What Up, Nerds?
Last thing we saw, the Carolina Colony was still trying to get off the ground.
In the center of the eastern Carolina coastline was Charleston. The English saw Charleston as the most important part of the colony. The city had a good port. It was prosperous. It did a lucrative trade with the natives. And it had good connections to England. So the eight men who owned the colony made it their colonial capital and base of operations.
The only other settlement in the colony lay on the coast of modern-day North Carolina. Two major communities had been founded in the north. One was close to Virginia and connected by both roads and sea. This was was Rogues' Harbor. A group made mostly of Virginians had settled in a settlement there that actually pre-dated the foundation of the Carolina Colony by ten tears. Between Charleston and Rogues' harbor was the town of Clarendon. Clarendon didn't have the same kind of good trade position or terrain as Charleston, and it stayed a backwater.
Indeed the whole northern part of Carolina was a bit of a backwater. To the north the great colony at Virginia had close connections with the English Empire, and to the south Charleston did too. But north Carolina was not internationally important and it only really interacted with the important colonies that flanked her on either side.
Because north Carolina was such a backwater the eight English owners of the colony didn't pay it much attention. There were only about five thousand Englishmen in the north anyway. The real business was in Charleston. After a while the decided to send an official Colonial Governor to Charleston. They sent along a "deputy" Governor to govern northern Carolina as an afterthought.
The north was not very interested in being sent a governor. They had got along just fine without one, and had even arranged their own representative assembly and council. They had even gave themselves the sort of freedoms they wanted. That included religious freedom, a rather nice thing to have.
Freedom of religion was a rare thing in those days. So it attracted a lot of religious dissenters. Most of those dissenters were a radically pacifist and non-hierarchical sect called Quakers, who immigrated to north Carolina in such great numbers that they soon took over the politics of Rogue's Harbor.
But in 1699 the English decided that enough Quakerism was enough. They sent an Anglican Governor and an Anglican Deputy Governor and these men required that anybody who was a member of the government had to swear an oath to that government. Quaker religious practice forbade them from swearing oaths. So all the Quakers were kicked out of government.
The Quakers in the north were unhappy with this situation. They complained and complained, and gathered enough Anglican allies so that the eight owners of Carolina fired the Deputy Governor who carried out the anti-Quaker policies, a man named Tom Cary.
But the man they sent to replace Cary pressed on with the anti-Quaker policy. Now that Cary was put of office he had a change of heart. This time he allied himself with the Quakers. Cary ran in an election in the now-growing colony, declared himself against the persecution of Quakers, and won handily. Cary's replacement as Deputy Governor had held office by virtue of appointment and not by election. But Cary's election victory still meant that north Carolina now refused to treat the replacement as Deputy Governor any more. So he ran away to Virginia where he started spreading stories of how Cary had threatened to kill him. Cary assumed the Governor's office and stopped the anti-Quaker policies.
British law said Cary wasn't actually the governor because he hadn't been appointed by the eight owners of Carolina. But in practice he governed the northern part of Carolina for several years. And then in 1711 the eight sent over a new Governor to replace him. This new replacement was a man named Hyde
At first Cary and the north Carolinians just up and let Hyde be governor. But before long the new guy started to side with the Anglicans against the Quakers. He put the anti-Quaker reforms back in place.
And at that both Cary and north Carolina were like "aw HELL no!"
First the anti-Hydeyans just found a loophole in the law that technically made the Hyde governorship illegal. With their position legally secure they just ignored Hyde's position as governor. But Hyde still had the backing of England. He declared this to be rebellion, and put together a hundred and fifty militiamen to go physically attack Cary.
Cary was a little bit screwed now. He suddenly found himself in an actual battle fighting for the Quakers. And Quakers are pacifists. Damn.
So Cary ran away about as fast as he could. He quickly holed up on a friend's plantation. While he was there his friends gathered together as many local anti-Hyde non-pacifists as they could. Cary got a few dozen men and those men brought guns and even some goddamn cannons to the fight. They fortified the plantation for battle. When Hyde got there he took one look at Cary's fortified plantation, turned around, and high-tailed it back home. Then Cary decided to go on the attack.
Cary pulled together men from all across central north Carolina so that he could make an attack on Hyde's own plantation. Despite the fact that his support mostly came from Quakers, Cary got together his own little army and even a medium sized coastal ship to and attacked Hyde's plantation. They went north to make the attack. But the battle went badly and Cary retreated again.
At this point those big Virginians even further north decided enough was enough and that these Quakers really needed to be taught a lesson about royal power. The Governor of Virginia called up a militia army and a contingent of royal marines to squash Cary. He marched south.
Cary knew he was really screwed now. He did the only thing he thought he could do and disbanded his army. The Virginians arrested him and sent him back to England to stand trial. He was sentenced to a year and a half, after which he returned to north Carolina and lived out the rest of his life.
