“wee are noe way pleased:” proprietary direction in colonial carolina, 1663-1707
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7/31/2019 “Wee are noe way pleased:” Proprietary Direction in Colonial Carolina, 1663-1707
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“Wee are noe way pleased:”
Proprietary Direction in Colonial Carolina, 1663-1707
Matthew Adair
History 785.01
Professor Newell
15 March 2011
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Commissioned by the Lords Proprietors of Carolina, Barbadian planter Robert Sandford
surveyed the province in 1666 to gain insight into the unique environment of the region.
Sandford extolled Carolina as “excellent a Country both for Wood, land and Meadowes as gave
singular satisfaction to all my Company…a pasture not inferior to any I have seene in England.”1
Having been called on by the Lords Proprietors of the newly founded Carolina colony to
“promote the good and speedy settlemnt of many other very considerable corporations within the
Territory and Dominions”, Barbadian planters undertook the exploration of the Carolina coast as
an exhibition of deference even before significant English immigration began in the 1680s.2
Sandford's expedition in the infant years of Carolina's 1663 charter granted by king
Charles II was a testament to the perceived potential for New World colonization. Natural
resources were the focal point of Sandford's observations — a shortage of lumber on the islands of
Barbados sharpened his arboreal awareness. In addition to providing raw materials for Barbados
and the metropole in London, Carolina would emerge as an epicenter for human trafficking by
the early eighteenth century.3 These aspects of Carolina's utility occupied center stage, replacing
the normative colonization process with a furious flurry of Indian slaving and impeding the
development of a viable and sustainable economic foundation until the success of rice after 1700.
England’s first attempt at transplanting the Old World to the New failed mysteriously at
the island of Roanoke off the coast of North Carolina. Settlement in the mid-Atlantic finally took
root, after much turmoil and suffering, first at the Jamestown colony in Virginia. The relative
success of England’s mid-Atlantic ventures provoked continued expansion southward, near
Spanish Florida. Undoubtedly, English interest in establishing other settlements was influenced
by the Spanish presence in the region. Having launched a series of missions along the
1Alexander S. Salley Jr., ed., Narratives of Early Carolina, 1650-1708 (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1953),
91.2 The Shaftesbury Papers: South Carolina Historical Society (Charleston: Home House Press, 2010), 11-12.
3Alan Gallay, The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002).
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southeastern coast, the Spaniards forged relations with Indian groups, providing the first
European contacts on the southeastern mainland.4 When English and Scottish settlements at Port
Royal and the Lower Cape Fear broke ground in the seventeenth centuries, the Indians had
preconceived notions of European behavior. Relations with Native American groups in the
region would remain varied — ranging from hostile wars to integral trading partnerships.
Charles II’s granting of Carolina “within six and thirty degrees...and within one and thirty
degrees of northern latitude” to eight proprietors in 1663 was the first English imperial grant
bestowed south of Virginia on the North American mainland. As Lords Proprietors who were
able to exercise “full and absolute power,” these eight men were “to transport and make an ample
colony of our subjects.”5
Granting a proprietorship was a simpler and less expensive way of
establishing an English presence in the New World. The Crown could simply hand over land to
men who would very nearly fund the development of the colony from their own coffers.
Theoretically, the proprietors would benefit from the payment of quitrents (land taxes imposed
on freeholders) on the land that they distributed to settlers, the settlers would benefit from the
availability of land, and the empire would gain a stronger foothold on the continent at a time
when contestations between England, France, and Spain ran exceedingly high.
These rather simple motivations, however, were surprisingly multifaceted. The Lords
Proprietors' understanding of their colonial responsibilities changed over time, as did the nature
of settlement in Carolina. Native American relations created unforeseen complications, and held
hidden benefits. Likewise, growing affluence among the planter class created a unique dynamic
between the benevolence of the proprietors and the autarkic aspirations of an emerging elite.
Throughout the evolving circumstances of their proprietary venture, the Lords exerted a strict
4Gallay, Indian Slave Trade, 42.
5William L. Saunders, ed., The Colonial Records of North Carolina, vol. 1 (Raleigh, NC: P.M. Hale, 1886-
90), 20-33.
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and vigilant effort in controlling settlement patterns. Early Carolina settlement was characterized
by these burgeoning relationships. A new trial of colonization, the operation in the Carolina
lowcountry developed into a fractured, disparate array of planters, servants, slaves, and
proprietary officials.
