USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina under the proprietary government, 1670-1719, V.1 > Part 13
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 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29
Yeamans had in fact, however, already been commis- sioned as Governor. His commission is dated August 21, 1671 ; but it was not sent until September 18, when Lord Ashley writes he is glad to know that Sir John is in Carolina, and shall expect good success to their new settlement when it shall be countenanced and con- ducted by so judicious and worthy a person. He has, therefore. sent him a commission, and relies upon his being firm and industrious in settling the government.2 To Mr. West, "his very affectionate friend," he writes December 16. explaining that it was through no per- sonal dislike or disrespect to him that Sir John Yeamans was made Governor, but the nature of the government, which required that a Landgrave should be preferred to any commoner.3 As a reward for West's services, the Proprietors created him a Cacique, made him Registrar of Writings, and required that not only the titles of the Proprietors. but that all deeds amongst the colonists, should be recorded, as provided by the Fundamental Con- stitutions ; no deed to be good without registry.+
To another State has been given the credit for first devising a system of recording deeds and mortgages.5
1 Hist. Sketches (Rivers), 109 ; Appendix, 377.
2 Calendar State Papers, Colonial ( Sainsbury), London, 1889, 606, 630.
3 Ibid., 095.
4 Ibid., 721, 865. 870.
& Massachusetts. The Puritan in England, Scotland, and America (Campbell ), vol. 1, 75 et seq. The recording of ordinary conveyances
159
UNDER THE PROPRIETARY GOVERNMENT
We here see the registry system was adopted in Carolina with the very inception of its settlement. The truth is that from the very necessities of the occasion a registration of the surveys and grants of land in the new country was indispensable. The Domesday Book of William the Con- queror was the registration of the surveys and grants of the lands of England made by him, and to that ancient record must the title of all lands be traced. Once the redistribution of the lands in England was made and recorded, the metes and bounds were preserved by the people who were then settled upon them, and when any questions arose as to their location, they were settled by the " perambulation " or "viewing" by the parishioners or neighbors. The boundaries in England were thus perpetually preserved by custom and tradition ; but in settling a new country, especially one cut up by rivers and swamps, the survey and map alone could locate and de-
began at an early period in Virginia. In October, 1626, the rule was laid down by the General Court that the documents in all sales of land in Virginia should be brought to Jamestown and enrolled in that court in the space of twelve months and a day following the date of each. There are many records of conveyances between private parties prior to 1630. Economic Hist. of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century ( Bruce). 1896, vol. I, 570. There is nothing new in the American idea of registration. Even before the conquest in England, publicity of transfer was secured by a system of record in the shire or church book. After the conquest, the publicity continued for a time in Domesday Book and for some purposes by the Statute of Enrolments, 27 Henry VIII, c. 16. A registry was established for the Bedford Level in the same year that the first charter of Carolina to the Proprietors was granted, 1663. There were frequent efforts to establish a general registration law in England. Lord Keeper Guilford warmly advocated a registration system, but it was opposed by Lord Chief Justice Hale. North's Lives of the Norths, vol. I, 224. There was, however, a great prejudice in England against the system. Blackstone observed that however plausible such provisions might appear, it was doubted by very competent judges whether more disputes were not cansed in those counties in which the system prevailed, by inattention and omissions of parties, than had been prevented. 2 Com., c. 20.
160
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
scribe the grant, which was defined merely by imaginary lines. There could be no such thing as the actual delivery of possession of lands occupied only by Indians and wild beasts : hence again it became necessary to record not only the original surveys, but all transfers of the rights granted under them. The office of Surveyor General was also therefore of great consequence, especially under the Fundamental Constitutions, which required the whole province to be surveyed and laid out in seigniories, baronies, and colonies. Captain Florence O'Sullivan was the first Surveyor General, but the complaints against him were numerons. He was no surveyor, it was said, and was charged with ignorance and incompetence, with promising much and performing nothing.1 So with the commission of Governor to Sir John Yeamans, the Lords Proprietors sent out one as Surveyor General to John Culpepper, who had come out with him from Barbadoes.2 These commissions were issued in December. 1671,3 and Culpepper appears to have at once entered upon his duty ; for while West was still Governor, Culpepper made a rough draught or sketch of the settlement of Charles Town for the Proprietors, giving the location of the tracts of land and town lots taken up by the colonists. In this plat it is to be observed that he marks a certain tract of 300 acres as " Land reserved by Governor & Counsell to be disposed of at their pleasure, I suppose for a minister or governor."
