The Indian war.
The Yamassee country was the last quarter from which the South Carolinians would have expected hostilities to come. But after 1713, in spite of treaty obligations, the St. Augustine government bent all its energies to stirring up all the frontier tribes to a concerted attack upon the English. Bribes in the shape of gaudy coats, steel hatchets, and firearms were distributed among the chiefs; the solemn palavers, the banquets of boiled dog, the exchanges of wampum belts, the puffing of red clay pipes, the beastly orgies of fire-water, may be left to our imagination, for we have no such minute chroniclers here as the Jesuits of Canada. The outcome of it all was a grand conspiracy of Yamassees, Creeks, Catawbas, and Cherokees, with other less important tribes, comprising perhaps 7,000 or 8,000 warriors, against the colony of South Carolina. But, as in all such plans for concerted action among Indians, the concert was very imperfect. Hostilities began in April, 1715, with the massacre of ninety persons at Pocotaligo, and lasted until February, 1716, by which time 400 Christians had lost their lives; while the red men were thoroughly vanquished, and the shattered remnant of the Yamassees sought shelter in Florida.
Robert Johnson.
Governor Craven, who had conducted this war with great ability and courage, was a man of high character, and when he returned to England in 1717 his departure was mourned. His successor, Robert Johnson, was son of Sir Nathaniel Johnson, who had formerly been governor. The younger Johnson, an able and popular official, was the last governor of South Carolina under the lords proprietors. His romantic experiences in dealing with pirates will be recounted in my next chapter. The chain of events which brought about a political revolution in 1719 admits of brief description. The Indian war had laden South Carolina with debt, and it was felt that the lords proprietors ought to contribute something toward relieving the distress of a colony which had yielded them a princely income. But the lords proprietors did not take this view of the case. As a means of discharging the public debt, the assembly laid a revenue tariff upon imports, but the lords proprietors vetoed it. The assembly proposed to raise money by selling Yamassee lands to settlers, but the lords proprietors laid claim to the conquered territory for their own use and behoof. Thus the situation was fast becoming unendurable.
A Map of ye most Improved Part of Carolina
The revolution of 1719 in South Carolina.
In December, 1718, war broke out again between Spain and England. The Spaniards planned an expedition against Charleston, and Johnson asked the assembly for money. They proposed to raise it by collecting revenue under the tariff act, in disregard of the veto. Nicholas Trott, the chief justice, declared that this would not do; the courts would uphold delinquents who should refuse to pay. The assembly denied the right of the proprietors to veto their acts. The members consulted their constituents and were sustained by them. Finally the assembly resolved itself into a revolutionary convention, deposed the lords proprietors, and offered the governorship to Johnson as royal governor. On his refusal to take part in such proceedings, the convention chose for provisional royal governor Colonel James Moore, the hero of the Tuscarora war. Johnson’s only reliance, in such an emergency, was the militia; but the militia deserted him and went over to the convention, and thus, in December, 1719, the popular revolution was complete. When the news reached London, the course of the assembly was approved by the crown, the proprietary charter was declared to be forfeited, and our old friend Sir Francis Nicholson was sent out to South Carolina as royal governor.
End of the proprietary government.
Three years later there was renewal of civil discord in North Carolina, after the death of Governor Eden and the arrival of his successor, George Burrington, a vulgar ruffian who had served a term in prison for an infamous assault upon an old woman. Five years of turmoil, with changes of governors, followed. In 1728 Parliament requested the king to buy Carolina, and appropriated money for the purpose. The proprietors were Henry Somerset, Duke of Beaufort, and his brother, Lord Charles Somerset; Lord Craven; Lord Carteret; John Cotton; the heirs of Sir John Colleton; James and Henry Bertie; Mary Dawson and Elizabeth Moore. Lord Carteret would not sell his share. All the others consented to sell for a modest sum total scarcely amounting to £50,000; and so in 1729 the many-headed palatinate founded by Charles II. came to an end, and in its place were the two royal provinces of North and South Carolina.