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On its southern side, the road ascends at an angle of forty-five degrees, and, to make it passable, is filled with small bowlders near the bridge, and logs laid transversely up the steeper portion.
For the use of this bridge, the stones and logs, the traveler is taxed a "levy" at the top of the hill by the overseer of Gee's plantation. * At dark I reached the house of Dr. Gregory, who entertains strangers, and under his comfortable roof I rested, after a most wearisome day's travel for man and horse. The doctor was absent, and I passed an hour after supper with his overseer, an intelligent young man from New London, Connecticut. He had peddled wooden clocks through that region, and having sold many on credit, he settled there eight years before to collect his dues. He hired himself as an overseer, and there he yet remained, full of faith that he would ultimately collect all that was due to him. From him I obtained a good deal of information respecting the husbandry of Lower Virginia; the sum of his testimony was, "The people seem to try how soon they can wear out the soil, and then abandon it."
The storm was over in the morning,Dec 28, 1848and a cold, bracing air came from the north. Ice skimmed the surface of the pools by the road side, and all over the red earth the exhalations were congealed into the most beautiful creations of frost-work I ever beheld. There were tiny columns an inch in height, with gorgeous capitals like tree-tops, their branches closely intertwined. These gave the surface the appearance of a crust of snow. Art, in its most delicate operations, never wrought any thing half so wonderful as that little forest, created within the space of an hour, and covering tens of thousands of acres. The road was wretched, and it was almost two hours past meridian when I reached St. Tammany, on the Roanoke, a small post station in Mecklenburg county, about eighty miles from Petersburg, and about thirty below the confluence of the Dan and Staunton. The Roanoke is here almost four hundred yards wide, with an average depth of about thirteen feet, and a strong current. ** I crossed upon a bateau, propelled by means of a pole worked by a single stout negro. When the stream is much swollen, three or four men are necessary to manage the craft, and even then there is danger. After ascending the southern bank, the road passes over a marsh of nearly half a mile, and then traverses among gentle hills. Two
* Mr. Gee. I was informed, is a descendant of Colonel Gee, who commanded a militia regiment when the British invaded Virginia. He resided further down, between the Meherrin and the Nottaway, and was captured by Colonel Simcoe's cavalry while that officer was securing the fords of the river for the passage of Cornwallis's army. "We proceeded," says Simcoe, "with the utmost expedition, to the Nottaway River, twenty-seven miles from Petersburg, where we arrived early the next morning. The bridge had been destroyed, which was easily repaired, and Major Armstrong was left with the infantry. The cavalry went on to Colonel Gee's, a rebel militia offieer. He attempted to escape, but was secured, and, refusing to give his parole, was sent prisoner to Major Armstrong."—Journal, page 207.
** The Roanoke is formed by the junction of the Dan and Staunton Rivers, near the south boundary of Virginia, and flows into the head of Albemarle Sound. It is navigable to the falls, at Halifax, seventy-five miles, for small vessels.
Cotton Fields.—Route of Greene's Retreat.—Journey toward Hillsborough.—Tobacco Culture.
miles from the river I passed some fields of cotton not yet garnered, and the wool, escaped from the bolls, looked like patches of snow upon the shrubs. These were the first cotton plantations I had seen. I was surprised to learn that the cotton harvest may begin in September, and yet, at the close of December, much, here and elsewhere at the South, was in the fields, and injured by exposure to the taints produced by rains. Better husbandry seemed to prevail on this side of the Roanoke, and neat farm-houses gave the country a pleasing appearance of thrift. I was now on one of the great routes of travel from Central Virginia to Hillsborough, the seat of the Provincial Congress at the opening of the war of the Revolution. It was also the great route of emigration from Virginia when the wilderness upon the Yadkin was first peopled by white men. I had intended to follow the track of Greene and his army while retreating before Cornwallis in the spring of 1781, but in so doing I should omit other places of paramount interest. That track lay between forty and fifty miles northwest of my route to Hillsborough.
