School History of North Carolina Part 6

3. In the year 1663, His Majesty Charles II., King of England, Scotland and Ireland, granted to George, Duke of Albemarle; Edward, Earl of Clarendon; William, Earl of Craven; John, Lord Berkeley; Anthony, Lord Ashley; Sir George Carteret, Sir John Colleton, and Sir William Berkeley, as "Lords Proprietors," all the territory south of the lands not already granted to the province of Virginia, down to the Spanish line of Florida.

4. There were some remarkable men among these t.i.tular owners of the land we now inhabit. The Duke of Albemarle had been General George Monk before the restoration of King Charles, and was made a n.o.bleman on account of his part in that transaction. He was not possessed of very great ability, and only became famous by the accidents of fortune.

5. Very different was the astute lawyer, Edward Hyde, who, for his abilities, was made the Earl of Clarendon and Lord High Chancellor of England. He was a selfish and crafty man, and lost his offices in his old age, but had two granddaughters who became queens of Great Britain.

6. Lord Ashley, afterward the Earl of Shaftesbury, will ever be remembered for the part he bore in establishing the writ of habeas corpus as a part of the British Const.i.tution. He was a bold, able and profligate man, who marred great abilities by greater vices. He combined within himself all that is dangerous and detestable in a demagogue.

7. Sir William Berkeley, then Governor of the province of Virginia, was another of these Lords Proprietors. He was the embodiment of the cruelty and religious prejudice of that age.

He whipped and imprisoned people who worshipped G.o.d in a way not pleasing to himself, and was immortalized by the remark of King Charles II., who said of him: "That old fool has taken more lives without offence in that naked country than I, in all England, for the murder of my father."

8. To these men, as Lords Proprietors, a great territory was granted, which they called "Carolina," in compliment to King Charles II. [Many years before this time the name of "Carolina"

had been applied to the territory between Virginia and Florida, in honor of King Charles IX. of France. ] All of them except Governor Berkeley lived in England, but they ruled the new country and sold the lands at the highest rate of money they could get, with a tax of seventy-five cents on each hundred acres to be paid every year.

9. Many fine promises were made to the English and other people to induce them to go to Carolina and settle. Freedom to worship G.o.d in the way that seemed best to each individual was especially held out to poor sufferers like John Bunyan, who, in those days, were too often kept for long years in loathsome prisons because of their differing with the civil magistrates as to certain matters of faith and practice in the churches.

NOTE--Governor Berkeley exhibited some traits of his character by saying, while Governor of Virginia: "I thank G.o.d there are no free schools nor printing here, and I hope we shall have none of them these hundred years."

10. Religious persecutions were practiced in most of the American colonies. It had been decreed in some of the New England colonies that Quakers, upon coming into the province, should have their tongues bored with a hot iron and be banished.

Any person bringing a Quaker into the province was fined one hundred pounds sterling (about five hundred dollars), and the Quaker was given twenty lashes and imprisoned at hard labor. In Virginia the persecutions were equally as bad, if not worse, and some of the punishments were almost as severe as Indian tortures. The a.s.sembly of this colony (Virginia) levied upon all Quakers a monthly tax of one hundred dollars.

11. To escape persecution, many men who were Quakers and Baptists had already gone to the region around the Albemarle Sound; and others followed from various inducements. Their settlements were known as the "Albemarle Colony." The whole country was still roamed over by Indians, and even in Albemarle the rude farmhouses were widely scattered.

12. There was not even a village in the new province. No churches, courthouses or public schools were to be seen; but the men and women of that day loved liberty. They preferred to undergo danger from the Indians and the privations of lonely homes in the forest to the persecution which they found in England and in many portions of America.

13. It can hardly be realized amid the present luxuries and enjoyments of the American people, what dangers and privations were encountered by the white settlers in North Carolina two hundred years ago; for while now thronging cities, teeming fields and busy highways of a people numbering many millions cover the land, then cruel and crafty Indians, always hostile at heart to the tread of the white man, surrounded the defenceless homes of the scattered colonists and filled the great forest stretching three thousand miles toward the setting sun.

QUESTIONS.

1. What period have we now reached in our history?

What changes had taken place in the English government?

2. In what new scheme do we find Governor Berkeley taking part?

3. What new grant of this territory was made in 1663?

What was the new government called?

4. What kind of a man was George, Duke of Albemarle?

5. Who was Edward, Earl of Clarendon?

6. Who was Lord Ashley? What was his character?

7. What was Governor Berkeley's character?

What was said of him by King Charles II. ?

8. What name was given to the territory now granted? In whose honor was Carolina named? Where did the Lords Proprietors live?

What tax was to be paid to them?

9. What inducements were offered to the English to go to Carolina and settle? Why was "religious freedom" an inducement for them to leave their comfortable homes and settle in a savage country?

10. What religious persecutions were seen in most of the American colonies?

11. What two religious sects had emigrated to this section?

What did they call their colony?

