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 With an appendix containing many valuable records hitherto unpublished 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 5
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Notwithstanding the favorable description which Verrazzano had given of our climate and country, and Ribault's account of the beautiful and commo- dious harbor of Port Royal, a prejudice had arisen against settling here and in favor of more northern situations. But the success and prosperity of the colonies already established, awakened great interest in the mother country; and in the second year after the restoration of Charles II., some of his ad- herents and courtiers, to whom he was indebted for distinguished services, easily obtained a charter with 6
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extensive powers, for all the region lying south of Virginia, extending from 31° to 36° of north latitude, and westward within these parallels across the conti- nent; and which was to be definitely called "Caro- lina" in honor of the king .*
This charter is dated March 24th, 1663. The noblemen upon whom it was conferred, and the mo- tives which they assigned for requesting it, are men- tioned in the beginning of the charter, as follows :
"Whereas, our right trusty and right well-beloved cousins and counselors, Edward, Earl of Clarendon, our High Chancellor of England, and George, Duke of Albemarle, Master of our Horse and Captain- General of all our Forces, our right trusty and well- beloved William Lord Craven, John Lord Berkley, our right trusty and well-beloved counselor, Anthony Lord Ashley, Chancellor of our Exchequer, Sir George Carteret, Knight and Baronet, Vice-Chamberlain of our Household, and our trusty and well-beloved Sir Wil-
* The part of North America embracing the present States of North and South Carolina, first received the name of Florida, which was given by the Spaniards. The French called it by the same name. The Eng- lish, after the colonization of Virginia, called the same region Southern Virginia. Yet from the year 1628-9, in the reign of Charles I., the name of Carolina was indefinitely applied to the territory south of Virginia, as may be observed in the list of MSS. under this date in the Appendix. At length, in 1663, from a happy coincidence of the names of the kings, it was retained and definitely applied to the province granted to the proprietors by Charles II., and in compliment to that monarch, as stated by authors of the time and indicated in the first charter. Our historians are not agreed whether the name was derived from Charles IX. of France or Charles II. of England. There would be more reason in introducing the claims of Charles I. If the name originated from that of the fort " Arx Carolina," built by Laudonniere on the St. John's River, or Charles Fort at Port Royal, it was not ap- plied to the territory by the French, who continued to call it Florida.
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liam Berkley, Knight, and Sir John Colleton, Knight and Baronet, being excited with a laudable and pious zeal for the propagation of the Christian Faith, and the enlargement of our empire and dominions, have humbly besought leave of us, by their industry and charge, to transport and make an ample colony of our subjects, natives of our kingdom of England, and elsewhere within our dominions, unto a certain coun- try hereafter described, in the parts of America not yet cultivated or planted, and only inhabited by some barbarous people who have no knowledge of Al- mighty God," &c .*
* The Earl of Clarendon had been the companion and active assist- ant of King Charles in his exile, and after Cromwell's death had ma- terially contributed to the re-establishment of the monarchy. His daughter was subsequently married to the Duke of York, who became James II., and their children, Mary and Anne, were queens of England.
But no single person deserved more the title of Restorer of the King, than General George Monk, whose history is well known, and who, for his important services, was created Duke of Albemarle.
Sir George Carteret was, for a time, governor of the Isle of Jersey, where he maintained the royal cause against Cromwell and the Parlia- ment, and gave refuge to King Charles, the Duke of York, the Earl of Clarendon, and many of the nobility, during their flight from England. When the Duke of York received from the King, after his restoration, a large grant of land in North America, Lord Berkley and Sir George Carteret obtained a conveyance of a part of it; and in compliment to the latter, the present State of New Jersey derived its name.
Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper (after whom the Cooper and Ashley Rivers have been named) had been particularly recommended to Charles II. by General Monk, as a person well fitted to be one of his council. Although he was regarded as a politician who had espoused the cause of monarchy, then of the Parliament, and then again of monarchy as it suited his ambition, yet he long retained the favor and confidence of the king, and by his distinguished abilities became Chancellor of Eng- land, and was made Earl of Shaftesbury. He was the constant friend and patron of the learned philosopher Locke, to whose wisdom was sub- sequently committed the framing of the fundamental laws for the
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As soon as these noblemen received their charter, adverse claims were made to the same territory under a grant that had been given in 1630 to Sir Robert Heath, Attorney-general of Charles I. He had called the country " Carolana," and the Bahama and other islands, the "Carolana Islands;" but having failed to form a colony, the claims of those to whom he had conveyed his rights were now set aside ;* and the proprietors under the new charter
government of Carolina. To this nobleman also, who was the most in- fluential in the early policy of Carolina, England is especially indebted for the Habeas Corpus Act, and the equally important measure of ren- dering the judges independent of the crown.
Sir John Colleton had been an active partisan of royalty, and im- poverished himself by his uncalculating zeal in its cause. After the success of the Parliamentary forces he retired to Barbadoes till the restoration of the king, when he returned to England and received the dignity of baronet.
Lord Berkley had been a faithful follower of Charles in his exile.
The Earl of Craven was early distinguished for his foreign military services. He was one of Charles' Privy Council, and held a military command about his person.
Sir William Berkley, brother of Lord Berkley, was for many years the able and loyal Governor of Virginia. He espoused the cause of Charles I. against the Parliament, and refused to hold office under Cromwell, which led the colony boldly to adhere to Charles II. as their sovereign, while he was an exile from England, and at a time when the power of Parliament was supreme. In remembrance of this, the king is said to have worn at his coronation a robe of Virginia silk. (Present State of Virginia, 1705, p. 57.) The other authorities for these brief -notices are, Earl of Clarendon's Autobiography, Lord King's Life of Locke, Pepys' Memoirs, Rose's and Gorton's Biog. Dicts., Lives of Lord Chancellors, and Burke's Peerage.
* See Coxe's Carolana, 1722, and the extracts of the charter in his Appendix. The claims for the province of " Carolana" continued to be prosecuted, but were limited to the country west of the settled portion of Carolina, and embracing the Mississippi. In "Virginia Richly Valued," published in 1650, it was made to comprehend Roanoak and the southern parts of Virginia. The order in council repudiating the
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made immediate exertions to begin a settlement, that the king might see they did not "sleep with his grant, but were promoting his service and his sub- jects' profit."
At an earlier period, some settlers from Virginia had proceeded southward, and taken up their abode on the river Chowan. Sir William Berkley was at this time governor of Virginia, and the rest of the lords proprietors wrote him instructions to form im- mediately a government for the settlers at Chowan, and to appoint one or two governors, and councils, and other officers. The reason for giving the power of appointing two governors, one on each side of the river, was, they said, " because some persons that are for liberty of conscience may desire a governor of their own proposing, which those on the other side of the river may not so well like;" and to obtain settlers, they wished "to comply always with all sorts of persons" as far as they possibly could. This region was now named Albemarle county, in honor of the eldest proprietor, and William Drummond was appointed its first governor. He, with a council of six, made laws for the settlement with the consent of the delegates of the freemen. These laws were
claims of ITcath's Patent, is thus stated in MSS. in my possession. " 12th Aug., 1663. Proceedings of the Privy Council. Taking into consideration the present condition of the province of Carolina, and upon information that all pretenders to former grants had been sum- moned, according to former orders, to bring in their patents and writings, but none appeared; and as no English have by virtue of such grants hitherto planted, by which neglect such patents (if any) are become void ; the attorney-general ordered to proceed by inquisition, or some other lawful way, to recall all such. All future grants to have a clause that unless plantations are formed the grant shall be void."
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to be sent to England for the approval of the pro- prietors. Lands were granted to all free of rent for three years, and the former possessions of the settlers were confirmed to them.