The pine forests now became rare, and the broken country was diversified by well-cultivated plantations, and forests of oaks, chestnuts, gum, and a few catalpas. Toward evening I arrived at Nut Bush Post Office, in Warren county (formerly a part of Granville), a locality famous in the annals of that state as the first place in the interior where a revolutionary document was put forth to arouse the people to resist the government. * The postmaster (John H. Bullock, Esq.) owned a store and an extensive tobacco plantation there. Under his roof I passed the night, in the enjoyment of the most cordial hospitality, and was warmly pressed to spend several days with him, and join in the seasonable sports of turkey and deer hunting in the neighboring forests. But, eager to complete my journey, I declined, and the next morning, notwithstanding another strong northeast gale was driving a chilling sleet over the land, I left Nut Bush, and pushed on toward Oxford. The staple production of this region appears to be tobacco; and drying-houses and presses composed the principal portion of the outbuildings of the plantations. **
* On the sixth of June, 1705, when the nows of the passage of the Stamp Act reached the interior of the province, a paper was circulated at Nut Bush, entitled, "A Serious Address to the Inhabitants of the County of Granville, containing a brief Narrative of our Deplorable Situation and the Wrongs we suffer, and some necessary Hints with respect to a Reformation." This paper had for its epigraph the following line: "Save my country, heavens, shall be my last." The paper was prepared by an illiterate man, but it was so forcibly and clearly expressed that it had a powerful effect on the people.—Martin, ii., 197; Caruthers's Life of Caldwell, 107.
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** To the Northern reader a brief general description of the tobacco culture may not be uninteresting. The ground for germinating the seed is prepared by first burning a quantity of wood over the space to be sown. This process is to destroy all the roots of plants that may be in the soil. The ashes are then removed, and the earth is thoroughly digged and raked until it is like a bed in a garden prepared for seed. The tobacco-seed (which appears like mustard-seed) is then mixed with wood-ashes and strown in drills a few inches apart. This is generally done in February. When the plants are grown two or three inches in height, they are taken up and transplanted into little hillocks in the fields. This is done at about the first of May. From that time the crop demands unceasing attention. These plants will grow about a foot high within a month after the transplanting. They are then topped; the suckers and lower leaves are pruned off, and about twice a week they are cleaned from weeds and the large and destructive worms which infest them. They attain their full growth in about six weeks after the first pruning, and begin to turn brown—an evidence of ripening. As fast as they ripen they are cut and gathered into the barns or drying-houses. This operation commences about the first of September. The plants, after being cut, are left upon the ground to sweat for a night, and then taken to cover. There they are hung up separately to dry for four or five weeks. The tobacco-houses are made as open as possible, for the circulation of air, but so as to avoid the rain. When sufficiently dry, the plants are taken down and dampened with water, to prevent their crumbling. They are then laid upon sticks, and covered up close to sweat for a week or two longer. The top part of the plant is the best, the bottom the poorest for commerce. When thus prepared, the leaves are stripped from the stalk, and pressed hard into boxes or hogsheads for market. The presses used in the tobacco districts are of two kinds; one is a lever, the fulcrum being two rude upright posts. The hogshead or box is placed near the posts. The smaller end of the lever is forked, or has a slot, through which passes another upright stick with a series of holes. Weights are attached to that end, and as it is gradually brought down it is secured by a strong pin to the upright post. The other and more efficient presses have a wooden or iron screw for leverage, like the cider presses of the North, or the common standing presses in manufactories. These are more expensive, and are used only on plantations of considerable extent. The tobacco plant, when full grown, is four or five feet in height. The stalk is straight, hairy, and very clumsy. The leaves grow alternately, are of a faded yellowish green, and are very large toward the lower part of the plant. There is scarcely a vegetable on the face of the earth more really nauseous and filthy in taste and the effects of use, than tobacco, and yet hundreds and thousands of the most fertile acres of our country are devoted to the cultivation of this noxious weed, which is good for none, but injurious to many, where millions of bushels of nutritive grain might be raised.
Williamsburg and Oxford.—Tar River.—Fording Streams.—The Princely Domain of Mr. Cameron.
I passed through the little village of Williamsborough, at two o'clock in the afternoon, and arrived at Oxford at dark. The latter is a pleasant village of some five hundred inhabitants, situated near the center of Granville county, and its seat of justice. It is a place of considerable business for an inland town; but my favorable impressions, after an hour's inspection before breakfast on the morning after my arrival, were marred by the discovery of relics of a more barbarous age, standing upon the green near the jail. They were apilloryand awhipping-post, the first and only ones I ever saw. I was told by a resident that the more enlightened people of the town were determined to have them removed, and it is to be hoped that those instruments for degradation no longer disfigure the pretty little village of Oxford.
The morning of the thirtiethDec. 1848was clear and warm, after a night of heavy rain.
I left Oxford early, resolved to reach Hillsborough, thirty-six miles distant, at evening.
