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Historical Background

The British Colonials and Progenitors (continued)

THE CAROLINAS—PROPRIETORS AND THE CROWN

In the 16th century, the three major European powers all unsuccessfully tried to found permanent settlements in the Carolinas. These attempts included those of the Spaniard De Ayllón, in 1526, at two unknown sites; the Frenchman Jean Ribaut's Charlesfort, in 1562; at Parris Island; a Spanish settlement, in 1566, also at Parris Island; and Raleigh's two English settlements, between 1585 and 1590, at Roanoke Island. As elsewhere in the New World, England was later in settling than the other European powers, but more persevering. It was she who made the first permanent settlements in the Carolinas.

All of present North Carolina and approximately the northern half of South Carolina were included in "Virginia" as granted by James I in 1606 to the London and Plymouth Companies. In 1624, however, when "Virginia" became a royal colony, the lands that had not been settled reverted to the King, including all the above portions of the Carolinas. Five years later, shortly after bold Virginia hunters and traders had begun probing southward into the Carolinas, Charles I granted the "Province of Carolana" to Sir Robert Heath, his Attorney General. The boundaries were defined as 31° and 36° north latitude, which extended English claims down through present Georgia, even farther into Spanish-claimed territory. The plans of Heath and his colleagues for settlement of the Carolinas came to naught.

Consisting of about 600 frontiersmen, Roger's Rangers was a British-American corps that served in the French and Indian War. The rangers acted as advance scouts for the armies of British Generals Abercromby and Amherst. Shown here are an officer and two rangers. From a drawing by Frederick T. Chapman. (Courtesy, the artist, the Company of Military Historians, and the Chicago Historical Society.)

When Charles II regained his throne in 1660, he reclaimed the Carolina grant and 3 years later reissued it to eight men who had aided in the Restoration. The charter gave them the powers of government, specified guarantees for the political rights of the settlers, and authorized the granting of toleration to religious dissenters.

Despite the powers granted the proprietors, they profited little from the Carolinas and did not contribute much to their growth. Their administration was in general marked by poor management, neglect, impractical political experimentation, a low rate of settlement, and recurrent clashes between the Governors and the settlers. The low rate of settlement was attributable in part to circumstances beyond the control of the proprietors. Few settlers could be induced to emigrate from England during the period of comparative religious peace that followed the great migration of Puritans to Massachusetts, in the 1630's. As a result, many of the settlers in the Carolinas came from the British West Indies, especially overcrowded Barbados. Therefore, more than any other British colonies, the Carolinas were influenced by the economic and social attitudes of West Indian planters, as manifested particularly in the adoption of a strict slave code.

The Southern Algonquian Indian village of Secota, situated on the north bank of the Pamlico River, in present Beaufort County, North Carolina. The letters identify parts of the town. From an engraving by Theodore de Bry, after an on-the-scene water color by John White, 1585. (Courtesy, Smithsonian Institution.)

The proprietors were unsuccessful in instituting workable local governments, and their theoretical ideas of government were quite impractical. For example, in 1669, they called upon John Locke, a political philosopher whose writings were markedly to influence colonial patriots a century later, to draft the "Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina." This document presented an impractical feudal scheme of polity and land tenure as the basis for proprietary government. It created a petty nobility, with such fanciful titles as landgrave, cacique, and palatine, which was to control two-thirds of the land. The lower classes were slaves, serfs, and freemen. Other provisions pertained to a popular assembly, natural rights, and religious toleration. The proprietors attempted to persuade the colonial legislatures to approve the Fundamental Constitutions, but they were never successful.

One of the first steps of the proprietors was to designate three "counties": Albemarle, north of the Chowan River, in present northeastern North Carolina; Clarendon, south of Albemarle in the Cape Fear region; and Craven, south of Cape Romain, in South Carolina. The latter county, which received the greatest attention from the proprietors, was the most successful. Albemarle progressed slowly, but Clarendon had only a short-lived existence.

A few settlers from Virginia, lured by the prospect of cheaper and better lands, began crossing over the present North Carolina boundary into the Albemarle area at least a decade prior to the charter of 1663. Even though the proprietors offered tax exemptions and generously granted lands to newcomers, the county grew slowly and proved unprofitable for the proprietors, partly because they invested little in it, in money, supplies, or direction. They also failed to institute a stable government. The agitated settlers deposed Governor after Governor.