A company of adventurers from Massachusetts had settled more to the south, on Cape Fear River, about 1661, and had purchased there an extensive tract of land from the Indians. They now claimed from the lords proprietors the same civil and religious privileges they had enjoyed during their self-govern- ment. At the same time [Aug. 1663] the proprietors received proposals from several gentlemen of Bar- badoes, who desired to remove to Carolina, and who solicited the grant of a district of land, thirty-two miles square, with the power to choose a governor, mayor, and other officers. While the proprietors de- clined to grant these privileges, they encouraged the settlers from Barbadoes, and entered upon the design of establishing a colony southward of Cape Fear, on the Charles River. They issued, on the 25th of August, a "Declaration and proposals to all that will plant in Carolina," and which they promised "invio- lably to perform and make good" "in such manner as the first undertakers of the first settlement shall reasonably desire."
The settlement could be made on the Charles River, or in any other part of the province, the pro- prietors reserving to themselves twenty thousand acres, to be laid out by their own agents, but so that the colony should not be incommoded thereby. They promised the settlers the privilege of erecting fortifi- cations, provided they undertook to be true and
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faithful to the king and his successors, "by some oath or engagement of their own framing." With regard to their government, the settlers were required to present to the proprietors thirteen persons of their company, of whom the proprietors would choose one to be governor for three years from the date of his commission, and six others to be his council. By a majority of these (of which the governor or his deputy should be one) the settlement should be go- verned during the period mentioned. Successors to the governor from among the council, and to the councilors from the remaining six of those first pre- sented, should also be nominated, to serve in case of death or removal from the colony. At the end of the three years a similar presentment should be made by the freeholders in the colony, and executive offi- cers similarly appointed. The proprietors promised that the freeholders should elect an assembly, by a majority of whom they should "make their own laws, by and with the advice and consent of the governor and council, so as they be not repugnant to the laws of England." Within a year after the publication of these laws, they should be presented to the proprietors for their approval or dissent; but if once agreed to, they could only be repealed by the power that enacted them. The proprietors promised to grant, in as ample a manner as the settlers should desire, "freedom and liberty of conscience in all religious or spiritual things, and to be kept inviola- bly." They promised exemption from taxes on im- ports and exports in regard to whatever articles the charter allowed. They promised every settler, for
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the small rent of one halfpenny an acre, one hundred acres of land for himself and his heirs, and fifty acres for each man servant whom he should carry or send to the colony (provided he were able to bear arms, and took with him a good musket and ten pounds of powder and twenty pounds of bullets), and thirty acres for every woman servant. After their term of service, each man servant should be entitled to ten acres of land, and each woman to six acres. But these promises were restricted to those who arrived during the first five years of the settlement. To in- sure the confidence and security of settlers, the pro- prietors also promised that the governor and council should be enjoined to have always in the settlement one armed man in proportion to every fifty acres of land that should be granted.
Such were the liberal offers which were first made to all who would remove to Carolina. Equally demo- cratic in their tendency were the privileges granted to those who had already fixed their abode in Albe- marle county. The region about Cape Fear was now called Clarendon county. A number of English emigrants arrived here on 29th May, 1664; and in November, Robert Samford was appointed secretary and chief register, and John Vassal surveyor-general and deputy governor. In the following January, Sir John Yeamans, of Barbadoes, was commissioned its governor, and the boundaries of his government es- tablished in a southward direction "as far as the river St. Mathias, which bordereth upon the coast of Florida." Tracts of land were granted, according to the promises of the proprietors, to adventurers from
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England, New England, the Island of Barbadoes, and other islands of the West Indies ; and an annual rent of one halfpenny an acre was required, the first pay- ment to be made in March, 1670.
After receiving their charter, the lords proprietors. had held their first meeting in May, 1663, to appoint . officers among themselves, and ordain rules for the · government of their province. They agreed to con- tribute equally a fund for transporting colonists and for other expenses. But we shall have many occa- sions to observe that they did not agree upon any fixed policy for the administration of the .colonies which they were forming. To Sir William Berkley, who was in Virginia, they at first committed the fos- tering of their joint interests. He was directed, as we have seen, to constitute the government for Albe- marle county. In the same letter of instructions, the proprietors observed, "we do likewise send you pro- posals to all that will plant, which we prepared upon receipt of a paper from persons that desired to settle near Cape Fear, in which our considerations are as low as it is possible for us to descend. This was not intended for your meridian, where we hope to find more facile people, who, by your interest, may settle upon better terms for us, which we leave to your management, with our opinion that you grant as much as is possible, rather than deter any from plant- ing there." And now Governor Yeamans was told "to make every thing easy to the people of New Eng- land, from which the greatest emigrations are c.x- pected, as the southern colonies are already drained."*
* Chalmers' Pol. Ann.
