William Penn in Pennsylvania: Huguenots and Fundamental Constitutions
This work was begun in earnest, by every species of bribery, and every means of coercion excepting actual personal violence. These Huguenots were driven from all public employments, and were reinstated only upon the condition of entering the church as communicants. They were persecuted by being subjected to all kinds of disabilities, social and political, and finding relief only in a profession of the Romish faith. These measures operated powerfully, and, in a degree, successfully. It was perceived that the surest road to popular favor was by converting Huguenots, and Louvois, the Minister of War, determined to outdo Madame de Maintenon in this work, by the use of soldiers, whom he quartered on the Huguenots with orders to torment them in every possible way short of personal violence. These Protestants were forbidden to leave France, and so, like hunted deer driven to close quarters, they were dreadfully worried by the hounds. At length, following the advice of Madame de Maintenon, the king revoked the tolerant edict of Henry, and the Huguenots were exposed to the unbridled passions of the soldiery and the intolerance of religious bigots. So, Louis hoped he had gained the favor of Heaven and secured the salvation of his own soul.
The sufferings of the Huguenots were now horrible. The most cruel torments were used to "convert" them. It is said that full ten thousand of them perished at the stake and other places of torture, for conscience sake. In the face of vigorous measures for preventing emigration, full five hundred thousand of these useful citizens, numbering multitudes of skilled mechanics, fled from their country, and so impoverished the kingdom. They created Huguenot villages in Germany. They swelled the army of William wherewith to win the throne of England. They filled a whole suburb of London, and introduced the art of silk-weaving into England. Some went to the Cape of Good Hope, and many of them sought peaceful homes among the American colonists. They were welcomed everywhere, and became blessings to every community among whom they settled. Many families were seated in New York and other colonies; but the warmer climate of the Carolinas was more congenial to these children of sunny France. They gave some of the best blood to the American colonies; and their descendants have borne a conspicuous part in building up our free Republic.
The South Carolinians resisted all attempts to make them submit to the authority of the "Fundamental Constitutions." Annoyed by persistent efforts to compel them to accept that form of government, they felt disposed to cast off all allegiance to the proprietors and the mother country. At that crisis, John Colleton, one of the owners, was appointed governor of the province, with full powers to bring the people into submission. That was in 1686. His administration of four years was a very turbulent one. Finally, his continual collisions with the people drove them into open rebellion. They seized the public records; imprisoned the secretary of the province; called a new Assembly, and defined the power of the governor. The latter, pleading the danger of an impending invasion of Indians or Spaniards, made it a pretext for calling out the militia, with whom he hoped to suppress the insurrection. He declared the province to be under martial-law, and proposed to rule by its vigorous code.
The militia were a part of the people, and no troops appeared at the call of the governor. His act greatly exasperated the colonists. He was impeached, and banished from the province by the Assembly, in 1690. The Revolution in England at the same time was initiated in miniature in South Carolina.
During the turbulence at near the close of Colleton's administration, Seth Sothel arrived from North Carolina, pursuant to his sentence of banishment. He espoused the cause of the people against the proprietors, and the former, in the moment of their anger, unwisely chose him to be their governor. Their poor judgment was rebuked, and the people were punished for this rash act by the conduct of the new governor. While he followed the popular will in opposing the claims of the proprietors to political domination, he plundered the people, trampled upon their dearest rights, and ruled them with insolence and undisguised tyranny. His misrule was endured for about two years, when the people heartily seconded the measures of his fellow-proprietors for his removal. When they heard of his usurpations, they sent him letters of recall, with an order from the king to appear in England to answer charges of disloyalty and other grave offences. Sothel was compelled to retire from the office in 1692, when he withdrew to North Carolina, where he died two years afterward. It was during the administration of Sothel that the Huguenots in South Carolina were as fully enfranchised, or granted the liberty of citizens, as if they had been born on the soil. This act of enfranchisement was repealed in 1697.
Colonel Philip Ludwell, of Virginia, and then governor of North Carolina, as we have seen--a man wholly unconnected with the interests of the province--was appointed the successor of Sothel. When the people found that a part of his mission was to restore the authority of the proprietors and impose upon them the absurd "Fundamental Constitutions," they were restive under the rule of even so good a man as he. He was authorized to inquire into grievances, but had no power to redress them; and after a brief and unhappy administration, he gladly retired from the chair of state.