The history of South Carolina, from its first European discovery to its erection into a republic: with a supplementary chronicle of events to the present time, Part 5

Author: Simms, William Gilmore, 1806-1870. cn
Publication date: 1840
Publisher: Charleston, S. Babcock & co.
Number of Pages: 372


USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina, from its first European discovery to its erection into a republic: with a supplementary chronicle of events to the present time > Part 5


Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).


Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23


While these events were in progress, a new enemy started up to add to the many dangers and annoyances of the Carolinians. The Spaniards at St. Augustine had long regarded the settlement of the English at Ashley river, as an encroachment upon the dominions of their monarch. Perhaps they remembered the ancient conflicts between Ribault, Laudonniere, and Melendez, for supremacy in the same neighborhood ; and, as if the massacres which they had caused and suffered, had confirmed the right to the soil which they founded upon the discoveries of De Leon and De Soto, they watched the colony of the English with a keen disquiet, proportioned to their hostility. Having obtained a knowledge of the miserable condition of the Carolinians, and the disaffection which prevailed among them, they advanced with a well armed party to dislodge and destroy the settlers. They reached Saint Helena, where they were joined by one Brian Fitzpatrick, a worthless traitor, who had deserted the colony in the


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moment of its greatest distress, and who now exposed its weaknesses to the invaders. The Spaniards continued to advance under his guidance ; but, in the meantime, the vessel bringing supplies of men and munitions of war, fortunately arrived in Ashley river.


This reinforcement enabled the governor to assume the offensive. He despatched fifty volunteers, under colonel Godfrey, to meet the invaders ; but the Spaniards did not await his attack. They fled at his approach, evacuating St. Helena island, of which they had full possession, and retreated with all haste to Augustine. This attempt of the Spaniards, though conducted with little spirit, and distinguished by no combat, was the prelude to a long succession of conflicts between the two colonies, result- ing in mutual invasion, and unprofitable and unnecessary loss of blood and treasure.


To conciliate the Indian tribes, and escape from that harrassing and constant warfare which they had waged upon the colony from the beginning, was now the chief object of governor Yeamans. But one circumstance, at this time, contributed more than any thing beside to the peace of the settlement. The Westos, who had always harbored the most unconquerable aversion to the whites, and who were doubly dangerous from their near neigh- borhood, were suddenly invaded by the Serannas, a powerful tribe living on the Isundiga river. A war fol- lowed between them, which was waged with so fatal a fury, as to end in the almost complete annihilation of both. The Carolinians, without doubt, as a matter of policy, encouraged the hostile fury of the combatants ; at all events, they found security from its continuance, and were finally rid of two fierce neighbors when it ended.


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About the year 1674, Sir John Yeamans left the colony and went to Barbadoes, where he died. By one historian, his labors for the success of the settlement are spoken of as indefatigable. By another, he is described as insolent, unjust, and tyrannical. He was succeeded by Joseph West, as governor, and under his rule the freemen of the colony were called together at Charlestown for the purpose of making laws for their government. The up- per and lower house of assembly was formed, and with the governor as its head, took the name of parliament, agreeable to the fundamental constitutions. This was the first parliament in the colony that passed acts of which the proprietors approved, and which are on record in the colony. It might have been expected that this parliament, composed of men embarked in the same vessel, and having a common interest, would be partic- ularly zealous to maintain harmony and a friendly understanding among themselves. They had the same interests to promote and the same enemies to fear. Un- happily such was not the case. The most numerous party in the country, were dissenters of various denom- inations from the established church of England. Affect- ing always a superior sanctity, these people have been seldom found the most docile and subordinate members of the community. A large share of self-esteem distin- guished their intellectual organization, and occasioned constant discontents with the existing authorities, and a restless impatience of control. The cavaliers, who had also received grants in Carolina, were regarded by the proprietors, who were chiefly noblemen, with a more favoring eye. Though lively, impetuous, and given to


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excesses of various kinds, a taste for which had been engendered by the civil wars in the time of the first Charles and the Protectorate, they were yet regarded as men of loyality, honor and fidelity. The puritans, who remembered them only as deadly enemies in England, were vexed to see them lifted into places of honor in Carolina. The odious terms and ungracious epithets of the old world, were soon revived in the new, among both parties; and, but for the prudence of governor West, who in the business of legislation studiously discouraged every discussion of religious subjects, the bitter fruits of such dislikes and differences would have been renewed in a region, to the government of which the utmost tole- rance had been decreed by the proprietors, from the beginning of their enterprize.


