Latest / Chronicles of America Volume 05 - Pioneers of the Old South / 014 - Chapter 14

Transcript

014 - Chapter 14 · Chronicles of America Volume 05 - Pioneers of the Old South

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Chapter fourteen of Pioneers of the Old South by Mary Johnston.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: This libri box recording is in the public domain. The Carolinas,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: the first settlers on the banks of the James River,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: looking from beneath their hands southward over plain land and
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: a haze of endless forests, called that unexplored country South Virginia.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: It stretched away to those rivers and bays, to that
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: island of Roano Gwence had fled Boley's settlers. Beyond that,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: said the James River men, was Florida. Time passed in
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the region of South Virginia was occasionally spoken of as Carolina,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: though whether that name was drawn from Charles the First
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: of England or whether those old unfortunate Huguenots in Florida
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: had used it with reverence to Charles the Ninth of
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: France is not certainly known. South Virginia lay huge, unknown, unsettled.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: The only exception was the country immediately below the southern
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: banks of the Lower James, with the promontory that partially
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: closed in Chesapeake Bay. Virginia, growing fast at last, sent
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: her children into this region. In sixteen fifty three, the
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Assembly enacted upon the petition of Roger Green Clark on
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: the behalf of himself, and inhabitants of Nansman River. It
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: is ordered by this present Grand Assembly that ten thousand
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: acres of land be granted unto one hundred such persons
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: who shall first seat on Maratuck or Roanoke River and
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: the land lying upon the south side of cohen Chohan
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: River and the branches thereof, provided that such cedar settle
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: advantageously for security, and be sufficiently furnished with ammunition and strength.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Green and his men, well furnished, presumably firelocks, bullets, and
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: powder horns, went into the center land at intervals. There
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: followed other hardy folk Quakers subject to persecution, and old
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Virginia fled into these wilds. The name Carolina grew to
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: mean backwoods frontiersmen's land. Here were forced in stream Indian
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: and bare and wolf blue waters of sound and sea,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: long outward lying reefs and shoals and islets, fertile soil,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: and upclimb neither hot nor cold. Slowly the people increased
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: in number. Families left settled Virginia for the wilderness. Men
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: without families came there for reasons good and bad. Their cabins,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: their tiny hamlets, were far apart. They practiced a hazardous agriculture.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: They hunted, fished, and traded with the Indians. The isolation
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: of these settlers bred or increased their personal independence, while
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: it robbed them of that smoothness to be gained where
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: where those social particles rucked together. This part of South
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Virginia was soon to be called North Carolina. Far down
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: the coast was Cape Fear. In the year of the restoration,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: a handful of New englandmen came here in a ship
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: and made a settlement, which not prospering. Was there long abandoned.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: But New Englanders traded still in South Virginia as along
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: other coasts. Seafarers they entered at this inlet, and at
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: that crossed the wide blue sounds, and anchoring in mouths
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: of rivers, purchased from the settlers their forest commodities. Then
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: over they ran to the West Indies and got in
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: exchange sugar and rum and molasses, with which again they
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: traded for tobacco in Carolina, in Virginia and in Maryland.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: These ships went often to New Providence in the Bahamas
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: into Barbados. There began through trade in other circumstances, a
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: special connection between the long coast line, and these islands
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: that were people by the English. The restored Kingdom of
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: England had many adherents to reward Land in America, Islands
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: and Maine formed the obvious fortune NIS's purse. As the
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Second Charles had divided Virginia for the benefit of Arlington
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: and Caulpepper. So now in sixteen sixty three to our
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: right trustee and right well beloved cousins and councilors Edward,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Earl of Clarendon, our High Chancellor of England, and George,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Duke of Albemarle, Master of our Horse and Captain General
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: of all our forces, our right trust in well beloved
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: William Lord Craven, John Lord Barkeley, our right trusting, well
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: beloved counselor Anthony Lord Ashley, Chancellor of our Exchequer, Sir
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: George Carteret, Knight and Baronet, Vice Chamberlain of our household,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: and our trusting in well beloved Sir William b Arkley, Knight,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: and Sir John Carlton, Knight and Baronet. He gave South Virginia,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: henceforth called the Carolinas, a region occupying five degrees of
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: latitude and stretching indefinitely from the sea coast toward the
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: setting sun. This huge territory became like Maryland, a province
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: or palatinate. In Maryland was one proprietary. In Carolina there
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: were eight, though for distinction, the senior of the eight
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: was called the Palatine. As in Maryland, the proprietaries had
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: princely rites. They owed allegiance to England, and a small
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: quit rent went to the King. They were supposed to
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: govern in the main by English law, and to hold
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: the religion of England. They were to make laws at
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: their discretion, with the advice, assent, and preprobation of the
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: freemen or of their deputies, who were to be assembled
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: from time to time as seemed best. John Locke, who
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: wrote the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, but also with Ashley
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: at his side, the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina in number
