|
NORTH CAROLINA AS A
PROPRIETARY.
Settlers from Virginia.
GLANCE at the map will show
why North Carolina received its first permanent settlers from Virginia.
The dangerous character of the coast of North Carolina made the approach
too difficult and uncertain to admit of colonization directly from Europe.
This became apparent from Sir Walter Raleigh's efforts to plant a colony
on Roanoke Island, and Raleigh himself directed John White, in 1587, to
seek a site on Chesapeake Bay. His commands, through no fault of White's,
were not obeyed, and the colony failed. Twenty-two years later the London
Company, guided by Raleigh's experience, directed the Jamestown colony
towards the Chesapeake. The first settlers, for obvious reasons, sought
lands lying along navigable streams, consequently the water courses, to a
large extent, determined the direction of the colony's growth. Many of the
streams of southeastern Virginia flow toward Currituck and Albemarle
sounds in North Carolina, and the sources of the most important rivers of
eastern North Carolina are in Virginia. Furthermore, the soil, the
climate, the vegetation and the animal life of the Albemarle region are of
the same character as those of southeastern Virginia. Nothing, therefore,
was more natural than that the planters of Virginia, searching for good
bottom lands, should gradually extend their plantations southward along
the shores of Albemarle Sound and the rivers that flow into it.
The Virginians early manifested a lively
interest in the Albemarle region. Nansemond county, adjoining North
Carolina, was settled as early as 1609, and during the following years
many an adventurous hunter, trader and explorer made himself familiar with
the waters that pour into Albemarle and Currituck sounds. In 1622 John
Pory, secretary of Virginia, after a trip to the Chowan reported that he
found it "a very fruitful and pleasant country, yielding two harvests in a
year." Seven years later Charles I. granted the region to Sir Robert
Heath, and there are reasons for believing that Heath's assigns made an
unsuccessful attempt to plant a settlement within the grant. About the
year 1646 the governor of Virginia sent two expeditions, one by water, the
other overland, against the Indians along the Albemarle and Currituck
sounds, and members of these expeditions purchased lands from the Indians.
During the next few years other expeditions were made. Roger Green, a
clergyman of Nansemond county, became interested in the country to the
southward, and in 1653 obtained a grant of 10,000 acres for the first 100
persons who should settle on Roanoke River, south of Chowan, and 1,000
acres for himself "as a reward for his own first discovery and for his
encouragement of the settlement." It is not known whether he followed this
grant with a settlement, but historians have assumed that he did. The next
year Governor Yeardley, of Virginia, sent an expedition to Roanoke Island
which led to other explorations into what is now eastern North Carolina,
and two years later the Assembly of Virginia commissioned Thomas Dew and
Thomas Francis to explore the coast between Cape Hatteras and Cape Fear.
The sons of Governor Yeardley, therefore, had good grounds for their boast
that the northern country of Carolina had been explored by "Virginians
born." These
expeditions were naturally followed by a southward movement of settlers.
Just when this movement began cannot be stated with accuracy.
There may have been settlers in Albemarle
before 1653. It may be true that Roger Green did lead the first colony
there in that year. Certainly before the year 1663 John Battle, Thomas
Relfe, Roger Williams, Thomas Jarvis and perhaps others had purchased
lands from the Indians who dwelt along the waters of Albemarle Sound and
settled them. The grant to George Durant by Kilcocanen, chief of the
Yeopim Indians, dated March 1, 1661 [1662], for a tract lying along
Perquimans River and Albemarle Sound, is the oldest grant for land in
North Carolina now extant. But Durant came into that region two years
before he made his purchase, and there were purchases prior to his, for
his grant recites a previous one made to Samuel Pricklove and is witnessed
by two Englishmen. Besides, in 1662, purchases from the Indians had become
so common that the government ordered them to be disregarded and required
that patents be taken out for these lands under the laws of Virginia.
Three years later the surveyor of Albemarle declared that a county "forty
miles square will not comprehend the inhabitants there already settled."
These settlers, for the most part, came from Virginia; but others came
also, and at the close of the first decade of its history the Albemarle
colony contained 1,400 inhabitants between sixteen and sixty years of age,
and the settlements extended from Chowan River to Currituck Sound. [In
1660 a party of New Englanders attempted without success to plant a
settlement on the Cape Fear. Four years later a party of royalist refugees
to the island of Barbadoes established a colony near the mouth of that
river. In 1665 they were joined by another party from Barbadoes under the
leadership of Sir John Yeamans, who had been appointed governor. The
settlement extending several miles up and down the river was erected into
a county called Clarendon, and at one time numbered 800, souls. Yeamans,
however, soon returned to Barbadoes. The Lords Proprietors took but little
interest in the colony, but directed their energies towards building up a
rival settlement farther southward. The Clarendon colony, after many
hardships and much suffering, was abandoned in 1667. It is of interest
merely as an historical fact.]
Growth of Settlements.
From Albemarle the population moved slowly
southward. The stages of its progress may be marked by the four principal
river systems of eastern Carolina-the Roanoke, the Pamlico [Tar], the
Neuse and the Cape Fear. The impatience of the Lords Proprietors for the
extension of the settlements to the southward outstripped the movement of
population. They blamed the colonists for not making greater progress, and
assigned this delay as one reason why they themselves took more interest
in the colony on the Ashley River than in the one on Albemarle Sound.
