America, the new world, was naturally a land of refuge, and soon received her share of these unhappy fugitives. The transition was easy from England to her colonies. Every facility was afforded them for transportation, and the wise policy which encouraged their settlement in the new countries was amply rewarded by the results. Altogether, the Huguenots were a much better sort of people than those who usually constituted the mass of European emigrants. The very desperation of their circumstances was a proof of their virtues. They were a people of principle, for they had suffered everything for conscience sake. They were a people of pure habits, for it was because of their religion that they suffered banishment. In little patriarchal groups of sixty, seventy, or eighty families, they made their way to different parts of America; and with the conscious poverty of their own members, were generally received with open arms by those whom they found in possession of the soil. The English, as they beheld the dependent and destitute condition of the fugitives, forgot, for a season, their usual national animosities; and assigning ample tracts of land for their occupation, beheld them, without displeasure, settling down in exclusive colonies, in which they sought to maintain, as far as possible, the pious habits and customs of the mother country. One of these communities, comprising from seventy to eighty families, found their way to the banks of the Santee in South Carolina.* From this point they gradually spread themselves out so as to embrace, in partial settlements, the spacious tract of country stretching to the Winyah, on the one hand, and the sources of Cooper River on the other; extending upward into the interior, following the course of the Santee nearly to the point where it loses its identity in receiving the descending streams of the Wateree and Congaree. These settlers were generally poor. They had been despoiled of all their goods by the persecutions which had driven them into exile. This, indeed, had been one of the favorite modes by which this result had been effected. Doubtless, also, it had been, among the subordinates of the crown, one of the chief motives of the persecution. It was a frequent promise of his Jesuit advisers, to the vain and bigoted Louis, that the heretics should be brought into the fold of the Church without a drop of bloodshed; and, until the formal revocation of the edict of Nantz, by which the Huguenots were put without the pale and protection of the laws, spoliation was one of the means, with others, by which to avoid this necessity. These alternatives, however, were of a kind not greatly to lessen the cruelties of the persecutor or the sufferings of the victim. It does not fall within our province to detail them. It is enough that one of the first and most obvious measures by which to keep their promise to the king, was to dispossess the proscribed subjects of their worldly goods and chattels. By this measure a two-fold object was secured. While the heretic was made to suffer, the faithful were sure of their reward. It was a principle faithfully kept in view; and the refugees brought with them into exile, little beyond the liberties and the virtues for which they had endured so much. But these were possessions, as their subsequent history has shown, beyond all price.
* Dalcho, in his Church History, says, "upwards of one
hundred families."
Our humble community along the Santee had suffered the worst privations of their times and people. But, beyond the necessity of hard labor, they had little to deplore, at the outset, in their new condition. They had been schooled sufficiently by misfortune to have acquired humility. They observed, accordingly, in their new relations, a policy equally prudent and sagacious. More flexible in their habits than the English, they conciliated the latter by deference; and, soothing the unruly passions of the Indians—the Santee and Sewee tribes, who were still in considerable numbers in their immediate neighborhood—they won them to alliance by kindness and forbearance. From the latter, indeed, they learned their best lessons for the cultivation of the soil. That, upon which they found themselves, lay in the unbroken forest. The high lands which they first undertook to clear, as less stubborn, were most sterile; and, by a very natural mistake, our Frenchmen adopted the modes and objects of European culture; the grains, the fruits and the vegetables, as well as the implements, to which they had been accustomed. The Indians came to their succor, taught them the cultivation of maize, and assisted them in the preparation of their lands; in return for lessons thought equally valuable by the savages, to whom they taught, along with gentler habits and morals, a better taste for music and the dance! To subdue the forest, of itself, to European hands, implied labors not unlike those of Hercules. But the refugees, though a gentle race, were men of soul and strength, capable of great sacrifices, and protracted self-denial. Accommodating themselves with a patient courage to the necessities before them, they cheerfully undertook and accomplished their tasks. We have more than one lively picture among the early chroniclers of the distress and hardship which they were compelled to encounter at the first. But, in this particular, there was nothing peculiar in their situation. It differed in no respect from that which fell to the lot of all the early colonists in America. The toil of felling trees, over whose heavy boughs and knotty arms the winters of centuries had passed; the constant danger from noxious reptiles and beasts of prey, which, coiled in the bush or crouching in the brake, lurked day and night, in waiting for the incautious victim; and, most insidious and fatal enemy of all, the malaria of the swamp, of the rank and affluent soil, for the first time laid open to the sun; these are all only the ordinary evils which encountered in America, at the very threshold, the advances of European civilisation. That the Huguenots should meet these toils and dangers with the sinews and the hearts of men, was to be expected from their past experience and history. They had endured too many and too superior evils in the old world, to be discouraged by, or to shrink from, any of those which hung upon their progress in the new. Like the hardy Briton, whom, under the circumstances, we may readily suppose them to have emulated, they addressed themselves, with little murmuring, to the tasks before them. We have, at the hands of one of their number,—a lady born and raised in affluence at home,—a lively and touching picture of the sufferings and duties, which, in Carolina, at that period, neither sex nor age was permitted to escape. "After our arrival," she writes, "we suffered every kind of evil. In about eighteen months our elder brother, unaccustomed to the hard labor we were obliged to undergo, died of a fever. Since leaving France, we had experienced every kind of affliction, disease, pestilence, famine, poverty and hard labor! I have been for six months together without tasting bread, working the ground like a slave; and I have even passed three or four years without always having it when I wanted it. I should never have done were I to attempt to detail to you all our adventures."*
* The narrative of Mrs. Judith Manigault, wife of Peter
Manigault, as quoted by Ramsay.—Hist. S. C. Vol. I., p.
