USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina V. I, Pt. 1 > Part 13
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The crisis arrives
C. R., 1, 297
Coming to anchor off Captain Crawford's landing, no sooner had Gilliam gone ashore than Miller charged him with having carried off his last cargo of tobacco without paying the tax, and demanded the payment now of a thou- sand pounds. Gilliam refused to make this payment. alleging that the tobacco had been carried to London and the tax was paid there. He was at once arrested and his papers seized; and Miller having thus begun his proceedings, hastened that night aboard the Carolina, and with cocked pistols sought to arrest George Durant, charging him with treason. This step precipitated the crisis. It led at once to a resolute purpose to overthrow the administration. The men of Albemarle, trained in their sequestered homes to prompt action, now boldly took an open stand. The leader- ship was conferred on John Culpepper, a man of energy
125
CULPEPPER LEADS THE MOVEMENT
and enterprise. and the movement has been known to history as the "Culpepper Rebellion." A report was quickly spread abroad that Gilliam was about to depart and carry all his cargo away, and the inhabitants would lose the chance of trading with him. Such a misfortune, it was declared, con- cerned all the people, and to prevent it a revolution was necessary.
Valentine Byrd. with Culpepper and other coadjutors, im- mediately embodied a force and seized the person of Timothy Biggs, deputy collector of customs, and arrested him on the charge of murder. The next day a force of forty armed men seized Miller and two other deputies and put them in irons, arrested charging them with treason. Culpepper, who is said to have - had considerable experience in insurrection in several of the colonies, now despatched instructions to Richard Foster, who, although one of the council and a deputy, was in alliance with the confederates to arrest Hudson, the deputy collector in Currituck, and to seize his papers and bring him to George Durant's house. And a proclamation, called the Remonstrance of the Inhabitants of Pasquotank, was on the same day, December 3d, prepared and sent to the other precincts, setting forth their justification for the revolt. In it the confederates averred that the occasion of securing the records and imprisoning the president was that thereby the country might have a free Parliament, by whom their grievances might be sent home to the Lords Proprietors. Miller they charged with having denied a free election and with cheating the country out of one hundred and thirty thousand pounds of tobacco, besides the expense of "near twenty thousand pounds of tobacco he had brought upon us by his piping guard," and they recited his conduct toward Captain Gilliam and Durant, "and many other injuries, mis- chiefs and grievances he hath brought upon us, that thereby an inevitable ruin is coming upon us (unless prevented ), which we are now about to do; and hope and expect that you will join with us therein and subscribe this."
1677
C. R., I, 293
Biggs and Miller
The Remon- strance of Pasquotank
Dec., 1677 C. R., I, 248
C. R., I, 249
CHAPTER XI
ADMINISTRATIONS OF HARVEY, JENKINS, WILKINSON AND SOTHEL, 1679-89
The revolt successful .- A government by the people .- Victory brings moderation .- Quiet succeeds the storm .- The revolt against arbitrary power and the navigation acts .-- The Proprietors dilatory .- The increase of Albemarle .- The Proprietors acquiesce. -Seth Sothel sent to govern .- John Harvey governor .- Miller flees .- Durant dominant .- Biggs retires to Virginia .- The Quaker- appeal to the Proprietors for protection .-- Harvey dies ; suc- ceeded by Jenkins .- Culpepper tried, but acquitted .- Shaftesbury in exile .-- Albemarle to observe the law .- Wilkinson governor .- Sothel arrives .- John Archdale visits Albemarle .- A view of the situation .- Sothel becomes a tyrant .- He is expelled.
The revolt successful
The Revolutionists, having appealed to the country for support, lost no time in dallying. A supply of arms was obtained from the Carolina, and Culpepper conducted a force to Chowan, where he seized the marshal and all the records in his possession.
After keeping Miller and the other prisoners about a fort- night at Crawford's house, the Revolutionists proceeded by water to George Durant's, being accompanied by several boats filled with armed men. As they passed the Carolina she, with all her flags and pennons flying, saluted them by firing three of her great guns. At Durant's some seventy men had assembled, and Foster, with an additional party, soon arrived with their prisoner from Currituck. A search was now made for the seal of the colony, which was found, together with Miller's commission and other public docu- ments, concealed in a hogshead of tobacco. Being in pos- session of the great seal and of the public records, and the old officers deposed and in prison, Durant, Culpepper and their associates proceeded to establish a government and to order matters their own way.