The differing manners and habits of the colonists, fur- nished another cause for the absence of harmony among them. The puritans were a sober, inflexible, morose peo- ple ; hostile to amusements, without carefully discrimina- ting between them-rigid in form-resolute to make no concessions, and tenacious to the last degree of those lev- eling opinions, which were held in particular dislike by the cavaliers. They denounced the vices and debaucheries of the latter, censured their freedom of deportment, their ill-timed levities; and, exasperated by their licentiousness and unconcealed scorn of themselves, labored with equal industry and malevolence to keep them out of power, and abridge their influence and authority.


The cavaliers were not less active in their hostility, nor less careful to display their dislike. They ridiculed the puritans with a wit as reckless as it was unsparing,


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and employed all their influence in exposing them to public derision and contempt. Their contentious disposi- tions and leveling notions, were denounced as deserving of the abhorrence of all men of honor-as having served to produce in England that race of sly, deceitful, and hypo- critical wretches, which had been the scourge of the nation. This war increased the animosity of both parties daily, and though the governor endeavored to arrest its progress and subdue its virulence, the pernicious effects were soon perceptible in the difficulty that arose in framing laws, distributing justice, and maintaining public tranquil- ity. His council being composed entirely of cavaliers, was a check upon his own ability. In spite of his authority, the puritans were treated with neglect and injustice; and the colony, distracted with domestic evils, not only failed to make that progress in fortune which its natural advantages promised, but became ill prepared to protect itself against those enemies which threatened it from without.


The Stonos, at this unfavorable juncture, appeared along the settlements, and in detached bodies assailed the plantations, from which they carried the grain as soon as it ripened. The savages every where have deemed it the less laborious policy to rob the civilized, than to encounter the labor and risk of planting for themselves. The stock of the Carolinians shared the fate of their grain crops, and the apprehensions of famine from which they suffered in the time of Yeamans, were renewed under the government of West. That gentleman, however, em- ployed a new branch of policy in revenging and repairing the sufferings of his people. The planters were armed


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in defence of their possessions, and in the war that ensued, which was waged by the Stonos with singular hate and perseverance, it was found necessary to fix a price upon every Indian brought in as a captive. The savages thus taken, were shipped to the West Indies and sold as slaves. This mode of getting rid of cruel and treacherous enemies, however justified by ancient practice, has been deemed more barbarous than taking their lives. On this head, there will be a difference of opinion so long as the standards of humanity vary in various climates.


The planters of that day, did not even see the necessity of vindicating themselves against such a charge, and their descendants seem to have grown up in the same faith. Without discussing the propriety of this course of conduct, it may be enough to say, that it was attended with the desired results. The Stonos were defeated after a long and obstinate conflict. Their name alone remains to distinguish the site of their former habitations.


CHAPTER VIII.


A parliament was held in Charlestown at the close of 1682, when laws were enacted for establishing a militia system; for making high roads through the forest; for repressing drunkenness and profanity ; and for otherwise promoting a proper morality among the people. In the year following, governor West was removed from office, and Joseph Moreton, who had just before been created a landgrave of Carolina, succeeded to his place. West had displeased the proprietaries, by introducing the traf- fic in Indians-a traffic which, because of its profitable results, seemed likely to be perpetuated among the plan- ters ;- and by curbing the excesses of the cavaliers, who formed the proprietary party, in opposition to the less loyal, or more turbulent members of the puritan faction. With his removal commenced a course of rapid changes in the government of the colony. Two parties arose, the general direction of whose principles undoubtedly came from the social and religious bias which they had each received from their conflicting relations in England. One of these endeavoured to maintain the prerogative and authority of the proprietaries ; the other contended for the rights and liberties of the people. The cavaliers, or court party, insisted upon implicit obedience to the laws received from England; the puritans contended, and with perfect justice, for the right to adapt their laws to the existing circumstances of their condition. In this


