Jack Yeamans in South Carolina

Topic: Gullah History - Early Legends
The first settlement in the Carolina land grant was made at Cape Fear by a group from New England in 1661.  When they abandoned their efforts, they left their cattle with local Natives. [1]  John Vassal led a rogue group from Barbados to settle the same area in 1664. [2]  As mentioned in the post for 26 June 2022, this was a time when the island was suffering from attempts by Charles II to assert his authority.

Soon after, John Yeamans led an authorized group that landed on Cape Fear in November 1665.  The voyage had been stormy, and many of their provisions were lost. [3]  Yeamans sent one ship to Virginia to get supplies, and, in late December, rode another back to Barbados, where he stayed. [4]

The colony failed in 1667.  Timing was bad.  Even before Yeamans set sail, Charles had declared war on the Dutch in March 1665.  That diverted ships away from trade, as well as forcing one of the proprietors, Anthony Ashley Cooper, to spend his time financing the war effort. [5]

The plague returned to England in June, [6] which gave some respite to the Dutch. [7]  Next, another proprietor, George Monck and Cooper were expected to handle the consequences of the fire that ravaged London in 1666. [8]

The Dutch won in 1667.  Edward Hyde, a third proprietor, was blamed, while Monck retired. [9]  The multiple roles assigned the proprietors of the Carolina grant suggests too few people were given too many responsibilities by Charles.

The only ones to profit from the Cape Fear venture were ship owners from New England [10] and Yeamans.  He gained a title.  Some like to see his baronetcy as the reward for his or his father’s loyalty to Charles I, [11] while others believe it signified his membership in the planter elite of Barbados. [12]  In fact, it was conferred because the charter for Carolina required that whoever served as a governor had to be an aristocrat. [13]

Cooper began developing new plans for a colony after a fourth proprietor, John Colleton, died in 1666. [14]  People in Barbados were less interested in investing in a second venture.  Large planters were changing their methods to make themselves less reliant on timber. [15]  As a consequence of the war, England had gained control of some Caribbean real estate which could provide wood and provisions while they were being prepared to grow sugar. [16]

In addition, Francis Willoughby had died in 1666, and his brother, William Willoughby became the island’s governor in January 1667.  He treated planters with more respect, so men no longer felt pressured to escape. [17]

One of the few who still had problems was Yeamans.  William Willoughby stripped him of his judgeship in 1668 after the Barbadian assembly investigated rumors Yeamans had murdered his wife. [18]  That same year, a son of John Colleton killed one of his sons in a duel.  If Yeamans hoped to gain by the forfeiture of the younger Colleton’s assets, he was disappointed.  John had placed the Barbados land in a trust. [19]

In 1669, Cooper persuaded the current proprietors to invest in sending three ships to Port Royale.  Joseph West was named governor and commander of the fleet until it reached Barbados. [20]  The proprietors specifically did not name Yeamans as governor, but sent a blank commission with instructions for him to provide a name. [21]

Yeamans sailed with the fleet from Barbados to Bermuda on a stormy voyage. [22]  He entered the name of Bermuda’s governor, William Sayle, in the commission, [23] and returned to Barbados. [24]

He finally moved to Carolina in 1671, when it was a burgeoning colony.  Why he chose that moment to immigrate is unknown, but again it may have been related to his continuing problems in Barbados.  Everyone notes he arrived with his slaves. [25]  His will, which he wrote just before embarking, indicated he only owned outright one woman and her three children. [26]  The rest had been gained through his marriage to the murdered man’s widow. [27]  He may have felt it prudent to remove them from the reach of Barbadian law.

Sayles died in March 1671, [28] and the colony’s council chose West as their governor.  By then, Monck had died and John Berkeley acceded to the position of head proprietor. [29]  When Yeamans arrived in May, he expected to become governor, [30] both because of his Cape Fear commission [31] and because he outranked all the settlers. [32]  When the council ignored him, he retreated [33] to his seventy-acre claim on Wappoo Creek [34] at its junction with the Ashley river south of Charles Town.

He finally became governor in August 1671 because of the constitution Cooper had written governing the colony. [35]  Few have been willing to suggest Yeamans did much to advance plantation agriculture in that role.  His history is too well known.  By the time of the Civil War, William James Rivers knew Yeamans did not establish a plantation colony with a slave work force.  Instead, “the toil of cultivating the fields was borne chiefly by white servants from England, or Indian slaves purchased from their enemies.” [36]

While still governor, West had ordered settlers to grow their own provisions instead of relying on stores sent by the proprietors. [37]  Further, he expected those who did not pay for their supplies to provide labor felling trees for shiploads of timber that could be sold to reimburse the proprietors. [38]

