Notes

ONE—The Political Background of Proprietary Carolina

1. John Stewart to Major William Dunlop, 27 April 1690, in “Letters from John Stewart to William Dunlop,” in The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine (Baltimore), XXXII, no. 1 (January 1931), 15.

2. For convenience the terms South Carolina and North Carolina are used to distinguish the two regions that eventually became separate and distinct colonies, although the proprietors regarded the Carolinas as an entity.

3. William James Rivers, A Sketch of the History of South Carolina to the Close of the Proprietary Government by the Revolution of 1719 (Charleston, 1856), chapter 6. Rivers was the first scholar to appreciate the dimensions of South Carolina politics, and on many points he is more dependable in his judgments than later and more impassioned scholars. Invaluable contemporary documents are reprinted in the Appendix of Rivers’s volume. Four other scholars should be mentioned at the outset: Edward McCrady, The History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, 1670–1719 (New York, 1897); David Duncan Wallace, The History of South Carolina, 4 vols. (New York, 1934), I; M. Eugene Sirmans, Colonial South Carolina: A Political History, 1663–1763 (Chapel Hill, 1966); and Converse D. Clowse, Economic Beginnings in Colonial South Carolina, 1670–1730 (Columbia, 1971).

4. John Stewart to Major William Dunlop, 27 April 1690, in “Letters from John Stewart,” pp. 9, 12, 13.

5. Ibid., pp. 9, 10.

6. Ibid., pp. 13, 27.

7. Nathaniel Johnson was to influence politics in South Carolina. See Dictionary of National Biography, X, 111. For quotation: “Letters from John Stewart,” pp. 14–15.

8. Ibid., p. 29.

9. Ibid., p. 11. One hundred men signed the petition to invoke martial law.

10. Wallace, The History of South Carolina, I, 117–118.

11. Rivers, A Sketch of the History of South Carolina, p. 428.

12. Ibid., p. 424.

13. Ibid., pp. 425–426.

14. Ibid., p. 424.

15. Sothell was notified of his suspension as governor of North Carolina in Lords Proprietors to Sothell, 2 December 1689 (London), in North Carolina Colonial Records, I, 359–360. The list of grievances against Sothell is enclosed in a letter from Lords Proprietors to Sothell, 12 May 1691 (London), in Ibid., I, 367–371.

16. Thomas Cooper, ed., The Statutes at Large of South Carolina (Columbia, 1837), II, 39–73. The Carolina Parliament was composed of the Grand Council, made up of caciques and landgraves who were deputies of proprietors and of delegates elected by freemen. Before Sothell, as an earlier petition from Carolina makes clear, seven delegates, members of the Commons House, were out-voted by eight members of the council on any controversial issue.

17. Proprietors to James Colleton, 13 May 1691, in Alexander Salley, ed., Commissions and Instructions from the Lords Proprietors of Carolina (printed for Historical Commission of South Carolina, Columbia, 1916), pp. 27–28. Proprietors to Governor, Deputies, and Grand Council, 27 May 1691, in ibid., pp. 17–18; Cooper, Statutes, II, 44–47.

18. Nullification of Acts of “Assembly or pretended parliament” in Proprietors to Governor “for the time being” of South Carolina, 22 September 1691, in Records in British Public Record Office (Atlanta, 1931), III, 31–32. For “outing … of their Rights,” Proprietors to Seth Sothell, 12 May 1691, recorded 28 May 1692, in Salley, Commissions and Instructions from Lord Proprietors of Carolina, p. 30.

19. Appointment of Ludwell, Proprietors to Ludwell, 2 November 1691, ibid., p. 33.

20. The best modern edition of the six versions of the Fundamental Constitutions is printed in North Carolina Charters and Constitutions, 1578–1698 (edited by Mattie Erma Edwards Parker), Carolina Charter Tercentenary Commission, Raleigh, 1963, pp. 128–240.

21. Ibid., pp. 74–104. The specific quotation is from p. 95. A similar clause appears in the Charter of 1663.

22. Mattie Erma Edwards Parker in the introductory essay to the various versions of the Fundamental Constitutions suggests rather than declares that Locke played a secondary rather than primary role. Parker, North Carolina Charters, pp. 128–131. Confer with conclusions of others, some of them differing from judgment made in the text. Maurice Cranston, John Locke: A Biography (London, 1957), pp. 119ff; Louis Fargo Brown, The First Earl of Shaftesbury (New York, 1933), pp. 156–161; Herbert R. Paschal, “Proprietary North Carolina: A Study in Colonial Government” (diss., University of North Carolina, 1961), pp. 117–118; M. Eugene Sirmans, “Masters of Ashley Hall: A Biographical study of the Bull Family of South Carolina, 1670–1737” (diss., Princeton University, 1959), pp. 12–23.

23. Parker, ed., North Carolina Charters, p. 94.

24. Rivers, A Sketch of the History of South Carolina, pp. 422–423.

25. John Stewart to William Dunlop in “Letters from John Stewart,” pp. 9–10.

26. Parker, ed., North Carolina Charters, p. 181.

27. Paschal, “Proprietary North Carolina: A Study in Colonial Government,” pp. 129, 133, 281ff.

28. The Journal of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina, passim.

29. Petition to Seth Sothell, Rivers, Proprietary South Carolina, p. 422.

30. A. S. Salley, indexer, Records in the British Public Record Office Relating to South Carolina, 1691–1697 (Atlanta, 1931), III, 105–106.

