Charleston Founded

The avaricious courtiers now sought the acquisition of more territory, and in June, 1665, they readily obtained from the king another charter which confirmed the former one, and gave renewed assurance and commendation of the "pious and noble purpose" under which these men thought it decent to cloak their ambition and rapacity. It granted to them the territory from the now southern boundary of Virginia to the peninsula of Florida, and westward to the Pacific Ocean, comprising all of our States excepting the lower part of Florida south of the thirty-sixth degree, and a part of Mexico, the whole under the name of Carolina. The terms of the charter give evidence that the founding of a great empire was contemplated. Provision was made for the appointment of legislators and magistrates; for levying troops and erecting fortifications; waging war by sea and land; erecting cities; establishing manors and baronies, and creating titles; levying impost duties; and other features coincident with those of the existing British government. "Every favor was extended to the proprietors," says an eminent historian; "nothing was neglected but the interests of the English sovereign and the rights of the colonists." It was the duty of Clarendon, as Prime Minister of the realm, to affix the great seal of the kingdom to this charter that conferred such extraordinary privileges upon himself and his seven associates.

In the year 1670, the proprietors sent three ships with emigrants to settle the more southern portions of Carolina. These were under the directions of William Sayle and Joseph West. Sayle had already explored the coasts; and twenty years before, he had endeavored to plant in the Bahama Isles a Puritan colony from Virginia, and to establish an "Eleutheria"-a place dedicated to liberty-among the islands near the coast of Florida. The three ships entered Port Royal harbor, and the emigrants landed at Beaufort Island, near the place where the Huguenots built Fort Carolina a hundred years before. There Sayle died early in the following year, and was buried under a broad live-oak tree draped with Spanish moss. The emigrants abandoned Beaufort soon afterward, and sailing northward entered Charleston harbor. On the banks of a stream a few miles above the site of Charleston, they landed, built houses and cultivated the soil. There they planted the first seeds of the colony of South Carolina at a spot known as Old Town.

The settlers found the Indians unfriendly, for tradition had taught them to believe that the white man was a cruel robber. The planters were compelled to labor in the fields and on the waters, well-armed, yet they prospered; and they soon conquered the savages by kindness. West exercised the authority of magistrate until the arrival of Sir John Yeamans from Barbadoes with the commission of governor late in 1671. He brought with him fifty families and many negro slaves. This was the introduction of slave-labor into South Carolina, which has always been pre-eminently a planting state.

The settlement at Old Town was organized under the title of the Cartcret County Colony, and representative government was established there in 1672. So was founded the commonwealth of South Carolina. It was known as a place where freedom was enjoyed, and emigrants flocked to it from England, Holland, and New York. They spread over the peninsula between the Ashley and another stream which they called the Cooper River, both so named in honor of Ashley Cooper, one of the proprietors. At Oyster Point, at the junction of three streams, on the verge of a fine harbor and in sight of the sea, they laid the foundations of a capital city for the province eight or ten years later, and named it Charles Town (Charleston) in compliment to the king. Old Town was abandoned, and the new village flourished. Very soon thriving settlements were seen along the Santee and Edisto Rivers; and the region between the Ashley and Cooper-the Ke-a-wah and E-ti-wan of the Indians-became quite populous with industrious inhabitants.