On April 19, 1672, Sir John Yeamans was proclaimed at Charles Town and a proclamation was also immediately issued to dissolve " all parliament and parliamentary con-
1 Calendar State Papers, Colonial (Sainsbury), London, 1889, 184, 278, 323, 621, 736.
2 Ibid .. 658.
3 Coll. Ilist. Soc. of So. Ca., vol. I, 98.
161
UNDER THE PROPRIETARY GOVERNMENT
nections heretofore had or made in the province." and all the freemen in the colony were summoned to assemble on the 20th to elect a new Parliament. Twenty mem- bers were accordingly elected, who chose from their num- ber, as members of the Grand Council, Stephen Bull. Christopher Portman, Richard Conant, Ralph Marshall, and John Robinson. The deputies were Colonel West, Captain Thomas Gray, Captain John Godfrey, Maurice Mathews, and William Owen. 1
In the letter accompanying his commission. Lord Ashley writes to Governor Yeamans recommending him to make another port town on the Ashley, and giving him directions as to the choice of the ground. The present site was too low, it must needs be unhealthy, and would bring dis- repute upon their new settlement. He must lay out the great port town into regular streets. for, be the buildings never so mean and thin at first, yet as the town increases in riches and people the void places will be filled up and the buildings will grow more beautiful. He recommends six score squares of 300 feet each, to be divided one from the other by streets and alleys, and that no man should have above one of those squares to one house. The great street should not be less than 100 or six score feet broad ; the lesser streets none less than sixty; alleys eight or ten feet.
The first acts of the new administration were directed to the survey and recording of the lands granted to the settlers with a view to the more definite claims of quit- rent and the introduction of more of the forms of the Fundamental Constitutions. Strieter regulations were ordained against persons leaving the colony. Those who should desire to do so were required to set up their names in the Secretary's office, and if any person objected to their
1 Hist. Sketches (Rivers), 109.
162
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
departure he wrote his name within twenty-one days beneath the names so set up, and the reasons for his objection were heard by the Council before a permission for leave could be obtained. On the 27th of June. 1673, the Council ordered an extension of the time of advertise- ment to six weeks. Such a provision was common to the colonies and was intended to prevent debtors from absconding. So Halsted writes to Shaftesbury that he carries no one from Barbadoes without a ticket.1 It was resolved by the Council that for the better safety of the settlement the Governor should live in town. This, it is supposed, was induced because Sir John Yeamans had retired to his country house when the people refused to recognize him as Governor upon his arrival.
In pursuance of his instructions, Governor Yeamans proceeded to lay out the site of another town. It so happened that the present site of the city of Charleston, - the point formed by the confluence of the Kiawha, or Ash- ley, and the Wando, or Cooper, River - had been taken up by Henry Hughes and John Coming. With Hughes the readers of this history are well acquainted. Coming had come out as mate of Henry Braine, captain of the Carolina. Halsted describes him as a good sailor but ambitious. 2 Tradition relates that his conduct having been criticised for the loss of a vessel on Charles Town bar, which was charged to have been from cowardice, he crossed the Atlantic in a longboat, which he raised and decked for the purpose to vindicate his courage.3 He subsequently became a prosperous planter in the province.
1 Hist. Sketches of So. Ca. (Rivers), 110; Calendar State Papers. Colonial (Sainsbury). London, 1889, 326. A similar regulation pre- vailed in Virginia. See Bruce's Economic Hist. of Vat., vol. II, 867.
2 Calendar State Papers, Colonial (Sainsbury), London, 1589, 326.
3 MSS. of Elias Ball, now in possession of Mr. Isaac Ball of Charleston.
163
UNDER THE PROPRIETARY GOVERNMENT
As early as February 25, 1671-72 Hughes and Coming, the latter with his wife Affra, appeared before the Grand Council and voluntarily surrendered the half of their lands upon Oyster Point, "to be employed in and toward the outlaying of a town and commons of pasture there intended to be erected."1 On the 20th of July Governor Yeamans by and with the advice of Itis Council issued the following warrant to John Culpepper: -
"You are forthwith to admeasure and lay out for a town on Oyster point all that point of land then formerly allotted for the same adding thereto one hundred and fifty acres of land or so much thereof as you shall find to be proportionable for the said one hundred and fifty acres in the breadth of land formerly marked to be laid out for Mr. Henry Hughes Mr. John Coming and Affra his now wife, and James Robinson estimated to be seven hundred acres," etc.
