USA > South Carolina > A sketch of the history of South Carolina to the close of the proprietary government by the revolution of 1719. With an appendix containing many valuable records hitherto unpublished > Part 4
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Retaliation and a relentless spirit of revenge were fostered by the various tribes as a means of preserv- ing the public honor. Murder for murder, scalp for scalp, was the principle sustained and enforced by the unanimous sentiment of entire nations. In their rude system of ethics, to kill one that had injured them was not murder; to revenge-and to do so with every possible aggravation-was superior to all obligations and passions which could restrain or impel their savage nature. In the redress of private wrongs, the legislative and judicial power was but the imperative force of custom; the executive was the strength of each man's own right arm. "In cases of murder, the next in blood is obliged to kill the murderer, or else he is looked upon as infamous in the nation where he lives ; and the weakness of the executive power is such that there is no other way of punishment but by the Revenger of Blood, as the Scripture calls it. For there is no coercive power in any of their nations."*
In the royal grant of the immense tract of Indian
* Oglethorpe's letter, in Gentl. Mag. 1733, p. 413.
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territory embracing our State, the motive of con- verting the heathen to Christianity was prominently set forth. If indeed a serious signification were attached to this project, no period or method for its accomplishment seems at any time to have been con- templated. The first effort toward such conversion was made in 1702, when a missionary to the Yamas- sees was sent from England by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. The governor of the province, however, on account of the relations then existing between the colonists and Indians, considered the mission impolitic; and the labors of the missionary were directed to the settle- ment near Goose Creek .*
The hostile occupation of their country, the spirit of encroachinent and aggrandizement displayed from the beginning, and the warlike attitude necessary for the temporal prosperity of the settlement, were obviously at variance with the teachings of the Bible ; whilst the conflicting efforts of the Spanish missionaries, and the disreputable lives of many white men in their towns, produced in their minds a
* Besides the English residents, the slaves particularly were within the field of his labors. Importations from Africa often introduced greater savages and a worse heathenism, and, if possible, stranger dia- lects than those which were found existing in our forests. We may here mention that a natural antipathy was felt by the Indians against the negroes, and that to their unconquerable aversion the colonists for a long period owed much of their security. The sagacity and dislike of the Indian, when put in requisition, reclaimed the runaway in a wonderfully short time from the densest swamps and thickets. We have read nowhere of any alliance, intercourse, or sympathy between the two races. For the dangerous position of the settlers, ride Hewitt, p. 508; Statutes at Large, vol. 2, p. 648; MSS. Gov. Glen in 1754.
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complete indifference to our religion .* To become Christians, moreover, was to cease to be Indians ; to cease from retaliation and revenge, from battle and the gory scalp, and from ancient customs and rites which distinguished them as a separate people.
It was a mistake to represent the Indians as willing to embrace Christianity. It was also erroneously said by many writers that they had no religion. What their hereditary belief really was, we cannot well understand ; but that they had a religion, and pertinaciously strove to. conceal it from strangers, will be shown in a brief notice of one of their cere- monies.}
* Some things the Indians willingly learned from the whites :- " A French dancing master settling in Craven county, taught the Indians country dances, to play on the flute and hautboit, and got a good estate ; for it seems the barbarians encouraged him with the same extrava- gance," &c. (Oldmixon, 1708.)
"They never argue against our religion, but with all imaginable indifference own that it is most proper for us that have been brought up in it." (Law, p. 238.) This author thought that amalgamation with the settlers was the surest means of their conversion. In 1707, the pream- ble to a law states, " the greater number of those persons that trade among the Indians in amity with this government, do generally lead loose, vicious lives to the scandal of the Christian religion, and do like- wise oppress the people among whom they live by their unjust and illegal actions." By subsequent notices in the Carolina Gazette, this conduct appears never to have been remedied. Two traders once pur- chased Bibles in Charleston, which was thought sufficiently remarkable to be mentioned in the newspaper.