However, in 1676, they learned that the fault was not with the people but
with their rulers, who "had engrossed the Indian trade to themselves and
feared that it would be intercepted by those who should plant farther
among them." The colonial officials accordingly had prevented settlements
to the southward, but now the Lords Proprietors issued peremptory orders
commanding the governor to encourage the opening of that section, and
settlers began to push their way into it. No record of their progress is
found until they reached Pamlico River, where, in 1691, a small party of
French Huguenots from Virginia had planted a settlement. A few years later
a pestilence among the Indians opened the way for other settlers, who
continued to drift southward from Albemarle. By 1696 the settlement was
considered of sufficient importance to be erected into a county called
Archdale, afterwards Bath, extending from the Albemarle to the Neuse, and
to be allowed two representatives in the General Assembly. In 1704 a site
for a town was selected, and the next year the town was incorporated under
the name of Bath. At the close of its first five years Bath could boast of
a library and a dozen houses. Though at times the home of wealth and
culture, Bath never became more than a sleepy little village. It derives
its chief distinction from the unimportant fact that it was the first town
in the province. The settlers on the Pamlico, however, prospered, and
their good reports induced others to join them. In December, 1705, the
Council, "taking into their serious consideration" the fact that Bath
county had "grown populous and [was] daily increasing," divided it into
three precincts, with the right to send two representatives each to the
Assembly. Two years later another body of Huguenots from Virginia,
"considerable in numbers," passed the Pamlico and occupied lands on the
Neuse and Trent rivers.
In 1710 came a colony of German Palatines.
Driven from their native land on account of their religion, they had
sought refuge in England, where they were warmly welcomed by the Queen.
They came, however, in such numbers that good Queen Anne found them a
burden on her hands, and welcomed an opportunity to provide for some of
them in America. This opportunity came through Christopher De Graffenried,
a native of the city of Bern, who was in London with a countryman, Louis
Mitchell, planning to settle a colony of Swiss in North Carolina. De
Graffenried's interest in Carolina had been excited some years before by
the Duke of Albemarle, who had discoursed to him on "the beauty, goodness
and riches of English America," so that he determined to seek "a more
considerable fortune in those far-off countries." He was encouraged in his
purpose by the Lords Proprietors, who granted him "very favorable
conditions and privileges." The Queen, too, contributed £4,000 sterling to
his enterprise in consideration of his settling 100 families of the
Palatines in Carolina.
The Palatines sailed in January, 1710, but
without De Graffenried, who waited in England for his colony from Bern.
During a terrible voyage of thirteen weeks, more than half of the
colonists died at sea. The others, after many hardships and cruel
suffering, finally arrived in Carolina and were settled on a tongue of
land between the Neuse and Trent rivers. De Graffenried followed in June,
arriving in Carolina in September. He found the Palatines in a wretched
condition, "sickness, want and desperation having reached their climax."
They had come at an unfortunate time, and De Graffenried's utmost
exertions could do but little to relieve their situation. The province was
in the midst of Cary's rebellion, and this trouble was scarcely settled
before the most disastrous Indian war in the history of North Carolina
broke out. The Palatines and Swiss suffered terribly; their homes were
burned, their crops destroyed, and many of their number slaughtered. The
settlement, however, survived these disasters and, although De Graffenried
returned to Europe broken in fortune, the settlers went to work with a
will, cleared away the ashes, rebuilt their cabins, founded the town of
New Bern, and started on a prosperous career.
Cape Fear Region.
After the failure of Yeamans' colony in 1667,
the Cape Fear region had fallen into disrepute, and more than half a
century passed before another attempt was made to plant a settlement
there. Four causes contributing to this delay were : the character of the
coast at the mouth of the river; the hostility of the Indians ; the
pirates who sought refuge there in large numbers, and the closing of the
Carolina land office by the Lords Proprietors. The character of the coast,
of course, could not be changed, and in spite of all that modern science
can do still remains an obstacle to the development of a splendid country.
The blow that upset the power of the Cape Fear Indians was struck by Col.
Maurice Moore in 1715, and three years later the pirates were driven out.
But the orders of the Lords Proprietors still remained. Enterprising men,
however, familiar with the advantages of the region refused to recognize
the moral right of the Proprietors to prevent their clearing and settling
it in the name of civilization, and about the year 1723 they began to lay
out their claims, clear their fields and build their cabins without regard
to the formalities of law. When Governor Burrington saw that they were
determined to take up lands without either acquiring titles or paying
rents, he decided that the interests of the Proprietors would be served by
his giving the one and receiving the other. He therefore, upon petition
from the Assembly, ordered the Carolina land office to be reopened. Good
titles thus assured, settlers were not wanting. Governor Burrington,
Maurice Moore and his brother, Roger Moore, led the way, followed by the
Moseleys, the Howes, the Porters, the Lillingtons, the Ashes, the Harnetts,
and others whose names are closely identified with the history of North
Carolina. Here on the Cape Fear they were joined by numerous other
families from the Albemarle, from South Carolina, from Barbadoes, and
other islands of the West Indies, from New England, Pennsylvania, Maryland
and from Europe. On the west bank of the Cape Fear Maurice Moore laid off
a town, and gave sites for a graveyard, a church, a court-house, a
markethouse, and other public buildings, and a commons "for the use of the
inhabitants of the town." With an eye to royal favors, he named the place
Brunswick in honor of the reigning family.
