Larry Eisenberg - Kum Ba Yah

Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
In early 1957, Lynn Rohrbough was still in close touch with men who had supported his Cooperative Song Service (CRS) in the 1940s.  In January, Larry Eisenberg wrote him to say he was planning “to stay over after the ACA meeting, and will be happy to come out to the Rohrboughs on Saturday afternoon.” [1]

The two men met in 1936, when the twenty-year-old Eisenberg went to the National Conference of Methodist Youth in Berea, Kentucky. [2]  They became colleagues in the 1940s when Eisenberg was working for the denomination’s Youth Department in Nashville, Tennessee. [3]

Eisenberg left the department in 1952, and had been spending the interim years writing books on recreation that were published by the YMCA [4] and teaching social recreation to missionaries at Scarritt College. [5]  He had just begun working as a pastor in southwestern Virginia in late 1957. [6]

One event where he worked was an experiment in race relations sponsored by the Presbyterian and Congregational churches [7] at Davidson College in North Carolina.  Students from Black colleges, like Talladega, were given an opportunity to visit white schools where, it was hoped, the two groups would meet socially [8] and thus overcome some of the barriers in the South where only 15% of the whites believed in integrated schools. [9]

In addition to Eisenberg, Pete Seeger was invited to perform.  This event must have been reported in the local and school newspapers, but I have found nothing posted to the web.  This description is based on the memories of Eisenberg and Seeger.

One reason it would have been reported was its notoriety.  Davidson had become a textile mill town in 1890 [10] that attracted displaced white farmers. [11]  When the college finally agreed to enroll students from the Congo in 1962, five local business announced they would not serve them. [12]  Eisenberg had been told “the town even has vigilantes.”  He added, “so far as I know, nothing happened.” [13]

Seeger remembered that “a Methodist minister and recreation leader, Rev. Larry Eisenberg introduced the song in North Carolina.” [14]

Eisenberg probably learned “Kumbaya” from the Song Sampler, or some other CRS publication sent to him by Rohrbough. [15]  At that time, the heading still claimed it came from “Africa (Angola).”  He may have mentioned this in his introduction.  Seeger wrote that, “within a couple of years” of being published by CRS, “it was being sung in the USA as ‘an African song’.” [16]

Seeger recalled the Talladega students responded: “Why, we know this song! [. . .] It’s ‘Come by Here, Lord, Come by Here!’” [17]

The first question that arises is what would have prompted the visiting students to publically argue with Eisenberg.  They knew they were guests in a community that was hostile to the aspirations of African Americans.

One possibility is that they already were angry that white rock-a-billy performers, like Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, [18] were making money by copying recordings made by Black artists.  They probably knew Presley had appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show on 26 October 1956 [19] singing “Hound Dog.” [20]  Some, at least, may have been known his recording was a cover of one released by an African-American blues singer, Big Mama Thornton, in 1953. [21]  This would have made them especially sensitive to hearing one of their religious songs being characterized by a white man as “African.”

Seeger altered the text slightly and began singing “Kumbaya” in his concerts. [22]  In October 1957, he told members of the University of Chicago’s Folklore Society:

“There was a missionary who came back from East Africa, Angola. [23]  And taught this song to us and a lot of people started singing it around the country.  Introducing it as an African spiritual.  Lo and behold someone was singing it down in North Carolina and people there said we know this song, it’s ‘Come by Here’.” [24]

In late December Seeger performed “Kumbaya” at a concert in Carnegie Hall.  When Folkways released a recording in early 1958, Seeger had added details in the liner notes that imagined the song in Africa:

“A missionary returned from Angola, East Africa several years ago with this song.  He had no translation for the title.  ‘It’s just a spiritual sung by people around the mission’.” [25]

Seeger, or his representative, had done the research needed to prevent a copyright dispute.  He noted:

“The song was published in one of the small camp songbooks put out by that remarkable man, Lynn Rohrbough, who in an Ohio barn prints millions of songbooks and recreation handbooks for churches, Y’s, and camps throughout the world.” [26]

Seeger was struck by there being two descriptions of the song’s origins and assumed both were true.  He then tried to explain how that could be.  In October, he speculated:

“I’m not sure how it got to Africa.  But just yesterday I was reading a book.  [. . .]  He worked at the mission.  Name was Cole.  Reverend Sam Cole.  Maybe he was the one who taught them the song.” [27]

This was repeated with more precision in the liner notes:

“How it got to Africa in the first place no one knows for sure.  Perhaps it was the Rev. Sam Cole, whose autobiography was published in 1957.  [. . .]  Perhaps he took the song there.” [28]

Samuel B. Coles was an African American who had worked in Angola as a missionary for the Congregational Church from 1923 to 1953, with breaks in the United States for sabbaticals and World War II. [29]  He died in March 1957 and was buried on Long Island. [30]  His autobiography was published posthumously. [31]  The NAACP’s The Crisis published a review in its October issue, [32] just before Seeger’s appearance. [33]

Seeger’s tale of two missionaries — the one who took it to Africa and the one who brought it back — entered tradition along with “Kumbaya.”

Notes on Audience
Davidson College published profiles of its graduates for their fiftieth reunion.  Most of the white men had followed the professions for which small, liberal arts colleges were known: law, medicine, the ministry, and business.  They were asked what they most remembered from their college years.  The answers were what one would expect: friends, fraternities, dances, and sports.  A number had been in the male chorus.

No one mentioned this event.  Pete Seeger was not well known, unless one followed the activities of the House Un-American Activities Committee.  It had condemned Seeger in 1955 as a Communist and demanded he testify.  The committee did not formally charge him with contempt until March 1957. [34]

However, three men remembered a performance by Louis Armstrong.  That was the concert mentioned most often by the alumni. [35]

Notes on Performers
Eisenberg is profiled in the post for 9 February 2020, and mentioned in the ones for 1 November 2020, 4 November 2020, 3 October 2021, and 13 March 2022.  His photograph appears of the Photo_K tab.

Seeger and his family are discussed in the posts for 11 August 2019, 18 August 2019, and 6 October 2019.

While Seeger remembered meeting Eisenberg at Davidson, Eisenberg recalled they had met during the summer of 1957 at the Idyllwild Arts Foundation in California. [36]  They later collaborated on a Folkways recording of playparties. [37]  He said he “made 50 whole dollars from that.” [38]
 
End Notes
1.  Larry Eisenberg, Brentwood, Tennessee.  Letter to Lynn, 29 January 1957.  Copy courtesy of Bruce Greene and World Around Songs.  ACA was the American Camping Association.  Today, the American Camp Association holds its national conferences in different cities in February.

2.  Larry Eisenberg.  “It’s Me, O Lord.”  Tulsa, Oklahoma: Fun Books, 1992.  51.
3.  Eisenberg, It’s Me.  54, 62.

4.  Eisenberg and his wife, the former Helen Park, published The Family Fun Book in 1953, How To Help Folks Have Fun in 1954, How To Lead Group Singing in 1955, and The Omnibus of Fun in 1956.  All were issued by the YMCA’s Association Press in New York City.  Eisenberg recalled: “Eventually I finished eight books for Association before they went out of the book publishing business.” [39]

5.  Eisenberg, It’s Me.  62.  Scarritt College is mentioned in the post for 16 May 2021.

6.  Eisenberg, It’s Me.  63.  While he was at Chihowie, in Smyth County, he led a charismatic revival that involved faith healing. [40]  Some of the events are described by Brad Scott.  “A Sketch of the History of Charismatic Influence in 20th Century Holston Methodism.”  The United Methodist Church, Holston, Virginia, Conference Historical Society website, 5 October 2017.

7.  Talladega was supported by the American Missionary Association, [41] which was closely associated with the Congregational Church. [42]  Davidson was established in 1837 by The Concord Presbytery of North Carolina. [43]  The two reformed denominations had maintained close ties since Jonathan Edwards brokered a Plan of Union in 1801 that allowed the two churches to combine flocks on the Ohio frontier and use whichever clergymen were present. [44]

8.  I read a memoir on the internet that I didn’t save and haven’t been able to relocate by a Talladega student who described these exchanges.  One of her comments was that the African Americans were far more interested in attending these meetings than were white students.