But the red clay roads, made doubly bad by the rain, impeded my progress, and I was obliged to stop at the house of a Yankee planter, four miles short of Hillsborough. In the course of the day, I forded several considerable streams, all of them much swollen, and difficult of passage, for a stranger. The Flat Creek, near Oxford, a broad and shallow stream, was hub-deep, and gave me the first unpleasant experience of fording. A few miles further on, I crossed the Tar River, over a long and substantial bridge. This is a rapid stream, and now its muddy and turbulent waters came rushing like a mountain-torrent, bearing large quantities of drift-wood in the midst of its foam. * Soon after crossing the Tar, I forded a small tributary called the Cat Tail Creek. It was not more than two rods wide, but was so deep that the water dashed into my wagon, and the current lifted it from the ground, for a moment. The Knapp-of-Reeds was broader, and but a little less rapid and dangerous; and when, at three o'clock, I crossed the Flat River, I came very near being "swamped." A bridge spanned the stream, but the ground on either side is so flat that, during floods, the river overflows its banks and expands into a lake. I reached the bridge without difficulty, but, when leaving it, found the way much impeded by drift-wood and other substances that came flowing over the banks. Charley was not at all pleased with these frequent fordings, and the masses of drift alarmed him. While my wagon-hubs were under water, and he was picking his way carefully over the submerged stones, a dark mass of weeds and bushes came floating toward him. He sheered suddenly, and for a moment the wagon was poised upon two wheels. I was saved from a cold bath by springing to the opposite side, where my weight prevented its overturning, and we were soon safe upon firm land. This was the last contest with the waters for the day, for the next stream (the Little River) was crossed by a bridge, a good distance above the less rapid current. Between the Flat and the Little Rivers, and filling the whole extent of four miles, was the immense plantation of Mr. Cameron, a Scotch gentleman. This plantation extends parallel with the rivers, a distance of fifteen miles, and covers an area of about sixty square miles. It is well managed, and yields abundant crops of wheat, corn, oats, cotton, tobacco, potatoes, and other products of the Northern and Middle States. One thousand negroes were upon it, under the direction of several overseers. Its hills are crowned with fine timber, and I observed several large flocks of sheep and herds of cattle upon the slopes. It is probably the largest landed estate in the Carolinas, perhaps in the Union.
* The Tar is about one hundred and eighty miles long. At the town of Washington, toward the coast, it expands, and is called Pamlico River, and flows into Pamlico Sound.
Night at a Yankee's Farm house.—Arrival at Hillsborough.—Early Settlements in North Carolina.
It was very dark when I reached the dwelling of Mr. Bacon (a farmer from Connecticut), four miles from Hillsborough, a small, neat, and comfortable log-house. Furniture and food were of the most humble kind, but cheerful contentment made the inmates rich. The thankfulgraceat table, and the prayer and praise of family worship afterward, gave light to that dwelling, where deep affliction was coming on apace. A daughter of fourteen years (one of nine children), who sat wrapped in a blanket in the corner of the huge fire-place, was wasting with consumption. She was a beautiful child, and her mother spoke of her piety, her tenderness, and sweet affection, until emotion pressed her lips into silence. She was the picture of patient suffering.
"Around her brow, as snow drop fair,
The glossy tresses cluster,
Nor pearl nor ornament was there,
Save the meek spirit's luster;
And faith and hope beamed in her eye;
And angels bowed as she passed by."
Sakah Josepha Hale.
Ere this her body doubtless reposes in the orchard, by the side of that of her little brother who had gone before.
The next day was the Sabbath. Leaving Mr. Bacon's at dawn, I rode into Hillsborough * in time for breakfast and comfortable quarters at the Union Hotel, where I spent the day before a glowing wood fire. On Monday morning I called upon the Reverend James Wilson, D.D., with a letter of introduction, and to his kind courtesy I am much indebted. He accompanied me to places of interest in the town, and gave me all the information I desired concerning the history of the vicinity. Before noticing these strictly local matters, let us open the records of North Carolina, and take a brief general view of the history of the state, from its settlement until the war of the Revolution commenced.
The principal discoveries on the coast of the Carolinas have already been noticed in the introduction to this work and in the account of the first efforts at settlement in Virginia, by which it appears that to North Carolina belongs the honor of having had the first English settlement in America, within its domain. We will now consider, briefly, the progress of settlement below the Nansemond and Roanoke.
We have seen the difficulties which attended the first explorations of the Roanoke, and the abandonment of the Carolina coast after the failure of Raleigh's expeditions Notwithstanding a fertile region was here open for the labor and enterprise of the English, who were rapidly populating Virginia along the banks of the Powhatan and other large streams, yet no permanent settlement appears to have been attempted south of the Dismal Swamp, until nearly fifty years after the building of Jamestown. As early as 1609, the country on Nansemond River, on the southern frontier of Virginia, had been settled; and in 1622, Porey, then Secretary of Virginia, and a man of great courage and perseverance, penetrated the country southward to the Chowan River. ** The kindness of the natives, and the fertility and beauty of the country, were highly extolled by Porey, and new desires for extending settlements southward were awakened. The vigilance with which the Spaniards watched the coast below Cape Fear, and the remembrance of their cruelty in exercising their power at an earlier day against the French in Florida, doubtless caused hesitation on the part of the English. But persecution during the administration of Berkeley, at length drove some of Virginia's best children from her household, and they, with others who were influenced by lower motives than a desire for religious liberty, began the work of founding a new state. New England, also, where persecution was not a stranger, contributed essential aid in the work.