But Brunswick, like Bath, did not flourish,
and in the course of a few years yielded with no good grace to a younger
and more vigorous rival, sixteen miles farther up the river, which was
named in honor of Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington. The settlement
prospered, and at the close of its first decade Governor Johnston declared
that its inhabitants were "a sober and industrious set of people," that
they had made "an amazing progress in their improvement," and that the
Cape Fear had become the "place of the greatest trade in the whole
province."
Settlements extended no further during the proprietary period. In 1728,
when the interests of the Proprietors passed to the Crown, the population
of North Carolina numbered 30,000, and extended along the coast from the
Virginia line to the Cape Fear.
The Proprietary.
The name "Carolana" or "Carolina" was applied
to this territory by Charles I. in his grant to Sir Robert Heath in 1629,
and was retained by Charles II. in his grant to the Lords Proprietors
thirty-four years later. The latter grant, issued March 24, 1663, was made
to Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, High Chancellor of England; George
Monk, Duke of Albemarle, Master of the King's Horse and Captain-General of
all his forces; William, Lord Craven; John, Lord Berkely; Anthony Cooper,
Lord Ashley, Chancellor of the Exchequer, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury;
Sir George Carteret, Vice-Chamberlain of the King's Household ; Sir
William Berkely, Governor of Virginia, and Sir John Colleton. The names of
these grantees are still to be found on the map of the Carolinas. In North
Carolina are Albemarle Sound, Craven and Carteret counties ; in South
Carolina, Clarendon and Colleton counties, Berkely Parish, and the Ashley
and Cooper rivers, while in Charleston we have the name of the King. The
object of the grantees was to plant colonies in America ; the motives were
declared to be "a laudable and pious zeal for the propagation of the
Christian faith" and the enlargement of the King's empire and dominions.
The grant included all the territory lying between 31° and 36° N. Lat.,
westward from the Atlantic Ocean to the "South Seas." Afterwards when it
was ascertained that these boundaries did not include the settlements
already planted on the Albemarle, a second charter was issued, June 30,
1665, extending the limits 30 minutes northward and two degrees southward.
This region was erected into the "Province of Carolina," over which the
grantees were constituted "the true and absolute Lords Proprietors."
Government.
The Lords Proprietors derived from their
charters ample powers of government, but the uncertainty with which they
exercised these powers resulted in weakness and confusion. Plan after plan
was promulgated and declared to be permanent, only to be soon cast aside
for some new scheme. The instructions of 1663 to Sir William Berkely
outlining a plan of government for Albemarle county gave way two years
later to a more elaborate constitution called the Concessions of 1665. The
Concessions in their turn were supplanted in 1670 by the Fundamental
Constitutions of John Locke ; but accompanying the command to put these
into operation came instructions modifying their provisions. The Lords
Proprietors continued this sort of tinkering with their constitution for
some years, so that, as Dr. Bassett says: "For the first fifty years of
the life of the colony the inhabitants could not be sure that their
government was stable."
The constitution of the proprietary period
presents a theoretical as well as a practical side. The former found
expression in the Fundamental Constitutions. Adopted and signed by the
Proprietors, July 21, 1669, and declared to be unalterable and perpetual,
the Fundamental Constitutions speedily ran through five distinct editions
and were shortly abandoned altogether. They outlined an elaborate and
complicated scheme of government designed to secure the interests of the
Lords Proprietors, to "prevent the growth of a numerous democracy," and to
establish a government in harmony with monarchy. [The Fundamental
Constitutions have been analyzed so often that, with the brief space at
command, it has not been deemed advisable to do so here. Consult Bassett's
Constitutional Beginnings of North Carolina, in Johns Hopkins University
Studies, XII.; also Davis's Locke's Fundamental Constitutions, North
Carolina Booklet VII., No. 1. In this analysis Bassett's Constitutional
Beginnings has been followed, his citations being carefully verified.]
Realizing the impossibility of putting this scheme into full operation,
the Lords Proprietors contented themselves with instructing the governors
"to come as nigh it" as they could.
The practical side of the constitution was the plan of government actually
established. The executive was composed of a governor and a council. The
Lords Proprietors appointed the governor until 1691. Then they united the
northern and southern provinces under one governor, whom they authorized
to appoint a deputy in the former. In 1710 they decided to separate the
two provinces and appoint a governor of North Carolina "independent of the
governor of South Carolina," but this plan was not carried into effect
until 1712. The council at first consisted of not less than six nor more
than twelve members appointed by the governor. In 1670 its composition was
changed to consist of five deputies selected by the Proprietors, and five
members chosen by the Assembly. Another change was effected in 1691 when
the governor was instructed that the deputies alone were to compose the
council. This arrangement was continued until 1718, when the Proprietors
decided to abolish the deputies and to select a council of not more than
twelve ; but this plan was not made effective until 1724. In the event of
the death or absence of the governor, the council chose a president to
administer the affairs of the government until the vacancy could be
filled. The powers and duties of the governor and council were ample for
all executive purposes, but it is impracticable to enumerate them here.