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty, agreed upon by the Palatine and
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Lord's Proprietors to remain the sacred and unalterable form and
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: rule of government of Carolina forever. Forever is a long
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: word with off times of short history. The Lord's proprietors
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: have left their names upon the maps of north and
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: South Carolina. There are Albemarle Sound, and the Ashley and
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Cooper rivers, Clarendon, Hyde, Caterat, Craven and Colleton Counties, but
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: their fundamental constitutions in number one hundred and twenty, written
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: by Locke in sixteen sixty nine, are almost all as
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: dead as the leaves of the Carolina forest falling in
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: the autumn of that year. The grant included that territory
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: settled by Roger Green and his men. Among the proprietors
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: sets William Barkley, Governor of Virginia, the only lord of
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Carolina actually upon American ground. Following the instructions from his
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: seven fellows, Barkley now declared this region separated from Virginia
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: and attached to Carolina. He christened it Albemarle. Strangely enough,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: he sent as governor that Scotchman William Drummond, whom some
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: years later he would hang. Drummond should have a council
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: of six and assembly of freemen that might inaugurate legislation
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: having to do with local matters, but must submit its
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: acts to their proprietaries for veto or approval. This was
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: the settlement in Carolina of Albemarle back country to Virginia,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: gatherer events of many that were hardy and sound, many
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: that were unfortunate, and many that were shiftless and untamed.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: An uncouth nurse of a turbulent democracy was Albemarle. Cape Fear,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: far down the deeply freighted coast, seemed a proper place
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: to which to send a colony. The intrusive Massachusetts men
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: were gone, but gentlemen and merchants of Barbados were interested.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: It is a far cry from Barbados to the Carolina shore,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: but so is it a far cry from England. Many
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: royalists had fled to Barbados during the Old Troubles, so
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: that its English population was considerable. A number may have
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: welcomed the chance to leave their small island for the
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: immense continent, and an English trading port as far south
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: as Cape Fear must have had a general appeal. So
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: in sixteen sixty five came englishmen from Barbados and made
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: up the Cape Fear River, a settlement which they named Clarendon,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: with John Yeamans of Barbados as governor. But the colony
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: did not prosper. There arose the typical colonial troubles, sickness,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: dissensions in providence, quarrels with the Aborigines, nor was the
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: site the best obtainable. The settlers finally abandoned the place
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: and scattered to various points along the northern coast. In
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: sixteen sixty nine, the Lord's proprietaries sent out from England
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: three ships, the Carolina, the Port Royal, and the Albemarle,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: with about one hundred colonists aboard. Taking the old Sea Road,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: they came at last to Barbados, and here the Albemarle,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: seized by a storm, was wrecked. The two other ships,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: with the Barbados Sloop, sailed on and were approaching the
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Bahamas when another hurricane destroyed the Port Royal. The Carolina, however,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: pushed on with the sloop, reached Bermuda and rested there. Then,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: together with a small ship purchased in these islands, she
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: turned west by south End came in March of sixteen
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: seventy to the good harbor of Port Royal, South Carolina.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Southward from the harbor, where the ship's road stretched Old Florida,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: held by the Spaniards, was the Spanish town Saint Augustine,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: then Spanish ships might put forth and descend upon the
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: English newcomers. The colonists, after debate, concluded to set some
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: further space between them and lands of Spain. The ships
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: put again to sea, beat northward a few leagues, and
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: at last entered a harbor, into which emptied two rivers,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: presently to be called the Ashley and the Cooper. Up
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: the Ashley they went a little way anchored, and the colonists,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: going ashore, began to build upon the west bank of
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: the river, a town which for the king they named Charlestown.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Ten years later this place was abandoned in favor of
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: the more convenient point of land between the two rivers.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Here then was builded the second and more enduring Charlestown, Charleston,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: as we call it now in South Carolina. Colonists came
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: fast to this Carolina, lying south Barbados, that many England,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Scotland and Ireland contributed as share. There came Huguenots from France,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: and a certain number of Germans. In ten years after
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: the first settling, the population numbered twelve hundred, and this
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: presently doubled and went on to increase. The early times
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: were taken up with the wrestle with the forest, with
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: the Indians, with Spanish alarms, with incompetent governors, with the
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: lord's proprietaries, fundamental constitutions, and with the restrictions which English
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: navigation laws imposed upon English colonies. What grains and vegetables
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: and tobacco they could grow, what cattle and swine they
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: could breed, an export preoccupied the mines of these pioneer farmers.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: There were struggling for growth, a rough agriculture and a
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: hampered trade with Barbados, Virginia and New England. Trade likewise
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: with the buccaneers who swarmed in the West Indian waters.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Five hundred good reads allowed and had long allowed, free