* Hillsborough was laid out in 1709 by W. Childs, and was first called Childsburg, in honor of the then Attorney Genera! of the province. Its name was afterward changed to Hillsborough, in compliment, according to Martin (ii., 104), to the Earl of Hillsborough, the Secretary of Slate for the colonies.
** The Chowan is formed bv the union of Nottaway, Meherrin, and Blackwater Rivers, which flow from Virginia into Albemarle Sound, a little north of the mouth of the Roanoke.
First Charier of North Carolina.—Early Settlements on the Chowan and Cape Fear.—Planters from Barbadoes.
In 1630, a patent was granted to Sir Robert Heath for the whole of the country extending from Virginia, southward, over six degrees of latitude, to the rather indefinite boundary of Florida, then in possession of the Spaniards. The region was named Carolina in honor of the sister of Charles the First, of that name. Heath was unable to fulfill the conditions of his charter, and it was forfeited before any settlements were made. In l663,March 24Charles the Second granted a charter to a company, among whom were General George Monk (the Duke of Albemarle), Lord Clarendon, Sir George Carteret, Lord Ashley Cooper (afterward Earl of Shaftesbury), Lord Berkeley, and his brother Sir William, the governor of Virginia. The region under this grant extended from the thirty-sixth degree to the River San Matheo in Florida, now the St. John's. Ten years earlier than this, a permanent settlement had been formed upon the northern banks of the Chowan. Roger Green, an energetic man, led a company across the wilderness from the Nansemond to the Chowan, and settled near the present village of Edenton1653There they flourished; and in the same year, when the charter was granted to Clarendon and his associates, a government, under William Drummond, a Scotch Presbyterian, was established over that little territory. In honor of the Duke of Albemarle, it was called Albemarle County Colony. In 1662, George Durant purchased from the Indians the Neck, which still bears his name and the following year George Cathmaid received a large grant of land, for having settled sixty-seven persons south of the Roanoke. Two years later, it being discovered that the settlement on the Chowan was not within the limits of the charter, Charles extended the boundaries of that instrument, so as to include northward the region to the present Virginia line, southward the whole of the present Carolines and Georgia, and extending westward, like all of that monarch's charters, to the Pacific Ocean. These charters were liberal in the concession of civil privileges, and the proprietors werepermittedto exercise toleration toward non-conformists to the Church of England, if it should be thought expedient. Great encouragement was offered to immigrants, from home, or from the other colonies, and settlements steadily increased.
In 1661 some New England adventurers entered Cape Fear River, ** purchased a tract of land from the Indians on Old Town Creek, about half way between Wilmington and Brunswick, and planted a settlement there. The Virginians looked upon them as rivals, for the latter claimed a right to the soil, having settled prior to the grant to Clarendon and his associates. Difficulties arose. A compromise was proposed, but the New Englanders were dissatisfied. The colony did not prosper; the Indians lifted the hatchet against them, and in less than three years the settlement was abandoned. Two years later,1665several planters from Barbadoes purchased of the Indians a tract of land, thirty-two miles square, near the abandoned settlement. They asked ol the proprietaries a confirmation of their purchase, and a separate charter of government. All was not granted, yet liberal concessions were made. Sir John Yeamans, the son of a cavalier, and then a Barbadoes planter, was, at the solicitation of the purchasers, appointed their governor. His jurisdiction was from Cape Fear to the San Matheo (the territory now included in South Carolina and Georgia), and was calledClarendon county. The same year the Barbadoes people laid the foundation of a town on the south bank of the Cape Fear River. It did not flourish, and its site is now a subject for dispute.
Settlements now began to increase south of the Roanoke; and as the proprietors ofAlbemarle countysaw, in anticipation, a powerful state within the limits of their fertile ter-
* It is said that Durant's Neck has the honor of having furnished the first seed for the Timothy Grass which is in such high repute among farmers. Among the first settlers was a Quaker named Timothy somebody, who observed the grass growing wild, and supposed it would be good for cultivation. He sent some of the seed to his friends in England, who, having found the grass to be valuable, called it Timothy Grass, in honor of his friend in Carolina.—Caruthers's Life of Caldu-ell, page 52. A Bible brought from England by Durant (and probably the first brought into North Carolina), is now in the library of the Historical Society of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill.