Problems in Albemarle were soon aggravated unknowingly by the proprietors themselves. In 1665, they obtained a new charter that extended the boundaries of the Carolinas one-half degree to the north and 2 degrees to the south. The latter placed the boundary south of St. Augustine, the major settlement in Spanish Florida, and the former took still more of the lands that had originally been included in Virginia. This action, plus competition in tobacco production, created resentment on the part of Virginians toward Albemarle. Because Albemarle lacked good harbors and navigable rivers, communication with the outside world was mainly limited to land, especially with Virginia. Virginia's hostility, plus the uncertainty of land titles, high quitrents, bad government, apathy of the proprietors, and difficulties in marketing tobacco, the chief money crop, resulted in unrest, confusion, slow growth, and even armed rebellion in Albemarle. However, over the course of time the settlement expanded, particularly after the first town, Bath, was incorporated, in 1705.

Prior to the designation of Clarendon "county," some New Englanders and a group of Barbadians settled near the mouth of the Cape Fear River. Later, in 1665, another party of Barbadians made an attempt to settle in the region, but the colony failed within 2 years because of friction with the earlier settlers and Indian hostility.

Glowing reports of the Port Royal region, coupled with the abandonment of Clarendon in 1667, caused the proprietors to shift their interest to Craven "county," to which they gave their major attention and expenditures. After making plans to bring settlers from England, Ireland, Barbados, and the Bahamas, the proprietors purchased three ships, which sailed from London in August 1669. Storms wrecked two of them after they had left Barbados, and only the Carolina reached its destination, the following March, after being repaired at Bermuda. Instead of remaining at Port Royal as instructed, the colonists settled on Albemarle Point (Old Charles Town), at the mouth of the Ashley River. The site was low, open to attack, and infested with malaria. In 1680, the main body of settlers moved to the junction of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers, the site of Charleston.

During its first decade, the colony proved a disappointment to the proprietors. It failed to grow in population as expected, it did not return the anticipated profit, and it refused to put most of the provisions of Locke's "Fundamental Constitutions" into effect as the proprietors had directed. In 1682, the proprietors launched two campaigns, one aimed at recruiting immigrants and the other at reforming the government.

The former was very successful. To attract settlers, the proprietors revised the "Fundamental Constitutions" to allow even greater religious freedom by denying the Anglican Church the right to tax non-Anglicans and by giving each congregation, regardless of sect, the right to tax its own members. This action enticed about 500 English Presbyterians and Baptists to the colony between 1682 and 1685. Immigrants came from Scotland and France as well; in 1684, a group of Presbyterian Scots founded a colony at Stuart's Town, near Port Royal, and before 1690 at least 600 French Huguenots had settled in South Carolina. In 1686, the Spaniards destroyed Stuart's Town, and the Scots fled to Charleston.

To the settlers, the most important of the proprietors' directives for reforming the government were aimed at gaining control over the Indian trade, stopping the traffic in Indian slaves, and preventing the use of the colony as a pirate haven. To put these reforms into effect, the proprietors had to replace the Barbadians who were in control of the government, for they were involved in both the Indian and pirate trades. As a result, a decade of political chaos occurred, and the colony floundered aimlessly without effective direction. The colony's leadership divided into two bitterly opposed factions: the proprietary group, composed mainly of new immigrants; and the antiproprietary group, made up primarily of old settlers. The controversy reached a climax when the parliament demanded a government based on the charter of 1663. The proprietors ordered the parliament dissolved and all laws rescinded. By 1690, not one statute was in force. The Governor, after attempting to rule by executive decree, finally placed the colony under martial law. A revolt occurred in 1690, and one of the proprietors, a former Governor of Albemarle who had been banished in 1689, became Governor. He immediately summoned parliament and won the support of the popular party. Within a short time, however, he began disobeying instructions of the proprietary board and was recalled to England.

His banishment from Albemarle in 1689 had been followed by the appointment of a Governor of "that part of Carolina that lyes North and East of Cape Feare." This action marked the practical end of Albemarle "county" as a unit of government and the real beginning of North Carolina as a separate colony. Two years later, a "Governor of Carolina," who resided in Charleston, received a commission and authority to appoint a deputy for North Carolina. In 1694, he was empowered to appoint deputies "both in South and North Carolina." The two regions were then governed separately, but in 1712 a Governor of North Carolina was named "independent of the Governour of Carolina."

In 1729, because of the repeated failures of the proprietors and their continuing disputes with the populace, the Crown once again took over the Carolinas as royal colonies. At that time, the only major settlements were those at Albemarle and Charleston. During the century, however, settlers began to move inland into the piedmont and the mountains and help create the modern States of North and South Carolina.