1677 C. R., I, 242, 303
C. R., I, 299
Dec., 1677
127
EASTCHURCH IN VIRGINIA
A government by the people
An Assembly of eighteen members was elected, which deputed five of its members (John Jenkins and Valentine Byrd being among the number) to sit with Foster, one of the Proprietors' deputies, and form a court for the trial of the prisoners, who were charged with treason. A grand jury was formed and a petit jury was being summoned when C. R., I, 297, 299 the proceedings were interrupted by the receipt of a procla- mation issued by Governor Eastchurch, warning them to desist and return to their homes. Eastchurch had reached Virginia eight days before, and on learning of the revolt, hastened to demand that the Revolutionists should disperse and be obedient to lawful authority. The trials were ad- journed and a force was despatched to prevent Eastchurch from coming into Albemarle ; and, as Durant had threatened, they kept him out by force of arms. Disappointed and baffled, Eastchurch invoked the aid of the governor of Vir- ginia, there being in that province the troops sent from England to suppress Bacon's Rebellion, and permission was given him to enlist volunteers. To meet this new danger that threatened them the Revolutionists organized a larger force, and to obtain the necessary funds seized the customs money which Miller had collected, and deposed him as collector and elected Culpepper in his stead, following a precedent that had just been set in Virginia, where the Assembly elected a collector to fill a vacancy. But while collecting recruits and organizing his forces Eastchurch fell ill with fever, and within a month died in Virginia. With his death all appre- C. R., I, 298 hension of immediate interference with their plans passed away. Durant and his coadjutors were masters of Albe- marle. All of the deputies but Foster being arrested, and all opposition overcome, the Revolutionists now proceeded more slowly and with greater caution.
Their success had been obtained by boldness and resolu- tion, and it was complete; but looking to the future, they realized that their situation called for the exercise of wisdom
1677
C. R., I, 298
Victory brings moderation
I28
HARVEY TO SOTHEL, 1679-89
C. R., 1, 300
1678 and discretion. The interrupted trials were not resumed. Miller was conveyed to William Jennings's plantation at the upper end of Pasquotank River, where a log house ten feet square was built for his prison, and there he was confined, not being allowed either writing material or intercourse with any friend. Similar prisons were constructed for each of the other prisoners, and precautions were taken to prevent any of them communicating with England. But Biggs con- trived to escape, and, succeeding in his efforts to reach Vir- ginia, hastened to England. To counteract his representa- tions to the Proprietors, the Assembly was convened and two commissioners were despatched to explain their pro- ceedings and to conciliate the Proprietors by promising all manner of obedience to their authority, but they were to enlarge on the tyranny of Miller and to insist strongly for right against him. Chalmers says that these agents were Culpepper and Holden, but apparently he is in error. Some- what later Holden, who had been in England, returning to Virginia stopped in Boston, and while there wrote to the com- missioners of customs about what had taken place in Albe- marle, and mentioned that he had never seen and did not know Culpepper. It is said that one of these commissioners was quickly despatched, Gilliam providing the funds, and that the other, George Durant, was to sail in the Carolina after measures to insure safety were perfected. Shortly after- ward they were both together in London.
Commis- sioners sent to England
C. R., I, 288 A free
government
In the meanwhile there was established in Albemarle what Culpepper called "the government of the country by their own authority and according to their own model." The people had at last a free Parliament. Thomas Cullen was speaker, and among the members were John Jenkins, Alex- ander Lillington, Thomas Jarvis, Henry Bonner, William Jennings, Anthony Slocumb, John Varnham, William Craw- ford, Richard Sanders, Patrick White, and Valentine Byrd, and other substantial men. Byrd's career was, however, fast drawing to a close, and within a year the troubles of Albemarle had ceased for him.
料
129
REASONS FOR CULPEPPER'S REVOLT
Foster, one of the deputies, and the assistants chosen by the Assembly to act with the deputies in forming the grand council, were co-operating with the Revolutionists, and these, under the direction of Durant and Culpepper, managed the public business. While Harvey and many others may have been inactive, yet it does not appear that there was any substantial opposition to the revolt.
