USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina V. I, Pt. 1 > Part 9
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But among the Barbadoes adventurers were some who were not favorable to the location on the Cape Fear, and preferred a settlement further to the southward. The Pro- prietors themselves entertained similar views, and dwelt upon the necessity of establishing a colony at Port Royal. While willing to foster all projects, they regarded with par- ticular favor this new movement. Chief among the pro- moters of it were Colonel John Yeamans, his son, Major William Yeamans, Colonel Edward Reade and Captain William Merrick, and these and their associates were sup- posed to have the greatest influence at Barbadoes. Sir John Colleton, one of the Proprietors who had resided in that Island, was a staunch friend of Colonel Yeamans, and recom- mended that he should be selected to manage the details of
C. R., 1, 75
76
SETTLEMENT ON THE CAPE FEAR
x664
organizing the colony. Resolved on this course, the Pro- prietors ignored the negotiations they had had with Henry Vassall as the agent of the association for the settlement of Cape Fear and determined to treat with Major William Yeamans, who, in the name of his father and eighty other adventurers, made proposals for the exploration of the coast and for establishing a colony further to the southward.
C. R., 1, 94 Yeamans governor of Clarendon County
The negotiations being concluded, the Proprietors, in order to strengthen the probabilities of success, sought and obtained knighthood for Colonel Yeamans, who at their instance was created baronet, and on January II. 1665, they appointed him governor of Clarendon County and of all of Carolina to the southward and commissioned him lieuten- ant-general, and invested him with full powers of control. Contemporaneously with this appointment, the Yeamans association, including some who had been interested in the colony already settled on Cape Fear and other associates in England, New England, the Leeward Islands and the Ber- mudas, agreed on their part that before the last day of September, 1665, they would provide two ships with ordnance and munitions and provisions to make a settle- ment south of Cape Romania, there to settle and erect a fort. These measures being taken looking to colonization, the Lords Proprietors now promulgated their "concessions" and agreement with all who should settle at Albemarle, at Clarendon, and at a county to be established further south, which was to be called Craven.
C. R., I, 78 C. R., 1, 79
"The Con- cessions "
Conditions at Charlestown on Cape Fear
C. R., I, 154-156
The Vassall colony at Cape Fear had now been seated a year and a half, and the additions had been so considerable that a publication intended to promote it claimed that the population was already eight hundred. It is said they brought with them from the Barbadoes cotton seed, which. with corn and pulse, they planted ; and that in their clearings they felled much timber, which was profitably shipped to Bar- badoes; and they erected their houses and built forts, and
.
77
THE ARRIVAL OF YEAMANS
made much progress toward establishing permanent plan- "tions. But despite the influx of population, they were still dependent on others for provisions, clothing, and necessaries. Besides, they had early incurred the enmity of the Indians !: sending away some of the Indian children under pre- tence of instructing them in learning and in the principles of the Christian religion; and although the Indians had no guns, only bows and arrows, they annoyed the settlers and killed their cattle. The fall of 1665 thus found them in a bad case, in want of provisions, clothing and munitions, but they were hopeful of speedy relief and were anxiously expecting the arrival of the governor with needed succors.
1664
Lawson, 127 C. R., I, 137
Yeamans sails from Barbadoes
For some time great preparations had been making at Barbadoes to carry into effect the agreement with the Lords Proprietors. Sir John Yeamans had secured a frigate of gift his own, the associated adventurers purchased a sloop, and the Lords Proprietors bought a fly-boat, the Sir John, of one hundred and fifty tons, which were to be used in the expedition. On the fly-boat were stored the munitions and the provisions and the armament for the fort, a part being twelve cannon, a present from the king. By October, all . being in readiness, the governor and his little fleet set sail for Cape Fear. On the way the vessels were separated by a great storm, in which the frigate lost her mast and came near foundering. But eventually, early in November, they all came to anchor before the mouth of Charles River. Suddenly, however, a fresh gale swept them from their insecure anchorage and drove them to sea; and upon their return the Sir John stranded upon the outer shoals of the bar, where she was soon broken to pieces by the violence of the waves. Those on board fortunately were saved; but the provisions and clothing, the magazines of arms, the powder and the king's cannon were all lost.
