Made In The Carolinas

A Brief Look At The History Of Carolina

It will help a great deal with what you are about to read if you can see the map first. There is a bit of conjecture when reading each states account of its earliest history. The main point that is agreed upon is that Carolina was a very large territory or province, and that there were settlements along the waters edge from Virginia on south. Let’s take a look at the map:

Following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Charles II of England rewarded eight persons on March 24, 1663, for their faithful support in his efforts to regain the throne of England. He granted the eight grantees called Lords Proprietors or simply Proprietors the land called Carolina, in honor of Charles I, his father. The 1663 charter granted the Lords Proprietor title to all of the land from the southern border of the Virginia Colony from 36 degrees north to 31 degrees north (along the coast of present-day Georgia). In 1665, the charter was revised slightly, with the northward boundary extended to 36 degrees 30 minutes north to include the lands of settlers along the Albemarle Sound who had left the Virginia Colony. Likewise the southern boundary was moved south to 29 degrees north, just south of present-day Daytona Beach, Florida, which had the effect of including the existing Spanish settlement at St. Augustine. The charter also granted all the land between from these bounds from the Atlantic to the South Seas.

The Lords Proprietors named in the charter were: Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon, George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, William Craven, 1st Earl Craven, John Berkele, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, Sir George Carteret, Sir William Berkeley (brother of John), and Sir John Colleton. Of the eight, the one taking the most active interest in Carolina was Lord Shaftesbury, whose secretary, the philosopher John Locke, purportedly wrote a never-ratified constitution of Carolina. Some of the other Lords Proprietors also had interests in other colonies: William Berkeley in Virginia, John Berkeley and George Carteret in the Province of New Jersey.

The Lords Proprietors, while their authority was granted by royal charter, were nonetheless able to exercise that authority with nearly the power of an independent sovereign. The actual government consisted of a Governor, a powerful Council, half of which was appointed by the Lords Proprietors, and a relatively weak popularly elected Assembly.

Although the Lost Colony on Roanoke Island represents the first English attempt at settlement in the Carolina territory, the first permanent English settlement in the area was in 1653, established mainly by emigrants from the Virginia Colony with others from New England and Bermuda. Pre-empting the royal charter by ten years, they settled on the banks of the Chowan and Roanoke Rivers in the Albemarle Sound area in the northeast corner of present-day North Carolina. The Albemarle Settlements came to be known in Virginia as "Rogues' Harbor.”

In 1665, Sir John Yeamans established a second permanent settlement on the Cape Fear River, near present-day Wilmington, North Carolina, called Clarendon.

Another region was settled under the Lords Proprietors in 1670 to the south of the other settlements, around present-day Charleston, South Carolina. The Charleston settlement developed more rapidly than the Albemarle and Cape Fear settlements due to the advantages of a natural harbor and easy access to trade with the West Indies. Lord Shaftesbury specified the street plan for Charleston and the nearby Ashley and Cooper Rivers are named for him.

That southern settlement, which became known as Charleston, was the principal seat of government for the entire province. However, due to their remoteness from each other, the northern and southern sections of the colony operated more or less independently until 1691 with the appointment of Philip Ludwell as governor of both areas. From that time until 1708, the northern and southern settlements were under common government. The north continued to have its own assembly and council, the Governor resided in Charleston and appointed a deputy governor for the north.The Province of Carolina from 1663 to 1729, was a North American British colony. Dissent over governance of the province led to a division between North and South in 1710, but it was not until 1729 that the Province of Carolina was officially divided into the Provinces of North and South Carolina.