The Proprietors faced many obstacles to the successful settlement of Carolina. With the
Dutch-Anglo wars impeding communications and diverting royal resources, Carolina did not
receive the attention it required after the charter was granted in 1663. A few of the proprietors
displayed a pervasive lack of interest throughout their tenure; the most notable and active
proprietor, Lord Ashley, took a high degree of initiative in fulfilling his role as steward of
Charles II’s dominion in the New World. Ashley even proclaimed, “We have undertaken to serve
him and his people, and not our private Interest.”6 In the original charter of 1663, Charles II
waived customs duties for “silks, wines, currants, raisins, capers, wax, almonds, oyl and olives”
coming out of Carolina, a concession not lost on prospective planters.7
The Crown certainly felt
that agricultural production in Carolina would be substantial.
Corresponding with his proprietary agents in the New World, Lord Ashley regularly
inquired about the receipt of goods and provisions sent from England to support the colonists.
The firmly paternalistic language of Ashley's letters conveys a sense of ownership and a clear
construction of Carolina's inherent purpose. Proprietary investment in the success of Carolina
was limited to profiteering and deference. Royal deference was a regular component of the
colonization repertoire — the presence of which reveals little about the deeper questions of
proprietary rule. Regal pageantry aside, the motivation for any involvement in a charter such as
Carolina lay in the potential for fiscal improvement. The nature of the interest demonstrated by
6 Shaftesbury, 15.
7Salley, Narratives, 71.
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Lord Ashley in the commercial activity of this relatively benign English outpost suggests an
expectation for personal gain.
Proprietors expressed aggressively their desires and demands of the Carolina settlement
through correspondence with their agents. The language of their letters contains possessive
pronouns, "our", "we", etc., reminding the residents to whom the land actually belonged. In a
letter to the governor of Carolina in the spring of 1679, the proprietors communicated their
dissatisfaction with the dispersed settlement of their lands. The governor had not exacted enough
control over land grants and property locations for settlers, putting the colony at risk of being
"thinly peopled." Concerning this disregard of proprietary will, Lord Ashley and his compatriots
asserted, "wee are noe way pleased with it and Doe Expect that you be more Carefully in
husbanding our Land for the future or wee shall be Inforced to trust others that will." 8 Threatening to remove Governor Joseph West, the proprietors had no qualms asserting their legal
rights as administrators of the province. In the same letter, however, the proprietors explained
their reasoning for encouraging a more condensed pattern of settlement as a paternalistic desire,
stating: "Wee hav[e] now taken into our Consideration the Danger you may be Exposed to by
Reason of the Remoteness of your familyes one from the other."9 Whether the relationship was
modeled more on paternalistic pretentions or that of a Lord and vassal, the proprietors certainly
sought control over their lands.
This attention to the banalities of settlement patterns calls into question the idea that the
proprietors were largely removed from their ventures. While it is certainly true that few of the
original eight proprietors demonstrated sustained interest in Carolina, those who did were
possessive and inquisitive. Some scholars have argued that "the proprietors obviously regarded
8Alexander S. Salley Jr., indx., Records in the British Public Record Office Relating to South Carolina,
1663-1684 (Atlanta: Foote & Davies Company, 1928), 83.9 Ibid.
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colonization as a means of generating wealth and prosperity for the kingdom," despite the
evidence demonstrating sustained interest in the financial details of Carolina's development that
exhibits a significant degree of proprietary interest in the colony's success.10
In the spring of
1680, in their instructions to imperial agents Andrew Percival and Maurice Mathews, the
proprietors commanded, "You are as soone as you doe arrive in Carolina to take an exact acct. of
all the English Goods by us sent to Carolina that remayne undisposed of."11
As men steeped in
the gentry tradition of Stewart England, the proprietors maintained a dual understanding of their
responsibilities to the king and their responsibilities as lords. This latter role, a characteristic
present even in their title, Lords Proprietors, represented a vestige of the feudal system of
medieval Europe. Further evidence of the feudal system's bearing on the development of
Carolina can be found in the Fundamental Constitutions, drafted by political philosopher and
royal secretary, John Locke. Scholars have considered the anachronistic inclusion of the feudal system in Locke's
vision of government for Carolina in many lights. Twentieth-century historians essentially
disregarded the Fundamental Constitutions as having no bearing on the colonial history of
Carolina. While it is true that the Fundamental Constitutions were never ratified by any
legislative body or even accepted as common law among the early settlers and government
agents, their provisions delineated a specific vision for the colony. The proprietors wanted to
retain the social order of England in their New World settlement. In order to keep the
disenfranchised populations of Liverpool and London also disenfranchised on the Atlantic's
western shores, the Constitutions prohibited "any leetman or leetwoman" from having the
freedom "to goe of from the land of his particular lord, & live anywhere else." Even more severe,
10L.H. Roper, Conceiving Carolina: Proprietors, Planters, and Plots, 1662-1729 (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2004), 28.11
Salley, Records Relating to South Carolina,113.