31. The original instructions called for twenty members of the assembly to be divided equally between Berkeley, Colleton, Craven (South Carolina), and Albemarle (North Carolina) counties. But this instruction was superseded by the 7–7–6 ratio. Salley, Jr., ed., Journal of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina for the Session Beginning September 20, 1692, and Ending October 15, 1692 (Columbia, 1907), 12 October 1692, pp. 22–23. The Commons House had returned delegates according to the 7–7–6 ratio at the beginning of the session in late September. Proprietors to Governor Ludwell, 12 April 1693, in Salley, indexer, Records in the British Public Record Office, III, 84–98. First quotation pp. 92–93, second quotation p. 93.

32. It is noteworthy that when the Commons House of Assembly confronted the issue of the Fundamental Constitutions, the delegation sent to speak with Governor Ludwell was balanced between Berkeley and Colleton county men. Journals of the Commons House, September 20, 1692–October 15, 1692, passim.

33. Sirmans, “Masters of Ashley Hall: A Biographical Study of the Bull Family of Colonial South Carolina, 1670–1737,” p. 64.

34. Salley, ed., Journals of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina for the Four Sessions of 1693. (Columbia, 1907), 18 January 1693, p. 17.

35. John Archdale, Narrative; A New Description of that Fertile and Pleasant Province of Carolina: With a Brief Account of its Discovery and Settling, and the Government Thereof to this Time, “With several Remarkable Passages of Divine Providence during my time.” Printed in 1707, reprinted in B. R. Carroll, ed., Historical Collections of South Carolina; embracing many rare and valuable pamphlets, and other documents, relating to the history of that state from its first discovery to its independence, in the year 1776, 2 vols. (New York, 1836), II, 85–120. For the background of the discussion among the proprietors, see p. 102.

36. William Stevens Powell, The Proprietors of Carolina (Raleigh, 1963), pp. 51–52.

37. John Archdale, Narrative; A New Description, reprinted in Carroll, ed., Historical Collections of South Carolina, II, 103.

38. Instructions to John Archdale, 31 August 1694, in Salley, indexer, Records in the British Public Record Office Relating to South Carolina, 1691–1697 (Atlanta, 1931), III, 140–142; Cooper, ed., The Statutes at Large of South Carolina, II, 96–104. Cooper is in error in dating of An Act to Ascertain Prices, p. 102. See Salley, ed., Journal of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina for the Session Beginning January 30, 1696, and Ending March 17, 1696 (Columbia, 1908), 16 March 1696, pp. 45–46.

39. Proprietors to Philip Ludwell, 12 April 1693, in Salley, indexer, Records in the British Public Record Office, III, 88.

40. Cooper, ed., The Statutes at Large of South Carolina, II, 102–104.

41. Salley, ed., Journal of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina, For the Session Beginning January 30, 1696, and Ending March 17, 1696 (Columbia, 1908), 17 March 1696.

42. Proprietors to John Archdale, 29 January 1696, in Salley, indexer, Records in the British Public Record Office, III, 167.

43. Cooper, ed., The Statutes at Large of South Carolina, II, 101–102.

44. Paschal, “Proprietary North Carolina: A Study in Colonial Government,” pp. 99–109.

45. Proprietors to Messers Trouillard, Buretell, Jacques Serrurier, Couraw, Vervant, De Lisle Cramahe, Duque, 12 April 1693, in Salley, indexer, Records in the British Public Record Office Relating to South Carolina, 1691–1697, III, 103–104; Proclamation of Proprietors, 12 April 1693, in ibid., Ill, 82. The timing of the act may be related to the Treaty of Ryswick between France and England which was concluded the same year. The terms did not confront the question of the political rights of the Huguenots, no doubt a deliberate omission. As a result this issue became entangled in the struggle for political power among Carolinians.

46. Cooper, ed., The Statutes at Large of South Carolina, II, 131–133.

47. Salley, ed., Journals of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina for the Two Sessions of 1698 (Columbia, 1914), 19 November 1698.

TWO—Internal Politics in Proprietary Carolina

1. Arthur Henry Hirsch, The Huguenots of Colonial South Carolina (Durham, 1928), passim.

2. In any analysis of the inner struggle for political power within South Carolina the term “Goose Creek Men” inevitably arises. It has been used sparingly in this essay because it tends to mislead. The designation has become a catchall, indeed, almost a code word, so loosely defined as to hinder rather than help an understanding of events.

Not well informed as to the true situation of Carolina politics in the 1690s—and even less so after 1700—the proprietors often mistakenly designated the “Goose Creek Men” as the sole source of antiproprietory feeling. Unfortunately, historians, from the first to the most recent, have been inclined to reinforce this misperception by using the term “Goose Creek Men” or “Goose Creek coalition” as if this group were, in fact, the key to explain what was happening—an assumption far off the mark. As the previous essay demonstrates, a discriminating analysis of the politics of the 1690s reveals that opposition to proprietary rule was so widespread as to encompass almost all colonials and that they stood unified on the principle of self-government. The term “Goose Creek Men” is seldom employed in the present essay, not because of any arbitrary personal decision but rather because a thorough examination of the contemporary evidence does not provide a solid foundation to sustain its use.

3. The analysis in this essay differs in concept and many details from authorities such as David Duncan Wallace, The History of South Carolina, 4 vols. (New York, 1934), I, passim; Edward McCrady, The History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, 1670–1719 (New York, 1897), passim; and M. Eugene Sirmans, Colonial South Carolina; A Political History, 1663–1763 (Chapel Hill, 1966).