Undismayed by his misfortunes, Yeamans began at once to repair his frigate, which with the sloop had gotten safely
The king's
November, 1665 C. R., 1, 119
78
SETTLEMENT ON THE CAPE FEAR
1665 -- into the river, and proposed to send her back to Barbados for recruits, while he awaited the result of an exploration to the southward by Robert Sanford in the sloop. But tin necessities of the colonists, heightened by the loss of the provisions on the fly-boat, led to a great clamoring that the sloop might be sent to Virginia for their immediate relici. To this Sir John assented, and having arranged for the exploration to be made later by Sanford, he himself returned to Barbadoes in his disabled frigate. The sloop reached Virginia and obtained a supply of provisions, but on the return voyage it was driven on shore at Cape Lookout by a violent storm and was cast away. All of the crew except two, however, escaped in their boat, and after many perils contrived to reach the plantations on the Chowan.
An Assembly at Cape Fear
While Sir John was still at Charlestown, probably in De- cember, 1665, an Assembly was held for Clarendon County, he and his council participating ; and an address was pre- pared to be sent to the Lords Proprietors detailing the grievances of the colony and asking for redress. Although Sir John at first agreed to join in this petition, at the last he withheld his signature. In it the Assembly, of which John Vassall seems to have been speaker, and the council complained of the terms set out in "the concessions"; that the rent was too high ; that the method of laying off the land was not satisfactory ; and that the penalty of forfeiture if a man were not kept on every hundred acres was unreasonable. They rehearsed that they had come to Cape Fear notwitlı- standing the obloquy resting upon it, and were promised large holdings of land by those acting for the Lords Pro- prietors ; that after they had embarked upon the enterprise the negotiations with their agent for terms had been inter- rupted by the agreement made with Major William Yea- mans, and now that misfortune had overtaken those acting under that agreement they had lost all interest in sustaining the colony. They therefore prayed that the negotiations
C. R., I, 146 1665 or 1666
79
ADDRESS FROM CHARLESTOWN
which had been interrupted might be again taken up "with 11- and with the adventurers of Old and New England"; and they promised. "when supported by freedom, to trample on all difficulties." And they warned the Proprietors that, being deserted by all, only ruin awaited them, and that they were utterly unable either to proceed or retire without aid, and this they could hope to receive only upon obtaining the terms originally asked.
From this address and other circumstances it appears that the settlement had been chiefly made from New Eng- land, and that when the Proprietors declined to allow them to elect their own governor the New England association refused to proceed; while the adventurers at Barbadoes chiefly looked to the proposed settlement further to the southward. Such was the situation of the colonists in the winter of 1665, eighteen months after the first landing, when Sir John Yeamans was for a short time at Charlestown : the Indians hostile, their cattle being destroyed, constantly C. R , I, 12x menaced by danger, provisions scarce, clothing needed, and influences preventing supplies being furnished them, while they themselves were dissatisfied with the terms of settle- ment offered by the Lords Proprietors. Still, there was some trade, the colonists having lumber to send out, and an occasional vessel visited Charlestown; and one evening in June. Robert Sanford together with some seventeen other inhabitants sailed southward, exploring the coast as far as Port Royal, finding many places that were favorable for settlement, uniting good lands and an excellent harbor with security against attack by the Indians. And, indeed, he reported that he observed an emulation among the Indians to secure the friendship of the English, and this notwith- standing they knew that the colonists at Clarendon were in actual war with the Cape Fear Indians and had sent away many of them. On their return, after a month spent in exploration, their accounts seemed to have increased the dissatisfaction among the inhabitants at Charlestown, who in sending their address to England insisted that "because
1666
So
SETTLEMENT ON THE CAPE FEAR
I666 - they had settled in the worst locality, the heaviest terms should not be exacted from them."
Vassall
C. R., I, 144 John Vassall seems to have been in charge of the colony, and in August. 1666, his cousin, Henry Vassall, their agent in London, again sought a hearing by the Lords Proprietors. He remonstrated with them that after agreeing with him on terms of settlement, they ignored those negotiations and entered into a different agreement with Major Yeamans, - and that the colonists were dissatisfied. He renewed his solicitations for the terms originally agreed on, and declared that many in England, in New England, the Barbadoes and . those actually at Cape Fear now awaited the issue of his last appeal in their behalf. If his demands should be assented to, he said, a good ship was ready to sail with men and provisions, with the likelihood of other ships following in the spring. But otherwise the whole design would be abandoned and those on the place, he asserted, would give up the settlement.
