The Carolinas: Yammasees and South Carolinians

The attack of the South Carolinians on St.Augustine excited the anger of the Spaniards. An expedition, consisting of five vessels-of-war under the command of the French admiral Le Feboure, and a large body of troops, was sent from Havana to attack Charleston, conquer the province and annex it to the Spanish territory in Florida. When, in May, 1706, the squadron crossed Charleston bar, and about eight hundred troops were landed at different points, the commander sent a flag to the city with a per-emptory order for a surrender, and threatening to take it by storm in case of a refusal to submit. Governor Moore had been apprised of the expedition, and was prepared to meet it. When the flag arrived, he had so disposed the provincial militia and a host of Indian warriors, as to give an exaggerated idea of the strength of the Carolinians. Before the messenger could make any extended observations he was dismissed with the defiant reply that the people were ready to sustain the promised attack.

This was followed by a furious assault, just at dawn, upon the invaders on shore by a strong party of South Carolinians. They killed many, captured more, and drove the remnant back to their ships. At the same time the little provincial navy, lying in the harbor, prepared to attack the invading squadron. The French admiral, amazed and alarmed by the display of valor on shore, weighed anchor and fled to sea. A French warship, uninformed of these events, sailed into the harbor soon afterward, with troops, and was captured. The victory was complete. The dark storm-cloud, from which a destructive tempest was expected, suddenly dissolved, and the sunshine of peace and prosperity gladdened the colonists for a season.

At length a more frightful tempest was seen brooding over the colony. It had gathered with fearful celerity. A league had been formed among the surrounding Indian tribes to exterminate the English. It was the secret work of the Spaniards in Florida and the French in the Mississippi Valley. Within the space of forty days, a confederacy had been formed, including the whole Indian tribes from the Cape Fear on the north to the St. Mary's on the south, and back to the rivers beyond the mountains in the west. The warriors of the league were full six thousand strong. It comprised the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Catawbas and Congarees on the west, and the Creeks, Yammasees and Appalachians on the south. At the same time a thousand warriors broke forth from the forests of the Neuse region to avenge their misfortunes in the war two or three years before.

So secretly had the savages organized, that not a whisper of impending danger had reached the inhabitants of Charleston, before the news came that on the morning of Good Friday (April 13, 1715), the Yammasees had begun an indiscriminate massacre of the white people along the seaboard. The news had been carried from the scene of destruction by a swift-footed sea-man who broke through the lines of the furious savages, ran ten miles and swam one, and told the dreadful tale to the settlers at Port Royal. These fled in canoes and in a ship, and carried the first intelligence of the sad event to Charleston. A stream of terror-stricken planters and their families began pouring into the city at the same time. The capital was in peril. The governor (Craven) acted promptly and efficiently in the emergency. He took measures to prevent men leaving the colony. He declared the province to be under martial-law; took measures to secure all arms and ammunition to be found, and called upon the citizens to prepare to fight valiantly for their lives and property. He put arms into the hands of faithful negro slaves; and with a motley army of white men, Indians and black men, twelve hundred strong, he marched to meet the savages, who were approaching from the interior with their knives and hatchets in fearful activity. After some severe encounters with them, the governor drove the Yammasees across the Savannah River and through Georgia, giving them no rest until they found it under the protection of the guns of St. Augustine. Meanwhile the warriors from the north had been driven back to the forests, and the Cherokees and their neighbors, who had not yet taken up the hatchet, had retired to their hunting-grounds, deeply impressed by the evidences of the strength and prowess of the white people. So, again, was sunshine brought to South Carolina, in the beautiful month of May, 1715.

Proprietary government in South Carolina was now drawing to a close. It had been a heavy burden upon the colonists from the beginning. The governors appointed by the proprietors, being independent of the people, had often been haughty and exacting, and exacting, and they irritated rather than conciliated the popular mind. While the colonists were laboring to build up a permanent and prosperous State, the proprietors refused to assist them in times of danger or to reimburse their expenses incurred in defending the domain from invasion. The people were not only compelled to bear the whole expense of the late war with the Indians, but the proprietors enforced their claims for quit-rents more remorselessly than ever.

The colonists saw no way to cast off their chains but by revolution, and no security for the future but in royal rule and protection. So they resolved to revolt. Their popular Assembly declared that they would have nothing further to do with the proprietors, and asked Governor Johnson to rule in the name of the king. He refused, when a Convention of the people prepared to choose a governor for themselves.