USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina V. I, Pt. 1 > Part 10
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1659
88
1
THE THIRD EPOCH-1663-1729 PROPRIETARY GOVERNMENT
CHAPTER VIII
ADMINISTRATIONS OF DRUMMOND AND STEPHENS
The settlement of Albemarle .- Governor Drummond .- The first Assembly .- Conditions at Albemarle .- The concessions .- Cessation of tobacco planting .- An Indian war .- Changes in the Proprietors. -Stephens governor .- The great deed .- Act of Assembly .- The marriage act.
The settlement of Albemarle
The excellence of the location, the salubrity of the climate. and the fertility of the soil soon drew to Albemarle consider- able accessions of population. Lawson says that the first who came found the winters mild and the soil fertile beyond expectation, producing everything that was planted to a prodigious increase ; that the cattle, horses, sheep, and swine. breeding very fast, passed the winter without any assistance from the planter; so that everything seemed to come by nature, the husbandman living almost void of care and free from those fatigues which are absolutely necessary in winter countries for providing necessaries; and the fame of this new-discovered country spread through the neighboring colonies and speedily drew other families to it.
Indeed, it was a location abounding in attractions for the hardy pioneer. The great Albemarle River, as they called the sound, its mouth being Roanoke Inlet, while furnishing in its wide expanse a protection from the southern Indians, offered an unfailing supply of fish and game. The broad Chowan was likewise a protection from the Tuscaroras, whose hunting grounds lay on the west and down to the waters of the Neuse. On the east and north were only two small tribes, one of which gave some trouble in 1666, but was
1662
.
SEAL OF THE COUNTY OF ALBEMARLE, 1669-1689. AND CONTINUED IN USE AS THE SEAL OF THE PROVINCE OF NORTH CAROLINA UNTIL THE PURCHASE BY THE CROWN IN 1729. THIS REPRO- DUCTION IS SLIGHTLY LARGER THAN THE ORIGINAL; REVERSE IS BLANK
89
CONDITIONS OF SETTLEMENT
so speedily conquered that the war left no mark on the infant settlement. The pioneers on their separated planta- tions felt no alarm, and were quite free from Indian depreda- tions. In natural advantages Albemarle was incomparable.
"Most of the plantations," says Lawson, "enjoy a noble prospect of large and spacious rivers, pleasant savannahs, and fine meadows, with their green liveries interwoven with beautiful flowers of most glorious colors, hedged in with pleasant groves of the famous tulip-tree, stately laurels and bays, myrtle, jessamine, woodbine and honeysuckle, and other fragrant vines and evergreens, whose aspiring branches shadow and interweave themselves with the loftiest timbers, yielding a pleasant prospect, shade and smell ; proper habi- tations for the sweet singing birds that melodiously entertain such as travel through the woods of Carolina."
Drummond governor
Sir William Berkeley in the fall of 1663 received from the other Proprietors instructions to organize a government at Albemarle, and was authorized to appoint a governor for the settlers on the northern and another for the southern shore of the sound* if he should deem it expedient. The following summer he visited the settlement, then confined chiefly to the waters of the Chowan, and appointed William Drummond governor, and later the Lords Proprietors sent a commission and instructions to Drummond, whose term would seem to have begun in October, 1664. Berkeley was also instructed to appoint six councillors to act with the Oct., 1664 governor, and all other necessary officers; and the governor and councillors together with the freemen or their deputies were to make all laws, which were to be transmitted to the Lords Proprietors within a year for their approval or dis- approval. These laws as enacted were to be in force until they should be disapproved by the Proprietors.
*George Fox. in his Journal, 1672, speaks of Nathaniel Batts. who had been "governor of Roanoak." He had probably been appointed governor under this authority for the southern division. He was buried at Batts's Island, near Durant's Neck.
1663 -
Lawson, History of North Carolina, 110
C. R., I. 50 Chalmers in Carroll's Coll., 11, 283
!