The Cape Fear River abandoned
C. R., I, 160
C. R., I, 161
Vassall's warning seems to have been unheeded. Sir John Colleton, one of the most active of the Proprietors, lay dead. Albemarle was off the coast of Holland fighting the greatest sea battle of that era. The other Proprietors were too closely engaged to give much attention to Carolina. As time passed the situation at Clarendon grew steadily worse. In November, John Vassall sent an agent, Whitaker, to give an account of the condition of the colonists, but he was taken prisoner either by the French or the Dutch, and his mission failed. Vassall wrote that he "had not heard a word from any of the Proprietors since he received his commission by Mr. Sanford," in November, 1664. But the settlers still had friends in Massachusetts. The General Court of Massa- chusetts, touched by their distress, imposed a general tax for their benefit throughout that colony, and for a season the necessities of Charlestown were relieved. Such measures,
لته
81
CHARLESTOWN ON CAPE FEAR ABANDONED
however, were only palliatives and not remedies. The causes i discontent continued without abatement.
Vassall, who had spent much of his means in the enter- prise, was greatly interested that it should not fail.
He sought to keep the colonists together. and for a time succeeded. But at length they found a way by land to Albemarle, and neither his arguments nor his authority could longer prevail to quiet them. He therefore detained the first vessel that came in until he could collect others to take them all away together. Some went to Virginia, but the larger part returned to Boston; so, in September, 1667. three years after the landing of the colony, Charlestown was deserted and Clarendon County again became a solitude. Vassall himself stopped in Nansemond. Virginia, and from there, on October 6. 1667, he wrote to Sir John Colleton, of whose death he had not heard, a touching letter : "I presume you have heard of the unhappy loss of our plantation on Charles River, the reason of which I could have never so well understood had I not come hither to hear-how that all who came from us made it their business to exclaim against the country as they had rendered it unfit for a Christian habi- tation; which hindered the coming of the people and sup- plies to us, so as the rude rabble of our inhabitants were daily ready to mutiny against me for keeping them there so long. . . . And. indeed, we were as a poor company of herted people, little regarded by any others and no way able to supply ourselves with clothing and necessaries, nor any considerable number to defend ourselves from the Indians ; all of which was occasioned by the hard terms of your con- cessions, which made our friends that set us out from Bar- badoes to forsake us: so as they would neither supply us with necessaries nor find shipping to fetch us away. Yet lad we had but f200 sent us in clothing, we had made a wafortable shift for another year. And I offered to stay there, if but twenty men would stay with me, till we had heard from your Lordships; for we had corn enough for two years for a far greater number, and though the Indians
October, 1667 C. R., I, 159
ขึ้น
82
SETTLEMENT ON THE CAPE FEAR
1667
had killed our cattle, yet we might have defended ourselves. But I could not find six men that would be true to me to stay, so was constrained to leave it, to my great loss and ruin."
Thus the fair beginning of a settlement was defeated by some unreasonable quibbling over a few acres of land in a vast wilderness, and over the mode of appointing a governor for a distant colony hedged in by the perils of Indian warfare; while the troubles of the colonists them- selves were intensified by their selling into slavery Indian children and also such Indian captives as fell into their hands during the war that followed that act of heartless tyranny and treachery.
A new Charlestown on the Ashley
However, the Lords Proprietors were not entirely inactive. Indeed, their prospects were now improved, for Spain by a treaty executed in 1667 abandoned her claim to Carolina and conceded to England her colonial possessions and the right to trade in those waters. So contemporaneously with the abandonment of Cape Fear the Proprietors fitted out a vessel under the command of Captain William Sayle, and sent him to make another exploration of the coast. After his return with a favorable report of Port Royal, the Pro- prietors. having formed themselves into a stock company, made a great effort and raised twelve thousand pounds, with which they prepared two vessels amply stored with pro- visions and arms, and bearing a considerable number of emigrants. They appointed Sayle governor, and the expedi- tion, departing from England, arrived at Port Royal in 1670. But after a year spent in that locality, the settlers were led to remove to the west bank of the Ashley River, some miles from its mouth. where they began a new Charlestown. Within a year, however, Sayle succumbed to disease. West. who was the mercantile agent of the Proprietors, hoped to succeed him, but Yeamans, being a landgrave, was entitled to be governor, and taking up his residence in Carolina, as-
1670 Port Royal
83
THE SOUTHERN COLONY PLANTED
1671
sumed the reins of government, and continued to be governor for five years, when, because of dissatisfaction with him. he was retired and West was made a landgrave and appointed governor. In 1679 the present city of Charleston* was laid 1679 off at the junction of the Ashley and Cooper rivers, and the colony removed thither ; the government offices were estab- lished there, and it soon became a thriving and prosperous community.