Mr. Hughes's land was retained by the Grand Council ; Mr. Coming's was released. The town thus laid off originally extended no farther west than the present . Meeting Street, nor farther north than Broad Street, nor south than Water Street. The land to the south of the town obtained the name of Coming's Point and White Point, no doubt from the whiteness of the oyster shells upon it. It was not, however, as yet intended to aban- don the old town on the Ashley ; for the settlers there were then engaged in building a fort which was finished in May, 1672, and in June an act was passed for the uniform rebuilding of the town. In accordance with this act, the old town was laid out anew and was divided into sixty-two lots. Those who owned lots gave them up and a redistribution was made on the 22d of July.2
1 Dalcho's Ch. Hist., 15.
" The following are the names of the persons to whom the lots were assigned and the numbers given them. The list is useful as giving the names of the principal people then in the colony : Thomas Ingram, No. 68; Samuel West, 31; William Owen, 32, 23; Captain Henry Braine, 30 ;
164
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
Colonel West. the former Governor, besides being reg- ister of writings, was superintendent of the plantation and stores of the Proprietors, and thus especially charged with the care of their individual interests. In June, 1672. he procured an order from the Council that twenty persons from the debtors to the Proprietors should furnish ser- vants to cut and prepare a cargo of lumber for the Bless- ing at its next arrival. Governor Yeamans, on the other hand. was entering upon plans which demanded an in- creased expenditure of the private resources of the Pro- prietors. The colony was placed in a state of security against invasion, cannon were mounted at Stono Creek, and a " great gun " was fired at Charles Town on the ap- proach of any vessel. The inhabitants were armed and six companies were enrolled under Lieutenant Colonel Godfrey. Surely these were all legitimate and proper expenses to be borne by the owners of a large part of the great new Continent, -- but the Proprietors, in their niggardly conduct, bitterly complained that instead of
Lieutenant Henry Hughes, 3; John Coming, 29; Captain Florence O'Sul- livan, 5, 6, 26, 27; John Williamson, 7; Ralph Marshall, 8; Captain Stephen Bull. 25, 24; Captain Joseph Bayley, 9 ; Sir John Yeamans, 22; Richard Deyos, 19; James Jours, 14; Thomas Turpin, 33; Priscilla Burke, 28; Major Thomas Gray, 10; John Foster, 11; Richard Batin, 13; Henry Wood, 15; George Beadon, 40, 20 ; Ensign Hugh Carteret, 18 ; Captain George Thomas, bonght of William Kennis, 16. 17; Captain Nathaniel Sayle, 59, 60; Thomas Hurt. for his wife, 61; the Lords Pro- prietors, 50, 51, 52, 53, 62; Captain Maurice Mathews, 37, 54; Michael Smith, 38 ; Thomas Thompson, 55; Captain Gyles Hall, 12; Thomas and James Smith, 41, 57 ; Richard Cole. 42 ; Joseph Dalton, 44 ; JJohn Pinkerd, 36 ; Joseph Pendarvis. 45; John Maverick, 43; Philip Comerton, number not designated, but either 21. 30, 48. 49, which are not stated to have been delivered ; Christopher Portman, 4; Ensign Henry Prettye, 56; Timothy Biggs, 34; Charles Miller. 46; John Culpepper, 35; Captain John Robin- son, 47 ; Ensign Boone, 2; and Edward Mathews. 1. See Fragment of JJournals in Grant Book, 1672-94. Sec. of State's office, Columbia ; Dalcho's Ch. Hist., 17, 18 ; Hist. Sketches of So. Ca. (Rivers), 128.
165
UNDER THE PROPRIETARY GOVERNMENT
being repaid what had already been advanced by them, a debt of several thousand pounds had been incurred be- fore the end of 1673 and that they were still solicited for further aid and a stock of cattle from England. A more serious charge against Sir John was that. while the settlers could scarcely raise sufficient provisions for their own con- sumption, he was buying up the produce of the colony and exporting it at great gain to the Island of Barbadoes.