Before 1691 the Assembly was unicameral; after
that date bicameral. During the first period it was composed of the
governor, council and representatives elected by the people; during the
second period the council and the representatives separated into an upper
and a lower house. Under the Concessions of 1665 the people were
authorized to elect twelve representatives, but this number was increased
to twenty in 1670, when Albemarle county was divided into four precincts
and five members were allotted to each. Other precincts were created as
the population increased, until the number of representatives during the
proprietary period reached twenty-eight. The regular sessions of the
Assembly were biennial, but the governor and council could convene,
prorogue or dissolve sessions at will. The lower house elected its own
officers, decided contests involving the election of its members, and had
the right to expel members. The Lords Proprietors exercised the right of
veto on the Assembly's measures, but all bills levying a tax or carrying
an appropriation had to originate in the lower house. Through a process of
gradual evolution the Assembly, from a position of weakness, came to be
the chief factor in the government, and the lower house acquired such
ascendancy as to become practically the entire Assembly.
The judicial system embraced the general
court, the precinct courts, a court of chancery, an admiralty court, and
in some instances the council. The first was an appellate court held for
many years by the governor and deputies. In 1691 the Proprietors directed
the governor to appoint a "chief judge" and four justices to hold this
court, though several years elapsed before this was done. In 1713 a chief
justice was appointed with a commission issuing directly from the Lords
Proprietors. He presided over the court which thereafter was composed of a
variable number of associates. The court met three times a year, sitting
both as a court of the King's Bench, Common Pleas and Exchequer, and as a
court of Oyer and Terminer and General Gaol Delivery. From its decisions
in cases involving £500 or over, an -appeal lay to the King. The precinct
courts were held by justices appointed by the governor and council. They
had jurisdiction over civil suits involving less than £50, and also
exercised such non-judicial duties as caring for public highways, creating
road districts, appointing constables, granting franchises for mill sites,
and other similar functions. The court of chancery was held by the
governor and council. The council also probated wills, received and
examined accounts of executors, divided land, and tried public officials
for misconduct in office. The admiralty court had jurisdiction over cases
involving violations of the navigation acts.
In the fall of 1663 the Lords Proprietors
instructed Sir William Berkely to appoint a governor and six councillors
for Albemarle county. The governor and council were authorized to appoint
all other officers, and together with representatives elected by the
people, or perhaps with the whole body of people in general meeting, to
constitute a Grand Assembly. William Drummond became the first governor.
History has assigned to him a character which subsequent governors might
have imitated with profit. During his administration the first Assembly
held in North Carolina met, probably in the spring of 1665. One of its
earliest acts was to petition the Lords Proprietors that lands in
Albemarle, then held at a rent of a half-penny per acre payable in specie,
might be held, as in Virginia, at one farthing per acre payable in
commodities. After a delay of three years the Proprietors granted the
prayer, issuing what is known as the Great Deed of Grant. Efforts were
afterwards made to revoke the Great Deed, but the Assembly, regarding it
as a document of the first importance, clung to it tenaciously, and
sixty-three years after its date ordered its text spread on the journal
and the original placed in the special custody of the speaker.
Character of the Governors.
The Proprietors were not always fortunate in
their selection of governors for Carolina. Some were weak, some bad men,
and but few cared anything for the people whom they were sent to rule. In
fact the system itself was ill-calculated to produce harmony and good-will
between the governors and the people. They were not the people's
governors; they were the Proprietors' vicegerents, and their first duty
was to care for the interests of their masters, rather than for the
welfare of the people. The result of course was continual clashings
between the people and their governors. Jenkins, Miller, Eastchurch,
Sothel, Cary and Glover were each in turn either driven out or kept out of
the governorship by a dominant faction of the people. Indeed, in 1711
Governor Spotswood, of Virginia, declared that the people of North
Carolina were so used to turning out their governors that they had come to
think they had a right to do so.
The People.
Historians have condemned these early
Carolinians as a lawless and contentious people, but those who pronounce
this judgment little understand the spirit that prompted them. When
governed according to the terms of its charter, no colony on the continent
was more orderly or more law-abiding; on the other hand, no people were
ever more jealous of their constitutional rights or quicker to resent the
encroachments of power. What if their resentments did sometimes run them
into excesses; shall we not pardon something to the spirit of liberty?
Their charters guaranteed to them "all liberties, franchises and
privileges" possessed and enjoyed by their fellow subjects in the realm of
England, Adherence to these charters and resistance to their perversion
were cardinal principles with North Carolinians throughout their colonial
history, and their records of that period are full of assertions of the
principles upon which the American Revolution was fought. As early as
1678, "when a few families were struggling into a consciousness of
statehood along the wide waters of our eastern sounds," they declared that
"the doctrine of non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression is
absurd, slavish and destructive to the good and happiness of mankind." In
1716, when the colony was but fifty years old and the population, all
told, was less than 10,000 souls, the Assembly entered on its journal the
declaration "that the impressing of the inhabitants, or their property,
under pretense of its being for the public service, without authority from
the Assembly, was unwarrantable and a great infringement upon the liberty
of the subject." Governor Burrington, who spoke with the authority of ten
years of residence among them, wrote that the early Carolinians were
"subtle and crafty to admiration," adding: "The people are neither to be
cajoled or outwitted; whenever a governor attempts to effect anything by
these means, he will lose his labor and show his ignorance. * * * They
insist that no public money can or ought to be paid but by a claim given
to and allowed by the house of burgesses." And John Urmstone, a missionary
among them, declared that the people respected no authority that did not
emanate from themselves. In a word, as Dr. Alderman, in his Life o f
William Hooper, has said: "The key to North Carolina character in this
inchoate period is the subordination of everything-material prosperity,
personal ease, financial development-to the remorseless assertion of the
sacredness of chartered rights," against the encroachments of the
proprietary government.