9.  “Brown v. Board: Timeline of School Integration in the U.S.”  Learning for Justice Magazine, #25, Spring 2004, posted on its website.

10.  “Davidson, North Carolina.”  Wikipedia website.
11.  “Town History Timeline.”  Davidson, North Carolina, town website.

12.  Rick von Unwerth.  “Five Local Businesses ‘Won’t Serve Them’.”  Davidsonian, Davidson College, 3 March 1961.  Reprinted by Caitlin Christian Lamb.  “‘Thereby Hangs a Tale’: The Winding Path to Integration at Davidson.”  Her website, 10 February 2016.

13.  Eisenberg, Letter.

14.  P. Seeger.  “Notes on Background of Songs.”  Pete Seeger and Sonny Terry.  Folkways Records FA2412.  Recorded 27 December 1957, released 1958.

15.  Eisenberg probably did not attend the Student Volunteer Movement meeting and certainly would not have been at the Methodist Church’s national conference in Minneapolis.  This first is discussed in the post for 31 July 2022.  The second is described in the post for 9 October 2022.

16.  Seeger, 1958.
17.  Seeger, 1958.

18.  Jerry Lee Lewis recorded “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” in February 1957 [45] and appeared on The Steve Allen Show on 28 July 1957. [46]  It had been recorded on 21 March 1955 by Big Maybelle [47] for Okeh Records. [48]

19.  “Hound Dog (Song).”  Wikipedia website.

20.  Elvis Presley.  “Hound Dog.”  RCA Victor 47-6605.  Recorded in New York City on 2 July 1956; released 13 July 13 1956.

21.  Big Mama Thornton.  “Hound Dog.”  Peacock Records 1612.  Recorded in Los Angeles on 13 August 952; released March 1953.

22.  Seeger’s version is discussed in the post for 6 October 2019.

23.  Technically, Angola is on the western coast of central Africa.  One can only call it East Africa, if one assumes west Africa is the section between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic and therefore, everything else is east.  Most divide that part of the continent into north, central, and southern sections, and reserve the word “east” for the countries bordering on the Indian Ocean.

24.  Pete Seeger.  “Kumbaya.”  Pete Seeger Live ’57.  Goldenland Records MP3, 2013.  Thomas Stern identified this as a tape from a performance for the Folklore Society of the University of Chicago, 13 October 1957. [49]

25.  Seeger, 1958.

26.  Seeger, 1958.  Once he learned CRS had published the song, he or his representative would have contacted Rohrbough for permission to make the recording.  This sentence sounds like the kind of promotional materials the company might have sent him.  The linear notes say “courtesy of Coop. Recreation Serv.”

27.  Seeger, 1957.
28.  Seeger, 1957.

29.  My article on the origin tales associated with “Kumbaya” [50] discusses Coles and other Black missionaries who served in Angola: Susan Collins, Martha Drummer, and Bessie Fonvielle McDowell.  The first two were at the Methodist mission in Angola where Melvin Blake later served. [51]  The last was the wife of Coles’ mission’s founder.

30.  Marvin & Samme Templin.  “Samuel Bracy Coles.”  Find a Grave website, 29 December 2011.

31.  Samuel B. Coles.  Preacher with a Plow.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1957.

32.  J. W. I.  Review of Preacher with a Plow.  The Crisis 512:October 1957.  James W. Ivy edited the magazine. [52]

33.  It is remotely possible Coles was at the Davidson meeting.  His daughter’s husband was from Alamance County, North Carolina, [53] and they were living in Durham when they died years later. [54]  In 1970, the couple was reported to be in Liberia. [55]  If they were in North Carolina in 1957 and he was visiting them, Coles might have gone to Davidson.  He had graduated from Talladega.

34.  For more on the accusation against Pete Seeger, see the post for 18 August 2019.

35.  Quips and Cranks 50th Reunion Edition, Class of 1956, edited by Hollis F. Cobb.  Davidson, North Carolina: Davidson College, 2006.

36.  Idyllwild is mentioned in the post for 8 July 2018.

37.  Pete Seeger, Mika Seeger, and Rev. Larry Eisenberg.  American Playparties.  Folkways Records FC 7604.  Released 1959.  Mika, Seeger’s daughter, would have been eleven years old when the record was released.  Most of the songs had been published by Rohrbough.

38.  Eisenberg.  63.
39.  Eisenberg, It’s Me.  62.
40.  Eisenberg, It’s Me.  9-13.
41.  “Talladega College.”  Wikipedia website.
42.  “American Missionary Association.”  Wikipedia website.
43.  “Davidson College.”  Wikipedia website.

44.  Sydney E. Ahlstrom.  A Religious History of the American People.  New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1972.  456.

45.  “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.”  Wikipedia website.
46.  “Jerry Lee Lewis.”  Wikipedia website.
47.  Wikipedia, Shakin’.

48.  Big Maybelle.  “Whole Lot of Shakin’ Goin’ On.”  Okeh 4-7060.  Released September 1955.  Quincy Jones was the director.  [Discogs website entry]

49.  Thomas Stern.  Reply to query “Pete Seeger Live ’57.”  Mudcat Café website, 2 May 2016.

50.  Patricia Averill with John Blocher, Jr.  “‘Kumbaya’ and Dramatizations of an Etiological Legend.”  Voices 46:26–32:Spring–Summer 2020.  A copy of the final draft is available on the Academia.edu website.

51.  Blake’s time in Angola is discussed in the post for 7 March 2021.
52.  “The Crisis.”  Wikipedia website.
53.  RTerry.  “William Allen Hill.”  Find a Grave website, 17 November 2011.
54.  RTerry.   “Laura Coles Hill.”  Find a Grave website, 11 April 2012.

55.  RTerry, William Allen Hill.  “Mr. Hill had a long and distinguished public service career as an educator at the collegiate and public school levels.  His education career included work in the United States and Liberia, West Africa.”  The name was too common to find references online that identified him more.

The Methodist Church 1956 General Conference - Kum Ba Ya

Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
By May 1956, “Kumbaya” was spreading spontaneously outside the domain of CRS songbooks.  Karen remembers she learned it “at a youth night at the Methodist General (international ) Conference in Mps in about 1956.  There were 5000 MY ers singing the song and it was memorable.” [1]

The Methodist Church holds quadrennial meetings [2] to elect members of the hierarchy [3] and decide critical issues.  The one in 1956 voted to accept women in the clergy. [4]

The conference in Minneapolis lasted from Wednesday, April 25, to Wednesday, May 9, and was highly structured.  Most morning programs began with devotions that began and closed with a hymn led by James Houghton.  These were planned in advance, and published in a conference songbook. [5]  The meeting’s songbook did not contain a version of “Kumbaya.” [6]

When the conference reconvened after a morning recess, the assembled sang another hymn and heard a short concert by a college choir.  Afternoon sessions also began with a hymn, and sometimes the choir would reappear after the break.  Given logistics and expense, choral groups probably came by bus.  I assume choirs arrived the day before they were scheduled, and left the day after.

The vote on women was taken on Friday, 4 May, and apparently delegates began leaving after that.  The Journal of the proceedings said on Saturday that “some on the Program have to leave early, and I hope many of them will want to get away before too late.”  The entertainment chairman also asked that those who were leaving early to “notify the ushers know by note so we may fill those places.” [7]

May 5 was an evening of relaxation for the conference.  Instead of holding debates, two famous entertainers appeared: Minnie Pearl and Ralph Edwards. [8]  The first was part of the Grand Ole Opry radio program, and the other had a television program, This Is Your Life.  It had shared an Emmy with What’s My Line? in 1955, when it ranked twelfth in audience size.  That fell to a respectable twenty-sixth place in the 1955–1956 season. [9]

It is not clear if Youth Night was part of the original program, or was added.  The Journal simply said it had been requested by the Minnesota Delegation for a Youth Night. [10]  The event was held “under the supervision of the General Board of Education of The Methodist Church.” [11]

Youth Night differed from the more formal sessions because it began with a Fellowship Sing led by Glen Johnson of Dallas. [12]  Although the conference Journal usually listed hymns led by Houghton or sung by the choirs, it didn’t for this event.