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state of things, no set of officers could maintain their places long. In the short space of four years, from 1682 to 1686, there were no less than five governors : Moreton succeeding West; West again displacing More- ton ; and being followed in turn by Sir Richard Kyrle, Robert Quarry, and James Colleton.


Moreton assembled a parliament, which established a variety of regulations, some of which were displeasing to the proprietaries. It enacted a law for raising the value of foreign coins, by which the currency of Caro- lina was first regulated; and suspended all prosecutions for foreign debts; a measure which was negatived by the proprietaries, whose own interests might have suffered from such an enactment ; and which they declared con- trary to the king's honor, as obstructing the proper course of justice.


Another cause of dispute between the proprietors and the people, arose from the manner in which the par- liament was constituted. The province, at this time, was divided into the three counties of Berkeley, Cra- ven, and Colleton. Berkeley filled the space around the the capital ; Craven (including the district lately called Clarendon) lay to the northward; and Colleton con- tained Port Royal and the islands in its vicinity, to the distance of thirty miles. Of the twenty members, of whom the parliament was to be composed, the proprie- taries desired that ten should be elected by each of the counties of Berkeley and Colleton. Craven was deem- ed too inconsiderable to merit any representation .- Berkeley, which contained the metropolis, was the only county which, as yet, possessed a county court ; and the


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provincial government having appointed the election to be held at Charlestown, the inhabitants, by reason of their greater numbers, succeeded in excluding Colleton from all representation, and in returning the whole twenty members. This enraged the proprietors, who dissolved the parliament ; but without effecting any present rem- edy against the injustice of numbers. Governor More- ton, harrassed by the strifes among the people, resigned his office. His authority was conferred on West, whose policy, favoring the traffic in Indians, rendered him a very popular person among the colonists. Sir Richard Kyrle, an Irishman, was then entrusted with the govern- ment, by the proprietaries ; but he died soon after his arrival in the province. West, thereupon, was again chosen, but was soon superseded by Colonel Quarry, who kept the capricious station but a year. He was found, or suspected, to have afforded some countenance to pira- cy ; was removed in consequence, and the landgrave Moreton once more reinstated in the government.


In the offence imputed to Quarry, the community had its share. Indeed, it was one of the excesses of the time, a seeming sanction for which was to be found in particular circumstances. Pirates were licensed by Great Britain, to cruise against the Spanish fleets in the American waters ; there being, in the phrase of the day, ' no peace beyond the line.' The king of England had even conferred the honors of knighthood upon one of the worst villains of the class. The enormities committed by the Spaniards. in all quarters of the new world, and upon all people, Christian and savage, seemed, in the eyes of other nations, to justify a corresponding treatment


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of themselves in turn. But the pirates did not confine themselves to Spanish vessels ; else it is probable that that they might still have pursued their excesses with im- punity in the waters of Carolina. There, the ports were freely opened to them, provisions supplied, and they were received as the favored guests of the 'planters. The hostility entertained by these reckless rovers against the Spaniards, the mortal foes of the Carolinians, was, perhaps, the true reason of the countenance which they found among the latter. It suggests the only reason which may serve, in some respect, to justify the colonists for the favor which they showed them. The governor, the proprietary deputies, and the principal inhabitants, are said to have equally stained themselves with this unbe- coming intercourse ; and the obloquy which they thus incurred, was only obliterated in the manly warfare in which they subsequently drove them from their waters. Their feebleness may have made them sanction the presence of those whom they did not dare to offend ; and the fact that the pirates chiefly warred against their in- veterate enemies, the Spaniards, constituted them, in one respect, worthy allies, whom it was their policy to en- courage.


