USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina under the proprietary government, 1670-1719, V.1 > Part 10
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2. They were required to cause all the persons so chosen to swear allegiance to the King, and to subscribe fidelity and submission to the Proprietors and to the form of gov- ernment by them established.
3. The Governor and Council were to choose some fit- ting place wherein to build a fort; under the protection of which was to be the first town. The streets of the town were to be so arranged as to be commanded by the guns on the fort.
4. The stores of all kinds were to be kept within the fort.
5. If the first town was placed upon an island, the 1 Hist. Sketches of So. Ca. (Rivers), Appendix, 347.
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whole island was to be divided into colonies and reserved for the people, and no seigniory or barony was to be taken up in it. But if the first town was planted on the main, then the next six adjoining squares of 12,000 acres were to be all colonies, so that the people might first be planted together in convenient numbers.
6. In order to avoid offending the Indians, no one was to be allowed to take up land within two miles and a half of any Indian town.
7. The Governor and Council were to establish such courts as they should think fit for the administration of justice till the grand model of government could be put into operation.
8. They were to summon the freeholders of the colony and to require them to elect twenty persons, who, together with the deputies, were for the present to be the Parlia- ment, and by and with whose consent the Governor was to make such laws as he should from time to time find necessary, which laws, being ratified by the Governor and any three of his five deputies, were to be in force, as pro- vided in the Fundamental Constitutions, that is, until passed upon by the Palatine's court in England.
9. All persons above the age of sixteen years who should come to Port Royal to plant or settle there, before the 25th of March, 1670, were to be granted 150 acres of land for themselves, and 150 acres more for every able man-servant they brought with them or caused to be transported into the colony, and 100 acres more for every woman-servant, and man-servant under sixteen years of age. And 100 acres were to be given to every servant who served out his time.
10. To every free person that should arrive to plant and inhabit before the twenty-fifth day of March. 1671, 100 acres, and 100 more for each servant he brought with him
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or caused to be transported into the colony, 70 acres for every woman-servant, or man-servant under sixteen years of age. And to every servant that should arrive before the time last mentioned, 70 acres.
11. To every free person that should arrive before the 25th of March. 1672, with intent to plant, 70 acres, and 70 acres more for each man brought with him, and 60 acres for each woman-servant or man-servant under six- teen years of age. To every servant who should arrive before this time, 70 acres upon the expiration of his term of servitude,
12. The land was to be laid out in squares of 12,000 acres, each of which squares taken up by a Proprietor was to be a seigniory. each taken up by a Landgrave or Cacique to be a barony, each set aside for the people to be a colony. The proportion of 24 colonies to 8 seigniories and 8 baronies was to be preserved.
13. The people were ordered to settle in towns, and that one town at least should be laid out in each colony. No inhabitant of any of the colonies. that is. no common person. was to be allowed to have a greater proportion of front upon a river than a fifth part of the depth of his land.
14. A person having brought out servants to settle was to appear before the Governor and Council, who were thereupon to issue to him a warrant to the surveyor general to lay him out a parcel of land according to these instructions. which survey, when returned, was to be recorded, and the person to whom the land was granted was then to be sworn to his allegiance to the King. fidelity and submission to the Lords Proprietors and the Funda- mental Constitutions and form of government, whereupon the grant was to pass under the seal.
The Proprietors thus attempted to evade the provision
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in their charter which secured to the freemen in the province the right to participate in the formation of the government, and to force upon them the Fundamental Constitutions which the Proprietors had adopted. The charter gave to the Proprietors, as we have seen, power and authority to make and enact laws, only "by and with the advice assent and approbation of the Freemen of the Province." Disregarding this plain restriction upon their power, the Proprietors formulate in advance an elaborate and minute system of government with the avowed purpose of curtailing the power of the people who should settle the province -as they euphemistically ex- pressed it, to "avoid erecting a numerous democracy." To this plan of government, so devised that in all as- semblies or parliaments, as they were grandiloquently termed, the representatives of the people must inevi- tably be outvoted in all questions by a patrician order established in advance, every freeman before taking part in the government, or being allowed to take out a grant of land, was required to subscribe his submission, and thus commit himself to a waiver of his rights under the Royal charter.