Johnson may have used song sheets that were distributed with the evening’s program, or may have depended on songs being so familiar, songsters weren’t necessary.  If he was the one who introduced “Kumbaya,” he may have learned the words from the Song Sampler.  Rohrbough would have sent copies to all the important people in The Methodist Church. [13]

Johnson may have followed a strict program like the one Larry Eisenberg used at the Christian Youth Conference held on the campus of Purdue University in 1952, [14] or, more informally, he may have called on people to make suggestions.

One possible group would have been the members of college choirs in the audience.  The local Hamline University performed that night, [15] but the Ohio Wesleyan University Choir was scheduled to sing the next evening. [16]  If its director, Rexford Keller, didn’t know Lynn Rohrbough, at least some members of the choir would have.  Some probably attended the Methodist church nearest the Delaware, Ohio, campus where Bliss Wiant was serving between 1953 and 1955.  Some may have had copies of his recently issued Hymns of Universal Praise. [17]

The OWU choir is the most likely source, although one cannot overlook the possibility someone who attended the Student Volunteer Meeting in late 1955 introduced “Kumbaya.”

Regardless of the source or method of teaching “Kumbaya,” the individuals in the audience did not have songbooks with the melody.  If they taught it to others when they returned home, it was from memory.  Each person who did continue to sing the song could have launched a separate line in the radiation of folk tradition.

Title
Kum Ba Ya

Performers
Vocal Group: audience attending Youth Night
Vocal Director: unidentified

Credits
Karen, the woman who remembered singing “Kum Ba Ya,” wrote: “The people who taught us said it came from Africa.” [18]

Notes on Performance
Occasion: Youth Night, 25 May 1956
Location: the audience apparently was seated in the balcony. [19]

Notes on Audience
“MY’ers” referred to members of the Methodist Youth Fellowship (MYF), the Methodist organization for high school students. [20]  The national conference did not include a youth convention.  This was a special event for members from Minnesota who “have done so very much to help us in getting ready for this Conference.”  The program chairman added “We feel a certain moral obligation for they have put more money into this than we have given to help in the total expense.” [21]

Notes on Performers
Karen attended sessions of the Northland Recreation Laboratory discussed in the post for 26 September 2021.  She was one of the people who answered my email asking if anyone remembered when they learned “Kumbaya.”

Johnson was born in Wisconsin, but his parents soon moved to the lower Río Grande valley in Texas.  Before moving to Dallas 1947, he had headed the music department at the Texas College of Mines in El Paso.  When he was young, he played trombone in dance bands. [22]

Houghton had been directing the Boston University Seminary Singers for 29 years.  In that position, he trained over a thousand ministerial students.  On 26 April, he had his former singers join the group of stage to sing the 130th Psalm and “De Profundis.” [23]

End Notes
1.  Karen.  Email, 30 June 2016.

2.  The quadrennial meetings are the modern form of the camp meetings organized by Francis Asbury in the early 1800s to unify the frontier denomination.  This is discussed briefly in the post for 8 November 2020.

3.  As is clear in the post for 14 August 2022, the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church adopted this same organizational model.

4.  Connor S. Kenaston.  “From Rib to Robe: Women’s Ordination in the United Methodist Church.”  Methodist History 53(3):162–172:April 2015.

5.  James R. Houghton.  A Selection of hymns from the Methodist hymnal: for use at the General Conference of the Methodist Church: Municipal Auditorium, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 25-May 9, 1956.  Nashville, Tennessee: Methodist Publishing House, 1956.

6.  Cassie Brand of the Drew University library said it had no index and was too recent to be photocopied.  She did look through to see if it contained version of “Come by Here” or “Kumbaya.”  She wrote back, “We looked through the book, as it wasn’t large, and neither song appears in the book.” [24]

7.  Journal of the 1956 General Conference of The Methodist Church.  Edited by Lud H. Estes.  Nashville, Tennessee: The Methodist Publishing House.  815.  The Chairman of the Program Committee of the Commission on Entertainment and Program was Paul V. Galloway.  I wish to thank Carlton Young for helping me locate the Journal. [25]

8.  Journal.  879.

9.  “This Is Your Life.”  Wikipedia website.  The Emmy was for Best Audience Participation, Quiz or Panel Program.

10.  Journal.  815.
11.  Journal.  643.
12.  Journal.  867.
13.  The Song Sampler is discussed in the posts for 31 July 2022 and 7 August 2022.
14.  Eisenberg’s song-leading techniques are discussed in the post for 21 May 2021.
15.  Journal.  870.
16.  Journal.  875.
17.  Wiant and Hymns of Universal Praise are discussed in the post for 2 October 2022.
18.  Karen.

19.  The Journal indicated on page 815 that delegates who normally sat in the balcony would be seated on the lower floor that evening.  This would have left the balcony open to the MYF members.

20.  MYF replaced the Epworth League in 1938 after the merger of the northern and southern branches of the Methodist Episcopal Church.  For more information, see the posts for 9 August 2020 and 30 May 2021.

21.  Galloway.  Journal.  815.
22.  “Johnson, Glen R.”  Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas, 28 May 2009.
23.  Journal.  297–298.
24.  Cassie Brand, Drew University.  Emails, 17 October 2016.
35.  Carlton Young.  Email, email 6 December 2016.

Bliss Wiant - Kum Ba Yah

Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
Lynn Rohrbough said that, within a year of the first publication of “Kum Ba Yah” in Cooperative Recreation’s Service’s Song Sampler, it had appeared “in a dozen agency books.”  The one he specifically mentioned in a 1959 letter was Hymns of Universal Praise. [1]  It was compiled in February and March of 1956. [2]

Bliss Wiant and Carlton Young intended the hymnal to include “representative hymns of the church universal.” [3]  It included three from India, three from China, one from Japan, and one from Nigeria.  The last had been recorded at the Student Volunteer Movement meeting in December of 1955. [4]

Wiant surely would have attended the SVM meeting discussed in the post for 31 July 2022.  He had been a missionary in China from 1923 [5] until 1952 when  Mao Zedong dismantled the Yenching University [6] where he was working.  The university had been established as a joint enterprise by western Protestant churches. [7]

In the 1930s, he was music editor for Hymns of Universal Praise, [8] an ecumenical collection of songs that combined Chinese musical motifs with Christian theology. [9]  Andrew Leung said the anthology “established the foundation of Chinese hymnody and is now set as a model of Chinese hymnology.” [10]

The CRS Hymns of Universal Praise was unashamedly a hymnal: [11] three were by Charles Wesley, [12] three by Isaac Watt [13] and one was by Martin Luther. [14]  In addition, one melody was by Wesley’s son Samuel. [15]  It was organized by topic, so the spirituals and international texts were scattered through the songster.  Thirty-one of the sixty-seven selections attached “amen” endings. [16]

Fifty-two selections relied upon four-part chords that mirrored the melody, with no tempo or dynamics markings.  Wiant converted “Kumbaya” to this form.  The tune is doubled a third below on the treble clef, and two notes appear in the bass clef.  There are two exceptions to the parallelism.  Only one note is heard in the upper part of the opening phrase, which emphasizes the expansion to the triad on the second note.  The two notes used on the final “Lord” are sung only by the upper part.  The other parts sustained the first note, to again emphasize the melodic variation.

Wiant made one other change to “Kumbaya”: he dropped the “someone’s crying” verse, and reduced it to a three-verse song.  The post for 24 February 2019 reports that liturgists, who include the song in their services, often do not specify all the verses.  The “crying” verse was the least popular stanza among Methodists.

In 1963, Wiant moved to Hong Kong where he worked on the revision of Hymns of Universal Praise for the exiled Chinese living there, [17] and created an English translation for use in this country. [18]  Two years later he retired to Delaware, Ohio. [19]  CRS published a revised edition of its Hymns of Universal Praise in 1965. [20]  This one contained forty-five of the original songs.  It dropped some by Wesley and Watt, as well as those from India and Nigeria.  “Kum Ba Yah” had appeared on the same page as one of the omitted Wesley verses, and also disappeared.  The Chinese songs were grouped together.