It is certain, in support of this view of the subject, that the Spaniards themselves regarded in this light, the countenance which the Carolinians showed the pirates. They beheld the enemies who had infested their shores, and destroyed their shipping, sheltered and received as friends in Ashley river; and if no such policy influenced the Carolinians, they were at least required to atone, as allies, for the excesses of those whom they received with the kindness due to allies only.


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Other circumstances contributed to this conviction, and strengthened the hostility of the people of Augustine. They had always beheld the settlements of the Eng- lish with jealousy, and the establishment of a new colony, under lord Cardross, a Scotch nobleman, at Port Royal, served to renew the ancient grudge, and furnished a new provocation to hostility. They invaded the south- ern frontiers of the colony, and descended suddenly upon the Scotch at Port Royal, whom they expelled. Laying the settlements waste as they went, they as sud- denly retired, ere men could be mustered to encounter them, or resent the inroad. The spirit of the Caroli- nians, whom continued wars had made a martial people, was at once aroused by this aggression, and they resol- ved, with one mind, to carry their arms into the enemy's territory. An expedition was determined upon, and pre- parations begun for an invasion of Florida. But the proprietaries hastened to arrest this purpose. They suc- ceeded for the time; but the angry feelings which were brought into activity on this occasion, were never suffer- ed entirely to sleep; and they found their utterance but a few seasons after this event, when, under the govern- ment of a man fond of warlike enterprizes, the colonists prepared to "feed fat the ancient grudge" which they bore against their hereditary foes.


James Colleton, a landgrave of Carolina, and brother of one of the lords proprietors, succeeded to Moreton. For a time his administration gave universal satisfaction ; but an endeavor to carry out his instructions, renewed the old conflicts between the people and their lords, in all their original virulence and vigor. The progress of


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discontent in the colony soon assumed a mutinous aspect, and the first leading measure of the new governor, re- sulted in the utter forfeiture of his power. He endeav- ored to make the people pay up their quit-rents, which had been suffered to accumulate, without liquidation, for several years. The amount was trifling ; but other feel- ings than those of interest, mingled in with the consider- ation of the subject. It was the display of authority, at a time when that authority was already under censure for trespasses upon the public liberties ; and, taught in the severe school of self-succour and self-providence, from the beginning, the great body of the Carolinians were disposed to resistance. This spirit became more turbulent with every show of rigor on the part of the in- discreet landgrave ; riots and commotions succeeded ; the parliament was assembled, and in 1690, the contest brought to an issue, which resulted in the partial triumph of the people, the formal deposition of the governor, and his solemn banishment beyond the limits of the province.


The government was then usurped by one Seth Sothel, a factious person, who had been driven from the Albe- marle settlement. Availing himself of the general hos- tility to Colleton, he found but little difficulty in securing the favor of the Carolinians in the first moments of their anger. He claimed the government in the double right of a proprietor himself, and a champion of the popular liberties. But his pretences were soon set aside, and the excessive tyranny of his mis-rule effectually rebuked and punished the folly of those who so readily yielded to his arguments. He is said to have trampled under


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foot every restraint of equity and the laws ; to have been as much without moderation as justice ; and to have ruled the colonists with a rod of iron, far more heavy than that of Colleton. His whole course was one of rapine, and his coffers were filled by every species of plunder and exaction. The fair traders from Barbadoes and Bermuda, were seized by his orders, under pretended charges of piracy, and either incurred a forfeiture of their goods, or were compelled to purchase their ransom from prison by enormous fines. Felons bought themselves free from justice by heavy bribes, and the property of individuals was seized and confiscated on the most friv- olous pretences. Fortunately, the career of Sothel was short. Proprietaries and people alike joined in his ex- pulsion; and, pursued by the laws which he had offended, and the hate which he had provoked, he soon followed Colleton into banishment.