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the Constitutions ensured the proliferation of a planter and gentry class by preventing any social
mobility via constitution number 23: "All ye children of leetmen shall be leetmen, & so to all
generations."12
These strong stipulations clearly communicated the Proprietary vision for the
Carolinian enterprise. As Lords, the proprietors would attempt to control the settlement patterns
and agricultural exploits of vassals (settlers), who orchestrated the logistics of the manor
(plantations) and the ascertainment of laborers, in exchange for (theoretical) protection and
support. In his 2004 book, Conceiving Carolina, L.H. Roper suggested that the leet status of
indentured servants "would not really have deprived impoverished migrants of any sort of social
and political rights...Such people would have had no rights to surrender in the first place." Roper
goes on to argue that "[Lord] Ashley, for one, certainly thought that the status of leet-man on his
personal plantation offered a 'comfortable living' to the desperate in both England and
America."13
Perhaps, then, Ashley and Locke included feudal aspects in their blueprints for
government because of a humanitarian desire to provision their vassals. In a tone of superficial
sympathy, Ashley wrote to his proxy Andrew Percival, "...wee doe not see what can become of
the poore people there that have noe stocks unlesse they will become leetmen to some that are
able to support and supplye them which the Lords Proprietors are resolved not to doe."14 Ashley
and the other proprietors were not inclined to supervise such routine matters as the sustenance of
the needy; that duty would be reserved for the freeholders and provincial government of the
fledgling colony. Pillars of feudalism supported the architecture of the Fundamental
Constitutions due to the English tradition of vassalage as well as a desire to administer the
experiment of Carolina with a rigid, proven structure of governance.
12 Shaftesbury, 99.
13Roper, Conceiving Carolina, 33.
14 Shaftesbury, 445.
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Inherent to the manorial method of land distribution was the immediate omnipotence of
the lord. The details of land settlement patterns and the warranting of baronies to planters under
the Fundamental Constitutions have been explored by Duff: "By the mid-1680s no provincial
leader could ignore that where colonists chose to settle, along the rivers and marshes, conflicted
with the proprietors' expressed intention that 'people shall plant in Townes which are to be laid
out into large, straight & regular streets.'"15
Characteristic of Protestantism, the concept of
orderly development in a foreign land was common throughout the colonies. And as mentioned
above, the proprietors were concerned about the relative safety of colonists who chose to inhabit
lands far from the locus of English power. Concentrated development would also facilitate
engagement in the mercantile economy that the proprietors foresaw as the future of Carolina.
Lord Ashley's penchant for power manifested in this design for Carolina, as well as in his
attempts to monitor and influence trade activities that would be the antecedent for the success of
the wealthiest English colony on the North American mainland.
The establishment of the quitrent payment system, and the intention of the Proprietors in
devising a system that effectively characterized them as rentiers, was an extension of the English
gentry to the New World. As laid out in the Fundamental Constitutions, the proprietors would
reap the benefits of their "investments" far into the future. The proprietors, essentially absentee
landlords, never had to exert any physical effort for their own sustenance — an illustration of
gentleman status. Rather, they would orchestrate affairs from the comfort of their English estates
and receive monies — in theory — from their Carolinian venture.
To assure the proper and adequate growth of trade, the proprietors routinely inquired
about matters in Carolina. Administering a colonial government separated by an ocean presented
15Meaghan N. Duff, "Creating a Plantation Province: Proprietary Land Policies and Early Settlement
Patterns." In Money, Trade, and Power: The Evolution of Colonial South Carolina's Plantation Society, edited by
Jack P. Greene, Rosemary Brana-Shute, and Randy J. Sparks, 1-25. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press,
2001), 17.
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myriad challenges. Writing to the governor and council at Ashley River in 1674, the proprietors
warned, "And therefore if you intend to have suplyes for the future you will doe well to consider
how you will pay us, in what comodities you can best do it."16 For their benevolence toward
planters and immigrants of the Carolina lowcountry, the proprietors expected compensation.
Asking annually a "halfe penny p. acre for all Lands," the proprietors were not demanding
outrageous reimbursement.17
In his discussion of the proprietary conflict with colonials, Gallay
noted that "Few could see any reason to pay the quitrent."18 Without the threat of direct
repercussions, and the glaring absence of a military presence, neglecting quitrents became the
norm for the tidewater region surrounding Charles Towne.