4. For a graphic detail of the usual difficulties and
dangers attending the escape of the Huguenots from France,
at the period of migration, see the first portion of this
letter.—
We may safely conclude that there was no exaggeration in this picture. The lot of all the refugees seems to have been very equally severe. Men and women, old and young, strove together in the most menial and laborious occupations. But, as courage and virtue usually go hand in hand with industry, the three are apt to triumph together. Such was the history in the case of the Carolina Huguenots. If the labor and the suffering were great, the fruits were prosperity. They were more. Honors, distinction, a goodly name, and the love of those around them, have blessed their posterity, many of whom rank with the noblest citizens that were ever reared in America. In a few years after their first settlement, their forest homes were crowned with a degree of comfort, which is described as very far superior to that in the usual enjoyment of the British colonists. They were a more docile and tractable race; not so restless, nor—though this may seem difficult to understand to those who consider their past history—so impatient of foreign control. Of their condition in Carolina, we have a brief but pleasing picture from the hands of John Lawson, then surveyor-general of the province of North Carolina.* This gentleman, in 1701, just fifteen years after its settlement, made a progress through that portion of the Huguenot colony which lay immediately along the Santee. The passages which describe his approach to the country which they occupied, the hospitable reception which they gave him, the comforts they enjoyed, the gentleness of their habits, the simplicity of their lives, and their solicitude in behalf of strangers, are necessary to furnish the moral of those fortunes, the beginning of which was so severe and perilous. "There are," says he, "about seventy families seated on this river, WHO LIVE AS DECENTLY AND HAPPILY AS ANY PLANTERS IN THESE SOUTHWARD PARTS OF AMERICA. THE FRENCH BEING A TEMPERATE, INDUSTRIOUS PEOPLE, some of them bringing very little of effects, YET, BY THEIR ENDEAVORS AND MUTUAL ASSISTANCE AMONG THEMSELVES (which is highly to be commended), HAVE OUTSTRIPT OUR ENGLISH, WHO BROUGHT WITH THEM LARGER FORTUNES, though (as it seems) less endeavor to manage their talent to the best advantage. 'Tis admirable to see what time and industry will (with God's blessing) effect," &c.... ... "We lay all that night at Mons. EUGEE'S (Huger), and the next morning set out farther, to go the remainder of our voyage by land. At ten o'clock we passed over a narrow, deep swamp, having left the three Indian men and one woman, that had piloted the canoe from Ashley river, having hired a Sewee Indian, a tall, lusty fellow, who carried a pack of our clothes, of great weight. Notwithstanding his burden, we had much ado to keep pace with him. At noon we came up with several French plantations. Meeting with several creeks by the way, THE FRENCH WERE VERY OFFICIOUS IN ASSISTING US WITH THEIR SMALL DORIES TO PASS OVER THESE WATERS: whom we met coming from their church, BEING ALL OF THEM VERY CLEAN AND DECENT IN THEIR APPAREL; their HOUSES AND PLANTATIONS SUITABLE IN NEATNESS AND CONTRIVANCE. They are all of the same opinion with the church of Geneva,** there being no difference among them concerning the punctilios of their Christian faith; WHICH UNION HATH PROPAGATED A HAPPY AND DELIGHTFUL CONCORD IN ALL OTHER MATTERS THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE NEIGHBORHOOD; LIVING AMONGST THEMSELVES AS ONE TRIBE OR KINDRED, EVERY ONE MAKING IT HIS BUSINESS TO BE ASSISTANT TO THE WANTS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN, PRESERVING HIS ESTATE AND REPUTATION WITH THE SAME EXACTNESS AND CONCERN AS HE DOES HIS OWN: ALL SEEMING TO SHARE IN THE MISFORTUNES, AND REJOICE AT THE ADVANCE AND RISE OF THEIR BRETHREN." Lawson fitly concludes his account of the settlers upon the Santee, by describing them as "a very kind, loving, and affable people"—a character which it has been the happy solicitude of their descendants to maintain to the present day.***
* Lawson's "Journal of a Thousand Miles' Travel among the
Indians, from South to North Carolina", is a work equally
rare and interesting. This unfortunate man fell a victim to
his official duties. He was confounded, by the savages, with
the government which he represented, and sacrificed to their
fury, under the charge of depriving them, by his surveys, of
their land. He was made captive with the Baron de
Graffenreid. The latter escaped, but Lawson was subjected
to the fire-torture.