----
00
DRUMMOND AND. STEPHENS, 1664-69
1664
C. R., 1, 52
The governor was to issue all grants for lands, and the secretary was to record them, and these grants, like those in Virginia, were to be void if the land should not be seated in three years. A rent of half a penny an acre was to be paid each year, but rent was not to be exacted for a period of five years. The governor for his compensation was to have the sole trade of furs until some other means of pay- ment should be arranged. Governor Drummond was a Scotchman who had been long settled in Virginia, and was well acquainted with the vicissitudes of pioneer life. He was a man of education, of integrity, and well fitted for his office. Although sparsely settled, Albemarle was now not an un- broken wilderness.
Spring of 1665
Population had flowed in, some of the planters being men of large means, bringing with them from ten to thirty per- sons; and shortly after the government was organized, not later than the spring of 1665, the first Assembly was held, and the little settlement became a self-governing community, a pure democracy, the entire body of the inhabitants acting for themselves, and not through the instrumentality of representatives.
C. R., I, 101
Such was the beginning of the organized government of Albemarle. At that first session a petition was drawn up to be forwarded to the Lords Proprietors, the subject-matter being that the settlers should continue to hold their lands as they had done under the Virginia law, paying only a farthing an acre rent, and that not in cash, but in commod- ities, as was the practice in Virginia. The quantity of land one could take up was dependent on the number of persons he brought into the settlement, and the patents issued show that some of the early settlers were accompanied by a numerous retinue.
C. R., I, 252
As an illustration of the early influx of population, a remonstrance drawn up fourteen years after the settlement was signed by twenty-one persons, who stated that most of them had been inhabitants since 1663 and 1664. These had become Quakers, while there was only one family of that
91
A PURE DEMOCRACY
faith in the settlement in 1672. In 1666 quite a number of settlers came from the Bermuda Islands, and, establishing themselves on Pasquotank River, found employment in ship- building. Trading vessels also began to frequent the waters of Albemarle. the first large ship of which we have a record coming in during the winter of 1664. It was Captain Whittly's vessel, which appears to have been employed by the Proprietors in connection with their colonization. She entered the sound through Roanoke Inlet. and when she came in found fifteen feet of water, but on going out had but eleven feet. and notwithstanding the channel had been marked out, she grounded several times. "So uncertain are all these inlets," remarks Thomas Woodward, who was then the surveyor of the colony.
The concessions
The system of government at Albemarle was soon after- C. R., I, 79 ward still further perfected by the provisions specified in the concessions, bearing date January, 1665, which formulated a general plan, covering all the counties established in the province. All acts of the Proprietors were to be authenti- cated by the great seal of the province, kept at London, while each county was to have its own proper seal, and that designed and adopted for Albemarle continued in use as the seal of North Carolina until after the purchase by the king, in 1729. All grants and deeds for land were to be acknowl- edged or proved by the oath of two witnesses and recorded, and the conveyance first recorded was to be effectual, not- withstanding any prior unrecorded conveyance. This pro- vision, now so common, was then unknown to the English law. It had its origin in Holland, and had been adopted by the settlers in Massachusetts. It was a marked improve- ment on the English system of ascertaining and perpetuating titles. In those first days of settlement. the population being inconsiderable, the freemen were either themselves to meet in General Assembly or were to come together and elect twelve deputies to represent them.
1664 -
Ship- building I6t6
92
DRUMMOND AND STEPHENS, 1664-69
1664
All officers were to swear to bear true allegiance to the king, and to perform their duties faithfully, or were to subscribe a declaration to that effect in a book. There was full liberty of conscience, but the General Assembly was to have power to appoint as many ministers or preachers as they should see fit, giving, however, to all persons the right to have and to support any other ministers or preachers they might please.
Each person coming in during the first year should be entitled to have eighty acres of land for himself. and the same quantity for his wife and every dependent capable of bearing arms, and forty acres for each servant. And ser- vants, after their term of servitude, should have an equal right for themselves. But after the first year only sixty acres were to be allowed instead of eighty. These grants of land, while in fee, were subject to a yearly quitrent pay- able to the Proprietors. The rent, half a penny an acre, was to be paid in money. As an inducement to settlers, however, the first payment of rent was postponed until the year 1671.
Thus, with full liberty of conscience guaranteed, with an agreement that those who did not feel disposed to take an oath of allegiance might merely subscribe a declaration of their fealty, with a stipulation that no tax should be levied or collected except by act of their General Assembly, and that the Assembly, in the absence of the governor or his deputy. might choose a president in his stead, and with an Assembly elected by themselves vested with full power to ordain laws and establish courts and appoint officers to enforce them, the freemen of Albemarle enjoyed every liberty they desired, and being blessed with bountiful harvests, led easy, quiet lives in their sylvan homes.