Settlement patterns and land payments were undoubtedly on the radar of Lord Ashley and
the other proprietors. Issues relating directly to the proliferation of trade, however, were more
pressing in the correspondence between the metropole and the colony. Writing to Governor West
in 1680, the proprietors asked for "Lists of all the people that came to plant and inhabitt with you.
and from whence they came. Allsoe a Lyst of all vessells that came to you what burthen and from
whence."19 Naturally, the proprietors were inquisitive of the imports coming into Carolina. As
economic historian Converse Clowse observed, "...in the 1680's, the proprietary became acutely
concerned with trade regulation."20
Following the establishment of Carolina in the early 1660s,
the proprietors became enmeshed in the political and military developments on the European
continent, placing the affairs of Charles Towne on the backburner. As the costly Anglo-Dutch
conflicts of the mid-seventeenth century ended, the proprietors showed renewed interest in
Carolina.
16 Shaftesbury, 437.
17 Shaftesbury, 84.
18Gallay, Indian Slave Trade, 48.
19Salley, Records Relating to South Carolina, 105.
20Converse D. Clowse, Economic Beginnings in Colonial South Carolina, 1670-1730 (Columbia:
University of South Carolina Press, 1971), 81.
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In order to expedite the establishment of plantations in the Carolina lowcountry, the
proprietors solicited aid from English planters settled in Barbados. Substantial colonial growth
did not occur until after 1680 when Barbadian immigration began the momentous adaptation of
plantation-style economies. From receiving just 37 people in 1680, the colony sustained an
annual immigration of over one hundred people by 1682.21 With the rise of a profitable
plantation scheme came pangs for independence from proprietary economic restraint. While the
Barbadian environment differed from the tidewater marshes of the southeastern coast, the
planters had priceless experience and knowledge of logistical issues. The Goose Creek men, as
these successful early planters came to be known, thwarted proprietary directives and asserted
arbitrary authority over the region.
Named after the tributary on which they settled, the Goose Creek men "consistently
opposed proprietary policy.”22
Experienced with English colonization from their Barbadian
plantations, these men were archetypal self-aggrandizers. They rose to the top of political life in
Charles Towne by engaging in illicit activities such as trade with pirates and Indian enslavement.
Although the proprietors "expected that the colonists themselves would meet the main costs of
settlement," the influx of well-to-do Barbadian planters did not coincide with the proprietary
vision. The ability of the Goose Creek men to sustain themselves was too great to adhere to the
proprietors' colonization narrative — how were the proprietors to demand respect if colonists
required no benevolence? Barbadian influence in the early years of the province was so intimate
that Peter H. Wood deemed Carolina a "colony of a colony." Initially, the proprietors believed
Barbados to be an appropriate source of immigration, one that "could provide seasoned settlers
21St. Julien Ravenel Childs. "Malaria and Colonization in the Carolina Low Country, 1526-1696" (PhD
diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1935), 192.22
M. Eugene Sirmans. Colonial South Carolina: A Political History, 1663-1763(Chapel Hill: The
University of North Carolina Press, 1966), 17.
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from a short distance at a minimal cost."23
Using land incentives established in the Fundamental Constitutions (e.g. granting
baronies and seignories) to attract Barbadian investment, the proprietors wished to see Carolina
grow in the wake of maritime martial conflict that occupied English affairs during the 1660s. In
addition to external investment, however, Lord Ashley took a more personal stake in Carolina’s
plantation economy. In hopes of diversifying possibilities for profit, Ashley established a
personal plantation along the Edisto River, just south of Charles Towne. “You are to discourse
and consult,” Ashley wrote to Andrew Percival in 1674, “…about the Plantation at Ashley River
and about a way how a trade may be setled that the supplys we send may not be throwne away
but we may be paid in Commodyties that will reimburse us."24
He instructed Percival "to
endeavor to make Irish potatoes grow" and "to have 300 or 400 head of Cattle upon the place." 25 Records display an interest in monitoring the utility and efficiency of the supplies and processes
of his Edisto venture and other planter enterprises.
That the proprietors remarked about colonists making poor use of the supplies sent to
Carolina speaks to the nature of proprietary governance. In an expression of paternalistic
condescension, the proprietors implied that settlers were absorbing the proprietors' handouts
without contributing to the greater mission of the Carolinian enterprise. Perhaps the
demographics of settlement resembled the second sons phenomena that was the scourge of
Jamestown's early years. The proprietors were inclined to encourage the maintenance and growth
of trade among colonists; in March 1680, the proprietors strongly suggested that their agents
"endeavr as soone as possible you can to re establish a Beavr Trade with the Indians."26 The
necessity for such forceful rhetoric to stimulate mercantile activity that would improve the
23Peter H. Wood. Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono
Rebellion (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1974), 13-15.24
Shaftesbury, 445.25
Shaftesbury, 442.26
Salley, Records Relating to South Carolina, 112.
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economic status of Charles Towne and its hinterlands demonstrates that colonists and proprietors
were on different planes. Their interests continually contested, from issues of trade to patterns of
settlement.