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The New Englanders who had settled on "Old Town Creek," in 1661, being reduced to want by the sterility of the country, had left their cattle to the keeping of the Indians, and returned to Massa- chusetts* before the arrival of the exploring ship Adventure, which sailed from Barbadoes, under Capt. Hilton, in August, 1663. Although at their depar- ture they had placed in a post "a writing, the con- tents whereof tended not only to the disparagement of the land about the said river, but also to the great discouragement of all those that should hereafter come into those parts to settle;"; yet they were very active in claiming the land as their own as soon as the province was granted to the proprietors.} These noblemen, however, while they were anxious to please all settlers in Carolina, desired Sir William Berkley to persuade or compel these enterprising New Eng- landers, who already were "roaming the continent," to be satisfied with such allotments of land as were given to others.§ Whatever number, from liberal offers of political and religious privileges, returned to Cape Fear, their settlement was soon abandoned or absorbed in that of the emigrants from England, who, in 1664, began to build a town called Charles Town, about twenty or thirty miles up the Cape Fear River.
* Lawson (Hist. of Carol., London, 1718), p. 74, relates the tradition of the inhabitants at Cape Fear, about 1700, that some of these colo- nists " carried off the children of the Indians under pretense of instruct- ing them in learning and the principles of the Christian religion ; which so disgusted the Indians, that though they had no guns, yet they never gave over till they had entirely rid themselves of the English by their bows and arrows."
t Hilton's Relation. # Bancroft. ¿ Chalmers' Pol. Aun.
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To aid and encourage the proprietors, Charles II. presented to this colony twelve pieces of cannon, and a considerable quantity of warlike stores.
It was here, on the southern bank of the Cape Fear, that Sir John Yeamans and the emigrants from Barbadoes at length arrived in the autumn of 1665. In the following year the population of the settle- ment amounted to eight hundred. He governed the colony with the care of a father, and by his prudence received the uninterrupted goodwill of the neighbor- ing Indians. The settlers sent timber and staves to Barbadoes, and industry and animation marked the conduct of all .* But after Yeamans was appointed governor of the more southern colony at Ashley River, many of the settlers are said to have followed him thither, to lands more fruitful and better adapted to raising cattle ; and the situation at Cape Fear be- came at last so completely deserted, that before 1690 it relapsed into its original condition, and was roamed over again by herds of deer and the Indian hunters .-
In Albemarle county, when the rents for land be- came due (in 1666), the people began to be dissatisfied ; and the proprietors, yielding their expectation of im- mediate gain to their desire to harmonize and accom- modate the settlers, granted the petition of their assembly in the following year, and allowed them to hold their lands on similar terms with the inhabitants
* Chalmers' Pol. Ann.
f Williamson. From this period there were but two governments in Carolina, at Albemarle and Ashley River ; and the names of North and South Carolina began to be used, although the colonies were not by law thus separated until 1729. In Stat. at Large "South Carolina" is men- tioned in 1696.
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of Virginia." Like the Virginians from whom they had emigrated, they cultivated chiefly tobacco and Indian corn, and trafficked for other articles which they needed with the traders from New England. In October, 1677, Samuel Stevens, a man of virtue and ability, was commissioned to succeed Governor Drum- mond; and he was permitted still to conduct the government in the most democratic manner. He was to act entirely by the advice of a council of twelve, six of whom he himself selected, and the other six were chosen by the assembly. This assem- bly of twelve men, elected by the frecholders, made laws, and had also a large share of executive powers. They convened and adjourned themselves ; appointed civil officers and the ministers of churches; and no taxes could be imposed without their consent. There was perfect freedom of religion; and all men were declared equal in privileges on taking an oath of allegiance to the king and fidelity to the lords pro- prietors.