** The Cape Fear is formed by a union of the Haw and Deep Rivers, about one hundred and twenty-five miles northwest from Wilmington, and enters the Atlantic a little more than twenty miles below that city.
The absurd "Fundamental Constitutions" of Shaftesbury and Locke.—Sketch of the Authors.—Extent of the Province.
ritory, and dreamed of a grand American empire, they took measures to establish a government with adequate functions, and to transport into the New World the varied ranks and aristocratic establishments of Europe. The Earl of Shaftesbury, * the ablest statesman of his time, and John Locke, ** the illustrious philosopher, were employed to frame a Constitution. ***
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They completed their labor in the spring of 1669,Marchafter exercising great care. The instrument was composed of one hundred and twenty articles, and was called theFundamental Constitutions.These were in the highest degree monarchical in character and design. Indeed, the proprietors avowed their design to "avoid making too numerous a Democracy." Two orders of nobility were to be instituted; the higher to consist of landgraves or earls, the lower of caciques or barons. The territory **** was to be divided into counties, each county containing four hundred and eighty thousand acres, with one landgrave and two caciques, a number never to be increased or diminished. There were also to be lords of manors, who like the nobles were entitled to hold courts and exercise judicial functions. Persons holding fifty acres were to be freeholders; the tenants held no political franchise, and could never attain any higher rank. The four Estates of Proprietors, Earls, Barons, and Commons were to sit in one legislative chamber. The proprietors were always to be eight in number; to possess the whole judicial power, and have the supreme direction of all tribunals. None but large property holders were eligible for a seat in the Legislature, where the commons were to have four members for every three of the nobility. An aristocratic majority was thus always secured. In trials by jury, the oppressed had but little hope, for the majority were to decide. Every religion was professedly tolerated, (v) yet the Church of England only was declared to be orthodox, and the national religion of Carolina. (vi) Such is an outline of the principal features of the Constitution by which the proprietaries proposed to govern free colonists in America. It seems very strange that minds like those of Locke and Shaftesbury should have committed such an egregious blunder;
* Anthony Ashley Cooper was born at Winborne in Dorsetshire, in 1621. He was educated at Oxford, studied law, and when in his nineteenth year, he was chosen representative for Tewksbury. He was hostile to Cromwell, and took an aetive part in the restoration of Charles the Second. For his services Charles made him Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord of the Treasury, and created him Lord Ashley. In 1672 he was made Earl of Shaftesbury, and appointed Lord Chancellor. He resigned his office within a year, but held it again in 1679. During that year he conferred on his country the benefit of the Habeas Corpus Act. He afterward opposed the unconstitutional measures of the king, and was twice committed to the Tower. He finally withdrew to Holland, where he died, January 22, 1683.
** John Locke was born at Wrington, near Bristol, England, in 1632. He was educated at Westminster school. He studied the science of medicine and became eminent, but he was more noted for his proficiency in polite literature. His health would not allow him to practice the medical art, and in 1664 he accepted the secretaryship to Sir William Swan, who was sent envoy to the Elector of Brandenburg. He turned his attention to politics and jurisprudence, and because of his skill and knowledge on sueh subjects, Shaftesbury employed him to assist him in drawing up a charter for North Carolina. While at Montpelier, for the benefit of his health, he commenced his celebrated Essay on the Human Understanding. When Shaftesbury went to Holland, Locke accompanied him. There, on the death of the earl, envy and malice persecuted him. He was accused of treason, and for twelve months he kept himself concealed. He returned to England after the Revolution in 1688, and was honored by government appointments. He was a Commissioner of Trade and Plantations for five years, when declining health made him resign the office in 1700. He died on the twenty-eighth of October, 1704, in the seventy-third year of his age.
*** This document is supposed to be chiefly the work of Shaftesbury.
**** The territory comprising more than seven degrees of latitude from the Nansemond, south, included the whole of the present North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, a good portion of Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, a large portion of Mexico, and the whole of Upper and Lower California.
* (v) There were some Quakers in the Albemarle colony, and when, in 1672, William Edmunson and George Fox visited that settlement, many were added to that persuasion. Near the Roanoke, in that region, and in the counties of Orange, Guilford, and Randolph, are the only settlements of that sect in North Carolina The Quakers were the first to organize a religious government in that state.