As neither the king's authority nor that of the Proprietors was denied, the Revolutionists did not regard themselves as being in rebellion. Indeed, at one time, when some of the people set up a cry that they would have no lords nor land- graves nor caciques, the leaders quickly hushed them and told them that that would not do. They justified their action on tlte claim of right to protect themselves from the arbi- trary exercise of power by Miller; and as to that. the Proprietors found that they had cause for their action. But before Miller came as deputy-governor Durant had declared his purpose to keep Eastchurch out, and he took measures in preparation for the revolt. From the attending circumstances it reasonably appears that the original purpose was to escape from a too rigid enforcement of the navigation laws and custom duties, and to this end Culpepper was chosen collector. The annual tax on tobacco was £3,000, and that was the stake at issue. Indeed, just at that time strenu- ous efforts had been made to obtain from the king a repeal of this export duty. And while Charles, to show his favor to Carolina, did at his own charge send two vessels to con- vey some foreign Protestants to the province, and remitted some of the duties and restraints of trade, and might have granted this particular request, he was persuaded not to do so by his commissioners of customs, who strongly recom- mended against it because they foretold the exemption asked for would occasion abuses more easy to prevent than to abolish.
Thus the outbreak in Albemarle in 1677 was of the same color and similar in origin to the outbreak on the continent
1677
The revolt one against arbitrary power and the naviga- tion laws
Purpose of the revolt
Forerunner of the Revolution
4
130
HARVEY TO SOTHEL, 1679-89
1678
a century later, which in the course of its progress developed into a struggle for separation and independence.
Therefore, while the Revolutionists established courts and held parliaments and maintained order and otherwise carried on the functions of government, his Majesty's customs were not collected with vigilance and exactness.
Biggs
Timothy Biggs, although a Quaker, was by no means submissive to his opponents. Indeed, the Quaker faith in its early days did not have the exact cast that it subsequently assumed. On reaching London, he sought to persuade the Proprietors to put down the Revolution by force. In par- ticular he urged that a ten-gun vessel could not be resisted, and that sufficient volunteers could be obtained in Virginia to rout the rebels. But the Proprietors were not of his mind. They did not choose to engage in such a conflict. Indeed, at that time it would have been difficult for them to have subjugated the people of Albemarle united in determined resistance.
The colony had grown. The tithables, being the working hands between sixteen and sixty years of age, numbered fourteen hundred, of whom, however, one-third were women and negro and Indian slaves. Although the Proprietors had bestowed but little attention on Albemarle, but had devoted their efforts to promote the growth of their new town on the Ashley, the neglected settlement was more populous and more prosperous than the southern colony. The planters were spread out from the Chowan to Currituck Sound ; and besides a superfluity of provisions, of grain and cattle, their annual crop of tobacco was 800,000 pounds, which sufficed to secure the needed European commodities. And the dis- content was general. Perhaps it was heightened because at this time, tobacco being very low, Virginia by act of Assembly undertook to prevent the Albemarle crop from being marketed through her ports, and prohibited any of it from being brought into that province. A measure so unfriendly was exasperating. Efforts had been made to establish local markets at different points on the Albemarle
The increase of Albemarle
Extent in 1677
131
PEACE FOLLOWS STORM
shores, where the tobacco could be taken on board the vessels for shipment, and the Proprietors had given directions to lay off towns at Roanoke Island and elsewhere, but all such endeavors to establish centres of trade had proved futile. The tobacco was loaded at the farms of the producers. There were no villages in the settlement. The public business was transacted at private houses, and while George Durant's house was a place of meeting, yet other points were equally convenient. There was no locality where an attack by an armed force could have availed to subdue the inhabitants. The prudence of Durant now bore its fruits. The Pro- prietors rejected the proposal of the warlike Biggs, and listening to the commissioners of the people, took the other alternative. They sought to co-operate with the inhabitants; and accepting the assurance of the envoys that they had no purpose to antagonize legitimate authority, made efforts to establish order and government at Albemarle on a firmer footing.
While remonstrating and threatening that they would maintain their government with force, if need be, and would punish to the extent of the law any new outbreak, they declined to antagonize the revolutionary leaders, and pur- sued the wiser and better way of preserving friendly relations with their colony. Clarendon was now dead, and his share in Carolina had been purchased by Seth Sothel, who at that time stood well in the esteem of the other Proprietors. It was thought that the presence of a Proprietor would invest the administration with greater dignity and tend to allay the factional strife and dissensions that had been involved in the course of the Revolution. The commissioners representing Durant and his associates, perhaps glad to embrace such an easy solution of their difficulties, promised on the part of the people the utmost submission to Sothel if he should come as governor.