Some of the most deleterious and divisive issues of early Carolina’s settlement were
territorial squabbles and trader relations among Native American groups. Increasing
encroachment by settlers into Indian lands proved that Indian rights were not always maintained
to the degree prescribed by the proprietary. This provides evidence that it was colonists
themselves, rather than imperial or proprietary interests, who trampled the intrinsic rights of
Native Americans. Maltreatment of Native Americans developed on an interpersonal level at the
margins of colonial society, not in the streets of Charles Towne. Outposts of colonization were
the primary venues for deteriorating cross-cultural relations — the men who wished to abscond
the binds of English and Protestant society fled the empire's sphere of influence by living beyond
proprietary and royal reach. Disregard for the development patterns requested by Lord Ashley, et
al. were merely the genesis of a long period of contention between colonists and their Lords.
Running parallel to the rebellious nature of these settlers was a strong reverence for
independence. The independent streak of ambitious seventeenth- and eighteenth-century traders
and planters provides insight into their relationship with the British Empire, the proprietors, and
Carolina. On a mission motivated by self-aggrandizement, the early planter class exhibited a
desire for a nearly anarchic economic arena, juxtaposed with an inclination to unabashedly take
advantage of limited proprietary support. Prominent Virginian, Francis Yeardley, explored
Carolina even before Sandford's expedition. In 1654, Yeardley wrote: "My hopes are, I shall not
want assistance from good patriots, either by their good words or purses."27
As an established
member of Virginia plantation culture and political life, Yeardley was in no way a rogue seeking
27Salley, Narratives, 28.
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to establish an autarkic haven. His experience as a councilman and local representative in
Maryland and Virginia, respectively, add layers of meaning to his 1654 observations28. Perhaps
his knowledge of the struggles of Jamestown increased his sensitivity to the potential for self-
sufficiency. In the shadow of Jamestown's failings, the potential for success was a vital
component in further colonization of the New World. Along with this requirement for the ability
to provide the staples of life, a strain of incipient independence was developing in the proto-
planter class.
A nascent independent streak was identifiable among Barbadian planters settling in
Carolina in Sandford’s account of the 1666 Port Royal exploration endorsed by the proprietors.
To the proprietors, Sandford boasted that the natural utility of the coastal landscape would "not
faile to yeild soe great a variety of Producons as will not onely give an absolute self subsistance
to the place without all manner of necessary forraigne dependance, but alsoe reach a trade to the
Kingdome of England."29
That Sandford would mention the concept of economic self-sufficiency
to the proprietors is unexpected. His words promoted a disconnect between the colony and the
mother country. Although his visions of Carolina's future probably limited internal productions to
agriculture and raw materials, Sandford exhibited an unusually autarkic aspiration even from the
earliest years of Carolina's history.
While Carolina was plagued by many impediments to successful and profitable
colonization, the proprietary could never table the issue of Indian relations. Native Americans
were nothing less than ubiquitous in late seventeenth-century Carolina. Frequenting both
plantations and trading posts, Indians were an intimate part of colonial life. Instructing the
governor and council to "take special care not to suffer any Indian that is in League or friendly
correspondence with us and that lives within 200 miles of us to be made slaves," the proprietors
28Ibid., 26.
29 Shaftesbury, 81.
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made efforts to direct positive relations with indigenous groups.30
By 1683, the proprietors were
"convinced the sending away of Indians made the Westoh & Waniah Warrs" and would "make
other warrs if the Indians are suffered still to bee sent away & warr is very Inconvenient for
planters."31 Exhibiting a strong and surprising sense of humanity, the proprietors disapproved of
the continued abuse, manipulation, exploitation, and capture of Indians for the benefit of private
interests and not the public good. A nine-page letter from September 1683 exhibited sympathetic
tones, such as "poore Waniahs" and acknowledged the "fowleness" of unjust slaving.32
Proprietary interest in upholding an observable standard for humanity was requisite to facilitate a
plantation economy, however. While the motivation to keep peace was not born of altruism, the
proprietors' involvement in the defense of Indian rights and territories is significant when
contrasted with cruel proto-American attitudes toward indigenous peoples.
Naturally, animosities developed among the enforcers of Indian trading policies and the
traders and slavers enmeshed in Indian society. With passage of “An Act to...Prevent Persons
From Disturbing [the Yamasee] With Their Stocks, and to Remove Such as are Settled Within…,”
traders knew that proprietary power would soon spoil their profit-making schemes of illegal
enslavement and abusive trading practices.33 The Indian Trade Act of 1707 required traders to
annually purchase a license and prohibited the sale of free Indians as slaves.34
Illustrating a
distinct compassion for the sanctity of Indian society, the proprietors tacitly acknowledged that
European culture was, to some effect, a detriment to the organic customs of various Indian
groups in the New World. Conversely, what can be construed as a paternalistic compassion could
be portrayed as an imperative concession to achieve an adequate level of commerce. The
30Salley, Records Relating to South Carolina, 99.
