The Carolinas: South Carolinians and North Carolina

The wildest excitement spread over North Carolina. The people fled in affright toward the sea, and many left the province. Those who remained called upon their brethren of South Carolina for help. Colonel Barnwell hastened northward with some Carolinians and a body of friendly Indians composed of Creeks, Cherokees, Catawbas, and Yammasees. The savage tide was rolled back. The Tuscaroras were driven to their fortified town in the present Craven county, and there a solemn treaty of peace was made between the white men and the Indians. All might have been well but for the treachery of the South Carolinians, who, on their way homeward, violated the treaty by committing outrages upon the Indians. The latter were enraged, and speedily flew to arms. Terror everywhere prevailed. It seemed as if the purpose of the savages to annihilate the intruders would be accomplished. Back to the rescue of their brethren from destruction went the Carolinians. Colonel Moore, with a small number of white men and a large body of Indians, soon met and defeated the hostile savages. The Tuscaroras were driven to their fort in the present Greene county, where eight hundred of them were made prisoners. The remainder of the tribe fled to the north, and joined their kindred near the southern shores of Lake Ontario, when they became the sixth nation of the Iroquois Confederacy in the province of New York. A treaty of peace was made with the Corees afterward, and North Carolina never again suffered from the hostility of Indians. The war had cost the province a large sum of money, for the payment of which bills of credit were issued to the amount of forty thousand dollars. This was the first issue of paper money in North Carolina.

During the years when the people of the northern colony were suffering from civil commotions and Indian raids, the South Carolinians were excited by troubles with the Spaniards and the neighboring barbarians. The governor (James Moore) was more belligerent and aggressive than his predecessors. When he heard of Queen Anne's proclamation of war with France in May, 1702, and that Spain was involved in the quarrel, he proposed an expedition against the Spaniards at St. Augustine. The Assembly agreed with the governor and appropriated nearly ten thousand dollars for the enterprise. An army of twelve hundred men (one-half of them Indians) was raised, and in two divisions they proceeded, one by land and the other by sea, to make the attack. The governor commanded the forces on the ships, and Colonel Daniels the division that crossed the Savannah River, traversed Georgia along the coast, penetrated Florida, and made the first attack. The Spaniards retired within their fort, with provisions for four months, where they were quite safe from harm, for their enemies had no artillery.

Governor Moore arrived with his vessels and troops soon afterward, and blockaded the harbor of St. Augustine. When Daniels had plundered the town, he was sent to Jamaica for battering cannon, but before his return two Spanish war-vessels had frightened the blockaders away, and the colonel came very near being made captive. He reached Charleston in safety, and the ill-advised expedition was then at an end. It cost the colony a large sum of money, and to defray the expenses bills of credit were issued to the amount of twenty-six thousand dollars. This was the first issue of paper money in South Carolina.

Late in the following year, Governor Moore tried his skill again in making war. This time it was against hostile Indians who were in league with the Spaniards. These were the Appalachians, a Mobilian tribe, who occupied a region in Georgia between the Savannah and Alatamaha rivers. There their chief villages were situated, and there large gardens were cultivated. Against these the governor proceeded with a force competent to insure success. The villages were desolated; the gardens were laid waste; eight hundred men, women and children were carried into captivity, and the inhabitants of the whole region were made vassals or subjects of the English. By this movement a thorn of irritation was planted in the bosom of the surrounding Indians which rankled for years, and was one of the causes that spurred them into fierce hostility afterward.

Just as the province was becoming tranquil after the war with the savages, it was disquieted by turbulence in civil affairs in its own bosom. The proprietors resolved to establish the liturgy of the Church of England in South Carolina, as the standard order of public worship. Sir Nathaniel Johnson, who was the official successor of Governor Moore, found a majority of Churchmen in the Assembly, and easily executed the wishes of his masters. Dissenters were disfranchised--deprived of the rights of free citizens--and actually suffered persecutions. After a season of much turbulence, they appealed to the crown, and in the autumn of 1706, the Assembly, by order of Parliament, repealed the law of disfranchisement. But the Anglican Church maintained its supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs in the province until the war for independence.