Title
Kum Ba Yah

Performers
Vocal Group: four parts
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano

Credits
Harm. by Bliss Wiant
© 1956 Coop. Recreation Service, Inc., Delaware, O. [21]

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: no comment
Verses: kumbaya, singing, praying
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: 3-verse song

Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 3/4
Key Signature: no sharps or flats
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one note to one syllable except for final “Lord”

Harmonic Structure: parallel thirds in trebel clef, parallel fifths in base, diverging harmony at beginnings of phrases

Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: four part chords

Notes on Performance
Cover: pattée cross superimposed on a globe with the phrase “All within the four seas are brothers”

Color Scheme: dark brown on tan cover; inside blue-gray ink on off-white paper
Plate: made by Jane Keen

Notes on Audience
Young recalled the songbook “was prepared for general use in events of the North East Conference of the Methodist Church, and may have been used at its Annual Conference, June 1956.” [22]

Notes on Performers
Wiant was raised in central Ohio, and graduated from Ohio Wesleyan in 1920.  After completing work at Boston University’s seminary, he went to China as a missionary. [23]  He spent World War II in the United States, where he taught at Scarritt College. [24]  During this time, Wiant produced the first edition of The Pagoda for CRS.  The twenty-five Chinese songs were translated and arranged with four-part chords by Wiant. [25]

When he left China in 1952, Wiant returned to Delaware, Ohio, where he was pastor of the Methodist church near Ohio Wesleyan.  Two years later he transferred to Youngstown. [26]  As mentioned in the post for 9 February 2020, he moved to Nashville in 1957 as the director of the denomination’s new Ministry of Music.  He died in Delaware in 1975. [27]

Young’s life and career are discussed in the posts for 14 February 2019, 9 August 2020, and 27 December 2020.  One of his most significant tasks was overseeing the 1988 edition of the church’s hymnal.  While Wiant’s later CRS Hymns of Universal Praise retreated from a strong bias toward traditional and international hymns, Young returned to its inclusive vision.  Sam Hodges notes he replaced some of the less popular hymns with “spirituals, contemporary gospel, sacred jazz (by Duke Ellington), and Hispanic hymns.” [28]  Young elevated “Kumbaya” to the canon with his arrangement of the melody he called “Desmond.” [29]

Availability
Book: “Kum Ba Yah.”  31 in Hymns of Universal Praise.  Edited for North East Ohio Conference of the Methodist Church by Bliss Wiant and Carlton Young.  Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service, 1956.

End Notes
1.  Lynn Rohrbough.  Letter to Shawnee Press, 8 June 1959.  “Our first use of Kum Ba Ya was in the Jan. 1956 Sampler; during the year it came out in a dozen agency books.  One of the earliest was Hymns of Universal Praise, where it seems to fit.”

2.  Carlton Young.  Email, 7 December 2016.
3.  Bliss Wiant and Carleton Young.  Note on inside cover.

4.  “Glory to the Trinity.”  6 in Hymns.  From a recording of Emanuel Fashade and transcribed by Bliss Wiant.

5.  Stacey Bieler.  “Bliss Mitchell Wiant.”  Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity website.

6.  “Yenching University.”  Wikipedia website.
7.  Bieler.

8.  Liu Tingfang and Bliss Wiant.  Hymns of Universal Praise (P’u Ti’en Sung Tsan).  Shanghai, China: Christian Literate Society, 1936.

9.  Calida Chu.  “The Evolution of Hymns of Universal Praise: A Reflection on the Contextualisation of Chinese Hymnology in the Last Century.”  University of Glasgow, Conference on Understanding and Misunderstanding between the Far East and the West, 2017.

10.  Andrew Napp-Kei Leung.  The Emergence of a National Hymnody: The Making of Hymns of Universal Praise (1936).  Hong Kong: Chinese Christian Literature Council, 2015.  127.  Quoted by Chu.  10.

11.  Wiant disdained Victorian gospel hymns, which, he claimed, were sentimental and good for nothing.  Its message is that everything is blessed and peaceful.  That’s not the message of Christ.  The message of Christ is ‘Are you able to endure all things as I endure them - even crucifixion?’”  Time reported his preference was for “such Reformation hymns as A Mighty Fortress is Our God and O God, Our Help in Ages Past.” [30]

12.  “A Charge To Keep I Have” (p31), “O for a Thousand Tongues To Sing” (p22), and “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” (p40).

13.  “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” (p44) “O God, Our Help in Ages Past,” (p64) and “Jesus Shall Reign where’er the Sun” (p59).

14  “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” (pp12–13).
15.  “The Church’s One Foundation” (p41).

16.  The post for 27 November 2017 traces the history of the use and disuse of “amen” endings.  Modernists typically discourage them.

17.  Chu.

18.  Bliss Wiant.  Selected Chinese Indigenous Hymns from Hymns of Universal Praise.  4 July 1965.  United States Copyright Office.  Catalog of Copyright Entries.  Third Series.  July-December 1965.  2291.

19.  Bieler.

20.  Bliss Wiant.  Hymns of Universal Praise.  Delaware, Ohio: Informal Music Service, World Around Songs.  The copyrighted songs are dated 1965.  It has a light blue cover.

21.  This is the only known copyright by CRS for “Kum Ba Yah.”  If this copyright language had appeared in every other songbook, CRS would have a valid right to the song.  However, as shown in the version in Guiana Sings for 7 August 2022, Rohrbough did not do that.  Under the copyright law then in governing music publications, the song entered the public domain as soon as it was published without that notice, and this copyright was reduced to this specific arrangement.  I suspect this copyright probably was not renewed and the arrangement also lost copyright protection.

22.  Young, email.
23.  Bieler.
24.  Scarritt College is mentioned in the post for 16 May 2021.

25.  I have a copy of fifth edition from 1967, which probably means fifth printing.  The Pagoda, arranged by Bliss Wiant.  Cooperative Recreation Service Inc, © 1946, 1967.

26.  Bieler.
27.  Bieler.

28.  Sam Hodges.  “Mr. Music of United Methodism.”  The United Methodist Church Michigan Conference website, 22 September 2020.

29.  For more on the revised Methodist hymnal, see the post for 14 February 2019.
30.  Bliss Wiant.  Interview.  Time, 31 August 1959.  Quoted by Bieler.

Variants of the Rice Origin Tale

Topic: Gullah History - Early Legends
Alexander Salley, who became state archivist for South Carolina, [1] reprinted eight versions of Fayrer Hall’s origin tale that was quoted in the post for 18 September 2022.  Each has been retold by others.  Still others have tried to combine them into a single tale, emphasizing different elements.  The history of the history has moved from some attempts to explain a confusing situation, the varieties of rice found in South Carolina, to syntheses that compounded the confusion.

The first person Salley mentioned was James Glen, governor between 1743 and 1756, [2] who reprinted Hall’s version in 1761.  He emphasized chance and the irrelevance of the proprietors when he added (motif 3 in the list with End Notes) “it was not done with any previous Prospect of Gain, but owing to a lucky accident, and a private experiment.”  The (4) gift motif was expanded when he added it was done “for the benefit of Mankind.” [3]

In 1766, when conflicts between the crown and the colony were escalating after the Sugar Act of 1764, Gentleman’s Magazine of London published an account by Peter Collinson, a friend of Charles Dubois, which contained many of the same motifs as Hall. [4]

The (1) individual responsible for introducing the rice was the treasurer of the East India company, and the recipient was (5) Thomas Marsh, a Carolina merchant, after they (3) happened to meet in a coffee house.  Dubois (4) gave Marsh (6) a “money bag” of (2) East India rice.

Since the quantity was so small, (9) more rice was brought by a Portuguese slave trader who (4) gave, but actually bartered, some of the ship’s provisions for fresh produce.  The (3) unexpected rice (8) made men more sure rice could be a viable commodity.

