The capital was removed from St. Mary's, the centre of the Catholic interest, to Annapolis,—first settled by Puritans, and now controlled by the adherents of the establishment. Maryland's prosperity, heretofore unrivalled in the colonies, now suffered a check, and for a term of years the royal administration was signalized by religious persecution and a low political and social tone, till in 1715 the proprietorship was re-established. In 1729 the city of Baltimore was founded as a convenient port for the planters. The settlement and growth of Maryland had enforced two lessons which were never wholly forgotten,—the possibility, under official toleration, of bringing members of different religious sects together in one civil community and government; and the comfort and prosperity attainable in a well-governed colony.
36. Early Settlers in the Carolinas (1542-1665).
Between Virginia and Spanish Florida a broad belt of territory lay long unoccupied. A Huguenot colony in 1562 had had a brief existence there, and in consequence France claimed the country as her share of Florida. |Early colonial attempts.| But the Spaniards drove out the French, and thus unwittingly left the field to the north clear for the English. In 1584 Amadas and Barlowe led a prospecting party to Roanoke Island (p. [38]), and here also (1585, 1587) two of Raleigh's ill-fated colonies spent their strength. The swamp-girted coast had few harbors, the colonizing material did not possess staying qualities, the ill-treated Indians turned on the invaders of their soil, the sites of settlements were ill-chosen. For a long period of years after the failure of these enterprises a prejudice existed against the middle region as a colonizing ground.
Adventurous Virginians explore North Carolina.
But before Jamestown was two years old restless Virginians had explored the upper waters of some of the southern rivers, and by 1625 the region was fairly familiar to hunters and adventurous land-seekers as far south as the Chowan. In 1629 Charles I. gave "the province of Carolana" to Sir Robert Heath, his attorney-general; but nothing came of the grant. The Virginia Assembly took it upon itself to issue exploring and trading permits in the southern portion of the Virginia claims, often called Carolana, to certain commercial companies, with the result that the character of the country became generally known. |Roger Green plants Albemarle.| In 1653 a small colony of Virginia dissenters, harassed by the Church of England party at home, were led by Roger Green to the banks of the Chowan and Roanoke; and there they planted Albemarle, the first permanent settlement in what is now North Carolina.
Miscellaneous colonizing parties.
Numerous colonizing parties and individual settlers ventured into North Carolina during the next twenty years, and purchased lands of the Indians. Among these were many Baptists and Quakers who had found life intolerable in the northern settlements. |New Englanders at Cape Fear River.| The story goes that in 1660 a number of New Englanders, desiring to raise cattle, settled at the mouth of Cape Fear River; but they incurred the hatred of the Indians, and the colony soon melted away. The survivors, upon taking their departure, affixed to a post a "scandalous writing, ... the contents whereof tended not only to the disparagement of the land about the said river, but also to the great discouragement of all such as should hereafter come into those parts to settle." |Colonists from Barbadoes at Clarendon.| This was said to have been found in 1663 by a company of wanderers from the English community on the island of Barbados, which had been founded in 1625. These West Indian colonists, headed by a wealthy planter, Sir John Yeamans, established themselves (1664), to the number of several hundred, on the Cape Fear, in the district which soon came to be known as Clarendon.
37. Proprietorship of the Carolinas (1663-1671)
The Lords Proprietors acquire the Carolinas.
It is probable that Charles II. knew little of these infant settlements of Virginians and Barbados men at Albemarle and Clarendon,—which were some three hundred miles apart,—or of the numerous small holdings between them; but he cautiously confirmed all private purchases from the Indians, in giving Carolina (1663) to a coterie of his favorites. Chief among these were the Earl of Clarendon, the Duke of Albemarle, the Earl of Shaftesbury, and Sir William Berkeley, then governor of Virginia. The proprietaries had been commanded to recognize the land-claims of the settlers already on the ground. William Drummond, a Scotch colonist in Virginia, was made governor of Albemarle, while Yeamans remained governor of Clarendon, these two districts roughly corresponding to the North and South Carolina of to-day. |Early prosperity.| The proprietaries at first authorized a popular government on the simplest plan, and the settlers, particularly in Albemarle, looked forward to a prosperous career. A considerable trade in lumber and fur at once sprang up, and the crops were good; for the soil proved richer than in any other of the American colonies then occupied.