Province of Carolina
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The Province of Carolina from 1663 to 1712, was a North American British proprietary colony, controlled by eight English noblemen including Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury. Dissent over governance of the province led to the appointment of a deputy governor to administer the northern half of the colony in 1691. The division between North and South became complete in 1712, but both colonies remained in the hands of the same group of proprietors. A rebellion against the proprietors broke out in 1719 which led to the appointment of a royal governor for South Carolina in 1720. After nearly a decade in which the British government sought to locate and buy out the proprietors, both North and South Carolina became royal colonies in 1729.
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[edit] Brief history
Following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Charles II of England rewarded eight persons on March 24, 1663, for their faithful support in his efforts to regain the throne of England. He granted the eight grantees called Lords Proprietors or simply Proprietors the land called Carolina, in honor of Charles I, his father.
[edit] 1663 Charter
The 1663 charter granted the Lords Proprietor title to all of the land from the southern border of the Virginia Colony from 36 degrees north to 31 degrees north (along the coast of present-day Georgia). In 1665, the charter was revised slightly, with the northward boundary extended to 36 degrees 30 minutes north to include the lands of settlers along the Albemarle Sound who had left the Virginia Colony. Likewise the southern boundary was moved south to 29 degrees north, just south of present-day Daytona Beach, Florida, which had the effect of including the existing Spanish settlement at St. Augustine. The charter also granted all the land between from these bounds from the Atlantic to the South Seas.
[edit] Lords Proprietors
The Lords Proprietors named in the charter were: Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon, George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, William Craven, 1st Earl Craven, John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, Sir George Carteret, Sir William Berkeley (brother of John), and Sir John Colleton. Of the eight, the one taking the most active interest in Carolina was Lord Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury, with the assistance of his secretary, the philosopher John Locke, drafted the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, a plan for government of the colony heavily influenced by the ideas of English political scientist James Harrington. Some of the other Lords Proprietors also had interests in other colonies: William Berkeley in Virginia, John Berkeley and George Carteret in the Province of New Jersey.
The Lords Proprietors, while their authority was granted by royal charter, were nonetheless able to exercise that authority with nearly the power of an independent sovereign. The actual government consisted of a Governor, a powerful Council, half of which was appointed by the Lords Proprietors, and a relatively weak popularly elected Assembly.
Although the Lost Colony on Roanoke Island represents the first English attempt at settlement in the Carolina territory, the first permanent English settlement in the area was in 1653, established mainly by emigrants from the Virginia Colony with others from New England and Bermuda. Pre-empting the royal charter by ten years, they settled on the banks of the Chowan and Roanoke Rivers in the Albemarle Sound area in the northeast corner of present-day North Carolina. The Albemarle Settlements came to be known in Virginia as "Rogues' Harbor".[1]
In 1665, Sir John Yeamans established a second permanent settlement on the Cape Fear River, near present-day Wilmington, North Carolina, called Clarendon.
Another region was settled under the Lords Proprietors in 1670 to the south of the other settlements, around present-day Charleston, South Carolina. The Charles-town settlement developed more rapidly than the Albemarle and Cape Fear settlements due to the advantages of a natural harbor and easy access to trade with the West Indies. Lord Shaftesbury specified the street plan for Charles-town and the nearby Ashley and Cooper Rivers are named for him.
That southern settlement, which became known as Charleston, was the principal seat of government for the entire province. However, due to their remoteness from each other, the northern and southern sections of the colony operated more or less independently until 1691 with the appointment of Philip Ludwell as governor of both areas. From that time until 1708, the northern and southern settlements were under common government. The north continued to have its own assembly and council, the Governor resided in Charleston and appointed a deputy governor for the north. During this period, the two began to become known as North Carolina and South Carolina.
[edit] Dissent
From 1708 to 1710, due to dissent over attempts to establish an Anglican state church in the colony, the province was unable to agree upon elected officials and was without recognized and legal government. That, coupled with the Tuscarora War and the Yamasee War, and the inability of the Lords Proprietor to act decisively, led to separate governments for North and South Carolina. Some take this period as the establishment of separate colonies, but that did not officially occur until 1729, when seven of the Lords Proprietor sold their interests in Carolina to the Crown and both North Carolina and South Carolina became royal colonies. The eighth share was Sir George Carteret's, which had passed to his great-grandson John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville. He retained ownership of a 60-mile wide strip of land in North Carolina adjoining the Virginia boundary, which became known as the Granville District. This district was to become a scene for many disputes up to the American Revolutionary War, at which time it was seized by the North Carolina revolutionary government.
Governments under proprietary rule and under crown rule were similarly organized. The primary difference was who was to appoint the governing officials: the Lords Proprietor or the Crown.
[edit] Georgia
In 1732, a corporate charter for the Province of Georgia would be carved out of South Carolina by George II of Great Britain.
[edit] Earlier Charter
On October 30, 1629, King Charles I had granted a patent to Sir Robert Heath for the Carolina territory (the lands south of 36 degrees and north of 31 degrees). However, Heath made no effort to plant a colony there. King Charles I was executed in 1649 and Heath fled to France where he died. When the monarchy was restored, Heath's heirs attempted to reassert their claim to the land, but Charles II decided that Heath's claim was no longer valid.
[edit] See also
- British colonization of the Americas
- Carolana
- List of colonial governors of North Carolina
- List of colonial governors of South Carolina
- Province of North Carolina
- Province of South Carolina
[edit] External links
- Royal Patent of Carolina province of 1629
- Carolina Charter of 1663
- Carolina Charter of 1665
- Concessions and Agreements of the Lords Proprietors of the Province of Carolina, 1665
- Sir Robert Heath's Patent
- The Founding of North and South Carolina