However, (9) the planters still didn’t have enough, and, in 1713, the colony paid bounties to captains who brought rice.  One shipment came (2) “from the Streights, probably Egypt” or Milan.  Another bounty was paid for rice that came with a slave ship from (2) Madagascar. [5]

Salley found no record of the bounties, and believed the London writer was thinking of the gratuity paid to John Thurber. [6]  What Salley didn’t mention was that the Portuguese and Madagascar ships were probably smugglers who provided cheap goods to Charles Town the way the pirates had.  He did mention rice itself was smuggled to Portugal in 1708, and sold for fish that then was sent to London. [7]

Collinson and Du Bois both were London cloth merchants and avid gardeners.  Collinson imported plants collected by John Bertram and sponsored Mark Catesby plant hunting trip to Carolina in 1722.  [8]  Du Bois also was treasurer of the East India Company.  He used that position to encourage plant explorations and import plants from India. [9]

In 1772, as rebellion against royal authority was brewing in France, a contributor to Guillaume Thomas Raynal’s history of European trade with the two Indies emphasized that the introduction was (3) “purely fortuitous,” the result of a ship returning from the (2) East Indies that (3) “happened to be cast away” and (6) “some bags” were (4) “taken from the ship.”  Even so, “a trial was made of sowing them, which (8) succeeded  beyond expectations.” [10]

During the American Revolution, in 1779, a Tory minister living in exile in London, Alexander Hewat, [11] replaced the adventurer, Henry Woodward, with an idealized royal governor, Thomas Smith. [12]

According to Hewat, soon after Smith became governor, (3) a “fortunate accident happened” when (1) a brigantine from (2) Madagascar (3) touched on Sullivan Island outside the Charles Town harbor.  Smith met with the captain who (4) “made him a present of a (6) bag of seed rice.”  Smith (7) divided the rice between “Stephen Bull, Joseph Woodward, and some other friends.” [13]

Hewatt then mentioned (9) DuBois to explain (11) “the distinction of red and white rice.” [14]

The location of the accident and the identity of the planters have been elaborated.  Sullivan’s Island was the location of the fort William Moultrie built that repulsed the first British attack on Charleston in 1776, [15] while Hewat was close to the last royal governor of the colony, William Bull. [16]  Stephen Bull was William’s son, and his son, William’s grandson, also Stephen Bull, married Elizabeth Woodward. [17]  Salley couldn’t identify Joseph, who was not descended from Henry. [18]

In 1798, after years of battle and intrigue to secure the French revolution, Raynal reissued his history and the current contributor said “opinions differ” on the introduction of rice, and he no longer thought it mattered if it came with a shipwreck, was sent by England, or brought by slaves, because what mattered was South Carolina was ideally suited to grow rice. [19]

In 1802, another governor, John Drayton, published his version, which now gave “good government” a role.  He said the first shipment of 1688 was an unprofitable variety, and it was only in 1696 that a larger, whiter variety was introduced. [20]  The last is a trait associated with the rice of Hezekiah Maham, [21] and Drayton may have been contrasting the rice that existed after the revolution, with that from before.

Drayton’s second introduction came when the (1) captain of a brigantine from (2) Madagascar (4) “presented” a (6) bag to the (5) governor (7) “who divided it between several gentlemen.”  He adds, Mr. DuBois (9) “sent another parcel” which explains “the distinction which now prevails, between white and gold rice.” [22]

In 1809, David Ramsay deliberately introduced new elements.  He suggested Thomas Smith “had been at Madagascar before he settled in Carolina” and that he was “an old acquaintance” of the captain of a (1) vessel from (2) Madagascar which (3) “being in distress, came to anchor near Sullivan’s Island.”   The (1) ship’s cook (4) “presented” Smith with (6) “a small bag of rice.” [23]

This time it’s Smith himself who (8) proved that rice could grow “luxuriantly.”  He (7) distributed his “little crop” “among his planter friends”   Salley said Ramsay went so far as to alter Edward Crisp’s 1704 map of Charles Town to mark the spot in Smith’s garden where the rice first grew, apparently unaware that the area could not have supported rice because it only had access to salt water. [24]

Ramsay had been an active patriot during the war, jailed in Saint Augustine by the British. [25]  His more colorful version may have been influenced by Parson Weems’ attempts to create a dramatic past for the young republic with his books on George Washington [26] and Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox. [27]  The later was published in 1809, based on notes by Peter Horry, but had been repudiated by Horry. [28]

Many recent writers have read some, or all of the accounts mentioned by Salley, and created their own syntheses, usually within a contemporary framework.  For instance, Richard Shulze, who is growing heirloom Carolina Gold rice at his Turnbridge Plantation, has elaborated the accident:

“A Liverpool-bound brigantine sailing from (2) Madagascar was (3) badly damaged by a storm and blown off course; it set into the port of Charles Towne for repairs.” [29]

and the nature of the gift

“Dr. Henry Woodward apparently (4) befriended the captain” [30]

From there, the modern skeptic questions the traditional facts, noting “the ship, which was of American origin, was probably not trading legally as the British law at that time forbade trade outside of the colonies and the British Isles.” [31]

He repeats Ramsay’s idea filtered through Salley that “Woodward proceeded to grow this in his garden in the city” [32] before suggesting it was more likely he planted the seed at “the more suitable property on the Abbapoola Creek.” [33]

He then notes not enough time passed between the summer of 1685 when the ship entered port and Woodward’s trip to the frontier where he died for him to (8) “produce a very good crop, which he then (9) distributed to his friends.”  He concludes “he probably never had the opportunity to fully appreciate (10) the new industry that he was so instrumental in spawning.” [34]

Who provided the rice may not be as important as who actually planted the first successful crop.  This is not part of the legend.  All that can be deduced is a date.  Richard Porcher says the first recorded export was to Jamaica in 1695. [35]  Woodward had been dead at least five years by then.  Thurber was active between 1694 and 1697. [36]

End Notes
Motifs found in origin tales that explain the introduction of rice to South Carolina.  These are introduced in the post for 18 September 2022.

1. Someone, usually unnamed
2. From Madagascar
3. Through some accident, usually a shipwreck
4. Gave, usually as a sign of gratitude
5. To Woodward, or some other prominent person
6. A peck or some other small amount of rice
7. Which was distributed free to the other planters
8. Who proved rice could grow in the colony
9. A second introduction
10. Is responsible for the spread of the crop
11. And the visible variations in the rice

1.  Roberta VH Copp.  “Salley, Alexander Samuel.”  South Carolina Encyclopedia website, 1 August 2016; last updated 25 October 2016.

2.  “List of Colonial Governors of South Carolina.”  Wikipedia website.

3.  James Glen.  A Description of South Carolina.  London: R. and J. Dodsley, 1761.  Quoted by A. S. Salley, Jr.  “The Introduction of Rice Culture into South Carolina.”  Bulletin of the Historical Commission of South Carolina.  Columbia, South Carolina: State Company, 1919.  Bulletin 6.  14.

4.  Peter Collinson.  “An Account of the Introduction of Rice and Tar into our Colonies.”  Gentleman’s Magazine 36:278–279:June 1766.  Quoted by Salley. 14.  Reprinted by Carolina Gold Rice Foundation’s The Rice Paper, January 2007.

5.  Collinson.  Quoted by Salley.  15.
6.  Thurber was mentioned in the post for 18 September 2022.

7.  John Lloyd, St. Nicholas-Lane.  Letter to William Popple, Secretary of the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, 30 December 1708.  Quoted by Salley.  7–8.  The original is in the British Public Record Office, Proprieties, Board of Trade, Volume 9, p. 49.

If pirates were responsible for introducing rice, as the legends claim, they may have remained important customers.  Salley tries to date the introduction of rice by the fact it was not mentioned as an export in 1694. [37]  However, the Navigation Act may have driven customers like ship’s captains and piraes, to buy supplies in places that evaded London.

8.  “Peter Collinson (Botanist).”  Wikipedia website.

9.  Margaret Riley.  “‘Procurers of plants and encouragers of gardening’: William and James Sherard, and Charles du Bois, Case Studies in Late Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century Botanical and Horticultural Patronage.”  PhD dissertation.  University of Buckingham, 2011.

