South Carolina began as a satellite of Barbados. Walter Edgar called it a colony of a colony. [1]
In 1660, Charles II assumed the throne in England and demand for sugar and tobacco soared. It wasn’t simply that the Restoration court was more decadent than the previous Puritan regime had been. Peace returned to England after twenty years of civil war.
Charles had spent much of the war in Europe where advisors to Louis XIV were promoting the mercantile idea a nation state should be self-sufficient with colonies that supplied its needs. France had established a trade station on the Sénégal river in 1659. [2] Soon after his return, Charles rewarded some followers with an English monopoly on West African trade. [3]
The Royal Adventurers in Africa established its headquarters on Bunce Island at the mouth of the Sierra Leone river, [4] where they hoped to obtain gold. [5] Boubacar Barry noted groups in the Southern Rivers region between the Gambia river and Futa Jallon grew rice. [6] Groups along the Sénégal river grew millet and sorghum. [7] Thus, the early English slave ships bought rice from native growers for the Atlantic voyage.
The English company was reorganized in 1663, with John Colleton included as an investor. He had developed a sugar plantation in Barbados during the Puritan Commonwealth, and was rewarded for his loyalty that same year with a share in the Carolina grant. By then, land on the island was so valuable, plantation owners were importing food from England and Ireland. [8]
Englishmen showed little interest in moving to the new colony. Wealth was produced by sugar, and other Caribbean islands were coming under English control. In 1669, the proprietors sent three ships to recruit colonists in England. [9] Among the men who arrived in 1670 was Thomas Heyward, of Eaton, Derby, [10] the immigrant ancestor of DuBose Heyward. [11]
Huguenots began arriving after Louis revoked the edict of Nantes in 1685. They included Isaac DuBose from Normandy [12] and René Ravenel from Brittany. [13] One was the progenitor of DuBose Heyward’s mother; the other was the immigrant ancestor of Beatrice Ravenel’s husbands. [14]
Once a population nucleus was established on the Carolina coast, more were willing to transfer from Barbados. John Yeamans settled near Port Royale where he imported cattle from Virginia in 1671. [15] By 1682, salted pork and beef were the colony’s primary exports to Barbados, Jamaica, and New England. [16]
Henry Woodward established trade with the Westo on the Savannah River in 1674. [17] Soon he and other traders were supplying deerskins to the Caribbean for the leather required for ancillary needs like harnesses, mill belts, and containers.
The increased demand for slaves by the French led to an African rebellion by the Muslim victims led by Nasr al-Din in 1673. An agent for the French company noted in 1676 one non-Muslim leader responded by
"taking captives, pillaging and burning the Toubenan region. He went so far as the very residence of Bourgali, devastating millet farms, cutting down seedlings. So complete was the destruction he caused that people were forced to eat boiled grass, carrion and bits of leather." [18]
This led to the ironic result that more slaves were available than food to feed them, either at the gathering points or on the voyages.
Ships needed rice, and popular legends attributed the introduction of the seed to ship captains coming from Madagascar. [19] In fact, the Carolina proprietors saw the potential demand early when one wrote the governor of Barbados in 1663 that they hoped to grow crops unavailable elsewhere in the English trading zone, including rice. [20] In 1672, the proprietors in London sent a barrel of rice to Charleston. [21]
Demand for rice increased after William III deposed James II in 1688. The Dutchman believed in free trade, and opened the slave trade to all companies that would pay fees to the crown. [22] Plantation owners in South Carolina began experimenting with rice. John Stewart reported it was grown in 22 locations in 1690, [23] when colonists ask the proprietors if they could pay their rents in commodities like rice. [24]
In 1700, the customs collector reported "they have now found the true way of raising and husking rice" and were shipping 300 tons to England and 30 to the Caribbean. The crop was so large it exceeded the availability of ships to transport it. [25]
The establishment of a commercial crop made South Carolina more attractive to immigrants. Josephine Pinckney’s primal ancestor left Bishop Auckland, Durham, in 1691 for Jamaica. Thomas Pinckney decided working as a privateer in whatever war England then was waging with France would be more profitable. [26]
When his ship docked in Charleston, the twenty-three-year-old asked to be allowed to settle. He invested his wages of war in real estate. Marty Matthews said he bought lots in town and a plantation on the Ashley river. [27] He also acquired rice land near Beaufort. [28]
Pinckney returned to Durham in 1694 after his parents died, perhaps to claim his share of the estate. While there he married Mary Cotesworth. He probably did not run the plantations himself. Matthews said he had found something more lucrative than growing rice. He bought a wharf and became a merchant. [29]
Graphics
U. S. Department of Interior. Wikimedia Commons. 27 July 2009. Uploaded by Bjoertvedt as "US map - rivers and lakes."
End Notes
1. Walter Edgar. South Carolina. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998. 35.
2. Wikipedia. "Saint-Louis, Senegal."
3. Hugh Thomas. The Slave Trade. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997. 198.
4. Thomas. 342. Bunce also was called Bence.
5. Wikipedia. "Royal African Company."
6. Boubacar Barry. La Sénégambie du xve au xuxe siècle. Paris: Editions L’Harmattan, 1988. Translated by Ayi Kwei Armah as Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 19.
7. Barry. 10.
8. Richard Dunn. Sugar and Slaves. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000 paperback edition. 67.
9. Edgar. 41.
10. Barbara Thompson Epps. "daniel heyward." Gini website. 21 August 2015.
11. DuBose Heyward’s membership in the Society for the Preservation of Spirituals was mentioned in the post for 6 January 2019.
12. "Isaac DuBose, I." Gini website. 23 May 2018.
13. French Wikipedia. "René Ravenel."
14. Beatrice Ravenel’ membership in the Society for the Preservation of Spirituals was mentioned in the post for 6 January 2019.
15. Edgar. 133.
16. Edgar. 134.
17. Edgar. 135.
18. Barry. 109. His source was Charles Becker, who in turn was quoting P. Carson. Materials for West African History in French Archives. London: University of London, 1968. 352. The agent was Louis Moreau de Chambonneau
19. Nason McCormick analyzed motifs in the legends in "South Carolina - Rice’s Origin Tale" and "South Carolina - Variants on a Tale." McCormick’s website. 4 July 2010 and 11 July 2010.
20. A. S. Salley, Jr. The Introduction of Rice Culture into South Carolina. Columbia: Historical Commission of South Carolina. Bulletin 6. 1919. 3. The proprietor was George Monck, Duke of Albemarle.
21. Salley. 4.
22. Thomas. 204-205.
23. Judith A. Carney. Black Rice. Cambridge: Harvard University, 2001. 83. Her source was Peter Wood. Black Majority. New York: Knopf, 1974. 55.
24. Salley. 4.
25. Salley. 7. The collector was Edward Randolph.
26. Marty D. Matthews. Forgotten Founder: The Life and Times of Charles Pinckney. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2004. 1. It was the Nine Years War. Josephine Pinckney’s membership in the Society for the Preservation of Spirituals was mentioned in the post for 6 January 2019.
27. Matthews. 2.
28. John Pinckney. "The Pinckney Family Tree: Thomas Pinckney." John Pinckney website. 15 November 2005.
29. Matthews. 2.
No comments:
Post a Comment