* (vi) Bancroft, ii., 136-150. Chalmers, 517-526. Locke's Works, x., 194. Martin, i., 148-150. This instrument is published at length in the Appendix to the first volume of Martin's History of North Carolina
Abrogation of the Constitutions.—Government Officers imprisoned.—Governor Sothel banished.—John Archdale.
that men so wise and sagacious should have attempted such a solemn farce. Albemarle, the chief settlement, had only about fourteen hundred "working hands," and the habitations in Carolina were chiefly log huts. The whole population was hardly four thousand in number. Where were the landgraves, and caciquies, and lords of manors to be found among them? and where were mansions for the nobility and aristocracy? The error was soon perceived, yet the proprietaries insisted upon commencing the system with a view to its further accomplishment. But the spirit of the whole thing was adverse to the feelings of the people; and, after a contest of twenty years, theseConstitutionswere abrogated, and the people were allowed to be governed by their earlier and more simple and appropriate code under Stevens, the successor of Drummond—a governor with his council of twelve, six appointed by the proprietaries, and six chosen by the Assembly; and a House of Delegates chosen by the freeholders.
While the contest was going on between the proprietaries and the people, temporary laws were established. The harmony which prevailed before the magnificent scheme of government was proposed, was disturbed, and both counties were shaken by internal commotions. Disorders prevailed most extensively in the Albemarle or Northern colony, the population of which was far more numerous than the Clarendon or Southern colony. Excessive taxation and commercial restrictions occasioned discontent, while the influence of refugees from Virginia, the participators in Bacon's rebellion there, who were sheltered in Carolina, ripened the people for resistance to monarchical schemes to enslave or oppress them. A year after the death of Bacon, a revolt occurred in Albemarle. Miller, the secretary of the colony, acting governor before Eastchurch arrived, and the collector of customs, attempted to enforce the revenue laws against a vessel from New England. Led by John Culpepper, a refugee from Clarendon, the people seized Miller and the public funds, imprisoned him and six of his council, appointed new magistrates and judges, called a Parliament, and took all the functions of government into their own hands. Thus matters remained for two years. * Culpepper went to England to plead the cause of the people. He was arrested for treason,1680but, through Shaftesbury, he was acquitted, that statesman justly pleading that in Albemarle there had been no regular government; that the disorders were but feuds among the people. Thus early, that feeble colony of North Carolina asserted the same political rights for which our fathers so successfully contended a hundred years later.
Seth Sothel, one of the corporators, an avaricious and dishonest man, arrived in the Albemarle province in 1683, as governor. He plundered the people, and prostituted his office to purposes of private gain. According to Chalmers, "the annals of delegated authority include no name so infamous" as Sothel. The people, after enduring him for six years, seized him, and were about sending him to England1689to answer their accusations before the proprietors, when he asked to be tried by the Colonial Assembly. Such trial was granted, and he was sentenced to banishment for one year, and was forever deprived of the privilege of holding the office of governor. He withdrew to South Carolina, where we shall meet him again. The proprietors acquiesced in the proceedings of the colonists, and sent over Philip Ludwell as their representative,1693who, by wisdom and justice, soon restored order. He was succeeded by Thomas Harvey in 1692, and, two years later, Henderson Walker succeeded Harvey.
In 1695, two years after the splendid Fundamental Constitutions of Locke and Shaftesbury were abrogated, and landgraves and caciques, and lords of manors, were scattered to the winds, John Archdale, a Quaker, and one of the proprietors, arrived as governor of both Carolinas. From that period until the partition of the provinces in 1729, it is difficult to separate their histories, although governed by distinct magistrates. In 1698 the first settlement was made on the Pamlico or Tar River, the Pamlico Indians having been nearly all destroyed two years previously by a pestilence. Population rapidly increased under the liberal administration of Archdale. The first church in Carolina was built in Chowan county in 1705, and religion began to be respected.
* Williamson, i.. 132.
Settlements in the Interior.—Indian Hostilities.—Flight of the Tuscaroras.—Pirates.—First Royal Governor.