Rebellions.
During this period occurred two popular
uprisings serious enough to be dignified in history as rebellions. The
first, known as Culpepper's Rebellion, was occasioned by England's
commercial policy. Other causes accentuated the difficulties, but the
primary cause was the Navigation Act "that mischievous statute with which
the mother country was rapidly weaning the affections of its colonies all
along the American seaboard." Designed at first to secure the foreign
trade of the colonies for British merchants, the act was extended in 1672
to cover intercolonial commerce also. Duties were levied on certain
enumerated articles exported from one colony to another which, if strictly
enforced, would seriously cripple if they did not destroy the trade of
Albemarle with New England. This was Albemarle's principal trade; the act,
therefore, together with some other grievances, created so much discontent
that Governor Carteret, finding himself powerless to preserve order,
resigned the government and sailed for England, leaving the colony "in
ill-order and in worse hands." The Lords Proprietors appointed Thomas
Eastchurch to succeed him, and at the same time they procured the
appointment of Thomas Miller as collector of the customs. Both were
colonists and both were at that time in London. Eastchurch had been
speaker of the Assembly, and Miller was the bearer of an important
document from the Assembly to the Lords Proprietors. The latter naturally
thought these appointments would please the people of Albemarle. Perhaps
they would have pleased them had the Proprietors not sent the bitter with
the sweet; they instructed Eastchurch and Miller to enforce strictly the
Navigation Act.
Eastchurch sailed for his colony by way of the West Indies. There, on the
island of Nevis, he became enamored of a lady and, stopping to pay his
court, deputized Miller to proceed to Albemarle and act as governor until
his arrival. Miller was received quietly, but his honors seemed to have
turned his head. Not only did he arouse opposition by his vigor in
enforcing the Navigation Act, but in other respects his conduct was so
outrageous that it aroused the indignation of sensible, law-abiding
people. A leader and an overt act were alone needed to produce an
explosion. Both came soon enough. In December, 1677, the Carolina, a
heavily armed schooner commanded by Capt. Zachary Gillam, a well-known and
popular Yankee skipper, arrived in the Pasquotank River from London. When
Gillam came ashore Miller arrested him, arbitrarily it appears, for
alleged violations of the Navigation Act. Then learning that George
Durant, a wealthy and popular planter of Perquimans county against whom he
had grievance, was on board, Miller rushed on board, presented cocked
pistols at Durant's breast, and attempted to arrest him on an absurd
charge of treason. Here was the overt act ; the leader quickly appeared in
the person of John Culpepper, Surveyor-General. Followed by an armed mob,
Culpepper arrested Miller and other officials, threw them into prison and
seized the government. When Eastchurch appeared and demanded the
government his demands were disputed by the Culpepper party, and
Eastchurch appealed to Virginia for aid. It was promised, but he died
before assistance could be given. The rebels in the meantime had convened
an Assembly, elected officers, and for two years administered public
affairs "by their own authority and according to their own model." They
denied the authority neither of the Proprietors nor of the King, and did
not regard their conduct as rebellion. In this light, too, the Lords
Proprietors appear to have viewed it, for when Culpepper went to London to
explain the situation in Albemarle, they not only declined to punish him,
but when he was arrested on a charge of treason, Shaftesbury successfully
defended him on the ground that at the time of the insurrection Miller was
not governor, and there was no legal government in Albemarle, The next
experience of this kind which the people of Albemarle had with a governor
was with one of the Lords Proprietors. The Earl of Clarendon had sold his
share of Carolina to Seth Sothel, and Sothel was sent to Albemarle with
the expectation that the presence of a Lord Proprietor would awe the
people into order. But, as John Urmstone observed, in Albemarle a Lord
Proprietor was "no more regarded than a ballad-singer." He might have
added, too, that some of them were less worthy of respect than
ballad-singers. Sothel "proved himself to be one of the dirtiest knaves
that ever held office in America." His misrule quickly drove the people
into revolt. Accusing him of drunkenness, robbery and tyranny, they
arrested him, tried and convicted him, and drove him from the province,
declaring him incapable of holding office in Albemarle forever.
Church of England Established.
The banishment of Sothel was followed by a
period of comparative peace and order during which the colony grew and
prospered. During this period Philip Ludwell and John Archdale, the best
governors sent to Carolina by the Lords Proprietors, administered the
affairs of the colony, at times in person, but generally through deputies.
Under Ludwell, in 1691, the Lords Proprietors united the office of
governor of the two Carolinas. Archdale, like Sothel, was a Lord
Proprietor, but was like him in nothing else. A Quaker, he was especially
acceptable to the Quakers of Albemarle, who, since the visits of Edmundson
and Fox in 1672, had grown strong in the colony. Under the encouragement
of Archdale they became the most influential religious body in North
Carolina. The Church of England, on the contrary, was weak; yet, in 1701,
Gov. Henderson Walker induced the Assembly to pass an act establishing the
Church of England as the state church, and providing for its support by
taxation. The act at once aroused opposition, but it was quieted two years
later when the Lords Proprietors disapproved the act because of its
inadequacy. But the
attempt to establish a church caused an unfortunate division in the colony
that was to lead to trouble for many years to come. Heretofore the
religious scruples of the Quakers against taking oaths had been observed
and their affirmation accepted. But the recent act of Parliament
prescribing the oath of allegiance to Queen Anne made no such exception in
their favor, and Gov. Robert Daniel, who was appointed in 1704, insisted
that Quakers must take the oath before entering upon any official duties
or sitting as members of the Assembly. The Quakers refused, and demanded
that the custom of the province be followed. Their seats were accordingly
refused them, and the Assembly thus reduced in membership immediately
passed an act establishing the Church of England in the colony, and an act
requiring such an oath of office as no Quaker could take. Thereupon the
Quakers threw their influence against Daniel and secured his removal.