And so it was arranged that he should be the new gov- ernor ; and, the more certainly to remove former difficulties, the Proprietors had Miller's commission as collector of cus-
1579
Proprietors acquiesce
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I32
HARVEY TO SOTHEL, 1679-89
1679 Sothel captured
toms revoked, and Sothel was appointed to succeed him. He early sailed for his new government, but misfortune befell him during the voyage. The Algerines, whose pirati- cal crafts were then scouring the seas near the Mediterranean, overhauled his vessel and took him prisoner. Efforts were at once made to secure his release by ransom, but for a time they were in vain.
1679
John Harvey governor
The Proprietors, to establish a temporary government, in February, 1679, appointed John Harvey governor until Sothel should be released, and obtained for Robert Holden the appointment of collector, at the same time appointing him a deputy and conferring on him a commission to make an extensive exploration of Carolina to the mountains. Holden had been a follower of Bacon in the Virginia rebel- lion, but was pardoned and was then in England. In June he reached Boston, bearing the commissions for Harvey and for the other deputies. There he remained ten days exam- ining into the methods of the New England traders, and he reported that a half dozen traders controlled all the tobacco raised at Albemarle, brought it to Boston, whence it was shipped as bait and illegally conveyed to Europe, and the king's customs were defrauded. A few weeks later he arrived at Albemarle, followed fast by Timothy Biggs, who resumed his functions as surveyor of the customs.
Miller flees
In August Harvey was acting as governor, and at a Pala- tine's Court held by him, on affidavits covering the charges against Miller by Jenkins in 1675, the deposed collector was again arrested, but broke jail and made good his escape to England. The old deputies had been reappointed, and the council and courts were substantially composed of the same members as under Miller's administration. Associated with the council to form the general court, Crawford, Blount, and Varnham were assistants chosen by the Assembly, being the same assistants elected before the outbreak in 1676. And these were members of the Revolutionary Assembly chosen
4
I33
DURANT IN. THE ASCENDANT
at Durant's house when Miller was deposed. Harvey, the governor, had not been an active participant on either side ; but that he was not unfriendly with the Revolutionists is indi- cated by his appointment of George Durant and Alexander Lillington as justices for the precinct of Berkeley, with authority to hold the precinct court, which, besides a civil, had a criminal jurisdiction attached to it.
George Durant was now the attorney-general, and con- tinted to be the most influential person in the colony; and as the Proprietors had condoned the excesses of the Revo- lutionists, he felt his power, and his enemies dreaded it. Biggs, as Miller's deputy collector and zealous supporter, had been an object of especial malevolence ; and, moreover, there was probably some personal ill-will between him and Durant, growing out of Catchmaid's taking a patent in 1662 for Durant's premises : for although Catchmaid had entered into an agreement to convey to Durant, he had never done so, but the legal title had under his will vested in the widow, and on her marriage to Biggs, although he and Durant had come to an accounting, the matter was not closed.
Biggs was tenacious of his rights, a man of stubborn obstinacy, who realized his own importance as a king's officer, and he was fully satisfied with the honesty of his own purposes and of the dishonest purposes of the leaders of the Revolution. Smarting under a sense of the injuries and wrong he had suffered. for which the Proprietors had pro- vided no redress, he declined to be complacent toward the new administration. Harvey having shown favor to Durant and his coadjutors, whose influence was still dominant in Albemarle, Biggs persuaded some of the other deputies to join him in withdrawing from the council, sought to inter- fere with the orderly collection of the customs by Holden and prevailed on a number of his Quaker adherents to leave the colony and seek refuge in Virginia.