Ramsay, in the introductory chapter to his history, states that neither the number of the first settlers nor their names, with the exception of Sayle and West, have reached posterity. The Shaftesbury papers recently given by the family to the State paper office in London, some of which have been published by the city council of Charles- ton, have in some degree supplied this information. On the 17th of August, 1669. three vessels, the Carolina. the Port Royal, and the Albemarle lay at anchor in the Downes, with their crews and ninety-three passengers in the Carolina, - how many in the other vessels is not stated. --- with supplies of all kinds aboard and ready for sea.
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Of the ninety-three passengers aboard the Carolina. six- teen were masters, one of whom had with him a wife, sixty-three servants, and thirteen persons who brought no servants. The first name is that of Captain Sullivan (Florence O'Sullivan), a name perpetuated in that of Sullivan's Island, Charleston harbor. There is one other name destined to appear much in the history of South Carolina, and which has continued in his family from the very first settlement to the present time. This is the name of Stephen Bull.1
1 Year Book City of Charleston, 1883 (Courtenay), 366; Centennial Address, from Shaftesbury Papers. Ibid., 1886, 243.
A List of all such Masters, free Passengers and S'v't's which are now aboard the Carolina now ridinge in the Downes, August the 10th 1669
CAPT SULLIVAN
Ralph Marshall James Montgomery
Rich : Allexander
Stephen Wheelwright
Tho Kinge Eliz Dommocke
Eliz: Mathews
STEP BELL
Robert Done Barzby Ball
Tho Ingram
Jonathan Barker
John Larmouth Dudley Widgier
ED HOLLIS and JOS DALTON
George Prideox
Thomas Younge
Henry Price
Will. Chambers
John Dawson
Will Roades
Alfrd Harleston
Jane Lawson
Susanna Kinder
THO * and PAULE SMITH
Aice Rixe Jo Hudlesworth
Jo. Burroughs Hugh Wigleston
Eliz. Smith Andrew Boorne
Francis Noone
HAMBLETON (INO HAMILTON)
Tho Gourden Will Lumsden Jo Frizen Step Flinte
Edwy Young Jo Thomson Samnel Morris Tho Southell
Agnis Payne Jo. Reed. JO RIVERS.
Tho Poole Rob. Williams Henry Bargen Mith smallwood
NICH CARTHWRIGHT
Tho Gubbs Jo Lovde
Martin Bedson Step Price
Will Jenkins
MORRIS MATHEWS
Alva Phillips
Reginold Barefoot
Mathew Hewitt
Eliz Currie
WILL BOWMAN
Abraham Smith
Millicent Howe
DOCTOR WILL SCRIVENER Margaret Tudor. WILL OWENS
John Humphreys Christopher Swade
John Borlev
THO MIDDLETON ELIZ. Tror ejule
Rich Wright Tho Wormes
SAMUEL WEST
Andrew Searle
Will West
JOSEPH BAILEY John Carmichaell
PASSENGERS THAT HAVE NOE SERVANTS
Mr Tho Rideall
Mr Will Houghton
Mr Will Hennis
Mr Tho Humfreys
Eliz Humphreys
Marie Clerke
Sampson Darkenwell Nathanyell Darkenwell
Mys Sarah Erpe
El Lope
Marita Powell
Mrs Mary Erpe
Thomas Motte shed
* This The Smith has been supposed by some to have been the Thomas Smith the Landgrave ; but this is a mistake. Landgrave Smith did not come to Carolina until 16-7.
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The fleet stopped at Kinsale, but took in only seven servants there, and sailed according to instructions to Barbadoes. which was reached in October; it was con- signed to Thomas Colleton, one of the distinguished family of that name in Barbadoes -a son of Sir John, one of the original Proprietors, and brother of Sir Peter, the present Proprietor, who had once been temporarily Governor of that island, and of James, who afterwards was to become Governor of this province.
Besides the causes of discontent of the planters of Bar- badoes to which we have alluded. a succession of dreadful hurricanes had occurred, which, added to the fact that the island was over populated, and that the planters were leay- ing for the Bahamas and other islands, induced the Pro- prietors to hope that their colony would find many there who would join it for the new province. It was thought that over one hundred emigrants might be secured there. In securing these the influence of Sir John Yeamans and Thomas Colleton was much relied upon ; but many disas- ters occurred at Barbadoes. While lying there on the 2d of November a gale struck the fleet and the Albemarle was driven on the rocks of the coast and shipwrecked. One of the cables of the Carolina was also broken and the Port Royal lost an anchor and a cable. To save the ship's stores, many were put ashore until repairs could be completed and another sloop hired to continue the voyage. Another vessel was also procured in the place of the Albemarle.