Thomas Cary succeeded him, but Cary disappointed the Quakers, for he
insisted on following the requirements of the law, and even went further
than Daniel had gone. The Quakers then sent John Porter to London to
appeal directly to the Lords Proprietors. Porter returned in 1707 with an
order recognizing the affirmation of Quakers in place of the oath,
removing Cary, appointing new deputies and authorizing the council to
elect a president to act as governor. When Porter arrived Cary was absent
and William Glover was acting as governor as president of the council.
This arrangement appeared satisfactory to all factions, and Porter and the
Quakers acquiesced in it. But when the new appointees offered to qualify
as councillors, Glover would not admit them until they had taken the
prescribed oath. Porter and his party thereupon formed an alliance with
Cary, who had returned, against Glover. But Glover refused to yield and
the colony was brought to the verge of civil war.
However, better counsels prevailed and an agreement was reached to submit
the rival claims to an Assembly. But new complications then arose. Both
Glover and Cary issued writs for the election of representatives, and when
the Assembly met in October, 1708, there were two rival sets of delegates.
Glover refused to recognize the legality of any action taken by delegates
who would not subscribe the oaths which had brought on the trouble, but
the Cary faction was in control and brushing aside Glover's claims decided
everything in Cary's favor. Glover, still claiming to be the lawful
governor, withdrew into Virginia, leaving Cary in possession of the
government and the colony in confusion. This condition continued for
nearly two years, when the Lords Proprietors again took a hand. They
selected Edward Hyde, a relative of the Queen, as deputy-governor of North
Carolina. Hyde arrived in Virginia in August, 1710.• He expected to
receive his commission from Governor Tynte at Charleston, but just before
his arrival Governor Tynte died, and without his commission Hyde was
powerless to enforce his authority in Albemarle. Both factions, however,
were tired of strife and both joined in an invitation to Hyde to assume
the government as president of the council. Hyde accepted, but displayed a
lack of tact in dealing with the situation, and again the colony was
thrown into disorder. Cary withdrew his adherence, took up arms and defied
the government. His party held Hyde's forces at bay until Governor
Spotswood, of Virginia, came to the latter's assistance. Cary was then
defeated, captured and sent to England to be tried for treason. However,
he was never tried, probably for the lack of evidence. His defeat put an
end to the rebellion in Carolina.
North Carolina and South Carolina Separate.
In 1710 the Lords Proprietors decided to
appoint Edward Hyde governor of North Carolina "independent of the
governor of South Carolina," but his commission was not issued until
January 24, 1712. He opened it and qualified before the council May 9.
Henceforth the careers of the two provinces were separate.
Trouble with Indians.
Worse days were yet in store for North
Carolina. As the white man pushed his settlements towards the southward,
he necessarily drove the red man before him and seized upon his hunting
ground. Powerless to stay the white man's march the Indian retreated in
sullen anger, ever on the lookout for a chance to strike a blow at his
advancing foe. The dissensions occasioned by Cary's Rebellion seemed to
one watchful chief of the Tuscaroras, whom the white man called Hancock,
to offer the desired chance and he determined to seize it. Instigated by
him 500 warriors assembled at his principal town on Contentnea Creek, near
the present village of Snow Hill, and appointed September 22, 1711, the
time for a wholesale massacre. Everything was arranged with such profound
secrecy that the white settlers continued to receive the Indians into
their cabins without suspicion almost to the very morning of the outbreak,
and slept peacefully through the preceding night. The war-whoops of the
savages, arousing them from sleep at daybreak, gave them their first
intimation of danger. Painted warriors poured out of the woods on all
sides. Within two hours they butchered 130 settlers on the Pamlico and
eighty on the Neuse. Men, women and children, as usual, fell
indiscriminately beneath their bloody tomahawks. The dead lay unburied in
the hot September sun, food for vultures and wolves. For three days the
awful work went on with every circumstance of horror and outrage. Those
who escaped fled to Bath and other places of refuge, leaving the whole
southern frontier along the Pamlico and the Neuse a scene of blood and
ashes and desolation.
Fortunately, Tom Blunt, a powerful chief of
the Tuscaroras, had refused to join in the conspiracy, and Albemarle
county escaped. But the recent dissensions in the province, the refusal of
the Quakers to bear arms, and the apprehensions of attack on the western
frontier of Albemarle made Governor Hyde's task an exceedingly difficult
one. Alone the colony could hardly have sustained itself, and Hyde
appealed to Virginia and South Carolina for help. Virginia sent none, but
South Carolina responded generously. Col. John Barnwell marched a force of
white men and Indians through 300 miles of forests, struck the enemy in
two hard battles near New Bern, and defeated them. Though reinforced by a
force of North Carolinians he was less successful in his attack on
Hancock's fort on the Contentnea. But he returned again to the attack in
the following spring. In the fort, however, Hancock held a large number of
white women and children prisoners, and in order to save these, Barnwell
agreed to a treaty of peace, and soon afterwards returned to South
Carolina. He was subjected to severe criticism for his course, but
probably none of it proceeded from those whose wives and children he had
thus snatched from the jaws of death.
