputation," while those called by Virginia were "Persons of good Credit." If Moseley raised legal objections to the powers conferred upon the Virginia commissioners, it was "with design to render their confer- ences ineffectual"; if he questioned the accuracy of their in- struments, it was merely one of his "many Shifts & Excuses to disappoint all Conferences with the Commissioners of Vir- ginia"; if his statement of a fact did not correspond with what the Virginians understood it to be, it was set down to his propensity to "prevarication." Such at least the Virginia commissioners, in their efforts to prejudice the Proprietors' case, set down in the report they wrote for the Crown, a re- port afterwards severely criticised in his "History of the Dividing Line," by Col. William Byrd, one of the Vir- ginia commissioners when the line was finally run in 1728. Colonel Byrd thought that "it had been fairer play" to have furnished Lawson and Moseley a copy of the report thus giving them an opportunity to answer the charges against them; confessed that Moseley "was not much in the wrong to find fault with the Quadrant produced by the Surveyors of Virginia" as it was afterwards shown "that there was an Error of near 30 minutes, either in the instrument or in those who made use of it"; and admitted after careful sur- veys that the Nottoway River was probably the same as Weyanoke Creek. The spirit with which the Virginia com- missioners approached their task in 1710 and their uncom- promising attitude made agreement impossible and served only to intensify the ill-feeling between the two colonies.
For a long time the Lords Proprietors did not appreciate the obstacles against which their colony was struggling. They looked upon its inhabitants as a sluggish, unenterprising peo- ple who neither understood their own nor regarded the Pro- prietors' interests; upbraided them for their failure to open communications between the Albemarle colony and the Ashley River settlement, and declared that to be the reason why they had neglected the former in the interest of the latter.
There were not wanting, however, intelligent colonists in North Carolina who labored diligently to present the situa- tion to the Lords Proprietors in its true light. As early as 1665, Thomas Woodward, surveyor-general, wrote them plainly that settlers would not come to Albemarle upon harder conditions than they could secure in Virginia. Thomas East- church presented facts which forced them to acknowledge
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that the fault was not with the people but with "those persons into whose hands wee [they ] had committed the Government." Timothy Biggs bluntly told them that Albemarle owed nothing to them, and declared that if it had received but a tenth part of the aid and encouragement which they had given to the Ashley River settlement it would have been a prosper- ous colony. The truth gradually dawned upon the Lords Pro- prietors who tardily took steps to relieve the situation as far as possible. They granted more liberal terms for land-hold- ing; instructed their governors to issue patents to landown- ers; assured the settlers that they had no intention of part- ing with Albemarle to Governor Berkeley or "to any persons whatsoever"; and appointed a governor for the region south of Albemarle Sound whom they instructed to encourage set- tlements along Pamlico and Neuse rivers. But more impor- tant than all of these reforms was the decade and a half of good government which began with the appointment of Lud- well in 1691.
Ludwell, appointed December 2, 1691, was the first gov- ernor .of Carolina. His deputies in North Carolina were Thomas Jarvis (1691-1694) and Thomas Harvey (1694-1699). In 1693, Thomas Smith succeeded Ludwell, but retired within less than a year and was succeeded by John Archdale. Both Smith and' Archdale continued Harvey in power as deputy- governor of North Carolina. Upon the death of Harvey in 1699, Henderson Walker, president of the Council, took over the administration in North Carolina which he conducted until the appointment of Col. Robert Daniel in 1703. Dur- ing the decade and a half in which these men administered the government, North Carolina enjoyed such a reign of law and order as she had not known before. Her governors brought to their task greater abilities, better personal char- acters, and larger experiences in colonial affairs, than any of their predecessors. Ludwell had been active for many years in the public affairs of Virginia where he had won a reputation for courage, integrity, and devotion to the public interests. As governor of North Carolina, he showed that he "understood the character and prejudices of the people thoroughly ; and as he was possessed of good sense and proper feeling, he had address enough * gradually to re- store a state of comparative peace." 1 He made himself ac- ceptable to the people by recognizing the validity of the Great Deed, but by the same act incurred the displeasure .of
1 Hawks: History of North Carolina, Vol. II, p. 494.
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the Lords Proprietors who, unable to find any record of that document in England, repudiated his action and revoked his commission. John Archdale, the Quaker governor (1694- 1697), like Seth Sothel, was a Lord Proprietor, but he was like Sothel in nothing else. He was appointed governor be- cause his predecessor, Governor Smith, advised the Lords Proprietors that it was impossible to settle the dis- orders which had broken out in South Carolina "except a Proprietor himself was sent over with full power to heal grievances." Archdale's sagacity, prudence, and sound judgment, together with his experience in colonial af- fairs, pointed him out as the man for the task and he was given extraordinary powers for dealing with the situa- tion. The confidence of his colleagues was justified by the results in both colonies. As a Quaker, Archdale was par- ticularly acceptable in North Carolina where since 1672 the Quakers had grown numerous and influential. He spent the winter of 1696-97 in North Carolina personally directing the government; there his deep religious faith and impeccable personal character tended to encourage religion and morality, while his administration of public affairs was so successful as to elicit from the Assembly the tribute that "his greatest care is to make peace and plenty flow amongst us." Both Jarvis and Harvey, deputies of Ludwell and Archdale, had long been leaders in North Carolina affairs, understood and sym- pathized with the feelings and ideals of the people, and were men of excellent character and good judgment. Henderson Walker, who succeeded Harvey in 1699, had been in the col- ony for seventeen years and had served as attorney-general, justice of the General Court, and member of the Council. A man of education, a lawyer of ability, a Churchman of sin- cere religious convictions, he was deeply interested in the material and the moral and spiritual welfare of the colony, jealous of its good name, and quick to resent the "imputa- tion of evil neighbourhood" which some of its neighbors en- deavored to fix upon it. These men gave to North Carolina fifteen years of good government under the stimulus of which the colony grew and prospered.
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