31Salley, Records Relating to South Carolina, 257-258.
32Ibid.
33Thomas Cooper and David James McCord, eds. The Statutes at Large of South Carolina. (Columbia, SC:
A.S. Johnston, 1836), vol. 2, 317.34
Gallay, Indian Slave Trade, 217.
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proprietors realized the value of showing Indians “justice, giving their people a moral and ethical
framework for intercultural relations, not a detailed blueprint that would compromise the settlers'
safety.”35
In the face of this unabashed disobedience, the Lords Proprietors demanded amicable
relations and proper communication of their settlers and the Native Americans of the lowcountry.
The proprietors wrote in 1680: “…we are informed you have had a war with the Westoes, but for
what reason and the true + perticulr. successe hath been we are ignorant of. And cannot but
accuse you of great neglect in not informing us yr.selves.”36
If settlers were to take advantage of
the cheaply and generously distributed land warrants available in Carolina, and the theoretical
protection that status as imperial subjects provided, adequate channels of correspondence should
have been maintained. Any divisive military or political activity among Carolinian planters,
traders, and agents and the neighboring tribes would put the proprietors’ financial investments at
risk. “As investors,” Clowse wrote, “they were concerned about the prospects for profits, their
basic reason for obtaining the charter in the first place,” and “[f]or the first 20 years, the Indian
trade was the most significant commerce” in Carolina.37 Obtaining, processing, and selling
animal skins on the commercial market was one of the only legitimate economic activities in
Carolina until the emergence of rice in the early eighteenth century.
By 1695, the legislative body of South Carolina had passed legislation that codified
exchange rates for animal skins, legitimizing the trade in an effort to avoid adverse effects on
Indians, thereby preserving agreeable relations. Act number 128 required “every Indian man
capable of killing deere” to deliver “one woolfe’s skinn, one tigers skinn, or one beares skinn, or
35Ibid., 58.
36Salley, Records Relating to South Carolina, 104.
37Clowse, Economic Beginnings, 42-43, 63.
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two catt skinns” to the proprietary agent annually, or be reprimanded by whipping.38 Mandating
Indian trade symbolized the crucial nature of that economic engagement for the development of
early Carolina. After additional experience with the Indian trade, the legislature instituted
payment standards for Indian goods. Three pence would be given for one deerskin or one pound
of beaver fur, while “one penny per skin” was given for wildcat and fox skins.39
Not only do
these legal measures demonstrate a desire to implement stringent pecuniary conventions for the
stability of trade, but also a high degree of government control of personal profit and economic
activity. In the uncertain realm of the New World, settlers were subject to strict government
regulations designed to preserve order in a wild landscape. Before the discovery of a successful
staple crop in the lowcountry, options for mercantile activity were limited to agricultural
experiments, Indian slaving, and raw material exportation. Narrow economic options
necessitated a pronounced degree of government economic measures in the early stages of
Carolina’s development.
The Indian trade was such a boon to economic growth in colonial Carolina that the House
of Commons passed a panoply of legislative measures to ensure continued positive relations with
the Indians. The year 1691 alone bore three acts to regulate Indian trade. Gallay’s comprehensive
work regarding the Indian slave trade illustrates the proprietary efforts to limit illicit activity and
reserve the profits for their own gain. Through increased regulation, the proprietors were able to
benefit via fees received from penalties and license agreements. In 1707, the legislature passed
an act to mandate the purchase of a trading license for Indian dealers, whom the government
characterized as men who "generally lead loose, vicious lives...and do likewise oppress the
people among whom they live."40
Yet another incident of a superficial display of indigenous
38Cooper and McCord, Statutes at Large, 108-109.
39Ibid., 201.
40Cooper and McCord, Statutes at Large, 309.
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rights, the regulation of the Indian trade stemmed directly from the desire to maintain an
amicable relationship with nearby Indian groups at a time when the military powers of the
English were not especially superior to the slings and arrows of the Westo.
Despite an array of regulations to prevent English settlement from overtaking the
communal hunting territories of Indians, settlers continued abuse and encroachment toward
Native Americans. Tensions rose high between the Westo, well known for military power and
Indian slave raids, and the colonists of Charles Towne. Doctor Woodward, a proprietary agent,
claimed the Westo had threatened to cut the throats of Carolina settlers if trade was not permitted
to continue.
