The Carolinas
The first settlers on the banks of the James River, looking from
beneath their hands southward over plain land and a haze of endless
forests, called that unexplored country South Virginia. It stretched
away to those rivers and bays, to that island of Roanoke, whence had
fled Raleigh's settlers. Beyond that, said the James River men, was
Florida. Time passed, and the region of South Virginia was
occasionally spoken of as Carolina, though whether that name was
drawn from Charles the First of England, or whether those old
unfortunate Huguenots in Florida had used it with reference to
Charles the Ninth of France, is not certainly known.
South Virginia lay huge, unknown, unsettled. The only exception was
the country immediately below the southern banks of the lower James
with the promontory that partially closed in Chesapeake Bay.
Virginia, growing fast, at last sent her children into this region.
In 1653 the Assembly enacted: "Upon the petition of Roger Green,
clarke, on the behalfe of himselfe and inhabitants of Nansemund
river, It is ordered by this present Grand Assembly that tenn
thousand acres of land be granted unto one hundred such persons who
shall first seate on Moratuck or Roanoke river and the land lying
upon the south side of Choan river and the ranches thereof, Provided
that such seaters settle advantageously for security and be
sufficiently furnished with amunition and strength . . . ."
Green and his men, well furnished presumably with firelocks,
bullets, and powder-horns, went into this hinterland. At intervals
there followed other hardy folk. Quakers, subject to persecution in
old Virginia, fled into these wilds. The name Carolina grew to mean
backwoods, frontiersman's land. Here were forest and stream, Indian
and bear and wolf, blue waters of sound and sea, long outward lying
reefs and shoals and islets, fertile soil and a clime neither hot
nor cold. Slowly the people increased in number. Families left
settled Virginia for the wilderness; men without families came there
for reasons good and bad. Their cabins, their tiny hamlets were far
apart; they practiced a hazardous agriculture; they hunted, fished,
and traded with the Indians. The isolation of these settlers bred or
increased their personal independence, while it robbed them of that
smoothness to be gained where the social particles rub together.
This part of South Virginia was soon to be called North Carolina.
Far down the coast was Cape Fear. In the year of the Restoration a
handful of New England men came here in a ship and made a settlement
which, not prospering, was ere long abandoned. But New Englanders
traded still in South Virginia as along other coasts. Seafarers,
they entered at this inlet and at that, crossed the wide blue
sounds, and, anchoring in mouths of rivers, purchased from the
settlers their forest commodities. Then over they ran to the West
Indies, and got in exchange sugar and rum and molasses, with which
again they traded for tobacco in Carolina, in Virginia, and in
Maryland. These ships went often to New Providence in the Bahamas
and to Barbados. There began, through trade and other circumstances,
a special connection between the long coast line and these islands
that were peopled by the English. The restored Kingdom of England
had many adherents to reward. Land in America, islands and main,
formed the obvious Fortunatus's purse. As the second Charles had
divided Virginia for the benefit of Arlington and Culpeper, so now,
in 1663, to "our right trusty and right well-beloved cousins and
counsellors, Edward, Earl of Clarendon, our High Chancellor of
England, and George, Duke of Albemarle, Master of our Horse and
Captain General of all our Forces, our right trusty and well-beloved
William, Lord Craven, John, Lord Berkeley, our right trusty and
well-beloved counsellor, Anthony, Lord Ashley, Chancellor of our
Exchequer, Sir George Carteret, Knight and Baronet, Vice Chamberlain
of our Household, and our trusty and well-beloved Sir William
Berkeley, Knight, and Sir John Colleton, Knight and Baronet," he
gave South Virginia, henceforth called the Carolinas, a region
occupying five degrees of latitude, and stretching indefinitely from
the seacoast toward the setting sun.
This huge territory became, like Maryland, a province or palatinate.
In Maryland was one Proprietary; in Carolina there were eight,
though for distinction the senior of the eight was called the
Palatine. As in Maryland, the Proprietaries had princely rights.
They owed allegiance to England, and a small quit-rent went to the
King. They were supposed to govern, in the main, by English law and
to uphold the religion of England. They were to make laws at their
discretion, with "the advice, assent, and approbation of the
freemen, or of their deputies, who were to be assembled from time to
time as seemed best."
Back to: Virginia and the Southern Colonies