t Adair, who had the best opportunities for comprehending their belief from his friendship with them and long residence in their midst, found them offended and distrustful when he wrote letters or took notes ; and he confesses that one of his difficulties was " the secresy and close- ness of the Indians as to their own affairs, and their prying disposition into those of others." The tribes of North Carolina had many customs " for which they will render no reason or account, and to pretend to 5 A
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The French garrison at Fort Charles, in 1562, were on most friendly terms with an Indian king, who invited them to certain religious " ceremonies most strange to recite." The chief, however, kept his foreign friends closely in his wigwam during the cele- bration, and was greatly offended when he noticed some of them laughing. " This he did," says Lau- donniere, " because the Indians are very angry when they are seen in their ceremonies." Notwithstanding the subtlety of one of the Frenchmen, who hid him- self in the woods to watch their proceedings, and afterward the bribing of an Indian boy to disclose the meaning of its worship, the strangers remained in ignorance of its nature. Two centuries later, Adair endeavored to solve the secret. His account of the celebration differs in several respects, but it evidently relates to the same divinity ; and the changes may be ascribed to the lapse of time, or the varying customs of nations who held but little intercourse with each other. The holy drink of the cusseena plant was prepared for this religious solemnity ; and, during the ceremonies they sang in monosyllables " their sacred mysterious name."*
give a true description of their religion is impossible, let writers pre- tend what they will." "I could never get admittance to see what they were doing, though I was at great friendship with the king and great men, but all my persuasions availed me nothing." From the mysteries spoken of, the majority of the Indians were also excluded. (Lawson, p. 211.) Adair tells us that those who ventured improperly upon the religious ceremonies " were dry-scratched with snakes' teeth, fixed in the middle of a split reed, or piece of wood, without the privi- lege of warm water to supple the stiffened skin." (p. 47.)
* See also Bartram, p. 458. Law, pp. 24, 90 ; Adair, p. 97. But to conclude with the last author, that Jehovah was the mysterious name
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The more simple and common belief recognized two spirits ; the one good, the other evil. The one they regarded as the maker of every thing, the giver of the fruits of the earth and of all blessings ; the other was the author of all the ills and calamities of life. They believed in the immortality of the soul, and in future rewards for good and wicked deeds, of which they could give " a pithy account." But their opinion of the benevolence of the Great Spirit induced them, generally, to believe that the life beyond the grave would be one of felicity only, the joys of which would resemble those of earth. The effect of this belief was a stoical indifference under most dreadful affliction, and calmness and bravery in perils and in death. Absurd legends and supersti- . tions of imaginary agents were also found among them ; but the priesthood enjoyed no distinction as an organized class, and owed their prominence in the community in a great measure to the trickery of the fortune-teller, and to their pretensions in the medical art.
There were among the Indians some more dis- tinguished than the rest for an observance of moral rules and the laws of nature. Their shrewdness and reflection, and the mental and bodily activity exercised in the hunter-life, produced in many instances a development of the moral and rational
of the God whom the Indians worshiped, would require us to be first convinced that they were descendants of the ancient Jews. Schoolcraft remarks of the Indians of the present day, that though they believe in many gods (or spirits,) they worship only one ; and they look forward to a future life of sensual enjoyment. See also Bradford's Amer. Antiq. -
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being that must be esteemed remarkable in compari- son with their rude mode of living, and their delight in barbarous customs. But the restraints of recti- tude and clemency could not encompass or withhold the wild passions of the multitude, and particularly of the unbridled young men. Theft and robbery, adultery and murder, were not unknown among them, and frequently entailed an obligation to further depredation and crime, from their custom of private retaliation. Sometimes a vicious malefactor, being an outcast from his own people, roamed the forests alone, or sought refuge and sympathy in an ignoble tribe. Sometimes the guilty were condemned to death in a summary manner, or delivered up for punishment to the party whom they had injured. In war they were all alike. In peace they were as different as are the estimates of the different travel- ers who have described their character. On the Wateree, the Indians, we are told, were thieves, stealing with their feet if you watched their hands; lazy and poor, living in dark, smoky, cabins ; or shockingly licentious and despicable. On the other hand, the Creeks are extravagantly described as honest, hospitable, affectionate, industrious, temper- ate, forbearing, and needing no European civilization.