4. This analysis is based principally on a close study of the Journal of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina, particularly the composition of its membership over two decades as well as the limited extant correspondence of political leaders which illuminates the question of political allegiance.

5. Archdale and Council to Proprietors, 2 October 1695, in A. S. Salley, Jr., ed., Commissions and Instructions from the Lords Proprietors of Carolina to Public Officials of South Carolina, 1685–1715 (Columbia, 1916), 85; A. S. Salley, Jr., ed., Journal of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina for the Session Beginning January 30, 1696, and Ending March 17, 1696 (Columbia, 1908), 30 January 1696. The writ was issued 30 November 1695, with an election date set for 19 December 1695, in Charleston, but a second writ was issued dated 20 December 1695.

6. Governor Archdale and Council to Proprietors, 20 August 1695, in Salley, ed., Commissions and Instructions, pp. 80–81.

7. Governor Archdale and Council to Proprietors, 28 August 1696, in Salley, ed., Commissions and Instructions, p. 94.

8. Hirsch, The Huguenots of Colonial South Carolina, pp. 111–120. Whereas the English-Anglicans had nothing to fear from the Crown, Dissenters were unduly responsive to royal regulations to avoid an imputation on their management of the King’s interest and the proprietary interest.

9. William James Rivers, A Sketch of the History of South Carolina to the Close of the Proprietary Government by the Revolution of 1719 (Charleston, 1856), p. 194.

10. A. S. Salley, Jr., ed., Journal of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina For the Session Beginning October 30, 1700 and Ending November 16, 1700 (Columbia, 1924), 30 October 1700; “The Representation and Address of several of the Members of this present Assembly returned for Colleton County, and the other Inhabitants of this Province …,” to the Proprietors, printed in Rivers, A Sketch of the History of South Carolina, pp. 453–460. The quotation is from p. 455.

11. Salley, ed., Journal of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina for the Session Beginning October 30, 1700 and Ending November 16, 1700 (Columbia, 1924), 30 October 1700; Salley, ed., Journals of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina for the Two Sessions of 1698 (Columbia, 1914), 13 September 1698. A pamphlet written by Thomas Nairne, a gifted leader in Colleton County, claimed that two thirds of the population of South Carolina was composed of Dissenters. He included the French Huguenots in this definition. If his estimate is correct, it is not confirmed by recorded votes either before or after 1700.

12. Salley, ed., Journal of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina For the Session Beginning October 30, 1700 and Ending November 16, 1700 (Columbia, 1924), 30 October 1700 and 16 November 1700, passim.

13. “The Representation and Address of several of the Members of this present Assembly return’d for Colleton County, and other the Inhabitants of this Province,” printed in Rivers, A Sketch of the History of South Carolina, p. 459. See also John Ash, The Present State of Affairs in Carolina, 1706 in Alexander S. Salley, Jr., ed., Narratives of Early Carolina, 1650–1708 (New York, 1911), p. 271.

14. Salley, ed., Journal of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina for the Session Beginning August 13, 1701 and Ending August 28, 1701 (Columbia, 1926), 19 August 1701; Salley, ed., Journals of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina for 1702 (Columbia, 1932), 4 April 1702; ibid., 26 August 1702.

15. “The Representation and Address of several of the Members of this present Assembly return’d for Colleton County, and other the Inhabitants of this Province …,” printed in Rivers, A Sketch of the History of South Carolina, p. 454.

16. Ibid., pp. 459, 455, 460.

17. Ibid., pp. 455–458; Salley, ed., Journals of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina for the Two Sessions of 1698 (Columbia, 1914), 13 September 1698. The Representation as printed in Rivers spells the name as George Dearsby, whereas the Journals spells it as Dearsley.

18. John Archdale, A New Description of That Fertile and Pleasant Province of Carolina: With a Brief Account of its Discovery and Setting, and the Government Thereof to This Time; with Several Remarkable Passage of Divine Providence during My Time in B. R. Carroll, ed., Historical Collections of South Carolina, II, 112.

19. Thomas Cooper, ed., The Statutes at Large of South Carolina (Columbia, 1837), II, 232.

20. Ibid., pp. 236–246.

21. Ibid., pp. 249–251.

22. The contemporary account used most widely by historians, usually without noting that it was the source of their information and conclusion, is that of Daniel Defoe, Party-Tyranny, or an Occasional Bill in Miniature; as now Practiced in Carolina; Humbly offered to the Consideration of both Houses of Parliament (London, 1705), printed in Alexander S. Salley, Jr. ed., Narratives of Early Carolina, 1650–1708 (New York, 1911), pp. 224–264. Defoe depended on the information given him which was, of course, provided largely by the Dissenter petitioners. The partisanship is easy to discount, but the grave inaccuracies, many difficult to establish, have misled later historians. For example, every historian writing of these events assumes, on the basis of Defoe and the petitioners’ account in the House of Lords, that the proprietors validated the act. Perhaps so. But a document, entirely overlooked by historians, provides persuasive contrary evidence. It is a letter from the Lords Proprietors to Governor Johnson, dated 6 March 1705. Its substance is as follows:

There can be no question but that this document refers to the Church Act because the list of its signatures is accurate. The document is dated before the appeal in Parliament and certainly preceded any order from the Crown.