The colonists now began to turn their attention to the interior. In 1707, a company of French Protestants came from Virginia and settled in Carolina; and in 1709, one hundred German families, driven from their home on the Rhine by fierce persecutions and devastating war, sought a refuge in the free, tolerant, and peaceful soil of North Carolina. Already the Huguenots were settling in South Carolina, and were planting the principles of civil liberty there. The French immigrants were not favorably received by the English, and disputes occurred. Archdale managed with prudence for a year, and then left affairs in the hands of Joseph Blake, afterward governor of South Carolina. The difficulties between the English and French were settled, and the latter were admitted to all the rights of citizenship. The Indians along the sea-coast were melting away like frost in the sunbeams. The powerful tribe of the Hatteras, which numbered three thousand warriors in Raleigh's time, were reduced to fifteen bowmen; another tribe had entirely disappeared; and of all the aborigines, but a small remnant remained. They had sold their lands, or had been cheated out of them, and were driven back to the deep wildnerness. Strong drink and other vices of civilization had decimated them, and their beautiful land, all the way to the Yadkin and Catawba, was speedily opened to the almost unopposed encroachments of the white man. Yet, before their power was utterly broken, the Indians made an effort to redeem their losses. The Tuscaroras of the inland region, and the Corees southward, upon whom their countrymen of the coasts had retreated, resolved to strike a blow that should exterminate the intruders. Upon the scattered German settlements along the Roanoke and Pamlico Sound, they fell like lightning from the clouds. In one night one hundred and thirty persons perished by the hatchet.Sept. 22, 1711The savages also scoured the country on Albemarle Sound, burning dwellings and massacring the inhabitants for three days, until disabled by drunkenness and fatigue. To the Southern colony the people of Albemarle looked for aid. Nor was it withheld. Captain Barnwell, with six hundred white men, and three hundred and sixty Indians of the tribes of the Cherokees, Creeks, Catawbas, and Yamasees, * as allies, marched against the Tuscaroras,1712and, driving them back to their fortified town near the Neuse, a little above Edenton, in the upper part of Craven county, forced them to make a treaty of peaee. Both parties soon violated this treaty, and the Indians commenced hostilities. Colonel Moore, of South Carolina, with forty white men, and eight hundred friendly Indians, arrived in December, 1713, besieged the savages in their fort, and took eight hundred of them prisoners. The hostile Tuscaroras soon afterward migrated northward, and joining the Five Nations on the southern shore of Lake Ontario, formed a part of the powerful confederacy of theSix Nationsin New York. In 1715 peaee was concluded with the Corees, and Indian wars ceased.
From this period until 1729, when the two provinces were surrendered to the crown, and were permanently separated, the colonists enjoyed comparative prosperity. The people had some difficulties with the Indians; were troubled with a swarm of pirates on the coast, underTeach, the famous "Black Beard;" and disputed, with the vehemence of men determined to remain free, with all unwise and aristocratic governors sent to rule them. Perceiving that the expenses which had attended the settlement of the Carolinas were hardly productive of any advantage, the lords proprietors offered to surrender the provinces to the crown. This was effected,1729and each proprietor received twelve thousand five hundred dollars, as the consideration of the surrender. Their charter had been in existence sixty-six years. The population of both provinces, including negroes, did not exceed twenty-five thousand persons, ten thousand in North Carolina, and fifteen thousand in South Carolina. The last proprietary governor was Sir Richard Everard, successor to Charles Eden.
George Burrington was the first royal governor of North Carolina, and took his seat without difficulty, in February, 1730. *** His first important act was to announce a remission of
* These tribes, and others from Cape Fear to the Gulf of Mexico, numbering about six thousand warriors, soon afterward confederated, with the design of exterminating the white people on the Atlantic coast. This event will be noticed hereafter.
** The general form of the Colonial government was not materially changed. The governor could do nothing legally without the assent of his council. With them, he was authorized to establish courts of justice, and to hold a Court of Error. The governor, members of the council, commander of the king's ships in the province, chief-justices, judges of the Vice-admiralty, secretary, and receiver-general, were constituted a court for the trial of pirates.
First Legislative Assembly.—The Governor and People at Variance.—Removal of the Seat of Government to Wilmington.
arrears of quit-rent. This was highly satisfactory. His second, under instructions, was to send a deputation into the interior to conciliate the Indians, particularly the Cherokees. The first Legislative Assembly was convened at Edenton in April, 1731,April 13where the future policy of the royal government was unfolded by Burrington. The representatives of the people were dissatisfied with its aspeet, and when, in the king's name, the governor demanded of them a sufficient revenue for defraying the expenses of the local government, and a sufficient salary for the governor, his council, and the officers employed in the administration of justice, they murmured. In these requisitions they could not recognize the promised advantages of a change in ownership, and they early showed a disposition to pay very little attention to these demands of the chief magistrate. Three years afterward, commercial restrictions, hitherto unknown, increased the discontents of the people,1 and the seeds of revolution were planted in a generous soil. The Assembly uttered the old complaint of exorbitant fees on the part of public officers; the governor rejected their remonstrance with contempt. The former refused to vote a revenue or to pass any acts, and sent a complaint to England of Burrington's "violence and tyranny in the administration of government." The Board of Trade reprimanded and deposed him, and then appointed in his place Gabriel Johnston,Nove 1734late steward of Lord Wilmington, a prudent and cunning Scotchman.