Neither side, however, observed the treaty,
and before the summer of 1712 was gone the war was renewed. Yellow fever
added its horrors to those of war, and claimed perhaps as many victims.
Among them was Governor Hyde. Col. Thomas Pollock, a man of ability and
character, became president of the council, and during the summer and
winter pushed the war vigorously. In September he negotiated a treaty with
Tom Blunt by which the latter secured a truce with Hancock until the
following January. Before this truce expired Col. James Moore arrived from
South Carolina with a small force of white men and 1,000 Indians.
Cooperating with President Pollock he speedily drove the Indians to the
cover of their forts, stormed the strongest, captured it, and inflicted on
them a loss of 800 warriors. Crushed by this blow, the remnant of the
defeated Tuscaroras emigrated to New York where, joining their kinsmen,
the Iroquois of the Long House, they changed the celebrated Five Nations
to the Six Nations.
Two years later North Carolina had an opportunity to return the kindness
of South Carolina. In 1715 the Yemassee Indians, by whose aid the
Tuscaroras had been defeated, allied all the tribes from the Cape Fear to
Florida in hostilities against the white settlers. North Carolina sent
Col. Maurice Moore, a brother of Col. James Moore, to the aid of the
southern colony, and Moore struck the blow that finally crushed the power
of the Cape Fear Indians and opened that section to white settlers.
Pirates.
Three years later the Cape Fear was rid of
another pest. The dangerous coast that repelled legitimate traders from
the Cape Fear made that river a favorite resort for those whose trade was
plunder and rapine. Behind the sand bars that stretch across the mouth of
the river hundreds of pirates rested secure from interference while they
leisurely repaired damages and kept a sharp lookout for prey. The period
from 1650 to half a century after the departure of Yeamans' colony, John
Fiske has aptly called "the golden age of pirates." As late as 1717 it was
estimated that as many as 1,500 pirates made headquarters at New
Providence and at Cape Fear. But next year New Providence was captured and
the freebooters driven away. "One of its immediate results, however," as
Fiske observes, "was to turn the whole remnant of the scoundrels over to
the North Carolina coast where they took their last stand." The names of
Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet became household words all along the Carolina
coast. The former made his headquarters at Bath, the latter at Cape Fear,
and their wild deeds in those waters furnished material for stories that
are still poured into the ears of credulous listeners. Finally, through
the exertions of Governor Johnston, of South Carolina, Capt. William Rhett
sailed for the Cape Fear, captured Bonnet after a desperate struggle, and
carried him to Charleston where he paid the penalty for his crimes "at the
tail of a 'tow." A few weeks later Governor Spotswood, of Virginia, fitted
out an expedition against Blackbeard under the command of Lieut. Robert
Maynard. Maynard caught the pirate off Ocracoke Inlet, defeated and killed
him, and carried his infamous crew to Virginia to be executed. These were
decisive blows to piracy along the North Carolina coast, and after a few
more years the black flags of the buccaneers disappeared from our seas.
Boundary between North Carolina and
Virginia. After
these victories for good government and civilization, the colony settled
down during the last decade of proprietary rule to a period of comparative
repose. There were, it is true, a few internal dissensions, occasioned, as
such dissensions are still occasioned, by the ambitions of rival
politicians, but they affected the welfare of the colony but little, and
were small affairs in comparison with the great struggles through which
the colony had already passed. During this period occurred two events of
more than passing interest. In 1728 the longstanding boundary line dispute
with Virginia was finally settled. Commissioners appointed by the two
provinces ran the line, with great difficulty, skill and heroism, through
tangled forests and unexplored swamps. As they ran it, so it remains to
this day.
Proprietary Abolished.
The same year saw the rule of the Lords
Proprietors brought to a close. Nine years before the people of South
Carolina had thrown off the proprietary government and sought admission
into the class of Crown colonies. Neither the people nor the Proprietors
had been satisfied with the latter's experiment. The King, too, regretted
the grant which had conveyed such vast possessions and such extensive
political power to subjects. The action of South Carolina, therefore, set
in motion a train of thoughts and negotiations that resulted, in 1728, in
the purchase by the Crown of seven-eighths of the territorial interests of
the Proprietors and the resumption of all their political authority. Both
provinces then passed under the direct authority of the Crown and the rule
of the Lords Proprietors came to an end. In North Carolina the change was
celebrated with great public rejoicings.
Conclusion.
The people had cause for their joy. Neglected
by the Proprietors and antagonized by the commercial policy of their
powerful northern neighbor, what those early Carolinians had obtained they
got through their own unassisted exertions and without favor from anybody.