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: buttery to flourish in American seas, gross governmental faults, navigation acts,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: and one hundred petty and great oppressions, general poverty, adventurousness, lawlessness,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: and sympathy of mishandled folk with lawlessness, all combined to
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: keep brother of the coast, buccaneer and filibuster alive and
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: their ships upon all seas. Many were no worse than smugglers.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Others were robbers with violence, and a few had a
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: dash of the fiend all nations had sons in the business.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: England to the south in America had just the ragged coastline,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: with its off lying islands and islets, liked by all
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: this gentry, whether smuggler or pirate. Outright through much of
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: the seventeenth century, the settlers on these shores never violently
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: disapproved of the pirate. He was often a good fellow.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: He brought in needed articles without dues, and had Spanish
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: gold in his pouch. He was shrugged over and traded with.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: He came short to Charlestown, and they traded with him there.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: At one time Charlestown got the name of Rogues Harbor,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: but that was not forever, nor indeed, as years are
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: accounted for, long better and better emigrants arrived to add
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: to the good already there. The better type prevailed and
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: gave its tone to the place. There set in on
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: the Ashley and Cooper rivers of fair urban life that
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: yet persists. South Carolina was trying tobacco and wheat. But
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: in the last years of the seventeenth century, a ship
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: touching at Charleston left there a bag of Madagascar rice.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Planted it gave increase that was planted again Suddenly it
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: was found that this was the crop. For low lying Carolina.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Rice became her staple, as was tobacco of Virginia. For
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: the rice fields. South Carolina soon wanted African slaves, and
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: they were consequently brought in numbers in English ships. There
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: began in this part of the world even more than
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: in Virginia, the system of large plantations and the accompanying
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: aristocratic structure of society. But in Virginia the planter families
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: lived broadcast over the land, each upon its own plantation.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: In South Carolina, to escape heat and sickness, the planters
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: of Rice and Indigo gave over to employees the care
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: of their great holdings, and lived themselves in pleasant Charleston.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: These plantations, with their great gangs of slaves under overseers,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: differed at many points from the more kindly semi patriarchal
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: life of the Virginian plantation. To South Carolina came also
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: the indentured white laborer, but the black was imported in
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: increasing numbers. First in the Carolinas there had been promised
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: fair freedom for the unorthodox. The charters provided, says an
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: early governor and overplus power to grant liberty of conscience,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: although at home was a hot persecuting time. Huguenots, independents, Quakers,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: dissenters of many kinds found on the whole refuge and
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: harbor in every colony. Soon began the struggle by the
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: dominant color and caste toward political liberty. King company, lord's
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: proprietaries might strive to rule from over the seas, but
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: the new land fast bred a practical rough freedom. The
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: English settlers came out from a land where political change
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: was in the air. The stream was set toward the
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: crumbling of feudalism the rise of democracy. In the new World,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: circumstances favoring the stream became a tidal river. Governor's councils
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: assemblies might use a misleading phraseology of a quaint servility
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: toward the constitute of powers. In England, Tory parties might
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: at times seem to color the land their own hue.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: But there always ran, though often roughly and with turbulence,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: a set of the stream against Autocras Sea in Carolina,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: south and north by the Ashley and Cooper rivers, and
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: in that region called Albemarle just back of Virginia, there
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: arose and went on through the remainder of the seventeenth
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: century and in the eighteenth struggles with the lords, proprietaries
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: and the governors that these named, and behind this a
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: more covert struggle with the Crown. The details differed, but
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: the issues involved were much the same. In North and
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: South Carolina, the struggle lasted for the threescore and odd
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: years of the proprietary government, and renewed itself upon occasion
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: after seventeen twenty nine, when the Carolinas became royal colonies.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Later it was swept a strong affluent into the great
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: general stream of colonial revolt, culminating in the Revolution. Into
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: North Carolina. Beside the border population, entering through Virginia and
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: containing much of the backwoods and derelict nature, came many Huguenots,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: the best of folk and industrious Swiss and Germans from
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: the Rhine. Then the Scotch began to come in numbers,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: and families of Scotch descent from the north of Ireland.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: The tone of society consequently changed from that of the
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: early days. The ruffian and the shiftless sank to the bottom.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: There grew up in North Carolina a people agricultural but
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: without great plantations, hard working and freedom loving. South Carolina,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, had great plantations, a town society,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: suave and polished, a learned clergy, and aristocratic cast to life.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: For long, both North and South clung to the sea
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: law and to the lower stretches of rivers where the
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: ships could come in. Only by degrees did English colonial
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: life pushed back into the forests, away from the sea,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: to the hills, and finally across the mountains end of
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: chapter fourteen,