Yeamans saw those crops and stores, which still were controlled by West, as items to be exploited.  He bought produce from planters, who needed money, and expected West and the proprietors to feed them while he gained money shipping their goods to Barbados.  In 1672, Copper had written: “if to convert all things to his private profitt be the marke of able parts Sir John is without question a very judicious man.” [40]

The proprietors fired him, but Yeamans died in August of 1674 before the letters were received in Charles Town. [40]

Yeamans remains a cipher who has been used to advance theories.  Cooper knew Yeamans’ character, but still needed a governor, and he was being recommended by Peter Colleton.  Harriott Horry Ravenel knew “he was a bad Governor, oppressing the people by his extractions,” [41] but still needed a hero to justify the Civil War. [42]

Walter Edgar knew Yeamans’ personal ethics were materialistic, [43] but he turned that to his purpose: “for wealthier planters, such as Sir John Yeamans the chance to gain thousands of acres of land and a title, even if it be in the Carolina nobility, might have been appealing.” [44]

Lou Roper claims historians have followed Bernard Bailyn’s lead in emphasizing the desire for cheap land. [45]  In fact, it was Yeamans’ widow who claimed 1,070 acres. [46]

Few look at the actual man.  Yeamans was not born to the landed aristocracy in England, but was descended from a family of tradesmen in the port city of Bristol.  He was described as a merchant when he was given rights by the city. [47]   His behavior in South Carolina was that of a trader, not a planter, and certainly not that of an administrator imbued with principles of noblesse oblige.

End Notes
Histories by William James Rivers and Edward McCrady provide the best narratives.  Later historians may add details, but they do not devote the space they do to details.

1.  Wm. Jas. Rivers.  A Sketch of the History of South Carolina.  Charleston, South Carolina: McCarter and Company, 1856.  70.  Rivers is discussed in the post for 12 June 2022.

2.  “Barbadians Upon the Cape Fear.”  North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources website, 29 May 2016.

3.  Edward McCrady.  The History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, 1670-1719.  New York: The Macmillan Company, 1897.  80.  He is discussed in the post for 5 June 2022.

4.  McCrady.  81.

5.  L. H. Roper.  Conceiving Carolina: Proprietors, Planters, and Plots, 1662–1729.  New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.  19.

6.  “London Plague.”  Wikipedia website.
7.  “Anglo-Dutch Wars.”  Wikipedia website.
8.  Roper.  19.
9.  Roper.  20.
10.  Rivers.  82.

11.  McCrady.  63.  “After the success of the Parliamentary forces, he retired to Barbados.  There he still maintained the Royalist cause, and upon the Restoration, with twelve other gentlemen of the island, among them Sir John Yeamans [. . .] were knighted.”

Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel.  Charleston, the Place and the People.  New York: Macmillan, 1906.  7.  “He himself had warmly supported the royal cause in Barbados, already a thriving colony.  For so doing, he and Sir Peter Colleton, and some other gentlemen of like principles, had been made baronets.”  She is discussed in the post for 5 June 2022.

12.  Richard S. Dunn.  Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624–1713.  Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1972.  81.  “Five Barbados sugar planters received knighthoods or baronetcies between 1658 and 1665.”  Dunn is profiled in the post for 19 June 2022.

Michael D. Bennett.  “Merchant Capital and the Origins of the Barbados Sugar Boom, 1627-1672.”  PhD dissertation.  The University of Sheffield, June 2020.  224–225.  “Perhaps the best example of the work this did to improve reputations is how several planters and merchants who had made fortunes on Barbados were knighted by both Cromwell and Charles I:  [...] John Yeamans, and Thomas Modyford who was made a baronet in 1664.  Of course, the wealth generated on Barbados is not the only reason why these men were knighted and made baronets: several of them were longstanding royalists and some lent money to the Crown soon after the Restoration.  But the prestige enjoyed by Barbados merchants and planters in London is part of the explanation behind their knighthoods.”

13.  Lords Proprietors of Carolina.  Letter to Sir John Yeamans, 11 January 1665.  “We have in the first place prevailed with his Majesty to confer the honor of a knight Baronet upon you.”  University of North Carolina, Documents of the South website.  The original is:

“Haveing receaved a good carrector of your abillityes and Inteagryty and of your loyalty to the kinge from Sir John Colleton, with an assurance that you will viggorously attempt the setling of a Collony or plantation to the southward of Cape Romania [. . .] wee have in the first place prevaled with his Majestie to conferr the honor of a knight Barronet upon you and your heires, to whome wee have given assurance that you will deserve the same.”

14.  Walter Edgar.  South Carolina.  Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998.  41.  Edgar is mentioned in the post for 19 June 2022.

15.  Laura Hollsten.  “Controlling Nature and Transforming Landscapes in the Early Modern Caribbean.”  Global Environment 1: 80–113:2008.  106–107.  She mentions burning bagasse, a “fibrous by-product left over after the canes had been pressed,” and more efficient distilling methods.