Slavery in the colonies
When in 1494 Pope Alexander VI, at the request of Portu- gal and Spain, apportioned the New World between them, Spain was forbidden any possessions east of the one -hun- dredth meridian, and could have no foothold in Africa. So after the trade in negroes was begun, Spain looked to English enterprise to supply her colonies with negro laborers, and a considerable traffic in negroes sprung up. Later, when Eng- land established colonies of her own, white labor was obtained either by contract, the men engaging for a limited period of bondage, or by the purchase of those who had been condemned to servitude for some infraction of the law. Every rising against the government, either in England, Ireland, or Scotland. was followed by the transportation of large numbers of the unfortunate malcontents to the colonies. where they were either sold or bestowed as a gift upon some favored planter. In Virginia, the whites held in bondage were chiefly indented servants. under contract for a term of years, although from time to time those condemned to penal servitude, in some instances at their own request, were sent there. The demand for labor in the "new plantations" being great, a thriving trade was done in indented servants. kidnapped children and condemned persons; and since in the course of this horrid business many outrages occurred, the subject received the attention of the Board of Trade, of Parliament, and of the courts. In 1620, an English vessel, having captured some negroes on board of a Spanish ship,
*For nearly a century it was called Charlestown.
St
SETTLEMENT ON THE CAPE FEAR
Slaves in New England
1659 fell in with a Dutch man-of-war, which took possession of the negroes. twenty in number, and stopping at Jamestown the Dutch commander traded them for needed provisions. In 1638 the first importation of negroes was made into New England at Boston, and contemporaneously with this, at the end of the Pequod War, Massachusetts and the other New England colonies enslaved their Indian prisoners, selling the men to the islands in the Caribbean Sea, but keeping the women and maids among themselves. From that period both Indians and negroes were used as slaves among the English colonists. In 1631 the African Company was chartered to transport negro slaves from Africa to the Spanish colonies, and soon after the Restoration, 1662, the second African Company was chartered, with exclusive rights to carry on the slave trade, the Duke of York and other nobles being at the head of it. Twelve years later this company was supplanted by the Royal African Company, composed of the king, his brother the Duke of York, and other notables, among them four of the Proprietors of Carolina. When Queen Anne came to the throne she specially directed that the Royal African Company should take care that a sufficient supply of merchantable negroes should be fur- nished at moderate rates, and the slave trade grew to enor- mous proportions. In 1713 England entered into a contract with Spain, known as the "Asiento," for the exclusive right of supplying the Spanish colonies with negroes for thirty years; and the stock in the company holding this franchise was taken, one-fourth by the King of Spain, one-fourth by Queen Anne, and the other half by her favored friends. To maintain this exclusive right of carrying on the slave trade England engaged in sundry wars, and at the Peace of Utrecht she required that it should be solemnly engrafted into the treaty.
Royal African Company
C. R., III, 115
The Asiento, 1713
1659
As early as the settlement of Albemarle the institution of slavery had been well established, and there were whites, Indians, and negroes held to bondage. The Indian tribes themselves sold their prisoners taken in their neighborhood
85
SLAVERY IN ALBEMARLE
wars to the colonists. And as in Africa wars were con- tinually carried on to secure slaves for the slave marts, so in America wars were fomented to obtain Indian prisoners to be sold into slavery. Beginning in Massachusetts, this practice of capturing and enslaving Indians led to the de- struction of the first settlement on the Cape Fear and to many of the wars in South Carolina, and it stimulated the South Carolina Indians to come to the aid of North Caro- lina in 1712, the captives taken at that time being sold in the West Indies and in New England. Indeed, so many were sent to Connecticut that the governor and council forbade the importation of any more Tuscaroras for fear that in connection with the neighboring tribes they would be a source of danger to that colony. At the time of the settle- ment of Albemarle there were two thousand negro slaves in Virginia, while the white indented servants were four times that many. In 1683 the white servants were sixteen thousand, while the negroes were but three thousand.