None of the English colonies had passed through a more desperate struggle
for existence. The geographical position of North Carolina was such as
placed its commerce at the mercy of Virginia, and there was then, as
Saunders observes, no Federal Constitution to prevent unneighborly
legislation. The inefficient government of the Proprietors was unable to
preserve either order or safety in the province, and was just strong
enough to be a source of constant irritation. The Culpepper Rebellion, the
Cary Rebellion, the Indian wars and the struggle with piracy severely
tested the character and the capabilities of the people. Their situation,
for instance, at the close of the Indian wars was almost desperate. Most
of the people have "scarcely corn to last them until wheat time, many not
having any at all"; "the country miserably reduced by Indian cruelty," and
"the inhabitants brought to so low an ebb" that large numbers fled the
province; "our intestine broils and contentions, to which all the
misfortunes which have since attended us are owing"; "a country preserved
which everybody that was but the least acquainted with our circumstances
gave over for lost"; these are typical expressions with which the
correspondence of the period abounds. That the colony survived these
conditions is better evidence of the character and spirit of the people
than the sneers and jibes of hostile critics, either contemporary or
modern. Had the greater part of the population of North Carolina, or even
-a -considerable minority, of it, been composed of "the shiftless people
who could not make a place for themselves in Virginia society," as William
Byrd and John Fiske would have us believe, all the aristocracy of Virginia
and South Carolina combined could not have saved the colony from anarchy
and ruin. Yet between the years 1663 and 1728 somebody laid here in North
Carolina the foundations of a great state. The foundation upon which great
states are built is the character of their people, and the "mean whites"
of Virginia are not now, nor were they then, the sort of people who found
and build states. No colony composed to any extent of such a people could
have rallied from such disasters as those from which North Carolina
rallied between 1718 and 1728. Those years were years of growth and
expansion. The population increased threefold, the Cape Fear was opened to
settlers, new plantations were cleared, better methods of husbandry
introduced, mills erected, roads surveyed, ferries established, trade was
increased, towns were incorporated, better houses built, better furniture
installed, parishes created, churches erected, ministers supplied, the
schoolmaster found his way thither, and the colony was fairly started on
that course of development which brought it, by the outbreak of the
Revolution, to the rank of fourth in population and importance among the
thirteen English-speaking colonies in America.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-The great source and the only
absolutely reliable source of information relative to the history of North
Carolina is the Colonial Records of North Carolina. This following list
makes no pretence to completeness, and only a few titles are given which
for their accessibility may be easily consulted, or for other reasons are
of especial interest or importance.-Alderman, E. A.: William Hooper; Ashe,
Samuel A.: History o f North Carolina (2 vols., in press, Greensboro);
Bassett, John S.: Constitutional Beginnings of North Carolina, 1663-1729
in Johns Hopkins University Studies, Series XII., No. 3 (Baltimore), The
Writings of Colonel William Byrd of Westover in Virginia Esqr. (New York,
1901); Bancroft, George: History of the United States (6 vols., New York,
1888); Fiske, John: Old Virginia and Her Neighbours (2 vols., Boston and
New York, 1897); Hawks, Francis L.: History of North Carolina, with maps
and illustrations (2 vols., Fayetteville, 1857-58); Lawson, John: The
History o f Carolina (London, 1718); Martin, Francis X.: History of North
Carolina (2 vols., New Orleans, 1829); Moore, John W.: History of North
Carolina (2 vols., Raleigh, 1880); Raper, Charles Lee: North Carolina: A
Study in English Colonial Government (New York, 1904); Saunders, William
L., and Clark, Walter: The Colonial Records of North Carolina (26 vols.,
1886-1917); Weeks, Stephen B.: The Religious Development in the Province
of North Carolina in Johns Hopkins University Studies, Series X., Nos. 5-6
(Baltimore, 1892), Church and State in North Carolina in Johns Hopkins
University Studies, Series XI., Nos. 4-6 (Baltimore, 1893), Libraries and
Literature in North Carolina in the Eighteenth Century, from the Annual
Report of the American Historical Association for 1895, pages 171-267
(Washington, 1896), Southern Quakers and Slavery in Johns Hopkins
University Studies, Series XV. (Baltimore, 1896); Wheeler, John H.:
Historical Sketches of North Carolina (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1851);
Williamson, Hugh: The History of North Carolina (2 vols., Philadelphia,
1812); Winsor, Justin: Narrative and Critical History o f America (8
vols., Boston and New York, 1889); North Carolina Booklet, published
quarterly by the North Carolina Society Daughters of the Revolution,
Raleigh, and including: Ashe, Samuel A.: Our Own Pirates (Vol. II., No.
2); Bassett, John S.: The County of Clarendon (Vol. II., No. 10); Battle,
Kemp P.: The Lords Proprietors of Carolina (Vol. IV., No. 1); Cheshire,
Joseph Blount: First Settlers in North Carolina, Not Religious Refugees
(Vol. V., No. 4); Clark, Walter: Indian Massacre and Tuscarora War,
1711-13 (Vol. II., No. 3); Davis, Junius: Locke's Fundamental
Constitutions (Vol. VII., No. 1); Grimes, J. Bryan: Some Notes on Colonial
North Carolina, 1700-1750, (Vol. V., No. 2); Haywood, Marshall DeL.:
Governor Charles Eden (Vol. III., No. 8), John Lawson (Vol. VI., No. 4);
Hinsdale, Mrs. John W.: Governor Thomas Pollock (Vol. V., No. 4);
Holladay, Alexander Q.: Social Conditions in Colonial North Carolina (Vol.
III., No. 10); Kennedy, Sara B.: Colonial New Bern (Vol. I., No. 2); Raper,
Charles L.: Social Life in Colonial North Carolina (Vol. III., No. 5).
R. D. W. CONNOR,
Secretary of North Carolina Historical Commission, Raleigh, N. C. |