The development of the "new plantations" progressed rapidly. In addition to their corn and wheat, supplies and 1666 provisions necessary for their subsistence and comfort in the wilderness. the planters also raised tobacco ; and so consider- able was the production of this commodity that when Mary- C. R., I, 117 land, in June, 1666, proposed a cessation from planting
.
93
CESSATION OF TOBACCO PLANTING
1666
tobacco for one year, the agreement was made dependent not merely on the acceptance of Virginia, but by "the new plantations" at Albemarle as well.
An Indian war
Agreeably to that invitation, Governor Drummond and Thomas Woodward, who had been appointed a commissioner to represent the General Assembly, met the other commis- sioners at James City on July 12th and agreed on a plan, which in order to be effective was to be ratified by their respective legislatures, and the ratifications were to be ex- changed by the last of September. The General Assembly of Albemarle met, George Catchmaid, Gent., being the speaker, and passed the desired act; but about that time there was an Indian outbreak and the colony was in peril, and because of the Indian invasion the act ratifying the agreement could not be transmitted within the period lim- ited. However, the delay was only for a few days, and the failure to send the act forward by the day fixed was held immaterial. So by act of Assembly no tobacco was planted during the year 1667.
In October of that year Drummond's term of three years came to its close, and after an admirable administration that capable governor, whose name is perpetuated in that of the beautiful lake in the great Dismal Swamp, gave place to his successor. Drummond retired to Virginia, where ten years later, having engaged in Bacon's rebellion, in January, 1677, he fell into the hands of Governor Berkeley and was sum- marily executed by that insensate and exasperated tyrant.
Changes in the Proprietors
In the meantime notable changes had occurred among the Lords Proprietors. Clarendon, who, being Lord Chancellor, was held responsible by the people of England for all the improper measures of the court since the restoration, had become very unpopular ; while his severe virtue, no less than his opposition to all schemes looking to the toleration of the
Drummond hanged by Berkeley, 1677
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DRUMMOND AND STEPHENS. 1664-69
1667 --
Clarendon banished, 1667
Catholics, had rendered him disagreeable to Charles. In 1667 he became an object of the king's bitter hatred because he ventured to thwart the passionate purpose of that lascivious monarch. On August 30th of that year his seals of office were demanded by Charles, and a month later, out of common hatred, articles of impeachment were presented by the popular leaders against him, and he was charged by the Commons at the bar of the House of Lords with high treason generally, without any allegations being specified. On such a general charge the Lords refused to proceed ; but Clarendon saw that his friends had fallen away, and that both the opposing factions were bent on his destruction, and so, seeking safety in flight, he retired to the continent. A bill of perpetual banishment was passed against him, and he sojourned in Europe until his death, in 1674, his last years being employed in literary work. Such was the closing of the honorable career of this devoted adherent of the Stuarts, but a true Protestant and an honest Englishman. Sir John Colleton had died in 1666, and Sir Peter Colleton succeeded to his place among the Proprietors. Albemarle, the skilful general and brave admiral, who, when London was deserted by all during the great plague of 1665, had given the world an additional illustration of his intrepidity by remaining at his post in charge of the stricken city, had, in 1666 and 1667, won famous victories at sea, and then, falling ill with dropsy, lingered until December, 1669, when his son, Christopher, Duke of Albemarle, succeeded him. Sir George Carteret was vice-chamberlain to his Majesty's household, and Sir John Berkeley was at his post as lord lieutenant of Ireland, while his brother, Sir William, re- mained governor of Virginia.
Colleton dies, 1666
Albemarle dies +
Stephens governor
In October, 1667, the Lords Proprietors appointed Cap- tain Samuel Stephens governor, and sent him for instructions a copy of the concessions published in 1664. So far as the government of Albemarle had conformed to the concessions
95
STEPHENS SUCCEEDS DRUMMOND
there were no changes in the administration. Up to 1667 Albemarle had not been laid off into precincts, but the free- men of the settlement chose twelve deputies, called in the legislation of 1666 "committee," to represent them ; and the General Assembly, composed of the governor, his council, appointed by himself, and the representatives of the people, sat together as one body and enacted laws and had the power to establish courts and define their jurisdiction.