The new governor encountered quite as much trouble as his predecessor. The Assembly were refractory, and Johnston attempted to collect the rents ** on his own authority. Payment was resisted, and the Assembly not only denied the legality of the governor's proceedings,March 1737but imprisoned the officers who had distrained for quit-rents. Johnston made concessions to the people, but his arrangements were rejected by the home government, as yielding too much to the popular will. For nearly ten years the quarrel concerning rents continued between the governor and the Assembly, and, in the mean while, the salaries of government officials remained in arrears, for the rents, which produced the sole fund for the payment of the royal officers, were inadequate. The governor now resorted to cunning management as a last effort to sustain his authority. The province had been divided into several counties. The southern counties, lately settled, were more tractable than the northern ones, but they had only two members each in the Assembly, while the others had five. The governor, at a time when several of the northern members were absent, procured the passage of an act, placing all the counties upon an equal footing as to representation, and also for the removal of the seat of government from Edenton to Wilmington, a new town, lately established at the head of ship navigation, on the Cape Fear River, and named in honor of Lord Wilmington, Johnston's patron. The six northern counties refused to acknowledge the newly-organized Assembly as legal, and carried their complaint to England. They were obliged to submit, and at last the governor procured the passage of an aet,1748by which the expenses of government were provided for.
It was during the administration of Governor Johnston that two important occurrences
* The settlers procured furs from the Indians with great facility, and the manufacture of hats from this material was becoming a source of considerable revenue to several of the colonists. They exported hats to the West India Islands, Spain, and Portugal. The jealousy of England was awakened, and to secure those markets for her home manufactures, Parliament forbade the exportation of hats from the American colonies. They were not allowed to send them from one colony to another. None but persons who had served seven years apprenticeship to the trade were allowed to make hats, and no master was permitted to have more than two apprentices at a time. The business was soon confined within narrow limits, for severe penalties accompanied these enactments. Obstacles were also thrown in the way of the manufacture of ropes and cordage in America, and other kinds of business soon felt the cheeks of a narrow and unjust commercial policy.
** The whole soil belonged to the crown. The people were required, by the governor, to pay the expenses of the government, in addition to the stipulated rents.
Immigration of Scotch Highlanders.—The Rebellion of '45.—Peril and Flight of 'The Pretender.—Extinction of his Family.
took place, which, though separate and dissimilar, tended, in a remarkable degree, toward a union of the provinces in political and social interest, and in fostering that spirit of civil and religious freedom which prevailed in the South, and particularly in North Carolina, where the oppressive measures of the first ten years of the reign of George the Third produced rebellion in America. I allude to the commencement of hostilities between France and England in 1745; and the immigration hither of a large number of Presbyterians from Scotland and the north of Ireland, the former on account of their participation in the famous rebellion of that year. *
* The Scottish insurrection, known as The Rebellion of 45, was in favor of Charles Edward, the son of James II. who shared his father's exile in France. Claiming the throne of England as his right, and regarding George of Hanover as a usurper, he determined to make an effort for the crown. In June, 1745, he embarked in an eighteen-gun frigate, and landed at Borodale, in the southwest part of Scotland, with a few Scotch and Irish followers. His arms were chiefly on board another vessel, which had been obliged to put back to France. The Highlanders in the vicinity arose in his favor, and in a few days fifteen hundred strong men surrounded his standard—a piece of taffeta which he brought from France. The Pretender (as he was called) marched to Perth, where he was joined by some Scotch lords and their retainers. With his increasing army, he entered Edinburgh in triumph, though the castle held out for King George. All England trembled with alarm. The premier (the king was in Hanover) offered a reward of $750,000 for the person of the Pretender. From Edinburgh the insurgents marched toward the border, and were every where successful, until encountered by the Duke of Cumberland, at Culloden, where, on the sixteenth of April, 1745, they were defeated and dispersed. The jails of England were soon filled with the prisoners. Lords Balmerino and Lovat, and Mr. Radcliffe, a brother of the Earl of Derwentwater * were beheaded, the last who suffered death, in that way, in England. Many others were executed, and a large number of the Highlanders were transported to America, and became settlers in North Carolina. The Pretender was the last to leave the field at Culloden. For almost five months he was a fugitive among the Highlands, closely scented by the officers of government. After various concealments by the people, he escaped to the Isle of Skye, in the character and disguise of Betty Bourke, an Irish servant to Miss Flora M'Donald, daughter of a Highlander. After several perilous adventures, he reached the Continent in September, 1746. He died at Rome in 1784. His brother, Cardinal York, the last representative of the house of Stuart, died in 1807 and the family became extinct.
The Scotch-Irish and their Principles.—Their Emigration to Carolina.—Moravian Settlements.