The contemporary accounts are so notoriously inaccurate that collaborative evidence is needed, point by point. It is even possible to raise a question as to whether John Ash preceded Boone and died in England, as stated by contemporaries. John Ash’s name appears repeatedly in the Journals of the Commons House after 1706. Presumably, this is the son or relative of John Ash of Dissenter fame, but no historian has explained the repeated appearance of the name.

The proprietors may have been moved to invalidate the Church Act because of the power of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.

No evidence indicates that the Exclusion Act was nullified by the proprietors, so that the appeal made to Parliament for its moderation or invalidation corresponds with other evidence to suggest that the Exclusion Act was the key to the intracolonial struggle for power.

23. Petition of Joseph Boone et al., 28 February 1706, in Leo F. Stock, ed., Proceedings and Debates of the British Parliament Respecting North America, 1542–1754, 5 vols. (Washington, 1924–1941), III, 117. The petitioners made much of having only twenty-three members of the Commons House present, but to have six or seven members absent was common rather than unusual; quote from Rivers, A Sketch of the History of South Carolina, p. 462.

24. Daniel Defoe, Party-Tyranny printed in Salley, ed., Narratives of Early Carolina, 1650–1708 (New York, 1911), pp. 225–226.

25. Sirmans, Colonial South Carolina, p. 88.

26. Salley, Journal of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina, March 6, 1705/6–April 9, 1706 (Columbia, 1937), 7 March 1706.

27. Cooper, ed., The Statutes at Large of South Carolina, II, “An Act for the Establishment of Religious Worship in the Province, According to the Church of England, and for the Erecting of Churches for the Publick Worship of God, and Also for the Maintenance of Ministers and the Building Convenient Houses for them” (1706), pp. 282–294, and “An Additional Act to an Act Entituled An Act for the Establishment of Religious Worship in this Province According to the Church of England, and for the Erecting of Churches for the Public Worship of God, and Also for the Maintenance of Ministers and the Building Convenient Houses for Them” (1708), pp. 328–330.

28. Salley, Journals of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina for 1703 (Columbia, 1934), 13 January–24 February 1703, passim; ibid., 15 April 1703.

29. Verner W. Crane, The Southern Frontier, 1670–1732 (Durham, 1928), pp. 71–107.

30. Salley, ed., Journals of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina for the Two Sessions of 1698 (Columbia, 1914), 18 November 1698.

31. Salley, ed., Journal of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina, November 20, 1706–February 8, 1706/7 (Columbia, 1939), 31 January 1707.

32. Salley, ed., Journal of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina, June 5, 1707–July 19, 1707 (Columbia, 1940), 5 July 1707.

33. Cooper, ed., The Statutes at Large of South Carolina, II, 309–316; Salley, ed., Journal of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina, June 5, 1707–July 19, 1707 (Columbia, 1940), 19 July 1707.

34. Crane, Southern Frontier, pp. 146–150. The position taken by the governor had nothing whatsoever to do with a contest between the proprietary authority and the Commons House, as is often asserted. Appearances represented reality: Governor Johnson’s private greed prompted him to take the position that he did. On this issue, he did not receive support from the English-Anglican political bloc.

35. Two general accounts are valuable. Stephen B. Weeks, The Religious Development in the Province of North Carolina in Johns Hopkins University Studies, Tenth Series, V–VI (1892), 241–306; Herbert R. Paschal, Jr., “Proprietary North Carolina; A Study in Colonial Government” (Diss., University of North Carolina, 1961).

36. Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood to Lords of Trade, 11 February 1713, in William L. Saunders, ed., The Colonial Records of North Carolina (Raleigh, 1886), II, 1713 to 1728, 12.

37. Declaration of Captain John Gibbs, 2 June 1690, in Saunders, ed., Colonial Records of North Carolina, I, 363–364.

38. Paschal, “Proprietary North Carolina,” 179–180.

39. Henderson Walker to the Bishop of London, 21 October 1703 in Saunders, ed., The Colonial Records of North Carolina, I, 572; see also, 543–545. The act is not extant. Its provisions as reconstructed from other evidence are provided in Weeks, The Religious Development in the Province of North Carolina, p. 36.

40. John Blair to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (1703), in Saunders, ed., The Colonial Records of North Carolina, I, 601–602.

41. Henderson Walker to the Bishop of London, 21 October 1703, in Saunders ed., The Colonial Records of North Carolina, I, 572; John Blair to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, ibid., p. 601.

42. Weeks, The Religious Development in the Province of North Carolina, pp. 48–49.

43. The Reverend William Gordon to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 13 May 1709, in Saunders, ed., The Colonial Records of North Carolina, I, 709.

44. The Reverend John Urmston[e] to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 7 July 1711, in ibid., I, 769.

45. An Act for the better and more effectual preserving the Queen’s peace …, 1711, in ibid., I, 787–790; Alexander Spotswood to the Board of Trade, 25 July 1711, in ibid., I, 780.

46. Alexander Spotswood to the Lords Proprietors, 31 July 1711, in ibid., I, 800.

47. The most thorough and accurate survey of the county courts in North Carolina is Paul M. McCain, The County Court in North Carolina Before 1750 (Durham, 1954), in Historical Papers of Trinity College Historical Society, Series XXXI. North Carolina county and precinct courts receive some attention in John Spencer Bassett, The Constitutional Beginnings of North Carolina, 1663–1729, in Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science (Baltimore, 1894), Twelfth Series, pp. 105–169. References to precinct courts are found on pp. 105–106, 124, and 165. It is not surprising that no comparable volume to McCain’s on local government is to be found for South Carolina. Two other books merit mention: William C. Guess, County Government in Colonial North Carolina, in James Sprunt Studies, XI, no. 1 (1911), 7–39, and especially David L. Corbitt, The Formation of North Carolina Counties, 1663–1943 (Raleigh, 1950).

