PLAN OF CHARLESTOWN, S. C., 1732.
(From Popple’s British Empire in America.)
[This was reëngraved in Paris in 1733, “avec privilège du Roi.” There is a fac-simile of a plan of Charleston (1739) in the Charleston Year Book, 1884, p. 163-4.—Ed.]
The colonial government, however, had erected in Governor Nicholson’s time Fort King George on the Altamaha, and were determined to keep the Spaniards to the westward of that river. A Spanish embassy came to Charlestown to confer with President Middleton about the erection of this fort. But the only definite understanding reached was in the avowal by the ambassadors that his Catholic majesty would never consent to deliver up runaway slaves, because he desired to save their souls by converting them to the Christian faith. Cunning emissaries from St. Augustine continued to tamper with the slaves, and rendered many of them dangerous malcontents. Not long after (1738) an armed insurrection was attempted in the heart of the English settlement; the negroes on Stono River marching about plundering, burning farm-houses, and murdering the defenceless. The planters at that time went to church armed. It was Sunday. Lieutenant-Governor Bull, riding alone on the road, met the insurgents, and escaping them by turning off on another road gave the alarm. The male part of the Presbyterian congregation at Wiltown—notified of the insurrection by a Mr. Golightly—left the women in church, and hastening after the murderous horde found them drinking and dancing in a field, within sight of the last dwelling they had pillaged and set on fire. Their leader was shot, some were taken prisoners and the rest dispersed. More than twenty persons had been murdered. It might have been an extensive massacre, if so many armed planters had not attended divine service that day.[764]
CHARLESTOWN IN 1742.
[This follows a steel plate, “The city of Charleston one hundred years ago, after an engraving done by Canot from an original picture by T. Mellish, Esq.” A long panoramic view of Charlestown in 1762 is given in the Charleston Year Book, 1882; and in Cassell’s United States, i. 355. The name “Charleston” was substituted for “Charlestown” in the act of incorporation of 1783.—Ed.]
There were in the colony above 40,000 negro slaves. The necessity for increasing the number of white inhabitants had long been apparent to the English authorities. Some of the German Palatines in England (1729) and more of them in 1764 were sent over to the colony. Mr. Purry, of Neufchatel, and his Swiss were granted (1732) an extensive tract of land near the Savannah River. Some Irish colonists settled at Williamsburgh (1733). Colonel Johnson, before he came over as royal governor, proposed to the Board of Trade a plan for forming a number of townships at convenient points, with great inducements to both foreigners and Englishmen to remove to the province. Above all, the proposal by Lord Percival (1730) to establish the colony of Georgia (between the Savannah and Altamaha), and the carrying of the project into effect under General Oglethorpe (1733), gave promise of adding materially to the security and strength of South Carolina. With a new fort at Beaufort (Port Royal), and abundant artillery and ammunition furnished by his majesty, and ships of war protecting the harbor, we have but to look forward a few years to the settlement and improvement of the healthy and fertile “up country” by overland immigration from Virginia and Pennsylvania, and the moving up of population from the coast, to reach the period of permanent prosperity and the greater development of the material resources of the province. Many families moved to the upper part of South Carolina when Governor Glen established peace with the Cherokees; many came when Braddock’s defeat exposed the frontiers of the more northern colonies to the French and Indians; while by way of Charlestown Germans came up to Saxegotha and the forks of the Broad and Saluda—as the Scotch-Irish had come to Williamsburg.
From 200 to 300 ships now annually left Charlestown. In addition to rice, indigo, pitch, turpentine, tar, rosin, timber of various kinds, deer-skins, salted provisions, and agricultural products grown along the coast, the interior plantations raised wheat, hemp, flax, and tobacco; fruits, berries, nuts, and many kinds of vegetables were abundant; and fish from the rivers, and turkeys and deer and other game from the forest, furnished luxuries for the table, without counting the ever-present supplies from swine, sheep, and cattle. But we must now go back a few years.