“wee are noe way pleased:” proprietary direction in colonial carolina, 1663-1707

7/31/2019 “Wee are noe way pleased:” Proprietary Direction in Colonial Carolina, 1663-1707

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/wee-are-noe-way-pleased-proprietary-direction-in-colonial-carolina 1/22

“Wee are noe way pleased:”

Proprietary Direction in Colonial Carolina, 1663-1707

Matthew Adair

History 785.01

Professor Newell

15 March 2011



Adair 2

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).



Adair 3

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.



Adair 4

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.



Adair 5

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.



Adair 6

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.



Adair 7

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.



Adair 8

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.



Adair 9

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.


17 Shaftesbury, 84.


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.



Adair 10

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.



Adair 11

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.



Adair 12

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




Adair 13

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.



Adair 14

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


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.



Adair 15

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.


37Clowse, Economic Beginnings, 42-43, 63.



Adair 16

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.



Adair 17

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


42Ibid., 104.




Adair 18

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


45Salley, Records Relating to South Carolina,115.

46Ibid., 117-118.



Adair 19

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.


48Ibid., 108 and 317.



Adair 20

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


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.



Adair 21

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



55Salley, Narratives, 7, 12, 25, 69.



Adair 22

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.

“wee are noe way pleased:” proprietary direction in colonial carolina, 1663-1707

Documents