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 God 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 God 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 Assembly 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?