at Port Scotch Presbyterians planned the establishment of a refuge for their persecuted brethren within the bounds of Carolina. The The Scotch plan shrank to smaller dimensions than those originally Royal contemplated. Finally Lord Cardross, with a colony of ten Scotch familles, settled on the vacant territory of Port Royal The fate of the settlement foreshadowed the miseries of Darien. It suffered alike from the climate and from the jealousy of the English settlers. The hot swamps of Carolina were no fit abode for the natives of a high latitude. Cardross seems to have regarded himself as the head of a separate settlement, dependent on the Proprietors, but disconnected from the government of Charlestown. As might have been expected, differences soon arose: Cardross quarreled with the authorities at Charlestown, and returned to Scotland to play a not inglorious part in the coming struggle. by the The Scotch colony, forsaken by its leaders, was exposed to special perils. For nearly ten years the dread of a Spanish atThe colony tack had hung over South Carolina. The border setinvaded tlement of St. Augustine was but two days' sail from Spaniards. the frontier; Port Royal, perhaps the weakest point in the English settlement, was the southernmost and so the most exposed, and the Spaniard, though no longer as powerful, was as jealous and unscrupulous a neighbor as in the days of Laudonnière and Menendez. In 1680 the threatened storm broke upon the colony. Three galleys landed an invading force at Edisto, where the Governor and Secretary had private houses, plundered them of money, plate, and slaves, and killed the Governor's brother-in-law. They then fell upon the Scotch settlement, which had now shrunk to twenty-five men, and swept it clean out of existence. The colonists did not sit down tamely under their injuries. They raised a force of four hundred men and were on the point of making a retaliatory attack when they were checked by an order from the Proprietors. The colonists, they said, might defend themselves, and even, in the heat of victory, pursue the enemy into his own territory, but they might not deliberately wage a war of retaliation. And then, though perhaps unconscious of the full importance of the question, they pointed 1 For the history of the Scotch colony up to the time of Cardross's departure, see Rivers, pp. 142-3, and the Colonial Entry Book, No. xxii. pp. 45, 221. Mr. Rivers also publishes in an Appendix (pp. 407-409) two letters from Cardross, which illustrate his relation to the Gov. ernment at Charlestown. ENSLAVEMENT OF INDIANS. 359 out the danger of allowing a dependency to declare war on a power which was at peace with the mother country.1 ment of the by the The Proprietors may have felt, too, that although the immediate attack was unprovoked, the colonists were not wholly blameless in the matter. The Spaniards had suffered from the ravages of pirates who were believed to be befriended by the inhabitants of Enslave- Charlestown. In another way, too, the settlers had Indians placed a weapon in the hands of their enemies. The planters. Spaniards were but little to be dreaded, unless strengthened by an Indian alliance. The English colonists themselves increased this danger by too faithful an imitation of Spanish usages. In both the other colonies with which we have dealt, the troubles with the Indians were mostly due to those collisions which must inevitably occur between civilized and savage races. But from the first settlement of Carolina the colony was tainted with a vice which imperiled its relations with the Indians. Barbadoes, as we have seen, had a large share in the original settlement of Carolina. In that colony negro slavery was already firmly established as the one system of industry. At the time when Yeamans and his followers set sail for the shores of Carolina, Barbadoes had probably two negroes for every one white inhabitant. The soil and climate of the new territory did everything to confirm the practice of slavery, and South Carolina was from the outset what she ever after remained, the peculiar home of that evil usage. To the West India planter every man of dark color seemed a natural and proper object of traffic. The settler in Carolina soon learned the same view. In Virginia and Maryland there are but few traces of any attempt to enslave the Indians. In Carolina the negro must always have been the cheaper, more docile, and more efficient instrument, and in time the African race furnished the whole supply of servile labor. But in the early days of the colony the negro had no such monopoly of suffering. The Indian was kidnapped and sold, sometimes to work on what had once been his own soil, sometimes to end his days as an exile and bondsman in the West Indies. As late as 1708 the native population furnished a quarter of the whole body of slaves.3 1 I have relied mainly on Mr. Rivers for the account of this Spanish invasion. References to intrigues between the Spaniards and Indians are frequently to be found in contemporary documents. 2 The Proprietors' Instructions to Colleton. Colonial Entry Book, No. xxii. p. 103. Report to the Proprietors in 1708, signed by the Governor, Sir Nathaniel Johnson, and Councilors. This is given in full by Mr. Rivers, p. 231. It would be unfair to attribute all the hostilities between the Indians and the colonists to this one source, but it is clear that it was an important factor. From their very earliest days the settlers were involved in troubles with their savage neighbors. The Kussoes, a tribe on the southern frontier, claimed to be the allies of the Spaniards, and irritated the settlers by insults and petty depredations. Yet it is hard to see what injuries had been done which could justify the English in declaring war. This, however, they did in September, 1671. The Kussoes were at once defeated and the prisoners sentenced to be sold out of the colony, unless ransomed by their countrymen. In the next year another tribe, the Westoes, appeared so threatening that a force was raised against them. Nothing, however, came of this. We find the same tribe, a few years later, capturing Indians who were friendly to the English and selling them to the settlers. The Council did its best to interfere by sending round two commissioners to liberate such captives, but the mere fact itself shows how firmly the traffic in slaves had taken hold of the colonists.3 The Proprietors strove resolutely to suppress a practice of which they saw at least the danger, if not the enormity. A colony of slaveholders, whose frontier was menaced by a civilized neighbor, skilled to avail himself of the prejudices and passions of the savage, could ill afford to provoke unnecessary hostility. The Indians, if friendly, might prove valuable assistants and guides, alike in the chase of wild beasts and of runaway negroes. More than one entry in the official records of the colony show us the Proprietors protesting against unprovoked attacks on the liberty of the Indians. It is even said that the best and most popular of the early Governors, West, owed his temporary exclusion from office to his connivance at this traffic. In 1680 we find the Proprietors appointing a commission to prevent slavery, to investigate quarrels between the settlers and the Indians, and to reward the friendly tribes. Two years later this commission was abolished on the ground that it was used not for the protection but for the oppression of the natives. These and other phases in the life of the colony serve to illus3. Ib., p. 126. 