Sir John Yeamans encouraged the expedition, and deter- mined to go with it himself to Port Royal. The fleet sailed, but was soon forced to put in at Nevis, a British West India ยท island. There they found Dr. Henry Woodward, whom Sandford had left with the Indians at Port Royal in 1665. He had been well treated by the Indians. but had been surprised and captured by Spaniards at St. Helena, and
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taken prisoner to St. Augustine ; he had been rescued and carried to the Leeward Islands, from which he shipped as surgeon of a privateer and was cast away on the island in the hurricane of the 17th of August which had wrecked the Albemarle. Notwithstanding these adventures, he promptly volunteered to join the expedition, and- to give it the benefit of his experience. His services were at once accepted.1
Sir John Yeamans here put on board the Port Royal one Christopher Barrowe, with instructions to pilot the ship to Port Royal. From Nevis the fleet had good weather until near land. when the Port Royal parted from the other vessels. The Carolina and the Barbadian sloop reached Bermuda. By the advice of Barrowe the Port Royal sailed southward and, endeavoring to touch at the Bahama Islands, was cast away near Abaco, one of those islands. on the 12th of January, 1669-70. The company reached the shore by means of the small boat, but many lost their lives on that island. Here Russell. the master of the Port Royal. built a boat in which they got to Eleu- thera. another of the Bahama Islands, where he hired a shallop and sailed to New Providence, whence most of the survivors obtained transportation to Bermuda. The rest they left at Providence. except Barrowe and his wife, who went to New York.2
At Bermuda Sir John withdrew entirely from the management of the expedition, assigning as his reason that he was obliged to return to Barbadoes to be in readi- ness to act as one of the commissioners previously ap- pointed for negotiating with French commissioners in regard to their dispossession and expulsion of the English
1 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, London, 1889. 246.
a Year Book City of Charleston (Courtenay), 1883, 369 ; Shaftesbury Papers.
*
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settlers from their plantations in St. Christopher's Island in 1666. Upon his withdrawal, he persuaded the advent- urers to take William Sayle, whom he describes as "a man of no great sufficiency yet the ablest I could meet with." and inserted his name in the blank commission which he had from the Lords Proprietors. A reason he assigned for doing this was that being a Bermudian he thought Sayle might induce others to embark with them in the enterprise. Thus accidentally was the first Gov- ernor of South Carolina appointed.1
The deputations in blank were filled as follows: Joseph West. deputy for the Duke of Albemarle. Dr. William Scrivener for Lord Berkeley. Stephen Bull for Lord Ashley, William Bowman for Lord Craven. Florence O'Sullivan must have represented either Sir George Carteret or Sir Peter Colleton.2
The appointment of Sayle gave rise to much discontent. A writer describes him as "of Bermuda, a Puritan and nonconformist. whose religious bigotry, advanced age and failing health promised badly for the discharge of the task before him." Two others of the party, William Scrivener and William Owen, were for bringing suit against Sir John, but the matter was " salved over " and the expedition sailed from Bermuda February 26, 1669-70. a sloop having been procured in the place of the Port Royal.
After leaving Bermuda, the expedition encountered bad weather again. The Carolina and the Bermuda sloop suc- ceeded in keeping near each other. but the Barbadian sloop was separated and did not rejoin the others until
1 Year Book City of Charleston . Courtenay), 1883, 369, 370 ; Hist. Sketches of So. Ca. (Rivers). 89.
2 This list has been collated by and kindly given me by Langdon Cheves, Esq.
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about the 23d of May, more than a month after their arrival at Ashley River.
Mr. Hugh Carteret, who was in the Carolina, gives an account of his trip from Bermuda. He writes : -
" Sayling thence on Feb'y 26th we came up with land between Cape Romano and Port Royall at a place called Sowee or Sewee and next day brought the ship in. through a very handsome channel and lay there at anchor a week." 1
The first landing of this expedition was thus made about March 17, 1670, in Sewee Bay at the back of Bull's Island. The name and the fact that " the ship came in through a very handsome channel " establishes this with great certainty. The Indians there informed Sayle that a tribe known as the Westoes had ruined St. Helena and the country northward as far as Kiawha (Ashley River) about a day's journey distant. The Cacique of Kiawha, presumably the same who had endeavored to persuade Sandford to visit his country three years before, now again came to the ships and renewed the praises of their land. Taking him aboard after a conference, Sayle and his party left their anchorage and, sailing to the south- ward, entered Port Royal. It was two days before they could communicate with the Indians, who confirmed what had been told them at Sewee.