16.  Hollsten.  99–100.

17.  Charles Harding Firth.  “Willoughby, Francis.”  62:31–35 in Dictionary of National Biography.  Volume 62, edited by Leslie Stephan.  London: Smith, Elder and Company, 1900.  62:34.

18. P. F. Campbell.  “Editor’s Note” for E. M. Shilstone.  “Nicholas Plantation and Some of Its Associations.”  The article appeared in The Barbados Museum and Historical Society Journal 9:120+:1942 and was reprinted by Campbell in Chapters in Barbados History.  Saint Ann’s Garrison, Barbados: Barbados Museum and Historical Society, 1986.  59.  This is discussed in the post for 12 June 2022.

19.  J. E. Buchanan.  “The Colleton Family and the Early History of South Carolina and Barbados 1646-1775.”  PhD dissertation.  University of Edinburgh, 1989.  81–83.  One wonders how this affected Yeamans relationship with John’s eldest son, Peter.

20.  Rivers.  92.  Peter Colleton inherited the proprietorship when his father died.  His brother Thomas handled supplying the fleet with it arrived in Barbados.

21.  McCrady.  116.
22.  McCrady.  122.
23.  McCrady.  124.
24.  McCrady.  123.

25.  Rivers.  109.  “He was the first who introduced slaves into Carolina, whom he brought from Barbados, in 1671, to cultivate his plantation on the Ashley River.”

Dunn.  115.  “Starting with Sir John Yeamans in 1671, members of the big sugar-planting families brought gangs of Negroes with them.”

Wood.  23.  “Yeamans arrived from Barbados, bringing eight black servants.”  He adds these were not the first slaves in South Carolina.

26.  John Yeamans.  Will, 20 May 1671.  Reprinted by M. Alston Read.  “Notes on Some Colonial Governors of South Carolina and Their Families.”  The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 11(2)107–122:April 1910.  “I doe bequeath allsoe dureing my deare wifes life natural life these negroes following (vide) old Hannah & hir children Jupiter, little Tony & Joane.”

27.  Yeamans.  Reprinted by Read.  113.  “I give and bequeath unto my said wife all the negroes young and old that ..Berringer died possessed of and came to her afterwards by right of Administcon and to me by intermarriage.”

28.  Meaghan N. Duff.  “Sayle, William.”  South Carolina Encyclopedia website.  1 August 2016; last updated 26 October 2016.

29.  McCrady.  138.
30.  McCrady.  155.
31.  McCrady.  158.
32. Yeamans had been made a landgrave in March. [48]
33.  McCrady.  162.

34.  Henry A. M. Smith.  “Old Charles Town and Its Vicinity, Accabee and Wappoo Where Indigo Was First Cultivated, with Some Adjoining Places in Old St. Andrews Parish (Continued).”  Historical and Genealogical Magazine 16(2):49–67:April 1915.  61.

35.  McCrady.  158.
36.  Rivers.  111.
37.  Rivers.  106–107.
38.  McCrady.  164.

39.  Anthony Ashley Cooper.  Letter to Peter Colleton, 27 November 1672.  416 in Landon Cheves.  “The Shaftesbury Papers and Other Records Relating to Carolina and the First Settlement on Ashley River prior to the Year 1676.”  South Carolina Historical Society Collections 5:1897.  Quoted by M. Eugene Sirmans.  Colonial South Carolina: A Political History 2663–1764.  Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1966.  28.

40.  Henry A. M. Smith.  “Sir John Yeamans, an Historical Error.”  The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 19(3):152–156:July 1918.  153–154.

41.  Ravenel.  7.

42.  The post for 5 June 2022 has more on Ravenel’s views of Yeamans as the son of a martyr to a noble cause.

43.  Edgar.  132.
44.  Edgar.  44.

45.  Roper.  9.  He wrote historians have followed Bernard Bailyn’s lead in arguing “the availability of land” provided “new individual opportunities—for investment as well as livelihood—that were supposedly unavailable in the metropolis.”  He cited an article by Bailyn [49] and one about him. [50]

46.  “Yeamans Hall Plantation – Hanahan – Berkeley County.”  South Carolina Plantations website.

47.  Yeamans’ early life is discussed in the post for 12 June 2022.
48.  Rivers.  103.

49.  Bernard Bailyn.  “Politics and Social Structure in Early Virginia.”  90–115 in James Morton Smith. 17th-century America.  Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959.  115.

50.  Gordon S. Wood.  “The Creative Imagination of Bernard Bailyn.”  16–50 in James A Henretta, Michael Kammen, and Stanley N. Katz.  The Transformation of Early American History.  New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991.  23.