48. McCain, The County Courts in North Carolina Before 1750, p. 11.

49. Ibid., passim.

50. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series 31, America and the West Indies, January 1719 to February 1720, pp. 337–338.

51. Sirmans, Colonial South Carolina, pp. 142–143. In the debates on the act there was a difference of opinion as to the limits of the jurisdiction of the county-precinct courts. See, for example: Journal of the Upper House, I, 78, and An Act for Establishing County and Precinct Courts in David J. McCord, ed., The Statutes at Large of South Carolina, VII, 166–176.

52. The quote is found in McCain, The County Court in North Carolina Before 1750, p. 11. McCain recognizes the influence of the Fundamental Constitutions on North Carolina; but because he makes no comparisons with what transpires in South Carolina, the differences are not noted.

THREE—Reassessing the Founding of Georgia

1. John C. Stephens, Jr., ed., Georgia, and Two Other Occasional Poems on the Founding of the Colony, 1736 (Atlanta, 1950), 9–10. See also the verse written in the South Carolina Gazette, upon the settling of Georgia. Hennig Cohen, “Two Colonial Poems on the Settling of Georgia,” in Georgia Historical Quarterly, XXXVII (1953), 129–137.

The conclusions developed in this essay are based principally on an exhaustive investigation of the published and unpublished primary sources. In the latter category special mention should be made of the Egmont Papers in the University of Georgia Library. The library staff and Professor E. M. Coulter made this rich treasure available to me before it was opened to scholars, and I am greatly indebted to them for their kindness and generosity. In the interval between the opening of the papers and now, some of this source material has been published by the University of Georgia Press supported by the Wormsloe Foundation. Scholars will continue to be beholden to the press and the foundation for recognizing the significance of these materials. For the trusteeship period Georgia has probably the most complete record available for any colony in British North America during its “founding” decades, because the frequent, indeed, often daily, responses kept by the inhabitants and by the trustees have been preserved.

Space precludes doing full justice to scholars of colonial Georgia who precede me, but the citations in this essay indicate a small measure of my obligation to them. Their work has unquestionably influenced in some degree the conclusions drawn in this essay.

2. Thomas Causton to his wife, 12 March 1733, in Egmont Papers (University of Georgia), Vol. 14200.

3. The best modern study is Amos E. Ettinger, James Edward Oglethorpe: Imperial Idealist (Oxford, 1936). It must now be supplemented, however, by materials that have since become available.

4. The Diary of the Earl of Egmont serves as a running account of the founding of Georgia, which his papers, now at the University of Georgia, amplify. Historical Manuscripts Commission, Manuscripts of the Earl of Egmont. Diary of Viscount Percival, afterwards First Earl of Egmont, 3 vols. (London, 1920–1923); for Charter, Allen D. Chandler, comp., The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia (Atlanta, 1904), I, 11–26.

5. The two points of view are admirably stated in Verner W. Crane, “The Philanthropists and the Genesis of Georgia,” American Historical Review, XXVII (1921–1922), 63–69, and in Albert B. Saye, New Viewpoints in Georgia History (Athens, 1943), 3–50.

6. It would be difficult to explain why Oglethorpe laid out settlements in such remote scattered areas, except as a fulfillment of his concept of defense. When he laid out the settlement at Thunderbolt, for example, he stated that this tactic “guarded the most dangerous Water Passage from the Spaniards.” Oglethorpe to Trustees, c. December 1733 in Egmont Papers, Vol. 14200. At times Oglethorpe’s aggressive tactics provoked light reprimands from the trustees. For instance, the trustees, in 1736, asked Oglethorpe to withdraw the Highlanders from the Alatamaha River region and settle them nearer Savannah. Benjamin Martyn to James Oglethorpe, 2 April 1736, ibid., Vol. 14208.

7. Paul S. Taylor, Georgia Plan: 1732–1752 (Berkeley, 1972), p. 3.

8. Allen D. Candler, comp., The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia (Atlanta, 1904–1916), I, 48.

9. Ibid., III, 373, 374.

10. Ibid., I, 50.

11. Earl of Egmont to General Oglethorpe, 11 March 1742, Egmont Papers, Vol. 14206.

12. George Fenwick Jones, ed., Detailed Reports on the Salzburger Emigrants Who Settled in America … Edited by Samuel Urlsperger (Athens, 1968), I, 57ff.

13. The names of the first group can be found in E. Merton Coulter, ed., “A List of the First Shipload of Georgia Settlers,” in Georgia Historical Quarterly, XXXI (1947), 282–288.

14. Governor Robert Johnson, Charlestown, to Oglethorpe, 28 September 1732, Egmont Papers, Vol. 14200.

15. Benjamin Martyn to Governor Johnson, 24 January 1733, ibid., Vol. 14207. The specific agreements and instructions for the voyage can be found in this volume of manuscripts.