During their short stay at Port Royal, Governor Sayle summoned the " freemen," according to the instructions accompanying his commission. to elect five men "to be of the council," and they elected Paul Smith. Robert Donne. Ralph Marshall, Samuel West, and Joseph Dalton as their representatives. This was the first election in South Carolina. We have no record whether it was by ballot or by poll. William Owen, "always itching to be in
1 Year Book City of Charleston (Courtenay ), 1883, 370 ; from Shaftes- bury Papers.
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authority." censured the legality of the election, where- upon the freemen met a second time and confirmed their former choice.
The expedition then left Port Royal and ran in between St. Helena Island and Combahee. Many went ashore at St. Helena and found the land good and many peach trees. From this point the Bermuda sloop was dis- patched to Kiawha to view that land so much com- mended by the Cacique, and word was brought back that the land was better to plant. After some discus- sion, the Governor favoring Kiawha, it was determined to settle permanently there. Anchors were weighed. the vessels stood to the north, and entering what is now Charleston harbor. then called by the Spaniards St. George's Bay. the colony landed in April on the first high point on the western bank of the Kiawha. which Sandford in passing had called the Ashley.1 The point on which they settled they named " Albemarle Point."
Mr. Morris (or Maurice) Mathews, who was in the Bar- badian sloop procured to supply the place of the Albe- marle which was lost at Barbadoes, has left an account which enables us to follow that sloop in her perils after leaving Bermuda.
On the 15th of May, by stress of weather, she was driven to the Island of St. Catharine about latitude
1 Indians did not name rivers. Settlers in America often named them from the neighboring Indian tribes, but did not find them so called. Sandford says: "I demanded the name of this River. They told mee Edistorce still and pointed all to be Edistowe quite home to the side of Jordan by which I was instructed that the Indians assigne not their names to the Rivers but to the Countryes and people." - Year Book City of Charleston (Courtenay), 1885, 275. The first colonists called this river Keawaw, or Ashley. On Culpepper's first map of the settlement, March 7, 1672, Cooper River is put down as the Wando, and the present Wando as the Etiwan.
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31 degrees. There they proceeded to "wood and water"
the vessel. They traded with the Indians and enter- tained them aboard the vessel. On the next day "a semi-Spaniard Indian" came aboard with a present of bread set for the master and promised pork in exchange for " truck." On the 17th the master and mate and Mr. Rivers, who also was in this company, three seamen and one man-servant went ashore with truck to buy pork - for the sloop's use. Two other men-servants went ashore to cut wood and two females to wash linen. The Spaniards and Indians treacherously made prisoners of a part or all ashore and commanded the sloop " to yield to the sover- eignty of St. Domingo." This demand was declined, whereupon the Spaniards, finding that their demands were not obeyed. opened fire with their muskets and bows, but only succeeded in damaging the vessel's sails. The next day a favorable wind springing up. the men aboard the sloop gave the Indians a parting salute with their muskets, which sent them behind the trees. and hauled the ship out of gun-shot. Leaving the island, several days were spent in sailing about the Carolina coast until they arrived opposite " Odistash " (Edisto). Here the Indians welcomed them, told them of the English at Kiawha, and offered to show them the way over. The next morning they arrived at the entrance to Kiawha, where they met the Bermudian sloop going to fish, which piloted them into Kiawha River. The prisoners taken by the Spaniards were subsequently sent to St. Augustine.1
The colonists were thus once more united. Two out of the three ships that sailed from the Thames and some lives had been lost. Just how many of the original com- pany arrived at Kiawha cannot now be ascertained. The