10.  Abbé Raynal.  Philosophical and Political History of the Possessions and Trade of Europeans in the Two Indies.  Amsterdam: 1772.  Quoted by Salley.  23.  This is the English language edition; the French title is Histoire des deux Indes.

11.  Hewat is discussed in the post for 12 June 2022.
12.  Smith is discussed in the post for 11 September 2022.

13.  Alexander Hewatt.  An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia.  London: A. Donaldson, 1779.  Volume 1, chapter 3, section The Planting of Rice Introduced.  Quoted by Salley.  20.

14.  Rice has a white husk.  Sometimes, when it goes to seed, it appears with a red one.  The red often is called “weedy” rice since it was not deliberately planted.  Until Gregor Mendel discussed probabilities of gene occurrence, the two colors were a mystery to be explained.  The genetics are discussed in the post for 6 November 2022.

15.  “Fort Moultrie.”  Wikipedia website.

16.  Edward McCrady.  The History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, 1670-1719.  New York: The Macmillan Company, 1897.  443.  “Hewatt was intimate with the family of Lieutenant William Bull.”

17.  Joseph W. Barnwell.  “Dr. Henry Woodward, the First English Settler in South Carolina, and Some of His Descendants.”  The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 8(1):29–41:January 1907.  30.  “Stephen Bull, the grandson of the first Lieutenant Governor Bull, had married Elizabeth Woodward, the only daughter of Richard Woodward (grandson of Dr. Woodward).”

18.  Hewatt.  Quoted by Salley.  20.

19.  Abbé Raynal.  Philosophical and Political History of the Possessions and Trade of Europeans in the Two Indies.  London: A. Strahan, 1798.  6:59.  Quoted by Salley.  23.

20.  John Drayton.  A View of South Carolina.  Charleston, South Carolina: W. P. Young, 1802.  Quoted by Salley.  21.

21.  Maham is discussed in the posts for 13 November 2022 and 20 November 2022.
22.  Drayton.  Quoted by Salley.  21.

23.  David Ramsay.  The History of South-Carolina.  Charleston, South Carolina: David Longworth, 1809.  Quoted by Salley.  21.

24.  Salley.  22.  The copy of Ramsay’s history available online does not contain a map. [38]

25.  W. Curtis Worthington.  “Ramsay, David.”  South Carolina Encyclopedia website, 20 June 2016; last updated 28 November 2016.

26.  M. L. Weems.  A History of the Life and Death, Virtues, and Exploits, of General George Washington.  Georgetown, DC: Green and English, 1800.

27.  M. L. Weems.  The Life of Gen. Francis Marion.  Philadelphia: Mathew Carey, 1809.

28.  “Weems, Mason Locke.”  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography Vol. 6. Sunderland-Zurita, edited by James Grant Wilson and John Fiske.  New-York: Appleton and Company, 1900.

29.  Richard Schulze.  Carolina Gold Rice: The Ebb and Flow History of a Lowcountry Cash Crop.  Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press, 2005.  23.

30.  Schulze.  23.
31.  Schulze.  23.
32.  Schulze.  23.
33.  Schulze.  26.

34.  Schultze.  26.  He claims Woodward “came down with the fever at an Indian village and was evacuated to his plantation where he died at age forty.

35.  Richard Dwight Porcher, Jr., and William Robert Judd.  The Market Preparation of Carolina Rice.  Columbia, South Carolina: The University of South Carolina Press, 2014.  17.

36.  Guy Mannering Fessenden.  “Burials at Warren and Barrington, R. I.”  The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 48:442–444:October 1894.  Quoted by Salley.  13.  Fessenden discovered Thurber was buried in Warren, Rhode Island, and noted he had brought the rice from India between 1694 and 1697.

37.  Salley’s source was John Houghton, who published A Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade.  He cites volume 2.  The periodical’s publisher was London’s Randal Taylor.

38.  Reprinted as Ramsay’s History of South Carolina.  Newberry, South Carolina: W. J. Duffie, 1858.  Discussion of Smith and rice is on pages 2:113–114.

Rice’s Origin Tale

Topic: Gullah History - Early Legends
Thomas Smith, mentioned in the post for 11 September 2022, governed at the time when South Carolina did not have a commercial crop.  Without a steady flow of income, settlers traded with pirates for hard currency [1] and, according to Peter Wood, occasional lots of slaves. [2]  Their tolerance changed when pirates disrupted the movement of their commodities.  Eugene Sirmans claims Smith was the “first governor to enjoy a lasting success in suppressing the pirate trade.” [3]

Rice, the first successful staple crop, was introduced at least three times: first in the early years of the colony, again after the revolution when planters needed to replace their lost seed grain, and then again when Joshua John Ward made his improved selection available in 1844. [4]

The first occurred before there were many written records and has become the subject of folk history; the second is remembered in family tradition, and the third, a commercial transaction, was recorded for all to know by the participants.

Alexander Salley found the only public record of what became the folk tradition was a 1715 entry in the journal of the House of Commons noting the body had agreed to pay a gratuity of one hundred pounds to John Thurber for “bringing the first Madagascar Rice into this province.” [5]

He found the first narrative explanation appeared sixteen years later in a pamphlet he attributed to Fayrer Hall, who had served in expeditions against pirates in 1718. [6]  Hall wrote the introduction of rice

“was owing to the following Accident.  A Brigantine from the Island Madagascar happened to put in there; they had a little Seed Rice left, not exceeding a Peck or Quarter of a bushel, which the Captain offered and gave to a Gentlemen of the Name of Woodward.  From Part of this he had a very good Crop, but was ignorant for some Years how to clean it.  It was soon dispensed over the Province; and by frequent Experiments and Observations they found out Ways of producing and manufacturing it to so great Perfection, that it is thought it exceeds any other in Value.  The Writer of this hath seen the Captain in Carolina, where he received a handsome gratuity from the Gentlemen of that Country.” [7]

The basic motifs of the folk narrative, told in several variants, are that:

1.  Someone, usually unnamed
2.  From Madagascar
3.  Through some accident, usually a shipwreck
4.  Gave, usually as a sign of gratitude
5.  To Woodward, or some other prominent person
6.  A peck or some other small amount of rice
7.  Which was distributed free to the other planters
8.  Who proved rice could grow in the colony

Item 1.  In the first retelling, the identity of Thurber was reduced to a sea captain, who was now the one from Madagascar.

Item 2.  Between the time Charles II granted Carolina to eight proprietors in 1663 and Thurber’s petition, Madagascar was not controlled by any western power.  When the Portuguese arrived, Swahili-speaking traders were shipping rice and slaves to the African and Arabian coasts. [8]  The Europeans made a few cursory attempts that primarily resulted in disrupting existing trade networks without replacing them. [9]  French attempts begun in 1643 [10] and English experiments in 1649 [11] ended in massacres.

The only westerners who visited the island after that were pirates.  Charles had used privateers as part of naval offence against Spain and Dutch. [12]  Later, peace treaties forced him to forbid Carolina from consorting with them. [13]  In 1683, Thomas Lynch, the governor of Jamaica, began discouraging pirates [14] who, he claimed, moved to the northern Carolina coast. [15] Alexander Hewat says Robert Quarry, governor for a few months in 1685, welcomed them to Charles Town in 1685. [16]

Charles’ brother, James II, became more assertive, [17] and dispatched a small fleet to Jamaica to arrest pirates in 1687. [18]  James Colleton then was governor of Charles Town, and he assured the proprietors that no “pirates nor other Sea Robbers” had been allowed in port. [19]  This, apparently, was when the pirates, now aware of Jamaica’s need for slaves, moved to Madagascar. [20]

With another turn of fortune, James was ousted by William of Orange in 1688, and Colleton by Seth Sothell in 1690. [21]  Sothell again welcomed pirates in Charles Town. [22]

Item 3.  Hall used the word “accident” to suggest the introduction was a chance, not deliberate act.  From the first the proprietors wanted to develop a colony and listed rice as one of the crops that was both suitable to the climate and congruent with the throne’s desire to establish a completely self-sufficient mercantile economy. [23]  In 1672, William Jeffereys sent a barrel of rice “for the prop. acct of the Lords Proprs of Carolina” which was received by the governor. [24]

Many of the early settlers never accepted the legitimacy of the proprietors and had thrown off their power in 1720.  The use of the word “accident,” like the hidden reference to pirates, may have been an attempt to suggest the proprietors had nothing to do with the introduction of rice as a crop and, by extension, the success of the colony.