The Indian inhabitants
The aborigines of North Carolina at the time of the settle- ment consisted of many different tribes of Indians, each having its own language. Near the great lakes of the North were the Algonquins and the Iroquois. Some of these moved southward and became inhabitants of North Carolina. The Indians of the South are supposed to have come from across the Mississippi River, and they extended into North Carolina. Not only did these differ from the northern Indians in language, but they were not so bar- barous and they had made more progress from the savage state. One of the tests now applied to determine whether a tribe was of southern or northern origin is its pottery and its ornamentation. It is said that the northern Indians had made such a slight advance that none of their pottery was decorated by a curved line. Pottery bearing curved ornamentation has been found in western North Carolina and also in eastern Carolina, and in a general way it has
1659
Conn. Col. Rec., V, 516
Indian civilization
86
SETTLEMENT OV THE CAPE FEAR
1659
Rep. Bu. Eth., XX, 147, 159
been said that a line drawn from Hatteras marked the boun- daries of the southern and northern Indians. There is reason to believe that the southern Indians occupied North Carolina and were measurably expelled by fierce tribes from the north. except along the coast.
Indian origins
The Indians on the Cape Fear were Congarees. The Hatteras and Coranines were southern Indians, and per- haps also the Chowanoaks, who afterward became known as Meherrins. The Mongoaks, later the Tuscaroras, the Woccoons, and perhaps the Pamlicos, were northern Indians. The Catawbas were southern. In 1656 the Rechahecrians came from the north, fought with the Vir- ginians, and passed southward into the mountains. It is supposed they became the Cherokees, who have been ascer- tained to be of northern origin .* Tradition assigns several points in the Haw and Deep River country as scenes of great battles between the northern and southern Indians.
C. R., V, 9
Brickell in 1729 went on a mission to the Indians in that part of the province, and in December, 1752, when Bishop Spangenberg explored the lands on the upper Catawba, he found the remains of an Indian fort, as also "tame grass, which is still growing about the old residences on the north- east branch of Middle Little River."
There was always antagonism between the northern and southern Indians, and the Catawbas were at constant war with the Tuscaroras. Not only were the tribes destroyed by their continual wars, but they were exterminated by disease. The Pamlicos, that had been very numerous, about 1694 were swept away by an epidemic, and later the Catawbas were destroyed by the smallpox. Other tribes met with a similar fate.
The Indians have left many memorials of their former existence in North Carolina, which, however, have not been carefully preserved. One intelligent investigator. Dr. Dil- lard, says : "One of the largest and most remarkable Indian mounds in eastern North Carolina is located at Bandon, on
*Now classed as Iroquois.
:
87
THE CAROLINA INDIANS
the Chowan, evidently the site of the ancient town of the thowanokes, which Grenville's party visited in 1585, and was called Mavaton. The map of James Wimble, made in 1738, also locates it at about this point. The mound extends along the river bank five hundred or six hundred yards, is sixty yards wide and five feet deep, covered with about one foot of sand and soil. It is composed almost exclusively of mussel shells taken from the river, pieces of pottery, ashes, arrow-heads and human bones. .
· Certain decorations
on their pottery occur sufficiently often among the Indian tribes of the different sections to be almost characteristic of them. A sort of corncob impression is found on a great deal of Chowan pottery and also in Bertie. There are also pieces with parallel striations, oblique patterns, small diamond pat- terns formed by transverse lines, evidently made by a sharp stick. Some are decorated with horizontal lines, while a few are perfectly plain. In the deposits on the Chowan River, at the site of the ancient Chowanoke town of Mava- ton, the decorations on the pottery are both varied and artistic. I have never seen so many distinct pat- terns occurring in the same mound as at Avoca, left there by the Tuscaroras. The ancient Tuscarora town of Metackwem was located in Bertie County just above Black Walnut Point, and most probably at Avoca, from the extensive deposits there."
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