Of Stephens we know but little. His relations with the Proprietors and people seem to have been pleasant. He became the owner of Roanoke Island, and otherwise identi- fied his interests with the growth of the colony. The governor and council held a court for the county, which exercised chancery powers. and had jurisdiction over estates. They sat without pay. but it is probable that considerable gain was made by way of compensation for public service by a monopoly of trade with the Indians.
That Stephens was a gentleman of culture and standing may well be surmised from what is known of his wife; and in like manner it appears that Harvey and some of the other settlers in Albemarle were the equals in social condition of the best of the Virginia planters of that time. Such was the real character of the original settlement, made, as Lawson asserts, by men of substance.
The Great Deed
It was during Stephens's administration that the Lords Proprietors were pleased to answer favorably the petition of the Grand Assembly of 1665, so termed, perhaps, because when the petition was prepared the people had not elected delegates, but themselves assembled under the instructions to Governor Berkeley; and for many years the legislative body of Albemarle continued to call itself "the Grand Assembly."
On May 1, 1668, under the seal of the province, the Lords Proprietors, in response to this request, granted that the inhabitants of Albemarle should hold their lands upon the
1667
Stephens I667-69
Character of settlers
The Grand Assembly
---
96
DRUMMOND AND STEPHENS, 1664-69
1668
same terms and conditions as the people of Virginia, by which the rent became only a farthing an acre and was pay- able in commodities at a fixed price and not in money. This concession was regarded so highly that the instrument con- taining it was called "The Great Deed," and in after years it played an important part in North Carolina matters, and for many years the General Assembly required that it should be securely kept in the personal possession of the speaker of the house.
The Great Deed
Legislation of 1669
At the session of the Assembly held in 1669 there were passed seven acts that have come down to us. One of these recites that no provision had been made for defraying the expenses of the governor and council in time of the courts, and "as the General Assembly thinks it unreasonable that they should spend their time in the service of the county and not have their charges borne, therefore every one who brings a suit in court and is cast shall pay thirty pounds of tobacco" as a sort of tax fee to pay the expenses of the governor and council. Prior to that the governor and council composed the only court held, for as no precincts had been laid off, there were no precinct courts.
In order that Albemarle should not be behind Virginia in offering inducements to settlers, an act was copied from the Virginia statutes prohibiting the institution of any suit for any debt against a person who should come into Albemarle until after five years had elapsed from his arrival.
The Virginia debtor law
.
In 1642 Virginia had passed a similar law, which was formally re-enacted by the Virginia Assembly in 1663, and the settlers in Albemarle coming from Virginia brought with them the remembrance of this legislation as a Virginia insti- tution; and, indeed, similar laws were adopted in other colonies. There were no ministers in the colony, and but few in Virginia ; so an act was then passed that legalized marriage as a civil institution, and provided that a marriage solemnized by the governor or any of his council in the presence of three or four of the neighbors, the certificate thereof being registered by the secretary, should be a valid
97
THE EARLIEST KNOWN LEGISLATION
marriage, and any person violating such a marriage should be punishable as if it had been performed by a minister. This marriage law was born of the necessity of the case ; and as it was founded in reason, the civil marriage thus insti- tuted at Albemarle has since been adopted by all of the enlightened states of the American Republic. These acts were transmitted to England for the approval of the Lords Proprietors, and meeting with their approbation, received their sanction and became the law in the colony.
1669
CHAPTER IX CARTERET'S ADMINISTRATION, 1670-73
The Fundamental Constitutions .- Changes introduced by them .-- The first meeting under the Grand Model .- Carteret governor .--- The Grand Model in practice; The precincts .- The nobility .- The Palatine's Court .- The Quakers .- First dissatisfaction .- Carteret sails for England .- John Jenkins deputy-governor .- Visits from Edmundson and Fox.