1 Year Book City of Charleston (Courtenay), 1883, 372 ; Colonial Records of No. Ca., vol. I, 207.
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company had been increased at Barbadoes, and some also had probably joined at Bermuda. One ship only of the original expedition reached Carolina. Five had been engaged in the expedition from the time the colonists left the Downes to the landing at Kiawha.1
It is a curious and interesting circumstance that just about this time Sir William Berkeley, the Governor of Vir- ginia, had commissioned John Lederer, a learned German, to make explorations to the mountainous part of that province, and that in his wanderings with a single Indian guide he is believed to have reached the Santee, and if so, had he crossed that river and pushed on a little farther. he might have found Governor Sayle and the colony only just arrived. Dr. Hawks, the historian of North Caro- lina. however, upon a careful study of Lederer's journal as translated by Sir William Talbot, Governor of Mary- land, from the original. which was written in Latin, and a map which accompanied it. concludes, we think judiciously, that the wanderings of the learned German were within the present boundaries of the State of North Carolina.2
1 This account of the voyage of the colonists has been collated princi- pally from the Centennial Address of Major W. A. Courtenay. Year Book City of Charleston. 1883, and by him compiled from MS. Shaftesbury Papers of the So. Ca. Hist. Society, now about to be published.
2 Hist. of No. Ca. (Hawks), vol. II, 43.
CHAPTER VI
1670-71
THE colonists, upon landing at Albemarle Point on the Ashley, entrenched themselves and began to lay out streets and town lots, and to build fortifications and houses. They were gladly received by the Indians in the neighborhood. whose Cacique had so urgently pressed them to settle there, not altogether unselfishly, however, but because of the protection the Kiawhas hoped the colony would afford them against the Westoes. who then inhabited the region about Port Royal, and of whom they stood in mortal dread, representing them as cannibals. The Kiawhas brought the settlers venison and skins for trade, and oysters were found in great plenty, though not so pleasant to the taste "as your Wallfleet oyster." The turkeys were bigger than those at home. As the Kiawhas. however, could not take care of themselves. still less could they secure the new-comers from the other Ind- ians, and the colonists were obliged to stand continually on their guard. While one party was employed in raising their little habitations, another was always kept under arms to watch the Indians.1
Nor were the Indians their only or their worst foes. The peace concluded between England and Spain in 1667, and the recognition by Spain of the rights of England
1 Calendar State Papers, Colonial, London, 1889, 255-257 ; Hewatt, Hist. of So. Ca., vol. I. 49.
K
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to her possessions in America, was one of the induce- ments to the Proprietors to begin the settlement of their province. But Spain, while acknowledging the right of England to such possessions, had not agreed to any defini- tion of her territory. She had never admitted the right of England to that covered by the charters of the Pro- prietors. She still claimed a greater part of it as be- longing to Florida. Charleston harbor was still hers, as St. George's Bay. The Spaniards at St. Augustine were thus for near a century a thorn in the side of the colony of Carolina. There was a castle there usually garrisoned by about 300 or 400 regular troops. Besides these, the inhabitants of the towns, many of whom were mulattoes of savage dispositions, were all in the King's pay and formed into a militia, computed to be about the same number as the regular troops. This idle population. rely- ing on the King's pay only, giving no attention to agri- culture or trade, or any other peaceful pursuit, were ready at all times for mischievous adventures, and furnished a body whose deeds of hostility might be conveniently avowed or disowned as circumstances required. These people, regardless of the declaration of peace, had no idea of standing by and idly looking on the establishment of an English colony at St. George's Bay. They sent an expedition at once to break it up. The vessel they sent entered the Stono, but finding the colonists on their guard and stronger than they had expected did not attack, but returned to St. Augustine. They had, however. shown the settlers on the Ashley River that they were but an outpost to the other English colonies in America, liable at any moment to be attacked, and beyond the reach of timely assistance. Governor Sayle, notwithstanding his great age, shared in all the hardships with his fellow- adventurers and by his example animated and encouraged
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them to perseverance. In May the Carolina was sent to Virginia for provisions, and on the twenty-seventh day of June the Barbadian shallop was dispatched to Bermuda for settlers and for supplies. The Carolina returned on the 22d of August to Kiawha and in September was sent to Barbadoes, whence she did not return until early in the next year. 1
Governor Sayle is said to have been a Puritan, and the style and tone of the following letter. which he wrote to Lord Ashley from Albemarle Point on the 25th of June. 1670, is certainly in accordance with the temper of that religious class, though it was a clergyman of the Church of England for whose ministrations he was appealing - a clergyman for whom Sir John Yeamans had promised to procure a commission from the King to make him their minister. He writes : -
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