When in 1669 the Assembly passed Jaws to exempt new-comers from paying taxes for one year; to pre- vent for five years the suing for debts contracted out of the colony; to prohibit strangers from trading with
* In "Public Acts, North Carolina," is a copy of this "Great Deed of Grant," dated May 1, 1668, and signed by Albemarle, Berkley, Car- teret, Craven, Ashley, and Colleton. By this deed lands were granted to the settlers, at their request, to be held on the same terms as in Vir- ginia ; the grants of the governor being effectual in law, " for the enjoy- ment of the said land or plantation, and all the benefits and profits of and in the same (except one-half of all gold and silver mines,) to the party to whom it is granted, his heirs and assigns forever, he or they performing the conditions aforesaid."
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the Indians; to allow marriages on simply declaring mutual consent before the governor and council and other witnesses; and to forbid the transfer of lands for two years-the proprietors without delay con- firmed their enactments, as though indeed they would deny them nothing, however strange and incompati- ble with their own interests, provided it pleased the colonists and might be an inducement for others to join them.
The counties of Albemarle and Clarendon were founded under the charter of 1663. Two years after- ward a second charter was bestowed upon the same noblemen, chiefly because the extent of territory then given did not include all the region of North Ame- rica, in a southward direction, which England was disposed to claim. The limits of the province were now enlarged to 29° on the south, and 36° 30' on the north, including all within these parallels from the Atlantic to the "South Seas" or the Pacific [1677]. To this immense tract of country were afterward added the Bahama Islands, lying castward in the At- lantic. Perhaps this extension of the grant, which embraced two more degrees on the south, was in an- ticipation of the treaty concluded with Spain, and by which the latter power relinquished her pretensions to the territory in North America then in possession of the English.
There are two other differences between the char- ters. In the first the territory granted is spoken of as one province. In the second, power is given to subdivide the province into counties, baronies, and colonies, with separate and distinct jurisdictions, 7
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liberties, and privileges. The second charter is also more explicit in matters of religion; the proviso in the first restraining dissenters from the Church of England, being changed to a promise or declaration that such persons should not be molested for their religious opinions and practice. [§ 18.]
This second charter, which is dated June 30th, 1665, formed the basis of the government of Carolina until its surrender to the king by the proprietors. A synopsis of its provisions is necessary for a proper understanding of much of our history during that long period.
To the king were reserved the allegiance of the settlers and the sovereign dominion over the country ; in all other respects the noblemen to whom the charter was granted, and their heirs and successors, were con- stituted the true and absolute lords and proprietors, to hold the province as their own, with no other ser- vice or duty to the king than the annual payment of twenty "marks" (about $64), and the fourth part of the gold and silver ore that should be found within the province.
To the proprietors was also granted the power, from the king as the head of the Church of England, to cause churches and chapels to be built and conse- crated, and to appoint the ministers of them; and also such independent jurisdiction as was held by the bishops of Durham, who from the carliest times of the English monarchy had regal authority in their county-who appointed judges, pardoned treason, murder, and other crimes; and all offenses were said
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to be committed against their peace, and not, as in other places, against the peace of the king.
To the lords proprietors was likewise granted the power to subdivide the province, as we have pre- viously mentioned; "and also to ordain, make and enact, and under their seals to publish any laws and constitutions whatsoever, either appertaining to the public state of said whole province or territory, or of any distinct or particular county, barony or colony of or within the same, or to the private utility of particular persons, according to their best discretion, by and with the advice, assent and approbation of the freemen of the said province or territory, or of the freemen of the county, barony or colony for which such law or constitution shall be made, or the greater part of them, or their delegates or deputies," and whom, for this purpose, the proprietors should, from time to time, cause to assemble in such manner and form as to them should seem best.
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