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The Carolinas
For twenty years the proprietors tried to establish upon American
soil one of the most absurd forms of government ever conceived. The land
was to be granted to nobles, known as barons, landgraves, and caziques,
while the rest of the people were riot to be allowed to hold any land,
but were to be bought and sold with the soil, like so many cattle. The
settlers ridiculed. and defied the fantastical scheme, which had to be
abandoned. It was the work of John Locke, the famous philosopher, who at
one time was secretary of Lord Cooper, one of the proprietors.
The first settlement of the Carteret colony was made in 1670, on the
banks of the Ashley, but in 1680 it was removed to the present site of
Charleston. The colonies remained united for about seventy years, when
it became apparent that the territory was too large to be well governed
by one assembly and a single governor. In 1729, the present division was
made, and the rights of government and seven-eighths of the land were
returned to the crown.
The soil and climate were so favorable that thousands of immigrants
were attracted thither. Among them were numerous Huguenots or French
Protestants, whose intelligence, thrift, and morality placed them among
the very best settlers found anywhere in our country. Newbern was
settled by a colony of Swiss in 1711, and there was a large influx of
Scotch after their rebellion of 1740, England giving them permission to
leave Scotland. Scotch immigrants settled Fayetteville in 1746.
There were occasional troubles with the Indians, the most important
of which was the war with the Tuscaroras, in 1711. This tribe was
utterly defeated and driven northward into New York, where they joined
the Iroquois or Five Nations. The union of the Tuscaroras caused the
Iroquois to be known afterward as the Six Nations.
The Carolinas were afflicted with some of the worst governors
conceivable, interspersed now and then with excellent ones. Often there
was sturdy resistance, and in 1677 one of the governors, who attempted
to enforce the Navigation Act, was deposed and imprisoned. In 1688,
another was driven out of the colony. The population was widely
scattered, but the people themselves were as a whole the best kind of
citizens. They would not permit religious persecution, and defeated the
effort to make the Church of England the colony church. As a
consequence, the Carolinas became, like Maryland and Pennsylvania a
refuge for thousands of those who were persecuted in the name of
religion.
Source:
A New History of the United States, The Greater Republic by Charles
Morris, LL.D., W. E. Scull, 1899.
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