Item 4.  The gift of rice may have alluded to some bribe paid by pirates to an authority in Charles Town.  It also may have been another attempt to contrast proper behavior with that of the proprietors.  The third governor of the colony, John Yeamans, shipped his surplus food to Barbados where he could make a profit rather than sell it to the settlers he’d brought with him who didn’t have enough to eat. [25]

Item 5.  Woodward is assumed to have been Henry Woodward.  He had come to the area on the exploratory voyage of 1666 [26] and stayed with the Natives on Port Royale sound. [27]  He was captured by the Spanish the next year. [28]  When Robert Searle raided Saint Augustine in 1668 Woodward escaped and stayed with the pirates until shipwrecked on Nevis in 1669. [29]

He returned to the area with the expedition that founded Charles Town in 1670, and explored the interior. [30]  As mentioned in the post for 21 August 2022, the proprietors were not happy with the progress of the colony and one, Anthony Ashley Cooper, planned a new venture on Edisto Island in 1674. [31]  He hired Woodward to establish trade relations with the Westo. [32]

Cooper may have snared Woodward into his political campaign against Roman Catholics, mentioned in the post for 11 September 2022.  In 1677, just before Cooper was jailed the first time, Woodward signed an agreement with Cooper and three of the proprietors’ heirs [33] to work as their agent for a 20% commission of the profits. [34]  Cooper later promoted a Scots settlement near Edisto. [35]  After Cooper’s death in 1683, Woodward supported the Yamasee and Stuart Town against the proprietors.  Woodward died sometime between 1685 and 1690. [36]

His ambiguous loyalties to pirates, proprietors, rebellious settlers and native Americans made him a figure suspect to all.  He’s the element in Hall’s narrative that became the least stable.

Item 6.  The quantity of rice usually struck the narrator as too small to explain the spread or variations in the crop, and so a second introduction was often mentioned, much like the story of Seth resolves problems of ancestry introduced by the fight between Cain and Abel.  Hall suggested that

“Mr. Du Bois, Treasurer of the East-India Company, did send to that Country a small Bag of Seed-Rice some short Time after, from whence it is reasonable enough to suppose might come these two Sorts of that Commodity, one called Red Rice in Contradistinction to the White.” [37]

This addendum introduces the remaining motifs in the origin tale:

9. A second introduction
10. Is responsible for the spread of the crop
11. And the visible variations in the rice

End Notes
1.  Pirates were mentioned by Alexander Hewat in the first history of the colony, [38] and the information was elaborated by William James Rivers. [39]  Edward McCrady went to some lengths to dispute the importance of piracy, while also trying to document its extent. [40]  Most recently, Eugene Sirmans addressed it in the context of factional politics. [41]

2.  Peter H. Wood.  Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carlina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion.  New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1974.  44.

3.  M. Eugene Sirmans.  Colonial South Carolina: A Political History 1663–1764.  Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1966.  54.

4.  Ward is discussed in the post for 6 August 2023.

5.  Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina.  Journal, 16 February 1715.  Quoted by A. S. Salley, Jr.  “The Introduction of Rice Culture into South Carolina.”  Bulletin of the Historical Commission of South Carolina.  Columbia, South Carolina: State Company, 1919.  Bulletin 6.  9.

6.  Salley.  10.

7.  Fayrer Hall.  The Importance of the British Plantations in America to this Kingdom.  London: J. Peele, 1731.  Quoted by Salley.  10.

8.  R. K. Kent.  “Madagascar and the Islands of the Indian Ocean.”  849–894 in Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century.  Edited by B. A. Ogot.  Paris: UNESCO, 1992.  859.

9.  The Cambridge History of Africa. IV: From c. 1600 to c. 1790.  Edited by Richard Gray.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.  231.  Kent said the Portuguese lost interest after 1620. [42]

10.  Kent.  864.  The French fort lasted until 1674.

11.  Alison Games.  “Oceans, Migrants, and the Character of Empires: English Colonial Schemes in the Seventeenth Century.”  Library of Congress conference on Seascapes, Littoral Cultures, and Trans-Oceanic Exchanges, 12 February–15 February 2003.  Visitors to the colony found slain bodies in 1650.

12.  After Charles I was executed, his son Charles commissioned privateers to attack English ships. [43] After he was crowned Charles II, he expected privateers to pay for his war with the Dutch by seizing their ships. [44]

13.  Wm. Jas. Rivers.  A Sketch of the History of South Carolina.  Charleston, South Carolina: McCarter and Company, 1856.  138.  147.  He mentions the 1670 Treaty of Madrid, which recognized England’s claim to Jamaica in exchange for suppressing “piracy in the Caribbean.” [45]

14.  Mark G. Hanna.  “Contesting Jamaica’s Future, 1655–1688.”  In Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire, 1570-1740.  Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015.  Online version does not have page numbers.

15.  Edward McCrady.  The History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, 1670-1719.  New York: The Macmillan Company, 1897.  204.

16.  Alexander Hewatt.  An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia.  London: A. Donaldson, 1779.  Volume 1, chapter 2, section “The toleration of pirates in Carolina.”  Quarry served from 1 July 1685 to Oct 1685. [46]

17.  Rivers.  147.
18.  Hanna.

19.  M. Eugene Sirmans.  Colonial South Carolina: A Political History 1663–1764.  Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1966.  45.  Colleton is mentioned in the post for 11 September 2022.

20.  Angus Konstam and Roger Michael Kean.  Pirates: Predators of the Seas.  New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2016.  219.

21.  Sothell was not named, but was alluded to in the post for 11 September 2022.
22.  Sirmans.  50.
23.  Salley.  5.
24.  Salley.  5.
25.  Yeamans’ tenure as governor is discussed in the post for 21 August 2022.

26.  McCrady.  83.  This account is based on the papers of Anthony Ashley Cooper, [47] which became public in 1897. [48]  Thus, Woodward is not mentioned by Hewat or David Ramsay, [49] and only briefly by Rivers.

27.  McCrady.  90.
28.  McCrady.  123.

29.  Joseph W. Barnwell.  “Dr. Henry Woodward, the First English Settler in South Carolina, and Some of His Descendants.”  The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 8(1):29–41:January 1907.  31.

30.  Barnwell.  32.

31.  L. H. Roper.  Conceiving Carolina: Proprietors, Planters, and Plots, 1662–1729.  New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.  48 and 174 note 144.

32.  McCrady.  177.  The arrangement was rejected by later settlers who precipitated a war that exterminated the tribe and replaced them with the Savannah. [50]

33.  George Monck died in 1669, and his son inherited his share of the proprietorship.  Edward Hyde died in 1674, and Sothel had purchased his part.  John Colleton still was represented by his son, Peter Colleton. [51]

34.  Rivers.  122.
35.  Roper.  73–81.
36.  Barnwell.  32.
37.  Hall.  Quoted by Salley.  11.
38.  Hewatt, Toleration of Pirates.  Hewat is discussed in the post for 12 June 2022.
39.  Rivers.  138.  He is discussed in the post for 12 June 2022.
40.  McCrady.  201.
41.  Sirmans.  40.
42.  Kent.  863.
43.  This is discussed in the post for 17 April 2022.

44.  Gijs Rommelse.  “Prizes and Profits: Dutch Maritime Trade during the Second Anglo-Dutch War.”  International Journal of Maritime History 19(2):139–159:2007.  Cited by “Anglo-Dutch Wars.”  Wikipedia website.  The war is mentioned in the post for 21 August 2022.

45.  “Treaty of Madrid (1670).”  Wikipedia website.
46.  “List of Colonial Governors of South Carolina.”  Wikipedia website.
47.  Barnwell.  30.

48.  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.