In the early days of the Revolution the Quakers had sided with Biggs and James Hill, who were deputies and the most considerable men of their faith. Being called on to join the
1679
Durant dominant C. R., 1, 313
Biggs retires to Virginia
The Quakers appeal tothe Proprietors for protection
13-4
HARVEY TO SOTHEL. 1679-89
1679 C. R., 1, 252
The Quaker remon- strance, 1679
people in revolt, they had refused. Thereupon they were required to surrender their guns; and when they held their religious meetings it was alleged that they were plotting against the revolutionary government. Their numbers had increased considerably, not merely by conversion in Albe- marle, but probably by accessions from abroad. In 1676 Edmundson, who had again visited the colony in that year, wrote in his journal concerning them: "The people were tender and loving ; and there was no room for the priests. for Friends were finely settled, and I left things well among them." When Harvey's administration began, and the gov- ernment, instead of being under the influence of Biggs, as they had hoped, was seen to be controlled by the popular faction, their disappointment was great, and entertaining apprehensions for their personal safety, they were led to abandon their homes. In September, 1679, a number of them joined in a remonstrance to the Lords Proprietors. setting forth their innocence of any turmoil and trouble and vindicating themselves from aspersion. They declared that "these persons by whom we have suffered are still breathing forth their threats against us ; they having received an act of grace and indemnity, as they call it. And now that the heads of that sedition are elected to sit in Parliament, and some of them are of the court, and so consequently to become our judges, we shall be the objects for them to execute their vengeance upon ;" and they appealed to the Proprietors for protection.
John Jenkins succeeds Harvey as governor
The Proprietors sought to compose these differences among the inhabitants of their province, and while allowing to the dominant faction the powers of government, required that the minority should be protected from ill-usage. In the appointment of Harvey they seem to have chosen wisely. and after the first ebullition of dissatisfaction by the adherents of Biggs and Miller had subsided the administration seems to have been guided into calmer waters ; but Harvey was not
Tf
I35
CULPEPPER TRIED FOR TREASON
destined to see the full fruition of his efforts to adjust differ- ences. After a term of six months he died in office, and the council elected John Jenkins to be governor in his stead, Jenkins being in office in February. But the change in administration produced no alteration in policy, and quiet continued to prevail while Jenkins was governor.
1679
Harvey dies
Miller having made good his escape, on reaching England Culpepper acquitted laid his case before the commissioners of customs, and pro- ceedings were had that resulted in the arrest, in February, 1680, of Culpepper. who at that time was in England. on the charge of rebellion and of embezzling the customs. Cul- pepper admitted the facts alleged against him, but prayed for a pardon ; and if not pardoned, he desired to be tried in Carolina. His requests were not granted, and he was arraigned and was on trial for treason when Shaftesbury appeared as a witness and declared that at the time of the Revolution there was no legal government in Albemarle ; that neither the governor nor the government was legal according to the Constitutions of Carolina ; and that taking arms against them could not be treason ; and that the Par- liament elected by the people was legal, the people having a right to choose a Parliament every two years of their own motion and without any writ: and that the disorder in Albe- marle was not treason, but a mere riot. And so on Shaftes- C. R., I, 332 bury's testimony that Miller had obtained possession of the government without legal authority, and that it was not rebellion in the people to dispossess him, Culpepper was acquitted by the jury.
.. . . .
Shaftesbury in exile
This was about the last appearance of Shaftesbury in con- nection with the affairs of Carolina. In 1679 he had attained the zenith of his great career. His unswerving purpose had been to obtain security for Protestantism and constitutional liberty, and he became the head of a strong party devoted to those objects. In order to check the growth of Catholic influences, he had made strenuous endeavors to have the
1680
136
HARVEY TO SOTHEL, 1679-89
1680 - queen removed from court, and to have James, Duke of York, the king's brother, dismissed from the council and excluded from the succession, and the Duke of Monmouth, a Protestant, declared legitimate so that he would succeed to the throne. In these efforts he failed ; but he succeeded in forcing through Parliament the Habeas Corpus Act, which required immediate action on the part of any judge to whom an application for the writ might be made-since become the very palladium of Anglo-Saxon freedom. An election for Parliament occurring in 1681, he prepared instructions to be handed by the constituencies to their representatives, insist- ing on the exclusion of James, the limitation of prerogative, and security against popery and arbitrary power : and he again appealed to the king to legitimatize Monmouth. But the king instead seized him and committed him to the Tower. In October he offered to retire to Carolina if released. Charles, however, was relentless, and had him indicted for high treason ; but the grand jury ignored the bill. Charles, still bent on his destruction, managed to secure the appoint- ment of men of his own selection as sheriffs of London. and these picked the jurymen. Shaftesbury at length realized that he could not escape the vengeance of his enemies and fled in disguise to Holland, where he died in January, 1683.
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