** "The inhabitants [of St. James, otherwise French Santee]
petitioned the Assembly, in 1706, to have their settlement
made a parish; and, at the same time, expressed their desire
of being united to the Church of England, whose doctrines
and discipline they professed highly to esteem. The
Assembly passed an act, April 9, 1706, to erect the French
settlement of Santee into a parish."—'Dalcho's Historical
Account', ch. 9, p. 295.
*** See "A new Voyage to Carolina, containing the exact
description and natural history of that country, &c.; and a
journey of a thousand miles, travelled through several
nations of Indians. By John Lawson, Gent., Surveyor-General
of North Carolina. London, 1709."—
A more delightful picture than this of Mr. Lawson, could not well be drawn by the social perfectionist. The rational beauty of the voluntary system could not find a happier illustration; and, duly impressed with its loveliness, we shall cease to wonder at the instances of excellence, equally frequent and admirable, which rose up among this little group of exiles, to the good fortune of the country which gave them shelter, and in attestation of their own virtues. But this happy result was due entirely to their training. It would be wonderful, indeed, if such an education, toil and watch, patient endurance of sickness and suffering, sustained only by sympathy with one another and a humble reliance upon divine mercy, should not produce many perfect characters—men like Francis Marion, the beautiful symmetry of whose moral structure leaves us nothing to regret in the analysis of his life. Uncompromising in the cause of truth, stern in the prosecution of his duties, hardy and fearless as the soldier, he was yet, in peace, equally gentle and compassionate, pleased to be merciful, glad and ready to forgive, sweetly patient of mood, and distinguished throughout by such prominent virtues, that, while always sure of the affections of followers and comrades, he was not less secure in the unforced confidence of his enemies, among whom his integrity and mercy were proverbial. By their fruits, indeed, shall we know this community, the history of which furnishes as fine a commentary upon the benefit of good social training for the young—example and precept happily keeping concert with the ordinary necessities and performances of life, the one supported by the manliest courage, the other guided by the noblest principle—as any upon record.*
* It is one of the qualifications of the delight which an
historian feels while engaged in the details of those
grateful episodes which frequently reward his progress
through musty chronicles, to find himself suddenly arrested
in his narrative by some of those rude interruptions by
which violence and injustice disfigure so frequently, in the
march of history, the beauty of its portraits. One of these
occurs to us in this connection. Our Huguenot settlers on
the Santee were not long suffered to pursue a career of
unbroken prosperity. The very fact that they prospered—
that, in the language of Mr. Lawson, "they outstript our
English," when placed in like circumstances—that they were
no longer desolate and dependent, and had grown vigorous,
and perhaps wanton, in the smiles of fortune—was quite
enough to re-awaken in the bosoms of "our English" the
ancient national grudge upon which they had so often fed
before. The prejudices and hostilities which had prevailed
for centuries between their respective nations, constituted
no small part of the moral stock which the latter had
brought with them into the wilderness. This feeling was
farther heightened, at least maintained, by the fact that
France and England had contrived to continue their old
warfare in the New World; and, while French emissaries were
busy in the back parts of the colony, stimulating the Creeks
and Cherokees to hostility, it was perhaps natural enough
that the English, whose frontiers were continually ravaged
in consequence, should find it easy to confound the "parley-
vous", their enemies, with those, their neighbors, who spoke
the same unpopular language. It is not improbable, on the
other hand, that the Huguenot settlers were a little too
exclusive, a little too tenacious of their peculiar habits,
manners, and language. They did not suffer themselves to
assimilate with their neighbors; but, maintaining the policy
by which they had colonized in a body, had been a little too
anxious to preserve themselves as a singular and separate
people. In this respect they were not unlike the English
puritans, in whom and their descendants, this passion for
homogeneousness has always been thought a sort of merit,
appealing very much to their self-esteem and pride. In the
case of the French colonists, whether the fault was theirs
or not, the evil results of being, or making themselves, a
separate people, were soon perceptible. They were subjected
to various political and social disabilities, and so odious
had they become to their British neighbors, that John
Archdale, one of the proprietors, a man like Wm. Penn (and
by Grahame, the historian, pronounced very far his
superior), equally beloved by all parties, as a man just and
fearless, was, when Governor of the colony, compelled to
deny them representation in the colonial Assembly, under
penalty of making invalid all his attempts at proper
government. Under this humiliating disability the Huguenots
lived and labored for a considerable period, until the
propriety of their lives, the purity of their virtues, and
their frequently-tried fidelity in the cause of the country,
forced the majority to be just. An act, passed in 1696,
making all aliens, THEN inhabitants, free—enabling them to
hold lands and to claim the same as heirs—according
liberty of conscience to all Christians (except Papists),
&c.—placed our refugees on a footing of equality with the
rest of the inhabitants, and put an end to the old
hostilities between them.—
When our traveller turned his back upon this "kind, loving, and affable people," to pursue his journey into North Carolina, his first forward step was into a howling wilderness. The Santee settlement, though but forty miles distant from Charleston, was a frontier—all beyond was waste, thicket and forest, filled with unknown and fearful animals, and
"sliding reptiles of the ground,
Startlingly beautiful,"—