The Rise and Progress of the Colonies of South Carolina and Georgia. Alexander Hewatt
the British settlement as an encroachment on their possessions, were disposed to throw every difficulty in the way of the Carolineans, in order to compel them to relinquish the country. They encouraged indented servants to leave their masters, and fly to them for liberty and protection. They instilled into the savage tribes the most unfavourable notions of British heretics, and urged them on to the destruction of the colony. Good policy required that the governor should keep a watchful eye on the motions of such neighbours, and guard his weak and defenceless colony against the pernicious designs of their Spanish rivals. Some men he discovered who were attempting to entice servants to revolt; these were ordered to receive so many stripes. Others, in defiance of the feeble power of the magistrate, took to such courses as were subversive of public peace and justice. Except a few negroes whom Sir John Yeamans and his followers brought along with them from Barbadoes, there were no labourers but Europeans for the purposes of culture. Until the fields were cleared the brute creation could afford the planters no assistance; the weak arm of man alone had to encounter all the hardships of clearing and cultivation, and the thick forest seemed to bid defiance to his strength. Hard indeed was the task of these labourers while employed in felling the large and lofty trees, and all the while exposed to the heat of an inclement sky, and the terrors of barbarous enemies; with great truth it may be said of them, that they purchased their scanty morsel with the sweat of their brows. After all, the provisions they raised were exposed to the plundering parties of savage neighbours, and one day often robbed them of the dear-bought fruits of their whole year's toil.
Its domestic troubles and hardships.
It is no easy matter to describe the dreadful extremities to which these poor settlers were sometimes reduced. During the government of Sir John Yeamans a civil disturbance broke out among the colonists, which threatened the ruin of the settlement. At such a distance it was very difficult for the proprietors to furnish their colony with regular supplies; and the spots of sandy and barren land they had cleared poorly rewarded their toil. Small was the skill of the planter, and European grain, which they had been accustomed to sow, proved suitable to neither soil nor climate. The emigrants being now, from sad experience, sensible of difficulties inseparable from their circumstances, began to murmur against the proprietors, and to curse the day they left their native land, to starve in a wilderness. While they gathered oysters for subsistence with one hand, they were obliged to carry their muskets for self-defence in the other. A great gun had been given to Florence O'Sullivan, which he placed on an island situate at the mouth of the harbour, to alarm the town in cases of invasion from the Spaniards. O'Sullivan deserted his island, being ready to perish with hunger, and joined the discontented party in the town. The people became seditious and ungovernable, and threatened to compel the governor to relinquish the settlement: even Mr. Culpepper the surveyor-general, joined them in their complaints and murmurs. The greatest prudence and courage were requisite to prevent tumults, and animate the colonists to perseverance. Florence O'Sullivan was taken up by the marshal on a charge of sedition, and compelled to find security for his future good behaviour. One sloop, commanded by Joseph Harris, was despatched to Virginia, another to Barbadoes, to bring provisions. Happily before their return a seasonable supply arrived from England, together with a number of new settlers, which revived the drooping spirits of the people, and encouraged them to engage in more vigorous efforts. The governor, sensible of the hardships the people had suffered, the more readily forgave them for their past misconduct; but as Mr. Culpepper held an office from the proprietors, he sent him to England to be tried by them for joining the people in treasonable conspiracies against the settlement.
The garrison at Augustine having intelligence from servants who fled to them of the discontented and miserable situation of the colony in Carolina, advanced with a party under arms as far as the island of St. Helena, to dislodge or destroy the settlers. Brian Fitzpatrick, a noted villain, treacherously deserted his distressed friends on purpose to join their enemies. However, Sir John Yeamans having received a reinforcement, set his enemies at defiance. Fifty volunteers, under the command of Colonel Godfrey, marched against the Spaniards, who, on his approach, evacuated the island of St. Helena, and retreated to Augustine.
A war among the Indians seasonable for the settlement.
At this period, to form alliances with Indian tribes was an object of great importance with the governor and council. One circumstance proved favourable to the colony at the time of its settlement. The Westoes, a powerful and numerous tribe, who harboured an irreconcileable aversion to the white faces of strangers, would have proved a dangerous enemy to them, had not their attention been occupied by the Serannas, another Indian nation. A bloody war between these two tribes providentially raged, and was carried on with such fury, that in the end it proved fatal to both. This served to pave the way for the introduction and establishment of this British settlement, which otherwise might have shared the same unhappy fate with the first adventurers to Virginia. Many tribes besides that might no doubt have extirpated the colony, but it is probable the governor studied by every means to avoid giving them any provocation, and to conciliate their affection and esteem.
Of Indians in general.
While we now and then turn our eyes to those wild hunters who ranged through the American woods, we must guard against such false and horrid descriptions of them, as some who have suffered from their warlike temper have exhibited to the world. Many authors have discovered unreasonable prejudices against them, and shewn that they either wanted judgment to distinguish, or candour to make due allowances for, the failings peculiar to all nations in the same rude and uncultivated state. When Julius Cesar carried the Roman arms into Britain, and Germanicus over-run the forests of Germany, did they not find the silvestres of those countries little, if at all, more civilized than the brown natives of America? If the Indians were offended at the encroachments made by strangers on lands which they had possessed unmolested for time immemorial, that is nothing wonderful or uncommon. Lands may be called the first property of all nations on the face of the earth. While unacquainted with the advantages of pasturage and agriculture, a greater extent of hunting lands are requisite for their subsistence. Through this territory, now possessed by Europeans, they had been accustomed to range, independent, fearless and free. If they were ready to defend their property at the risque of life, this practice is nothing more than what all nations in the same barbarous state have followed. Until laws were made to prevent and redress wrongs, and men delivered up their arms to the civil magistrate, have they not, in every age, had recourse to forcible means for the defence of their property? The natives of Carolina were doubtless displeased at the encroachments of strangers on their inheritance, and if they had not advanced a single step towards civilization, no man can reasonably expect from them a conduct incompatible with their natural circumstances. The woods abounded with deer and buffaloes, which, when young, might have been domesticated; but on such employment no Indian had entered; it probably appeared to him equally despicable as that of agriculture.
The occasion of Europeans being peaceably admitted among them.
The first bond of union and affection between Europeans and Americans was conveniency. At this early period, to the Indian a knife, a hatchet, or a hoe, was a useful and invaluable acquisition. He observed with what facility the strangers supplied their wants, which were many in comparison with his, by means of the various implements they used. The woods fell before the axe, the earth opened before the hoe or the spade; and the knife was useful on numberless occasions. He admired the skill of white men in making those implements of ease and profit, and voluntarily offered them his deer skins, the only riches he had which could procure them. The love of ease was as natural to the one as the other, and he would rather give them the profits of a year's hunting than want such instruments. Having obtained these in process of time, he found the tomahawk and musket equally useful; these he also coveted, and could not rest till he obtained them. What was at first only convenient, as his wants increased, became absolutely necessary, by which means the original bond was strengthened and confirmed. As the channel of commerce opened, the Indian found that he was not only treated with friendship and civility, but that the white people were equally fond of his skins, furs and lands, as he was of their gaudy trinkets, and various implements of convenience and advantage. It was this connection that induced the native inhabitants of the forest, peaceably to admit stranger differing so much in complexion, language and manners, among them and allow them to clear and cultivate their lands.
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