41
The proprietors chastised Carolinian transplants for hostile relations with the
Westo: "If freindships had been preserved with ye Westoes it would have kept all the neighboring
Indians from dareing to offend you...Peace is in the Interest of Planters...Wee desire you to make
peace with the Westoes."42
Thwarting the longstanding maxim — war is good for business — the proprietors desired
peace for their colony. Facing obstacles of population growth, low immigration rates, and
agricultural deficiencies, the colony's reputation was a vital component of its success.
Unbeknownst to immigrants, "The Barbadians as well as the rest want[ed] provisions and rel[ied]
on the Lords Proprietors" for food supplies, according to Locke's memoranda.43 Circumstances
in Carolina were rough for early settlers, but a rosy picture of New World prosperity was all that
the proprietors could dream of to give the colony even a fighting chance. In fact, a 1682
pamphlet published in London claimed: "With the Indians the English have a perfect freindship,
they being both usefull to one another. And care is taken by the Lords Proprietors, that no
41Salley, Records Relating to South Carolina, 116.
42Ibid., 104.
43 Shaftesbury, 350.
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Injustice shall be done them."44
Similar to colonial propaganda from the era, this pamphlet not
only discussed the potential for success upon immigration, but also took note of proprietary
attitudes toward indigenous peoples as a selling point of the province.
Involvement in the Indian affairs of Carolina was a continued theme of the proprietary.
Issues of trade were deeply entwined with the creation of an Indian relationship that would allow
commercial and mercantile activity to occur. In March 1680, the proprietors expressed the
ambiguity of the Westo conflict: "...we cannot well judg whether this warr was made upon a reall
necessity for the preservation of the Collony, or to serve the ends of pticulr men by trade."45
Well
aware of the ulterior motives of conflict, including the procurement of Indian slaves as trade
commodities, the proprietors were not inclined to be the pawns of avaricious men. Their
immersion in Indian affairs goes even further however: "We tyed [the Westo] to soe strict a
dependance upon us, that we thereby kept all the other Indians in awe...and that by them we
should soe terrifye those Indians with whoome the Spaniards have power." The proprietors went
on to describe an elaborate plan to displace the Westo, whom they "deeme[d] ruined," and have a
more advantageous Indian group occupy the settlement areas surrounding Charles Towne in
order "to ruine them and lay them open to the wrongs of their neighbours."46 Scheming by the
proprietors was thoroughly manipulative — their grand designs were motivated both by the great
profits of Indian trade and the imperial competition spurred by the Spanish presence in Florida.
The abstraction of empire, as enacted by the proprietors, directed the immediate future of
colonial Carolina's relations with Native American groups.
Outside of proprietary directives, a more autonomous collection of policies developed
regarding Indians. When the colonial House of Commons gained strength and began passing
44Salley, Narratives, 172.
45Salley, Records Relating to South Carolina,115.
46Ibid., 117-118.
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legislation in Carolina, matters of Indian trade were of significant import. "An Act
for...regulating the Indian Trade" was passed in 1691, imposing a £50 fine for "trade with any
Indians whatsoever...southward of the Westoe river."47
Amidst the legislation for stringent
regulation of colonial contacts with Indians was a high degree of familiarity with Indian groups.
The legislature passed acts containing an exhaustive catalog of Indian bands: Attoho, Kolegey,
Cheraque, Yamassees, Savanna, Causa, Wimbehe, Stonoe, Sewee, Santee, Cussoes, and
Congaree. Legislators, primarily planters and proto-mercantilists of Charles Towne, had an
extensive knowledge of the region's indigenous inhabitants. Not only do these acts of legislation
demonstrate an intimate connection to the land and knowledge of its people, but an inherent
expression of the gravity of Indian-colonial bonds. By 1707, in the throes of Indian slaving and
trader abuse, the House passed act number 271, mandating that settlers on Yamasee lands
"remove from all such tracts of land all his or their stock of neat cattle."48
Perhaps an embryonic
model of the juridical concept of eminent domain, the public good of Charles Towne was
improved by subsidizing the abandonment of lands by a nominal number of colonists.
The great disparity between the profiteering men of the Carolina colony and the
proprietors resulted partly from conflicting visions of empire. Imperial interests were initially
incongruous with the exclusively pecuniary motives of English and Barbadian settlers. The
colony’s legislative assembly attempted to mandate civil relations in the commercial sphere and
preserve positive relations with settlement Indians. From the perspective of the crown, Carolina
served as an extension of the British Empire to provide raw materials and a market for the
benefit of the mother country. Colonists, however, were more focused on individual success and
establishing a viable life in the New World. This dichotomy is the embodiment of conflicting
imperial intent between settlers and government officials.