16. Martyn to Johnson, 18 October 1732, ibid., Vol. 14207; Johnson to Oglethorpe, 28 September 1732, ibid., Vol. 14200.

17. Thomas Causton to his wife, 12 March 1733, ibid., Vol. 14200.

18. Oglethorpe to Trustees, 12 March 1733, ibid., Vol. 14200.

19. Oglethorpe to Trustees, 12 August 1733, ibid., Vol. 14200.

20. See Adelaide L. Fries, The Moravians in Georgia, 1735–1740 (Raleigh, 1905).

21. Governor Johnson to Trustees, 27 July 1733, Egmont Papers, Vol. 14200.

22. For the oldest yet useful study on the Salzburgers, see Philip A. Strobel, The Salzburgers and Their Descendents: Being the history of a colony of German (Lutheran) Protestants, who Emigrated to Georgia in 1734, and settled at Ebenezer, twenty-five miles above the City of Savannah (Baltimore, 1855). See also Paul Taylor, Klaus G. Leowald, and Beverly Starika, eds., “Johann Martin Bolzius Answers a Questionnaire on Carolina and Georgia” in William and Mary Quarterly, XIV (April 1957), 218–261. In recent years an increasing number of sources relating to the experience of the Salzburgers is being published. Reverend Bolzius to Mr. Newman, secretary to the Society for Christian Knowledge, 29 December 1740, Egmont Papers, Vol. 14205. The precise number was 189 people, men, women, and children. The number of Salzburgers has often been grossly inflated by historians of colonial Georgia. Oglethorpe reflected the general opinion when he wrote that every foreign person settled in America was worth thirty pounds sterling per annum in terms of trade and production. Oglethorpe to Egmont, 1 February 1736, Egmont Papers, Vol. 14201.

23. John Vat to Mr. Newman, 10 February 1735, Egmont Papers, Vol. 14200.

24. Reverend Bolzius to Captain Coram, 28 July 1737, ibid., Vol. 14203. A record is also available of the Salzburgers’ “Account With the Trustees,” which, from March 1736 to April 1738 totaled 1,287.17.10½ pounds of which 1,076.10½ pounds was for food. Ibid., Vol. 14203.

25. Oglethorpe to Vernon, 26 January 1741, ibid., Vol. 14205.

26. There are numerous articles on the experimental trustees’ garden, but perhaps the best is James W. Holland, “The Beginning of Public Agricultural Experimentation in America: The Trustees Garden in Georgia” in Agricultural History, XII (1938), 271–298. This article can be supplemented by other materials. See Trustees Agreement with Dr. Patrick Houstoun, Botanist, 4 October 1732, Egmont Papers, Vol. 14207. In addition, see Instructions to Dr. Millar, Botanist, 6 March 1734, Egmont Papers, Vol. 14207.

27. The trustees’ store was usually well stocked with goods, tools, implements, cooking utensils, provisions, and livestock. See, for example, Inventory of Goods at Trustee’s Store, 29 September 1738, Egmont Papers, Vol. 14203.

28. Thomas Christie to Oglethorpe, 14 December 1734, ibid., Vol. 14200.

29. James R. McCain, Georgia as a Proprietary Province (Boston, 1917), pp. 29–56.

30. To “give more weight and Distinction to the court,” the magistrates were sent a seal and proper gowns. Verelst to Causton, 11 August 1737, Egmont Papers, Vol. 14209. A town court for Frederica was appointed in September 1735, but it did not function satisfactorily. Savannah continued to be the only operating center of government. The Salzburgers, because of their peculiar social-religious community, policed themselves; it is interesting to notice, however, that the Reverend Bolzius eventually asked for the necessary authority to conduct its local government, for he was apprehensive that his religious authority was no longer sufficient or effective.

31. Robert Parker to Trustees, (?) December 1734, ibid., Vol. 14200.

32. Eveleigh to Oglethorpe, 16 May 1735, ibid.

33. Bolzius to Vernon, 13 July 1734, ibid. When the Salzburgers did complain about hardships, Benjamin Martyn, the secretary to the trustees, replied in sardonic, nasty tone: “They [the Salzburgers] are sorry likewise that many of them (as you say) left their good States they lived in by the care of their good Benefactors in Germany, and if the Trustees had known the Goodness of their States they would not by any means have taken them from them.” Martyn to Bolzius, 10 June 1736, ibid., Vol. 14208.

34. James Habersham to George Whitefield, 1 September 1741, ibid., Vol. 14206.

35. Thomas Eyre to Robert Eyre, 4 December 1740, ibid., Vol. 14205.

36. William Stephens served the trustees the longest and the most faithfully. For the most appreciative summary of Stephens’s service, see the Introduction to E. Merton Coulter, ed., The Journal of William Stephens, 1741–1743 (Athens, 1958). Journal of Thomas Causton, 31 May 1737, Egmont Papers, Vol. 14203. Thomas Jones to Jo. Lydes, 18 September 1740, ibid., Vol. 14205.

37. Of those who signed the memorial, approximately one half were sent by the trustees, and about one half had arrived in Georgia on their own account. An estimated two thirds of those signing the petition came from the Savannah region, which could be expected for Savannah had the largest population. The signers varied in profession from gentlemen to peruke-makers and stocking-makers. Of the signers, however, only fifteen signed with “a mark,” indicating that they were unable to write their names. For materials used in this analysis, see ibid., Vol. 14203. Tailfer and a few others had made a request to permit Negroes in Georgia as early as 1735. Tailfer et al. to Trustees, 27 August 1735, ibid., Vol. 14201.

38. The estimate of five hundred is based on the coefficient customarily used to multiply the number of tithables, men between sixteen and sixty, by three or, in some instances, four. Because the signers were all mature men the coefficient of four would produce a more accurate estimate of the total population they represented.