A century ago the annual export from Charleston of deer skins alone was seventy thousand. With the exception of rice, the furs and skins, of various kinds, obtained from the Indians, were then by far the most valuable commodity in the colonial trade .*
* Gov. Glen's " Description of South Carolina."
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But the exportation of rice had been rapidly increas- ing in proportion to its more improved and extensive culture ;* whilst the skins had been an article of export for seventy or eighty years, and the hunters and the beasts which they pursued had equally decreased in the forests around us. Turning our attention back to earlier times, we find that in 1731 the quantity of rice exported was much less, while the deer skins were about 255,000, and the annual rate " above 200,000." Moreover, there was a vast difference in the labor and expense of procuring these commodities. "They carry on," says a writer of that time, " a great trade with the Indians, from whom they get these great quantities of deer skins, and those of other wild beasts ; in exchange for which they give them only lead, powder, coarse cloth, ver- milion, ironware, and some other goods, by which they have a very considerable profit .; And earlier still, in 1700, the Indian trade was so lucrative, as to cause the remark that those who engaged in it
* The value of the swamp and river lands was long unknown. They were regarded as pestilential. When found to be best adapted to the cultivation of rice, and this had become a staple commodity, the impor- tations of slaves increased as follows: in 1715, forty-five years after the settlement, there were in the colony 10,000 blacks ; in 1724, 32,000; in 1731, 40,000; in 1763, about 70,000.
t "A description of the Province of South Carolina, drawn up at Charlestowne, in Sept., 1731."
From the MSS., 1716, I take the following prices : Pistol, 20 skins ; axe, 5 skins ; sword, 10 skins; 12 flints, 1 skin; knife, 1 skin ; 30 bul- lets, 1 skin. All skins considered alike, including beaver. But the prices are very variable, as are seen in the records. The Indians often came to Charleston to obtain a regulation of rates.
In Gov. Glen's time the skins sold-Deer skins, £50 sterling a hun- dred ; Beaver, 4s. 33d. a pound.
5 **
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became rich sooner than any other people in the province .*
Before the removal from old Charles Town, on the western bank of the Ashley, the proprietors forbade all trade with the Indians for seven years, that the settlers might become " more numerous and better able to defend themselves." At the close of the Westoe war in 1681, many individuals had added to their traffic the purchase of captives, and the pro- prietors endeavored to check abuses of this kind in the trade and intercourse with the natives, by taking under their protection (nominally) all the Indians within four hundred miles of Charleston.+ In 1691, it became expedient to limit, by a heavy penalty, the extent of trade and traveling to the vicinity of the settlement ;¿ but private enterprise soon rendered the enactment nugatory, for Archdale relates, not many years after, that the colonists had extended their inland trade to the distance of one thousand miles.
It was however of much greater importance to regulate the trade than to prescribe its limits; to secure, if possible, justice to the Indians, and to pro- tect and promote the interests of the settlers. In the constant struggle of the legislature against the cupidity and oppression of their countrymen, no efficient plan for the regulation of the trade appears . to have been adopted until 1707; when Commission- ers, amenable to the Assembly, were appointed as
* Lawson, p. 87.
t Chalmers and Oldmixon, Carr. Coll., pp. 313, 409. See also Appendix.
# Statutes, 2, p. 64.
.
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superintendents and directors ; an agent, with a stated salary, was chosen, who could only be removed by the Assembly; a pecuniary equivalent was granted to the governor in lieu of the presents it had been customary for him to receive from Indian deputations,* and stringent measures were enacted in regard to the subordinates engaged in the trade, and the manner in which it should be conducted. After 1716 the trade required garrisons and fac- tories,+ and had become so important a source of wealth as to be jealously guarded as a means of public revenue. But the policy of bringing the whole system within the cognizance of the Assembly, excluded the executive from an exercise of power in the most active field of his government, whilst he owed his position at the head of affairs to an authority often at variance with the Assembly and the people. Hence numerous laws were passed and repealed, yet the Indian trade never became free from abuses, nor established and governed with that energy and concentration of purpose which its impor-
* £200 were offered to Sir Nath. Johnson as an equivalent for his Indian perquisites, and refused. He was granted £400. In 1716, the annual compensation was £200.