The Proprietors had scarcely commissioned Sir John before letters from Carolina arrived. telling how he had claimed the government under the Fundamental Constitu- tions without waiting their appointment, and of his great unpopularity. The Earl of Shaftesbury, to which dignity Lord Ashley had just been raised (April 23. 1672). upon the receipt of these complaints sends a letter. no doubt written by Locke, "a masterpiece of composition " as it has been said.1 in which he gently remonstrates with " his very affectionate friend Sir John" and advises him "not to make use of the government put into his hands to revenge himself on any who had spoken their apprehensions with that freedom which must be allowed in a country wherein men are not designed to be oppressed, and where they may justly expect equal justice and protection." He had too great a value for Sir John's condition and ability, he said, not to desire the continuance of a right understand- ing between them. and therefore must take the liberty to deal freely with him in a matter wherein they were both concerned. and to tell him that he could not avoid think- ing that the suspicions of those who had expressed some fear of his management of the government had some ground. His too forward conduct in grasping at the government when he first arrived in Carolina, and his
1 Calendar State Papers, Colonial (Sainsbury), London, 1889, Preface, xxi.
.
166
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
endeavors since to diminish the authority of certain depu- ties who had power to represent the Proprietors, had even at that distance given some umbrage.1
While the Proprietors, on the one hand, were, stingily, quarrelling with every expenditure in the colony, on the other, their minds were filled with schemes of grandeur and magnificence in the government they were attempt- ing to settle in the wilds of America. "A debt of several thousand pounds " appalled them, even though it was to be incurred in laying out and settling hundreds of thousands of acres in seigniories, baronies, and manors for Land- graves and Caciques. Instead of providing the means for colonizing their immense domain even in part, their time was spent in drawing on paper grand plans of im- aginary and impossible governments, and sending them out to be put in operation among a few hundred advent- urers who had hardly the means of living. Their legis- lative activity was surely extraordinary.
It will be remembered that Locke's original draft of the Fundamental Constitutions of March, 1670, had been modi- fied in some particulars, and, thus modified, had been sol- emnly adopted on the 20th of July, 1670. To these latter, which are known as the first set, and which had been de- claimed " sacred and unalterable," the colonists had been required to subscribe and swear submission. While they had never been adopted by a Parliament which alone could give them authority under the charter, they had thus been forced upon the people individually. With a deter- mination which seems purposed merely to irritate the peo- ple, the Proprietors, well aware that this condition of the province would not. at least yet. admit of the enforce- ment of either set, now sent out a printed copy of Locke's
1 Calendar State Papers, Colonial (Sainsbury), London, 1882, 861 ; Colonial Records of No. Ca., vol. I, 212.
167
UNDER THE PROPRIETARY GOVERNMENT
original draft, but to which, it is said, they added the clause that appears as Article 96, in the set to be found in the first volume of the Statutes of South Carolina, directing the building of churches and the public main- tenance of divines of the Church of England, which it declared to be the only true and orthodox religion.1 The Church of England, as we have before explained. was already the established church under the charter ; but, not content with the fact, the seven Proprietors who were adherents of Episcopacy - Shaftesbury having no predi- lection upon the subject 2 - now required a declaration that the Church of England was the only true and ortho- dox religion. Locke's original draft, with this inconsistent provision imposed upon it, - if so be that Locke did not draw it himself, - now becoming known as the Second Set, was adopted by the Proprietors on the 20th of June. 1672 ; they do not appear, however, to have been received by the Governor in Carolina until the 8th of February, 1673-74. The Parliament refused to recognize them.
That the Proprietors were well aware that no sub- stantial purpose could be effected by this attempt to force these Constitutions upon the colony at this time is mani- fest, for with them they also sent two other remarkable legislative productions. These were termed " Temporary Laws " and " Agrarian Laws."
"Since the paucity of nobility," they said. "will not permit the Fundamental Constitutions presently to be put in practice. it is necessary for the supply of that defect
1 Hist. Sketches of So. Ca. (Rivers), 117, 118 ; Appendix, 420.
2 Bishop Barnet says of Shaftesbury : " He was to religion a Deist at best. fle had the dotage of Astrology about him to a high degree. He told me that a Dutch doctor had from the stars foretold him the whole series of his life. But that which was before him when he told me this proved false, if he told me true. For he said he was yet to be a greater man than he had been." - History of his Own Times, vol. 1, 96.