12. What was the condition of the colony? What sacrifices had the colonists made, and why?

13. How did the condition of the colonists differ from ours?

CHAPTER XI.

GOVERNOR DRUMMOND AND SIR JOHN YEAMANS.

A. D. 1663 TO 1667.

1. King Charles II., who thus bestowed this vast dominion upon a few of his friends, was in marked contrast, as a sovereign, to Queen Elizabeth. He was a gay, dissolute, shameless libertine, who despised all that is valuable in human duties, and spent his life in the paltriest amus.e.m.e.nts. He could be polite and entertaining in conversation, but abundantly justified Lord Rochester's remark that "he never did a wise thing or said a foolish one."

2. Under instructions from the other Lords Proprietors, Sir William Berkeley, in 1663, appointed William Drummond the first "Governor of Albemarle." He was a Scotch settler in Virginia, and was a man who deserved the respect and confidence of the people whom he governed. He was plain and prudent in his style of life, and seems to have given satisfaction to the people who had been previously uncontrolled by law or magistrate.

3. After a stay of three years, Governor Drummond returned to Virginia. A great trouble arose in Virginia at this period, known as "Bacon's Rebellion." A brave young man, Nathaniel Bacon, was at the head of a force resisting the presumption and illegal authority of Governor Berkeley. William Drummond, seeing the justness of the resistance, warmly supported Bacon's cause.

Mrs. Sarah Drummond, wife of the Governor, n.o.bly sustained her husband. Bacon died before the close of the "Rebellion," and a large number of the leaders were put to death. Governor Drummond was, by order of Berkeley, hanged within two hours after his capture. The entire property of Mrs. Drummond was confiscated and herself and five children were turned out to starve.

4. This tragic culmination of Berkeley's ruthless cruelties was the occasion of the bitter censure by the king, already recorded.

After the death of Berkeley, Mrs. Drummond brought suit against his wife, Lady Frances Berkeley, for recovery of her property, and a verdict in her favor was given by a Virginia jury.

Governor Drummond is commemorated by the lake in the Dismal Swamp which still bears his name.

5. It was discovered soon after the king's grant to the Lords Proprietors, that a belt of land extending southward from the present Virginia boundary to a point on a line with the month of Chowan River, and extending indefinitely west, was not included in that charter; so, in 1665 another charter was granted joining this strip of territory to North Carolina.

6. In 1663 there was an expedition formed in the island of Barbadoes, which came to the sh.o.r.es of Carolina and explored to the distance of about one hundred and fifty miles the courses of the northeast branch of the Cape Fear River. This expedition was under command of an experienced navigator named Hilton, who was a.s.sisted by Long and Fabian, and returned to Barbadoes in February, 1664.

7. Among the planters who had fitted out this expedition was John Yeamans. He was a young man of good connections in England. His father had been Sheriff of the City of Bristol during the war of King Charles I. with Parliament, and was put to death by the order of Fairfax on account of his stubborn defence of his city in the king's behalf.

1666.

8. Yeamans had emigrated to Barbadoes, hoping to mend his broken fortunes, and being pleased with the report of Captain Hilton's expedition, he determined to remove to Carolina. He went to England to negotiate with the Lords Proprietors and receive from them a grant of large tracts of land, and at the same time he was knighted by the king in reward for the loyalty and misfortunes of his family. Returning from England in the autumn of 1665, he led a band of colonists from Barbadoes to the Cape Fear, and purchasing from the Indians a tract of land thirty-two miles square, settled at Old Town, in the present county of Brunswick.

The settlement was afterwards known as the "Clarendon Colony."

This village, which was called Charlestown, soon came to number eight hundred inhabitants, and they occupied their time in clearing the land for cultivation and preparing lumber, staves, hoops and shingles for shipment to Barbadoes. The colony greatly prospered under the excellent and prudent management of Sir John Yeamans, but was afterwards deserted, when Yeamans was ordered by the Lords Proprietors to the government of a colony on Cooper and Ashley Rivers, South Carolina.

9. There had been, as early as 1660, a New England settlement for the purpose of raising cattle, on the Cape Fear; but this colony incurred the resentment of the Indians, it is said, by kidnapping their children under the pretence of sending them to Boston to be educated; and the colonists were all gone when the men from Barbadoes visited the Cape Fear. Whether the New Englanders were driven from the settlement by the Indians, or left because their enterprise was unprofitable, is not known with certainty. These men left attached to a post a writing discouraging "all such as should hereafter come into these parts to settle."

1667.

10. During Governor Drummond's stay in Albemarle there was entire satisfaction manifested by the people with his rule, and also with that of the Lords Proprietors. He exerted himself to arrange matters so as not to disturb the t.i.tles acquired in the time previous to the king's grant; and there was full sympathy between him and the cla.s.s represented by George Durant.

11. This st.u.r.dy Quaker had, some years before, bought from the Yeoppim Indians the place known as "Durant's Neck," on Perquimans River; and he was a leader in wealth and influence among the settlers. He was prosperous in his affairs, and largely controlled the views of the people belonging to his religious sect.