" It being the resolution and sense of the whole country not to have any more a settled store among the Indians, but by degrees cause the Indians to come to our forts and purchase what they want."-MISS.
" The Charikees utterly dislike coming down to the garrisons to deal, and will not agree to that proposal on any account, (except for rum)."- MS. Journal Comsr. of Trade, 1710-1718.
Many abuses and much bloodshed would have been prevented had this wise course been adopted at the beginning of the settlement ; but the enterprise of the traders continued to resist the most salutary laws, as is exhibited through the pages of numerous volumes in Secretary of State's Office:
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tance and complicated interests demanded ; notwith- standing the subsequent modifications of the system by which, (on the transfer of the colony from the proprietors to the king,) the royal governors obtained a more immediate control of the officers employed in the management of its affairs.
The leading men of the colony were from the beginning more or less engaged in the Indian trade. Agents of the merchants in Charles Town traversed the forests hundreds of miles from the settlement, in the midst of distrustful and sanguinary multitudes, among whom to be timid was hazardous, and to be audacious was almost certain death.
Many traders lost their lives by their imprudence. Many were dissolute and worthless, and were despised even by the savages. Many conciliated favor and ensured their own safety by adopting the Indians' habits and marrying among them. But, on the other hand, some were gentlemen, who doubtless would have achieved renown in the most arduous and impor- tant duties of a public career.
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Let us follow a trader who is going to the Chick- .esaws. The governor of South Carolina has told him to keep a journal of all that occurs, that he might be informed of the condition, resources, and policy of the tribes. We will follow him from the enlivening activity of a thriving commercial town ; from the teeming farms and plantations of the col- onists ; from the huts by the wayside and from the drunken gaze of lounging Indians who have learned only the vices of the white men; from some old homestead of departed warriors, over the ruins of
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which bounds the affrighted stag; beneath the moss- covered oaks; then far off amid the dull uniformity of interminable pines ; over the smooth river in the swift canoe ; across the slippery ford of the boister- ous stream ; and far again into the solemn stillness of the forest; challenged now by a group of mocca- sined hunters; now suddenly avoided by the scam- pering of nude and black-haired urchins to some vil- lage near, where old squaws anxiously inquire the price of rum, and the girls offer their choicest smiles for beads or yellow tape. But what does he record in his journal ?# May 28. " A gang of Choctaws set a house on fire in the night, but did no other mischief. June 12. A gang of Quapaws killed and scalped six Chickesaws in the night, at a hunting camp. July 20. Eleven Chickesaws who went to the river Mississippi in order to meet with the French, accordingly discovered several boats on the north side of said river; they attacked them and caught several, but were at length forced to quit them by the fire made by the French; and are returned with several of their party wounded. 24th. A small gang of Choctaws came into the nation in the night, killed a fellow and wounded a child as they were asleep on a corn-house scaffold. August 1. Five Chickesaws were killed by the Cherokees, being a hunting on the Cherokee river. 14th. The Choc- taws kill a young fellow in the night. Sept. 26. Three Chickesaws were killed at their hunting camp by a gang of Choctaws." A gang of Chicke- saws arrive, who had gone in a war party against
* MS. Journal of Mr. Buckles, 1757; Bk. No. 4, Secr. Off.
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the French fort on the Wabash, bringing one French prisoner. " From Sept. 26 to Oct. 26. Five gangs of Chickesaws went to war against the Choctaws and French, and one gang against the Cherokees; the latter I did all in my power to hinder, to no purpose ; they having lost no less than ten of their warriors, who were killed by said Cherokees. Oct. 5. Five Chickesaws were killed by the Choctaws at a hunting camp. Dec. 15. The Choctaws killed a Chickesaw fellow as he was going out a hunting, and carried off a woman and two children prisoners. 16th. The Chickesaws pursued them; came up with them; killed five, and redeemed said woman and children. 18th. A gang of Chickesaws went against the French on the 20th September; returned, having killed one Frenchman and brought in his scalp. 19th. A gang of Chickesaws returned from war with one Choctaw scalp. Feb. 8. A Chickesaw woman was killed in sight of the houses by the Choctaws. 14th. A Chickesaw was killed by the northward Indians. 16th. A woman was killed and scalped as she was cutting wood in sight of the houses, by the Choctaws."
