FOUNDATION OF CHARLESTON. 169 XIII. contained a political feud, and led to the party of the CHAP proprietaries and the party of the people; religious divisions combining with political feuds, the friends of the High Church, always a minority, favored the former, while all classes of dissenters united with the latter. Every early settlement is necessarily attended with great privations; the planting of Carolina did not encounter unusual hardships. The enterprising mind of Shaftesbury applied itself with zeal wherever he was interested; and, though the colony was at one moment so disheartened as to meditate desertion, the timely arrival of supplies scattered the clouds of de- 1671 spondency.1 The Indians, though few, were unfriendly; and it was with arms at hand that the emigrants gathered oysters, or swept the rivers, or toiled at building. The labors of agriculture in the sultry clime were appalling to Englishmen; neither did the culture of European grains promise to be successful; but extreme distress did not ensue; and the proprietaries showed no intention of abandoning their plantation. The first site for a town had been chosen without regard to commerce. The point between the two rivers, to which the names of Shaftesbury2 were given, soon attracted attention; those who had purchased grants there, desirous of obtaining neighbors, willingly offered to surrender one half of their land as "commons 1672 of pasture." The offer was in part refused; but the neck of land then called Oyster Point, soon to become 1680 a village named from the reigning king, and, after more than a century, incorporated as the city of 1783 1 Hewat, i. 52. • Wilson's Carolina, 7. Caroli VOL. II. 22 na, by T. A., 1682, p. 37. "Shaftes- XIII. CHAP. Charleston, immediately gair ed a few inhabitants ; and on the spot where opulence now crowds the wharves of 1672. the most prosperous mart on our southern seaboard, among ancient groves that swept down to the rivers' banks, and were covered with the yellow jasmine, which burdened the vernal zephyrs with its perfumes, the cabins of graziers began the city. Long afterwards, the splendid vegetation which environs Charleston, especially the pine, and cedar, and cypress trees along the broad road which is now Meeting street, delighted the observer by its perpetual verdure.' The settlement, though for some years it struggled against an unhealthy climate, steadily increased; and to its influence is in some degree to be attributed the love of letters, and that desire of institutions for education, for which South Carolina was afterwards distinguished. 1671. 1671. 2 The institutions of Carolina were still further modified by the character of the emigration that began to throng to her soil. The proprietaries continued to send emigrants, who were tempted by the offer of land at an easy quitrent. Clothes and provisions were distributed to those who could not provide themselves. From Barbadoes arrived Sir John Yeamans, with African slaves.4 Thus the institution of negro slavery is coëval with the first plantations on Ashley River. Of the original thirteen states, South Carolina alone was from its cradle essentially a planting state with slave labor. In Maryland, in Virginia, the custom of employing indented servants long prevailed; and the class of white laborers was always numerous; for no 1 Dalcho, 15-20. Archdale. 3 Chalmers, 529. Dalcho, 19. 4 Dalcho, 13. Hewat, i. 53 ORIGIN OF NEGRO SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA.. 171 XIII. where in the United States is the climate more favor- CHAP. able to the Anglo-Saxon laborer than in Virginia. It was from the first observed that the climate of South Carolina was more congenial to the African than that "of the more northern colonies; "1 and at once it became the great object of the emigrant "to buy negro slaves, without which," adds Wilson, "a planter can never do any great matter."2 Every one of the colonies received slaves from Africa within its borders; the Dutch merchants, who engaged in planting New York, were largely interested in the slave trade, and covenanted to furnish emigrants to that colony with all the negroes they might desire; but the stern severity of the climate in some measure defeated the purpose. In South Carolina, the labor of felling the forests, of tilling the soil, was avoided by the white man; climate favored the purposes of commercial avarice; and the negro race was multiplied so rapidly by importations, that in a few years, we are told, the blacks were to the whites in the proportion of twentytwo to twelve;3 a proportion that had no parallel north of the West Indies. The changes that were taking place on the banks 167: of the Hudson, had excited discontent; the rumor of wealth to be derived from the fertility of the south, cherished the desire of emigration; and almost within a year from the arrival of the first fleet in Ashley River, two ships came with Dutch emigrants from New York, and were subsequently followed by others of their countrymen from Holland.4 4 Hewat, 1. 73. More definite, Dalcho, p. 12. Ramsay, i. 4, errs 3 Letter from South Carolina, by in his date. The voyage was in a Swiss gentleman, p. 40. 1671, not in 1674 CHAP Imagination already regarded Carolina as the chosen spot for the culture of the olive; and, in the region where flowers bloom every month in the year, forests of orange-trees were to supplant the groves of cedar ; silkworms to be fed from plantations of mulberries; and choicest wines to be ripened under the genial 1679. influences of a nearly tropical sun. For this end Charles II., with an almost solitary instance of munificence towards a colony, provided at his own expense two small vessels, to transport to Carolina a few foreign Protestants, who might there domesticate the productions of the south of Europe." April. 1670. 1 From England, also, emigrations were considerable. 1688. The character of the proprietaries was a sufficient invi to tation to the impoverished Cavalier; and the unfortunate of the church of England could look to the shores of Carolina as the refuge where they were assured of 1681. favor. Even Shaftesbury, when he was committed to July. the Tower, desired leave to expatriate himself, and become an inhabitant of Carolina.2 Nor did churchmen alone emigrate. The condition of dissenters in England was no longer a state of security or liberty; and the promise of equal immunities tempted many of them beyond the Atlantic, to colonies where their worship was tolerated, and their civil rights asserted. Of these, many were attracted to the glowing clime of Carolina, carrying with them intelligence, industry, and sobriety. A contemporary 1683. historian commemorates with singular praise the company of dissenters from Somersetshire, who were conducted to Charlestown by Joseph Blake, brother to the gallant admiral, so celebrated for naval genius and 1 Chalmers, 541. Ramsay, ii. 5. 2 Lingard's England, xiii. c. vii Carolina, by T. A. p. 8, 9. CHARACTER OF EMIGRATION TO SOUTH CAROLINA. 173 XIII. love of country. Blake was already advanced in life; CHAP but he could not endure the present miseries of oppression, and feared still greater evils from a popish successor;1 and he devoted to the advancement of emigration all the fortune which he had inherited as the fruits of his brother's victories. Thus the plunder of the wealth of New Spain assisted to people Carolina. A colony of Irish, under Ferguson, were lured by the fame of the fertility of the south, and were received with so hearty a welcome, that they were soon merged among the other colonists.2 The condition of Scotland, also, compelled its inhabitants to seek peace by abandoning their native country. Just after the death of Shaftesbury, a 1683 scheme, which had been concerted during the tyranny of Lauderdale, was revived. Thirty-six noblemen and gentlemen had entered into an association for planting a colony in the New World; their agents had contracted with the patentees of South Carolina for a large district of land, where Scottish exiles for religion might enjoy freedom of faith and a government of their own. Yet the design was never completely executed. A gleam of hope of a successful revolution in England, led to a conspiracy for the elevation of Monmouth. The conspiracy was matured in London, under pretence of favoring emigration to America; and its ill success involved its authors in danger, and brought Russell and Sydney to the scaffold. It was, therefore, with but a small colony, that the Presbyterian Lord Cardross, many of whose friends had suffered impris 1684 onment, the rack, and death itself, and who had him 3 1 Oldmixon, i. 337, 338, and 341. Oldmixon is here good authority. Comp. Hewat, i. 89. 2 Chalmers, 543. 3 Wodrow, ii. 230. Laing, iv 133. |