168
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
that some temporary laws should in the meantime be made for the better ordering of affairs till by a sufficient number of inhabitants of all degrees the government of Carolina can be administered according to the form established in the Fundamental Constitutions, we the Lords Proprietors have agreed to the following."
The first, second. and third articles of these Tempo- rary Laws repeat in short form the provisions in regard to the nomination of deputies by the Palatines and other Proprietors : admit the nobility as members of the Grand Council ; appoint the chief officers in the province with the same high-sounding titles ; declare the powers of the Council, the quorum of which should be the Governor and six councillors, whereof three at least shall be deputies of Proprietors. 4. In case of the death or departure of a deputy, his place should be supplied by the eldest of the councillors chosen by Parliament until another deputy be appointed. 5. Parliament to consist of the Governor. deputies. nobility, and twenty delegates of the freeholders to be assembled and to make laws agreeably to provisions of the Fundamental Constitutions. 6. All acts of such Parliament to cease at the end of the first Parliament convened after the Constitution should be put in force. 7. As much of the Constitutions as practicable to be the rule of proceeding.1
The Agrarian Laws, which are twenty-three in number, were anything but such as would be inferred from their title. They were concerned entirely with the interests of the Proprietors and nobility, and the proportionate division of their landed estates. The distribution of the people's share is alluded to only incidentally. The preamble sol- emily announces a principle most inconsistent with the provisions which follow. "Since the whole foundation
I Hist. Sketches of So. Ca. (Rivers), 119 ; Appendix, 351.
169
UNDER THE PROPRIETARY GOVERNMENT
of the government," it declares, " is settled upon right and equal distribution of land and the orderly taking up of it of great moment to the welfare of the province," it goes on to provide that one-fifth of all shall be secured to the Proprietors, one-fifth to the nobility, and the rest to the people.1
There was no authority for such "Temporary Laws" under the charter. The provisions of that instrument allowed for such only upon an emergency, when an assembly of the freeholders could not be convened. It did not authorize such regulations of indefinite con- tinuance without the assent of the people. The Agrarian Laws did not purport to be of merely temporary char- acter ; on the contrary, they provided for the permanent distribution of lands. They were likewise not in ac- cordance with the terms of the charter, and so were not constitutionally of force.
Hewatt mentions that during the government of Sir John Yeamans a civil disturbance broke out which threatened the ruin of the settlement ; that it had been fomented by Culpepper, with the connivance of O'Sullivan ; and that during these commotions the colonists were anticipating an invasion from the Spaniards of St. Augustine. It is said that O'Sullivan. who had been put in charge of the cannon on the island which now bears his name, in order to alarm the town in case of the appearance off the bar of any of the Spanish vessels, being ready to perish with hunger. deserted his charge and took part with Culpepper in the disturbance at Charles Town, where he was arrested by the Marshal for sedition and required to give security for his good conduct.2 Chalmers, in his account of Cul-
1 Hist. Sketches of So. Ca. (Rivers), 119 ; Appendix, 355.
2 Hewatt, Hist. of So. Ca., vol. I, 62 ; Hist. Sketches of So. Ca. (Rivers), 112, note.
170
HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
pepper's insurrection in North Carolina in 1677, speaks of him as one who had in 1671 been appointed Surveyor General of Carolina, and who had raised commotions on the Ashley River.1 We can find no contemporary allusions to such events. Braine, in a letter to Lord Ashley, Novem- ber. 1670. accuses O'Sullivan of rash and base dealings and abuse of the Governor. Council, and country,2 but this was during the administration of West, not during that of Yeamans.
The apprehension of an attack by the Spaniards at this time was not, however, without some foundation. The facilities for escape of servants and slaves to Florida, and their detention and protection there by the Span- iards. would have furnished a continual cause of irrita- tion between the two colonies had none other existed. The first purpose of slaves deserting their masters in Carolina was to reach St. Augustine. In this they were sometimes frustrated by Indians sent out in pursuit, who overtook and captured them. Brian Fitzpatrick, described as "a noted villain," who had before been punished by the Grand Council, now deserted to the Spaniards and informed them of the distressed condition of the colony. An attacking party was immediately dispatched from the Spanish garrison and took post at St. Helena Island. The hostile and warlike Indian tribe of Westoes, doubt- less under the same influence, also began to exhibit a troublesome disposition and were said to be lurking to the southward of Charles Town with hostile purpose.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.