39. Trustees’ Answer to Representation of 9 December 1738, Egmont Papers, Vol. 14210. This idea of a properly instituted constitution had been expressed as early as 1735 in reply to a letter of Samuel Eveleigh, the Carolina merchant, who had suggested Negro slaves be used. “Sir,” the secretary to the Trust had written, “The very end for which the Trustees were incorporated was to procure that Blessing of a well constituted Government, which is so little known in some Parts of America.” Martyn to Eveleigh, 1 May 1735, Egmont Papers, Vol. 14207. Oglethorpe had encouraged the cavalier treatment of the memorial by saying everyone had signed because Robert Williams, a merchant, had promised each signer that he would sell them slaves in return for a mortgage on the land of the signers. Oglethorpe to Trustees, 16 January 1739, ibid., Vol. 14203. It should be noted that many signers did not have sufficient land to encourage such alienation, and, with many others, the soil in the grants that they had received would not inspire the confidence of a merchant to extend credit.

40. Oglethorpe, State of Georgia, 11 October 1739, ibid., Vol. 14204; “A State of the Province of Georgia Attested Under Oath in the Court of Savannah November 10, 1740,” in Collections of the Georgia Historical Society (1842), II, 67–85. It appeared originally in pamphlet form in 1742.

41. Remonstrance of the Inhabitants of the Town and County of Savannah and the Rest of the Inhabitants of Georgia, 22 November 1740, Egmont Papers, Vol. 14205; Humble Petition of the Poor Distressed Inhabitants of the Province of Georgia to the King or Parliament, 29 December 1740, ibid.

42. Humble Petition … to the King or Parliament, 29 December 1740, ibid.

43. First quote, John Fallowfield to Trustees, 1 January 1741, ibid., Vol. 14205. Fallowfield, though a bailiff, was among those who signed the petition to the King or Parliament. Second quote, John Fallowfield to Trustees, 27 July 1742, ibid., Vol. 14206.

44. Clarence L. Ver Steeg, ed., A True and Historical Narrative (Athens, 1960), pp. ix–xxxi. The debates in Parliament touched off by the memorials and petitions from discontented Georgia settlers are found in Leo F. Stock, ed., Proceedings and Debates of the British Parliaments respecting North America (Washington, D.C., 1941), Vol. 5, 1739–1754, passim. The best analyses of these debates are Richard S. Dunn, “The Trustees of Georgia and the House of Commons, 1732–1752” in William and Mary Quarterly, XI, no. 2 (1954), 551–565 and Taylor, Georgia Plan, 143–227.

FOUR—Slaves, Slavery, and the Genesis of the Plantation System in South Carolina

1. The materials and the concepts for this essay grew out of an extensive investigation of the primary, largely manuscript, sources developed over a decade. I have had the good fortune to be able to consult the recent book of Converse D. Clowse, Economic Beginnings in Colonial South Carolina, 1670–1730 (Columbia, 1971), whose own pioneering studies on early Carolina trade fill an immense gap and enable scholars to be more precise in their generalizations. Bringing together the researches for this essay in its present form was originally initiated at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton when I was appointed a Visiting Member in 1967–1968. I am grateful to the Institute for its generosity. Many of the conclusions offered in this essay were originally advanced in the spring of 1968 in the Columbia Seminar in Early American History.

2. The most widely consulted study is that of Winthrop D. Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550–1812 (Chapel Hill, 1968), but other essays are important, such as that of Oscar and Mary Handlin, “Origins of the Southern Labor System,” in William and Mary College Quarterly, VII (1950), 199–223. Peter H. Wood’s Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion (New York, 1974) appeared after this manuscript was at the publisher, so its findings could not be incorporated. Scholars of the period will find Black Majority an important work to consult.

3. [Thomas Nairne], “A Letter from South Carolina; Giving an Account of the Soil, Air, Product, Trade, Government, Laws, Religion, People, Military Strength, etc., of that Province, together with the Manner and Necessary Changes of Settling a Plantation There, and the Annual Profit it will Produce,” Written by a Swiss Gentleman to His Friend at Bern, Printed for A. Baldwin, near the Oxford-Arms in Warwich-Lane, 1710 (London).

4. I am indebted to Wendell D. Garrett who supplied me with this valuable quote after attending my seminar given at Columbia University in 1968.

5. Governor Charles Craven to Secretary Lord Townshend, 23 May 1715, printed in North Carolina Colonial Records, II, 177–179; Proprietors to Board of Trade, 27 July 1716, Records in the British Public Record Office Relating to South Carolina, VI, 230–231 (hereafter cited as BPRO). A contemporary wrote: “In the mean time the Publick is put to a vast Expence, a standing army is now raising to consist of 600 whites and 400 Negroes at 4£ per month.” John Tate to Board of Trade, Charles Town, 20 September 1715, BPRO, VI, 126–127.

6. Memorial of Joseph Boone and Richard Beresford, Agents for the Commons House of Assembly to the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, Received 5 December 1716, BPRO, VI, 261–269, printed in Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, XXIX, 215–218 (hereafter cited as CSP). Notice the use of “husbands and wives,” one of many pieces of evidence in the eighteenth-century colonies indicating that black families did exist and were identified as such by name and relationship.