When Hyde replaced Cary as Governor of the north he was supposed to try to further unite the northern and southern parts of Carolina Colony. But that wasn't to be. In the very same year as Cary's rebellion one half of the Tuscarora Indian people rose up and attacked the colonials in a war that spread across the entire north Carolina coast. The settlers had spread far out, and their over-friendly interactions with the other half of the Tuscarora had sparked the war. Under the onslaught Governor Hyde called out the militias and fought back. It took until 1715, but the Carolinians eventually won. The anti-British half of the Tuscarora fled north to New York and the half that had sided with Carolina took part of their territory.
And then without even a break, the natives around Charleston rode up and attacked the Carolinians in the south. They killed hundreds of people and all the British settlers fled into Charleston. The city couldn't grow food on its own though, and so it began to starve. In 1715 there was a very real threat that Charleston would be wiped off the map.
But early in the next year the Cherokee nation allied with the Brits against their other Indian foes. Once the Cherokee joined the war favored the settlers. And slowly Carolina started to get the upper hand. They pushed back their enemies until they had whooped the last one in 1717.
But over the course of all this Indian war the northern and southern halves of the Carolina government couldn't really keep in very good touch. The British efforts to unite Charleston and the north failed, and the governments fortified themselves in their notions of separation and independence. In the year 1729 the seven of the eight men who owned Carolina sold their shares of it to the king. When this happened the Brits officially reorganized Carolina into two separate colonies and so the de-facto separation of North Carolina and South Carolina became law. It wasn't until 1771 that they could actually agree about where the border was, but that was only a minor point.
The separation was probably for the best Charleston. Apart from the war Charleston had spent the period happily chugging along and growing as a trade depot. It traded with the Indians and the whole British Empire, a real intercontinental port city. Slaving plantations sprouted up around it to produce raw goods for trade.
The north also continued to expand. It welcomed more and more immigrants such as the Swiss and Germans who settled the town at New Bern. But they went to farm, not to trade and grow rich like Charlestonians did. They were mostly smaller farmers, although some slaveholders with plantations did settle all across the Carolina coast. North Carolina continued to flourish as a sort of backwater in between the two great British Imperial Colonies to her north and south.
Three years after the partition of North and South Carolina, the new king carved off the southern section of South Carolina and made another new colony out of it. He named that Georgia, after his daddy. And so the former Carolina Colony adopted the borders we're more familiar with today.
Last thing we saw, the Carolina Colony was still trying to get off the ground.
In the center of the eastern Carolina coastline was Charleston. The English saw Charleston as the most important part of the colony. The city had a good port. It was prosperous. It did a lucrative trade with the natives. And it had good connections to England. So the eight men who owned the colony made it their colonial capital and base of operations.
The only other settlement in the colony lay on the coast of modern-day North Carolina. Two major communities had been founded in the north. One was close to Virginia and connected by both roads and sea. This was was Rogues' Harbor. A group made mostly of Virginians had settled in a settlement there that actually pre-dated the foundation of the Carolina Colony by ten tears. Between Charleston and Rogues' harbor was the town of Clarendon. Clarendon didn't have the same kind of good trade position or terrain as Charleston, and it stayed a backwater.
Indeed the whole northern part of Carolina was a bit of a backwater. To the north the great colony at Virginia had close connections with the English Empire, and to the south Charleston did too. But north Carolina was not internationally important and it only really interacted with the important colonies that flanked her on either side.
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| The Carolina coastline and surroundings at about 1700. Starting on the left. The yellow dot is the Spanish settlement at St Augustine. The red dot is Charleston, in the Carolina Colony. The blue dot is Clarendon, in the northern Carolina Colony. The Blue shaded area is Rogues' Harbor, also in northern Carolina. The red shaded area is the Virginia Colony. |
Because north Carolina was such a backwater the eight English owners of the colony didn't pay it much attention. There were only about five thousand Englishmen in the north anyway. The real business was in Charleston. After a while the decided to send an official Colonial Governor to Charleston. They sent along a "deputy" Governor to govern northern Carolina as an afterthought.
The north was not very interested in being sent a governor. They had got along just fine without one, and had even arranged their own representative assembly and council. They had even gave themselves the sort of freedoms they wanted. That included religious freedom, a rather nice thing to have.
Freedom of religion was a rare thing in those days. So it attracted a lot of religious dissenters. Most of those dissenters were a radically pacifist and non-hierarchical sect called Quakers, who immigrated to north Carolina in such great numbers that they soon took over the politics of Rogue's Harbor.
But in 1699 the English decided that enough Quakerism was enough. They sent an Anglican Governor and an Anglican Deputy Governor and these men required that anybody who was a member of the government had to swear an oath to that government. Quaker religious practice forbade them from swearing oaths. So all the Quakers were kicked out of government.
The Quakers in the north were unhappy with this situation. They complained and complained, and gathered enough Anglican allies so that the eight owners of Carolina fired the Deputy Governor who carried out the anti-Quaker policies, a man named Tom Cary.