47Cooper and McCord, Statutes at Large, 66.
48Ibid., 108 and 317.
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Considering the rift between the documented colonial administration of the province and
the reality of settlement, English proprietary policies cannot be singularly blamed for the various
forms of devastation wreaked upon Indian communities around the South from the seventeenth
century onward. The proprietors asserted the rights of Indians by colonial directives to restrict
the Indian slave trade as well as land encroachment on multiple occasions. However, many
scholars have taken note of the veritable monopoly that the proprietary established over the both
the Indian goods trade and Indian slave trade. "The proprietors," Gallay wrote, "defended their
monopoly over the Indian trade as a source of peace with the Westo.49 Roper, likewise, noted the
existence of a "limited monopoly" of Indian enslavement among colonial officials, namely
Woodward and Mathews.50 McCrady also observed that "a bill brought into the Assembly for
regulating [the Indian trade]...would have given [Governor James Moore] a monopoly."51 From
the proprietary's perspective, if any entity were to enjoy a trade monopoly it would be the
benefactors of the province. Their agents, however, were fallible, rapacious men who stood to
profit from such illicit economic engagements. Woodward, for example, was "to have 1/5 of the
profit of Indian Trade" according to his contract with Lord Ashley.52 While this stipulation was
not exclusive to the slave trade, it demonstrates pecuniary motives even for the proprietary
officials who were formally obligated to uphold the will of the Lords. This potential for profit in
officiating colonial affairs on behalf of Ashley did not create an environment of strict
jurisprudence; rather, a colony of deceit and disobedience developed in the face of proprietary
directives.
A passion for self-aggrandizement accompanied the spirit of avarice present in these
proto-Americans. Disregard for the will of the proprietors indicated a lack of respect for
49Gallay, Indian Slave Trade, 59.
50Roper, Conceiving Carolina, 63-64.
51Edward McCrady. The History of South Carolina Under the Proprietary Government, 1670-1719 (New
York: The Macmillan Company, 1897), 373-374.52
Shaftesbury, 446.
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authority — an attitude that would accompany colonists through a resentment of taxation to a full-
scale revolution in the eighteenth century. Aside from proprietary restrictions and formalities, it
is clear from the actions of settlers that a colony is defined by its colonists. Acts initiated by the
Lords Proprietors for the protection of Native Americans were largely irrelevant considering the
blatant contempt displayed by traders and settlers toward written decrees. Nevertheless, the
House of Commons, in combination with the powers it bestowed upon the Indian Agent, wished
to “regulate the trade, rationalize relations with the Indians, and fulfill the designs of the Whig-
imperialist faction in the colony.”53
This desire for stability emanated from a residual sense of
Old World order as well as the desire "to undertake to make any new discovery and settle any
new trade" with nearby Native Americans.54
A continued push toward making trade contacts and
increasing commodity exports through the brutal conflicts with the Westo illustrates the
voracious appetite for economic expansion in early Carolina. Despite deteriorating relations, the
deerskin and Indian slave trade flourished due to a combination of legislative encouragement and
private planter participation.
Carolina's history with English exploration began with planter dreams of New World
wealth. Described as having "perpetuall Spring and Summer," "exceedingly rich Land," "a serene
air," and meadows "very proper for Rice," Carolina was a world of possibilities even in the
1650s.55
The proprietary interest in the province were correspondingly dynamic to the demands
of the English empire in other arenas, allowing Carolina settlers a substantial degree of freedom
from economic or political restraint. While the restraints were indeed in place, the enforcement
of proprietary will was infeasible. This brand of relative independence was not unusual for the
earliest settlers of North American colonies — arriving early had presented rewards as well as
53Gallay, Indian Slave Trade, 219.
54Cooper and McCord, Statutes at Large, 313.
55Salley, Narratives, 7, 12, 25, 69.
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hardships.
Traditional colonization models followed a more agricultural trajectory than the history
of early Carolina provides. The most notable development in the Lower South in the late
seventeenth century was the creation of an Indian slavery empire, buttressed by a trade in
deerskins, as well as the exportation of lumber to the West Indies. Despite proprietary efforts to
steer the colony away from illicit slaving and Indian abuse, the manipulation and exploitation of
indigenous peoples was endemic to Charles Towne by the early eighteenth century. This reality
stands in opposition to the will of the benevolent patriarchs — Lords Proprietors — of Carolina.
From 1670 to the turn of the century, an influx of Barbadian men drastically altered Locke and
Ashley's blueprints for this American venture, lucrative slaving profits drew in proprietary
officials, and Carolina lacked a staple crop. These factors shaped the colony on their own accord,
creating a discrete counterpart to the Carolina so graciously granted by Charles II in 1663.