After so disastrous a system of warfare, how hum- ble and mournful in its tone was their language to the English governor : " It is truc, some years ago, we did not mind how many our enemies were; but that is not our case at present : our numbers being reduced to a handful of men, and thereby we are rendered incapable of keeping our ground without a continuance of your friendly assistance. We are not able to hunt, nor are we free from the hands of our
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enemies even in our own towns ; so that it is impossi- ble for us to kill deer to buy clothing for ourselves, our wives, and children, or even to purchase ammuni- tion. This the English traders who come among us are too sensible of, from the small quantity of skins they have carried out of this nation these two last years, to what they used to do formerly."*
The same practices of mutual revenge and barba- rity prevailed among all the Indians. Before the dis- covery of this continent, many great nations must thus have dwindled away, ; till none of their lineage was left to rehearse the history of the mighty chief- tains who once led their thousands of plumed and painted warriors to the ambuscade and battle field. Sometimes, as we have still on record, fatal diseases broke out, which neither the rattles, nor bags, nor charms, nor incantations of their medicine-men could check or alleviate ; and the sad survivors bade farewell to their homes, and departing far from the infected region, sought for some spot which they believed the Great Spirit had not cursed, and where their little ones might grow up like sturdy oaks, and the eagle and the buffalo become the emblems of their tribe .¿
* MS. Ind. Bk. Secr. Off.
t In the " Altera Navigatio, Duce Laudonniero," of 1564, (De Bry,) we find the same system of warfare. " Reges bella inter se gerunt assidua fere, nullique viro hosti, quem capere possint, parcunt ; deinde caput adimunt, ut cutem cum capillis, habeant, qua domum reversi trophæum statuant."
# This general sketch of the Indians who lived in and near South Carolina seemed necessary for appreciating the dangers and difficulties of the early English settlers. For minute descriptions of tribes and customs, see Adair and Lawson in particular, and the authors referred to in preceding notes.
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CHAPTER III.
English Settlements in North America-Charles II. grants the region south of Virginia to eight noblemen, in 1663-Origin of the name of Carolina-The Proprietors and the Services they had rendered to the King-Opposition to their Claims set aside-Their first . Efforts to form a Colony-Settlements in Albemarle and Clarendon counties-Liberal Concessions to Settlers-Forms of Government permitted-Policy of the Proprietors-The second Charter, and ex- tension of the Carolina grant-Synopsis of the Charter of 1665- The Religious Intolerance at that time in England, and the Religions Freedom bestowed by the Charter-Differences of the Charters of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Carolina.
AFTER the French abandoned the plan of settling at Port Royal, no other European settlement was attempted in South Carolina for more than a hundred years. But during this interval English colonies had been successfully established in several parts of New England, and in Maryland and Virginia. Charter's and grants of land were liberally bestowed upon in- dividuals and companies by the kings and queens of England.
The commercial and political advantages of these colonies were not then apparent; and the British go- vernment did not extend to them its powerful pro- tection, nor maintain them by its ample resources. Yet it was evident that its dominion would be en- larged and its claim to vast portions of America substantiated, by the settling there of all who were willing to leave the comforts of home or anxious to escape its ills. Strong, indeed, must have been the motives which led these adventurers to encounter the
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perils and hardships of a long voyage, and the still greater privations and dangers that awaited them in a wilderness and among hordes of savages.
While the Spaniards, and in many cases the French, sought for gold or the glories of conquest, the Eng- lish colonies were, in most instances, formed or aug- mented by those who were unwilling to endure, in their own country, the religious intolerance of the successively dominant sects of Catholics, Puritans, and Churchmen. Religious freedom was therefore a prominent and peculiar feature in the grants of the English colonies. And as their settlement was left to private means and enterprise, those to whom the charters were granted generally secured to their colonists the additional inducements of gifts of land, and a larger share of political liberty than they en- joyed at home. We shall observe, in the course of this history, that at a later period it became the policy of the government to revoke these charters, and to bring the colonies more immediately under the power and control of the king and his council.
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