The Carolinas

WHEN the good Archdale had left the impress of his example and teachings upon the Carolinians, both provinces began their career of permanent prosperity. Although they were politically united, each acted independently of the other from the close of the seventeenth century. Both made a steady advance in population and wealth, and the arts of refined society.

The North Carolinians turned their attention to the richer lands away from the sea; and hunters trapped the beaver and otter in the waters far in the interior among the hills. The Indians along the sea-board had melted before the warmth of civilization like snow in the sunbeams of spring-time. The powerful Hatteras tribe, that numbered about three thousand when Harriot healed King Wingina, were reduced to fifteen bowmen in the year 1700. Another tribe on the Chowan had entirely disappeared; and the remainder of the savages in that region had been defrauded of their lands and driven back into the deep forests, when they and their brethren there perished by hundreds by the vices and diseases of the white man. The broad domain from the sea to the Yadkin and the Catawba then lay almost uninhabited, and invited to its bosom the skill of the husbandman with promises of wealth and comfort.

At about that time the freedom of the North Carolinians--"every one of whom," it was said, "did what was right in his own eyes, paying tribute to neither God nor Caesar"--was disturbed by an attempt, in 1704, to establish there the ecclesiastical dominion of the Church of England. Deputy--Governor Daniells had been sent for that purpose. He caused the first church in the province, already mentioned, to be built at the public expense. The people opposed the scheme. The Friends led in the opposition, and the turbulence that ensued soon bore the aspect of a political quarrel. Anarchy prevailed for awhile. On one side in the dispute were Churchmen and Loyalists; on the other side were Dissenters and Republicans, among whom the Friends, who were rapidly increasing in numbers, were the most active, and were ranked by the adherents of the proprietors as a "rabble of profligate persons." There were two governors and two legislatures for a time; but their dissensions were soon quieted. The people passively acquiesced in the ecclesiastical scheme of the deputy-governor, but they did not become Churchmen. Several years afterward, there was only one clergyman in the provinces, for no congregations could be gathered.

Meanwhile some excellent immigrants had enriched the colony. In 1607 some Huguenots came from their temporary settlement in Virginia, and seated themselves on the beautiful banks of the Trent, a tributary of the Neuse. They were followed two years afterward by emigrants from Switzerland, who founded New Berne at the head of the Neuse. At about the same time a hundred fugitive German families from the devastated Palatinates on the Rhine came to seek shelter and repose. They were led by Count Graffenreid, and founded settlements upon the headwaters of the Neuse and the banks of the Roanoke.

Soon after these inland settlements were fairly planted, and were spreading, a fearful calamity fell upon the Germans. The remnants of the exasperated tribes, who had been driven into the forests, had nursed their revenge until it became too strong for repression. Incited and led by the Tuscaroras, a fierce Algonquin tribe, they joined in an effort to re-possess their lost country. In this patriotic endeavor the Corees, a tribe near the seaboard further south, became their allies. They all fell with terrible force upon the scattered German settlers along the Roanoke and the borders of Pamlico Sound; and in a single October night in 1711, they slew one hundred and thirty men, women and children, and lighted up the country for scores of miles with the flames of burning dwellings. With the hatchet and torch they swept like fiends along the borders of Albemarle Sound, killing, plundering and burning, during the space of three days, until they were overcome with fatigue and drunkenness. On the eve of this murderous raid, John Lawson, surveyor-general of the province, and Count Graffenreid, were taken captive by the savages. They tortured Lawson to death by burning him at a sapling, but the Count saved his life and gained his liberty by adroitly persuading them that he was the sachem of a tribe of men who had lately come into the country, and were in no way connected with the English.