The Fundamental Constitutions
The banishment of Clarendon and the long illness of Albemarle made an opening at court for the higher rise of Lord Ashley, a man of superior mental powers and capabilities. He had inherited great wealth, had been studi- ous in the law and in the sciences, and, possessing a strong influence with the people, soon attained the highest position and power among the statesmen of England. A Presby- terian and somewhat of a free thinker, among his intimates was John Locke, the scholar and philosopher, with whom he contracted a friendship based on their common sympathy with civil and philosophical freedom. In 1667 Locke became his secretary, and took up his abode in Ashley's residence. The Lords Proprietors had requested Ashley to prepare a permanent constitution for Carolina, and in the summer of 1669 a rough draught was submitted to them of that famous instrument which has come down to posterity as Locke's Fundamental Constitutions or the Grand Model of Gov- ernment. This instrument was adopted and signed by the Lords Proprietors on July 21, 1669.
The purposes avowed in it were to provide for the better settlement of the government, to establish the interests of the Proprietors with equality and without confusion, to conform the government agreeably to the English monarchy, and to avoid erecting a numerous democracy in their province.
The rise of Shaftesbury
1669
99
THE FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTIONS .
England had just passed through the experiment of the Commonwealth, the course of which was marked by many deplorable excesses. The Proprietors had seen stalwart republicans, seeking an escape from evils of their own crea- tion, unite in offering a crown to Cromwell. and had wit- nessed the establishment of a monarchy clothed with arbitrary power under the specious title of Protector ; and most of them had suffered severely in their fortunes and in their persons during those convulsions; and now that the ancient constitution of the kingdom had been restored, largely through their own instrumentality, they wished to avoid erecting an unsteady and unrestrained democracy in their possessions. They were themselves of the nobility, and possessed in Carolina under the grant of the king even the regal powers that were enjoyed by the owners of the Pala- tine County of Durham. Not unnaturally, they sought to guard their individual rights and privileges. As there were eight Proprietors, to establish equality among them was a chief care. Eight great offices were created : one, the Pala- tine, was assigned to the oldest Proprietor, and upon his death the next in seniority succeeded him. The Palatine was the executive, and the other Proprietors were to be the admiral, chamberlain, chancellor, constable, chief justice, high steward, and treasurer of the province. Carolina was to be divided into counties, and there was to be an hereditary nobility established in each county consisting of one land- grave and two caciques. The other inhabitants were freemen and leetmen, as the landholders were called in the county of Durham; and the institution of negro slavery was recog- nized. An alien by subscribing the Fundamental Constitu- tions thereby became naturalized, but no person over seven- teen years of age could have any benefit or protection of the law who was not enrolled as a member of some religious profession acknowledging the Deity.
Each county was to be laid off into eight seignories, eight baronies, and four precincts, and every precinct was to be subdivided into six colonies. One of the seignories was to
166g
The eight great offices
100
CARTERET'S ADMINISTRATION, 1670-73
1669
Divisions of the land
Leetmen
Freemen
be the property of each Proprietor. It was to contain 12,000 acres, and was to descend to his heirs male, with some provision in case of failure of heirs. Four of the baronies, 12,000 acres each, were for the landgraves, and each cacique was to have two baronies. Each precinct was to embrace 72,000 acres, and each of its six colonies was to contain 12,000 acres. The land in the precincts could be bought and sold at pleasure by the owners, but whoever purchased it had to pay a yearly quitrent of a penny an acre to the Lords Proprietors. Within the precincts, by special grant, a holding of 3000 acres might be erected into a manor, with certain powers and privileges vesting in the lord of the manor, and in that case, being once erected into a manor, it could be sold in fee only in its entirety, and no parcel of it could be conveyed for a longer period than twenty-one years. Provision was made for leetmen within the manors, baronies, and seignories. A person became a leetman by voluntarily entering himself as such in the proper court. On the marriage of a leetman the lord was required to give him ten acres of land for his life, subject to a rent of not more than the eighth part of the yearly produce of the ten acres. The children of leetmen were to remain forever as their parents were ; and they were not to live off of the land of their particular lord without license obtained from him. Being subjects of their lord, all their controversies were to be tried in the leet courts of their lord, who had a feudal jurisdiction over them. Thus, besides negro slaves the inhabitants were to be leetmen attached to the land, freemen, and nobles. That the nobles should be properly maintained, they were to have no power to alienate their property and dignity, which must forever descend undivided to their heirs male, but this provision was not to go into effect until the year 1700.
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