But the man they sent to replace Cary pressed on with the anti-Quaker policy. Now that Cary was put of office he had a change of heart. This time he allied himself with the Quakers. Cary ran in an election in the now-growing colony, declared himself against the persecution of Quakers, and won handily. Cary's replacement as Deputy Governor had held office by virtue of appointment and not by election. But Cary's election victory still meant that north Carolina now refused to treat the replacement as Deputy Governor any more. So he ran away to Virginia where he started spreading stories of how Cary had threatened to kill him. Cary assumed the Governor's office and stopped the anti-Quaker policies.
 |
| Carolina had grown a lot indeed. From the left: Spain's zone at St. Augustine (yellow), Charleston in southern Carolina (red), the backwater settlements in northern Carolina (blue), the enormous and populous settlement in Virginia and Maryland (red). This map is not historically precise. It is my casual approximation of European settlement in the 1710's. It is based on other maps from slightly earlier and later in the period. |
British law said Cary wasn't actually the governor because he hadn't been appointed by the eight owners of Carolina. But in practice he governed the northern part of Carolina for several years. And then in 1711 the eight sent over a new Governor to replace him. This new replacement was a man named Hyde
At first Cary and the north Carolinians just up and let Hyde be governor. But before long the new guy started to side with the Anglicans against the Quakers. He put the anti-Quaker reforms back in place.
And at that both Cary and north Carolina were like "aw HELL no!"
First the anti-Hydeyans just found a loophole in the law that technically made the Hyde governorship illegal. With their position legally secure they just ignored Hyde's position as governor. But Hyde still had the backing of England. He declared this to be rebellion, and put together a hundred and fifty militiamen to go physically attack Cary.
Cary was a little bit screwed now. He suddenly found himself in an actual battle fighting for the Quakers. And Quakers are pacifists. Damn.
So Cary ran away about as fast as he could. He quickly holed up on a friend's plantation. While he was there his friends gathered together as many local anti-Hyde non-pacifists as they could. Cary got a few dozen men and those men brought guns and even some goddamn cannons to the fight. They fortified the plantation for battle. When Hyde got there he took one look at Cary's fortified plantation, turned around, and high-tailed it back home. Then Cary decided to go on the attack.
Cary pulled together men from all across central north Carolina so that he could make an attack on Hyde's own plantation. Despite the fact that his support mostly came from Quakers, Cary got together his own little army and even a medium sized coastal ship to and attacked Hyde's plantation. They went north to make the attack. But the battle went badly and Cary retreated again.
At this point those big Virginians even further north decided enough was enough and that these Quakers really needed to be taught a lesson about royal power. The Governor of Virginia called up a militia army and a contingent of royal marines to squash Cary. He marched south.
Cary knew he was really screwed now. He did the only thing he thought he could do and disbanded his army. The Virginians arrested him and sent him back to England to stand trial. He was sentenced to a year and a half, after which he returned to north Carolina and lived out the rest of his life.
 |
| Hyde was kind of a prick. (Pic from Wiki) |
When Hyde replaced Cary as Governor of the north he was supposed to try to further unite the northern and southern parts of Carolina Colony. But that wasn't to be. In the very same year as Cary's rebellion one half of the Tuscarora Indian people rose up and attacked the colonials in a war that spread across the entire north Carolina coast. The settlers had spread far out, and their over-friendly interactions with the other half of the Tuscarora had sparked the war. Under the onslaught Governor Hyde called out the militias and fought back. It took until 1715, but the Carolinians eventually won. The anti-British half of the Tuscarora fled north to New York and the half that had sided with Carolina took part of their territory.
And then without even a break, the natives around Charleston rode up and attacked the Carolinians in the south. They killed hundreds of people and all the British settlers fled into Charleston. The city couldn't grow food on its own though, and so it began to starve. In 1715 there was a very real threat that Charleston would be wiped off the map.
 |
| I think this map really captures the abject horror and the bloodshed. (Pic from Wiki) |
But early in the next year the Cherokee nation allied with the Brits against their other Indian foes. Once the Cherokee joined the war favored the settlers. And slowly Carolina started to get the upper hand. They pushed back their enemies until they had whooped the last one in 1717.
But over the course of all this Indian war the northern and southern halves of the Carolina government couldn't really keep in very good touch. The British efforts to unite Charleston and the north failed, and the governments fortified themselves in their notions of separation and independence. In the year 1729 the seven of the eight men who owned Carolina sold their shares of it to the king. When this happened the Brits officially reorganized Carolina into two separate colonies and so the de-facto separation of North Carolina and South Carolina became law. It wasn't until 1771 that they could actually agree about where the border was, but that was only a minor point.
The separation was probably for the best Charleston. Apart from the war Charleston had spent the period happily chugging along and growing as a trade depot. It traded with the Indians and the whole British Empire, a real intercontinental port city. Slaving plantations sprouted up around it to produce raw goods for trade.
The north also continued to expand. It welcomed more and more immigrants such as the Swiss and Germans who settled the town at New Bern. But they went to farm, not to trade and grow rich like Charlestonians did. They were mostly smaller farmers, although some slaveholders with plantations did settle all across the Carolina coast. North Carolina continued to flourish as a sort of backwater in between the two great British Imperial Colonies to her north and south.
Three years after the partition of North and South Carolina, the new king carved off the southern section of South Carolina and made another new colony out of it. He named that Georgia, after his daddy. And so the former Carolina Colony adopted the borders we're more familiar with today.
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