1 Rivers, p. 105. 2 lb., p. 125. 4 Moreton's instructions, May, 1682, Entry Book, No. xxii. 5 The most forcible of all these is addressed to Colleton in 1690. It speaks of "the pernicious, inhuman, barbarous practice which we are resolved to break." 6 Oldmixon, in Carroll, vol. ii. p. 407. 7 Instructions to the Governor of Charlestown, May, 1680. Entry Book, No. xxii. Shaftes bury. CONDUCT OF THE PROPRIETORS. 361 trate the nature and extent of the supervision bestowed by the Activity of Proprietors. Among them, Shaftesbury, as might have been expected, stands out conspicuous for his energy and versatility. It is almost startling to find the foremost statesman of the age interesting himself in the fate of two young scamps who had fled from their parents to the plantations,' giving minute instructions to his agent, Woodward, to guide him in his search for mines, and telling him to conceal any discoveries that he might make by calling gold antimony, and silver tin, in his dispatches.2 In 1674, disappointed probably by the unprofitable results of the settlement at Charlestown, Shaftesbury established a small independent colony of his own, twenty miles farther south, a venture which only ended in disappointment, seemingly through the dishonesty of Percival, who was placed at the head of it.3 between the colonists and the Pro In many respects the temper and conduct of the Proprietors remind us of the leaders of the Virginia Company. But it is Dissensions clear that their whole range of motives was lower, and that hopes of commercial profit had a far larger share in determining their conduct. To men who looked prietors. mainly to the commercial profit of their undertaking, the state of the colony after twelve years could not but be a disappointment. The settlers could not do more than produce enough for their own wants; there seemed no prospect of a lucrative export trade, and the only source of revenue was the quitrents. Nor was the unprofitable state of the colony the only subject of complaint with the Proprietors. In addition to the kidnapping of Indians and connivance at piracy, the settlers gave active encouragement and assistance to smugglers. The forfeiture of charters, which was such a conspicuous feature of the two last Stuart reigns, might well make the Proprietors look with dread on anything which gave the colony a bad name as a centre 1 Letter in the Shaftesbury Papers, June, 1672. 2 Shaftesbury Papers, 1671. It is noteworthy that Woodward, writing to Shaftesbury in 1674, says that he has found in his journeyings westward a substance which " glittered like antimony." 3 Rivers, p. 121. Percival's instructions are in the Shaftesbury Papers. His dishonesty is stated in a letter to Shaftesbury from one Wilson. Shaftesbury Papers, December, 1683. 4 Report from Muschamp, the king's collector of customs, to the Board of Trade in 1687. In the next year a private letter from a sea-captain named Spragg accuses the Governor of Carolina of conniving with smugglers. This may refer either to North or South Carolina. Edmund Randolph, in a report to the Board of Trade in 1695, recommends that North Carolina be annexed to Virginia, and South Carolina united with the Bahamas as a single province under the crown. This, he says, is the only way to check piracy and smuggling. of anarchy and disorder. For the same reason they viewed with disfavor the wish of the legislature to bar the recovery of debts contracted beyond the limits of the colony. On the other hand, the colonists had their own grievances against the Proprietors. Though no attempt had been made to apply the Fundamental Constitutions, yet the dread of them hung over the colony and begot a general sense of uncertainty and distrust. The Proprietors insisted on receiving the quit-rents in money instead of in kind. Their conduct, too, in withholding the colonists from taking their revenge upon the Spaniards, long ranked as a grievance. There were also internal dissensions among the settlers which served to beget a general sense of disaffection and discontent. Great as were the advantages which the colony derived from the possession of a capital city, it brought drawbacks as well. There was as yet no local representation, but the whole body of freeholders met at Charlestown, and there elected the full complement of representatives. As the outlying counties grew in importance, the inhabitants resented the necessity of coming to Charlestown to vote for representatives.1 Another grievance was the favor shown by the Proprietors to Cardross and his Scotch followers.2 Still more unworthy was the jealousy felt towards the French Huguenots, who were among the most industrious and enterprising inhabitants of the colony. English settlers caviled at their claim to equal representation, and even sought to deny them civil rights and freedom of worship.3 It is worthy of notice that at the very time when the relations between the Proprietors and the settlers were in this state, the Right of latter included in their instructions to their Governor a self-taxation. specific instruction not to pass any Act for raising money except by consent of a majority of the representatives. Thus, as in Virginia and Maryland, the exclusive right of taxation was clearly conceded to the settlers, and that at a time when there was no special inclination to treat them with favor.1 In 1681, these smouldering elements of discontent were kindled into a flame by the appointment as Governor of Colleton, a landgrave, and brother to one of the Proprietors. hasty and arbitrary conduct he gave the malcontents Rebellion against Colleton. 1 Colonial Entry Book, No. xxii. p. 169. By his 2 This is set forth in an undated memorial presented by the people of Charlestown to the Proprietors. It is in the Shaftesbury Papers. * Rivers, p. 176. Mr. Rivers, though accurate and trustworthy, is so far favorable to the popular party that he may be taken as an unexceptionable witness against them. • Colleton's Instructions. Colonial Entry Book, No. xxii. |