7. Robert L. Meriwether, The Expansion of South Carolina, 1729–65 (Kingsport, Tenn., 1940).

8. My figures are extrapolated from various scattered reports and letters covering the period from early settlements until the second decade of the eighteenth century. No single set of figures can be presumed to be accurate; those judged to be closest to the mark follow a curve that bears some relationship to benchmark reports such as that of Nathaniel Johnson, Thomas Broughton, Robert Gibbs, George Smith and Richard Beresford to the Proprietors, 17 September 1708, A. S. Salley, indexer, Records in the British Public Record Office Relating to South Carolina, pages 203–210. Although our conclusions do not always agree, Converse Clowse provides a thorough demographic analysis for this period in Economic Beginnings, chap. 5, entitled “Improving Prospects, 1690–1705.” I have been fortunate that Richard S. Dunn made the original sources of the Barbadoes Census of c. 1680 available to me in 1968. His exceptionally thoughtful article on the incoming Barbadians entitled “The English Sugar Islands and the Founding of South Carolina” is found in the South Carolina Historical Magazine, LXXII (April 1971), 81–93.

9. Almon Wheeler Lauber, Indian Slavery in Colonial Times Within the Present Limits of the United States, published in Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law (New York, 1913), see in particular pp. 105–108. Verner Crane’s invaluable study, The Southern Frontier, 1670–1732 (Durham, 1928), pp. 112–114, proves that no less than 75 Indian slaves were exported in 1712–1713 and 308 in 1716.

10. Thomas Nairne to [? the Earl of Sunderland] in CSP, June, 1708–1709, p. 422.

11. Both quotes cited in Crane, Southern Frontier, p. 110.

12. The impact of the Indian trade on colonial security and on the culture of Native Americans was profound. English goods transformed Indian life. English trade gave the Native American his blanket, his sharp metal tomahawk, his knife, and his large brass cooking kettle, each item identified later in the popular imagination as indigenous to the Indian. The trade brought an improvement in weapons used by Indians, and, ironically, it even provided warriors with war paint. More important, the Native American became so dependent upon the trade that it became an addiction as pernicious as drugs.

13. Quoted in Crane, Southern Frontier, p. 108.

14. For the first and third quotes, A. S. Salley, Jr., ed., Narratives of Early Carolina, 1650–1708 (New York, 1911), pp. 171, 172; for second quote [Thomas Nairne], A Letter From South Carolina …, p. 13.

15. Thomas Cooper, ed., The Statutes at Large of South Carolina (Columbia, 1837), II, 55–56.

16. Memorial of Joseph Boone and Richard Beresford, Received 22 June 1716, in BPRO, VI, 173–174.

17. Memorial of Joseph Boone and Richard Beresford, Received 22 February 1717, in BPRO, VII, 5–8; Journal of the Board of Trade, 16 July 1715, in BPRO, pp. 137–139.

18. Enclosure of Memorial to the Board of Trade by Joseph Boone and Richard Beresford, Agents for the Province of South Carolina, Received 22 June 1716, BPRO, pp. 173–174.

19. Lewis C. Gray, History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860 (reprint, New York, 1941), II, 1021.

20. “Letter of Edward Randolph to the Board of Trade, 1699,” in Salley, ed., Narratives of Early Carolina, pp. 204–210; for the quote, p. 207.

21. Eleanor L. Lord, Industrial Experiments in the British Colonies of North America, in Johns Hopkins University Studies, Extra Volume XVII (Baltimore, 1898), 64–65.

22. Francis Yonge to Board of Trade, Received 5 February 1723, in BPRO, pp. 2–10, but especially pp. 3–4. Yonge claims the Carolina manufacture of naval stores drastically reduced their costs for Britain. This particular letter provides detail which traces the temporary end of ranch farming and the rise of rice and particularly naval stores to preeminence.

23. Memorial of Joseph Boone and Richard Beresford to Board of Trade, Received 22 June 1716, BPRO, pp. 173–174.

24. I have made use of these figures in manuscript form, but the discriminating, precise analysis of them by Clowse, Economic Beginnings, Appendix, Table III, supersedes all previous studies. In a Report to the Board of Trade by Joseph Boone and John Barnwell, Agents of South Carolina, Received 23 August 1720, BPRO, VIII, 65, they reported that in 1720 the colony would be exporting 16,000 tons of rice and 70,000 barrels of pitch, tar, and turpentine. Clowse’s figures indicate that this goal was not reached, although more than 60,000 barrels of naval stores were shipped out of Charleston in 1725.

25. Rice producers, whose crop season extended from April-May to September-October, had already learned to use their slaves for the offseason production of naval stores.

26. Governor Robert Johnson to Board of Trade, 12 January 1719, Received 27 April 1720, BPRO, VII, 246–248.

27. Joseph Boone and John Barnwell, Response to Queries of the Board of Trade, Received 23 August 1720, BPRO, VIII, 67. Their response concluded with the warning that the increase in slave importation was “to the endangering [of] the Province.” After 1724, the year of the largest quantity of exports of pitch and tar and also the year the subsidy ended, the naval stores industry in South Carolina declined. In the 1730s North Carolina became the center of the industry in North America, a position it was to retain for the remainder of the colonial period. Logical reasons explain the change: the ending of the subsidy; the great forests of longleaf pine located in North Carolina compared with the dwindling supply in South Carolina; and the recovery of rice production in South Carolina. Despite the reduced importance of the production of naval stores in South Carolina, its role in the development of the plantation system in South Carolina during the second decade of the eighteenth century was never erased.

28. Obviously, this calculation depends for its accuracy upon the figure selected as an approximation of the population. Scholars may debate my choice. For 1708, the estimate selected for total population was 9,580 persons, of whom some 4,100 were slaves. For 1721, the estimate selected for total population was 19,600 persons, of whom some 11,800 were slaves.