Philip Ludwell was now sent out by the proprietaries, to fill the vacated chair of the governor. He was ac- companied by Sir Nathaniel Johnson, who had been governor of the leeward islands, and who, having deter- mined to retire to Carolina, was appointed a cassique of the province, and a member of council. Ludwell, who was a man of sense and humanity, commenced his ad- ministration in a manner that appeared to promise well for its continuance ; but this promising appearance was of short duration. There was a continual warfare going on between the supposed interests of the proprietors and people ; and the measures of any governor or council, supposed to be favorably inclined to the one, were sure to give offence to, and excite the jealous opposition of the


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other party. Ludwell had been instructed by the propri- etaries to admit the French Huguenots, settled in Cra- ven county, to the same political privileges with the Eng- lish colonists. Unhappily, these elder colonists were far from regarding their new associates with good will or friendly feeling. The number of the strangers, and the wealth which was possessed by some among them, excited their personal jealousies, and these soon awa- kened all the ancient antipathies of the nation. When Ludwell proposed to admit the refugees to a participa- tion in the privileges of the other planters, the English refused to acquiesce. They insisted that it was contrary to the laws of England; that no power but that of the British parliament could dispense with the legal disabil- ity of aliens to purchase lands within the empire, incor- porate them into the British community, or make them partakers of the rights of native-born Englishmen .- They even maintained that the marriages of the refugees, performed by their own clergymen, were unlawful, as not being celebrated by men who had obtained Episcopal ordination. For themselves, they declared a determina- tion not to sit in the same assembly with the hereditary rivals of their nation; or of receiving laws from those who were the pupils of a system of slavery and arbitra- ry government. The unfortunate refugees, alarmed at these resolutions, turned to the proprietaries to confirm their assurances.


Ludwell was compelled to suspend the contemplated measure until he could hear from Europe; and in the meantime, Craven county, in which the French refugees lived, was not allowed a single representative in the pro-


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vincial parliament. To the application of these unfortu- nate and truly noble exiles, from whom we derive many of the first families of our state, and some of the first names of our republic, the proprietaries returned an in- decisive but a friendly answer. They continued in a state of the most painful solicitude, and an entire priva- tion of their rights for several years after, when their patient and humane behavior prevailed equally over the political and personal antipathies of the English. Their former adversaries, won over by their praiseworthy gen- tleness of demeanour, advocated the pretensions they had hitherto opposed; and a law of naturalization was at length passed in favor of the aliens. But the dispute that had arisen in the province on this subject, was pro- ductive of excessive irritation against Ludwell, which was farther increased by his decisive proceedings against the pirates. The arrival of a crew of these wretches in Charlestown, where, relying on ancient privileges, they still hoped to be secure, afforded him an opportunity to endeavour, by the infliction of a tardy justice, to relieve the colony of some of the obloquy which rested upon its name. He apprehended the marauders, and brought them to trial for their crimes. The people exclaimed against this proceeding, and interested themselves so effectually, that the criminals were not only acquitted, but the government was even compelled to grant them an indemnity. It was not till twenty years had elapsed, and a hecatomb of victims had been offered up to the laws which they had offended, that Carolina was at length fairly freed from these wretches, and the stain of their communion washed from her hands and garments .-


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Farther conflicts followed between the people and their rulers, in which Ludwell seemed to yield to the wishes of the former. This awakened the anxieties of the pro- prietaries, who at length deprived him of his office, and conferred it, with the dignity of landgrave, upon Thomas Smith.


The administration of Smith, if more peaceable, was not more 'successful than that of his predecessor. A popular man-wealthy-himself a planter, and long a res- ident among the people, he commenced his government with the most favorable auspices ; but the province still remained in a confused and turbulent condition. Discon- tent prevailed in the land ; and, in utter despair at last, he wrote to the proprietors, praying to be released from a charge which brought him nothing but annoyance, and in which he could hope to do no good. He declared in his letter, that he despaired ever to unite the people in affection and interest ; and that, weary of the perpetual warfare among them, he, and many others, were resolved upon leaving the province, unless they sent out one of their own number, with full power to redress grievances, and amend the laws. Nothing else, it was his convic- tion, would bring the settlers to a condition of tranquility.




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