49.  David Ramsey.  The History of South-Carolina.  Charleston, South Carolina: David Longworth, 1809.  Reprinted as Ramsay’s History of South Carolina.  Newberry, South Carolina: W. J. Duffie, 1858.  He is discussed in the posts for 10 July 2022.

50.  Alan Gallay.  The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670–1717.  New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.  55.

51.  McCrady.  268.

Thomas Smith

Topic: Gullah History - Early Legends
The Charles Town colony survived the upheavals of John Yeamans.  It began to resemble the experiment envisioned by Anthony Ashley Cooper, with more new settlers coming from England than Barbados. [1]

South Carolina did not have a commercial crop that returned profits to the grant’s proprietors, but settlers had developed some trade with Barbados in dried meat, animal skins purchased from friendly Native Americans, and slaves taken from hostile groups.  Many still preferred evading the Navigation Laws by patronizing pirates, and a vocal group continued to resent any interference in their lives by the proprietors who owned the land.

Joan Atkins may have been typical of the second generation of immigrants.  The widow arrived in the summer of 1684 with her four children and several servants.  She had sufficient resources to purchase 1,600 acres from Benjamin Waring ten days after she registered with the colony. [2]  He had arrived the year before with a large retinue, and claimed 700 acres. [3]

Her daughter Barbara and her husband and two sons may have lived there until early 1685 when Thomas Smith claimed 650 acres for the entire group. [4]  By then, he had had an opportunity to reconnoiter the area, for he selected land up river from Goose Creek at the junction of Back River with the Cooper.  Later that year, he protested a proposal to cut a canal through his land because he would lose marsh land he used to graze cattle. [5]

Raising livestock was the occupation for poor settlers who shipped four tons of dried meat to Barbados in 1680.  They began with their head-right claims and an animal purchased from another settler.  As the animals increased, they invested their profits in more land or, later, labor. [6]

Since colonist foraged their hogs and cattle on unclaimed woodlands along waterways, [7] they selected “high ground overlooking navigable streams” for their homes. [8]  Smith’s river location provided a natural pasture that needed no fences.

By 1687 he had accumulated enough capital to become active in politics.  James Colleton, the brother of the proprietor Peter Colleton, [9] was battling entrenched colonists who defied the proprietor’s rules.  As governor, he appointed a committee to recommend changes in the constitution, and included men he saw as allies.  Smith was one of the group. [10]

The proprietors’ interest in the colony fluctuated.  Many had died and been replaced by heirs or their agents; some had sold their shares. [11]  Cooper got embroiled in plots to prevent Charles the Second’s Roman Catholic brother James from succeeding to the throne.  He was in and out of jail between 1678 and his death in 1683. [12]

In 1681, Cooper began actively promoting Carolina as a refuge for Protestant dissidents in London, Dublin, the United Provinces, and the Palatinate.  It was in this period that Huguenots began moving to the north of Charleston [13].

Johan van Aerssen was granted 12,000 acres [14] to bring a group from Wernhout in Brabant.  Andrew Johnson and Carolyn Arena have shown Johan and his cousin, Cornelis van Aerssen, were planning a colony in Surinam to be supported by the one on the mainland. [15]  Unfortunately, Johan died in 1688, [16] before he could begin his part.

Soon after, the then widowed Smith married van Aerssen’s widow. [17]  He had her husband’s land grant transferred to him in 1689. [18]  This acquisition placed him among Charles Town’s elite.

James Colleton’s governorship straddled the years from Charles II to the ouster of James II by William of Orange.  When colonists rebelled against Colleton, the Proprietors made Smith a landgrave [19] in anticipation of naming him governor in 1690.  [20]   Instead, a man who had purchased a share in the grant took power until 1692. [21]  When the next governor left in November 1694, Smith rose to the office. [22]  It was more than anyone could handle. [23]  He resigned in November 1694, and died soon after. [24]

Smith may have been the first governor with the background similar to that of many of the settlers, but he only interests historians as a pawn in the conflict between the proprietors and the group who called themselves the Goose Creek Men.  They make no comment on his background, except to assume he was a dissenter. [25]

Few facts exist about Smith’s early life.  Agnes Leland Baldwin says he and the Atkins provided no information when they registered with the colony. [26]  His descendants, naturally, wanted to know more, and when details do not exist, legends fill crevices.

In 1855, Smith’s great-great-great-granddaughter published a family history that said Smith was born in Exeter, and emigrated with his brother James, who moved to Boston. [27]  Before he left England, Smith married a young baroness, the widow of “Bernard Schencking, whose brother Benjamin accompanied them.” [28]  They settled on the Back River where they “engaged in the art of arts, agriculture, without which man would be a savage.” [29]

Four generations of oral tradition had kept a few details — Smith knew someone named Benjamin and married an heiress — but interwove them with suppositions and received history.  Poyas took her recitation of Smith’s career from Ramsey. [30]

Her or Ramsay’s mention of Exeter prompted others to look for a suitable Smith ancestor.  They lit upon the heirs of George Smith.  This is the same Smith, mentioned in the post for 3 July 2022, who refused to honor the marriage contract of his daughter with George Monck.  George’s son Nicholas had five sons, one of whom was named John.  Compton Reade reprints the pedigree Nicholas registered in 1620, [31] and marks John has the “ancestor of the Landgrave of Carolina.” [32]

The only mention of a location in England was made by Joan’s son Aaron’s wife Mary.  She named a number of relatives in Chard and on the Isle of Wight. [33]  Chard was  a textile community over the border from Devon on the watershed between the Bristol and English Channels. [34]  It was near the area that bred Henry Walrond. [35]

Most of the genealogies for Smith that have been posted on the internet follow Reade.  Constance Fenimore Woolson tried to make the brother James into the ancestor of Abigail Adams in 1875. [36]  Another spent a great deal of space trying to avoid the term “incest” because Smith mentioned Joan as his mother.  While Alexander Salley warned about the problems with kinship terms in the seventeenth century, [37] they apparently did not think about “mother” being an endearment for “mother-in-law.” [38]

Genealogies depend of written documentation.  So far, no baptismal or marriage records have been found.  That may be because people only have looked in Exeter, and may not exist if his parents were dissenters.  However, until something is found, he remains one of the many men without history who arrived in Carolina, some as indentured servants, and some with the resources to hire them.  Woolson, the great-niece of another author of American legends, [39] calls Smith “one of Locke’s Carolina nobility.” [40]

End Notes
References to multiple historians are given in chronological order.  This follows the pattern established in the posts for 19 June 2022 and 10 July 2022.

1.  Yeamans and Cooper are discussed in the post for 21 August 2022.

2.  A. S. Salley, Jr.  “The Family of the First Landgrave Thomas Smith.”  The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 28(3):169–175:July 1927.  169.

3.  Joseph Ioor Waring.  “Waring Family.”  The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 24(2):81–100:July–October 1923.  81.

4.  Salley.  169.

5.  Michael J. Heitzler.  Goose Creek.  Volume One: Planters, Politicians and Patriots.  Charleston: The History Press, 2005.  83.  He says Smith lived on Goose Creek

6.  John Solomon Otto.  “Livestock-Raising in Early South Carolina, 1670-1700: Prelude to the Rice Plantation Economy.”  Agricultural History 61:(4):13–24:Autumn, 1987.  20.  Otto noted “given the small investment, livestock-raising provided a means of economic advancement for even the poorest settlers.” [46]

7.  Otto.  16.
8.  Otto.  18.

9.  James Colleton is the one mentioned in the post for 10 July 2022 who was born after his father, John Colleton, left Exeter.  Peter Colleton is discussed in the posts for 26 Jule 2022 and 21 August 2022.  J. E. Buchanan thinks it was another, Edward, was the one involved in the duel with the son of John Yeamans mentioned in the post for 21 August 2022. [47]

10.  Alexander Hewatt.  An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia.  London: A. Donaldson, 1779.  Volume 1, chapter 3, section A.D. 1687.

Edward McCrady.  The History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, 1670-1719.  New York: The Macmillan Company, 1897.  225.

11.  McCrady.  268–272.

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

13.  Roper.  69–70.
14.  McCrady.  170

15.  D. Andrew Johnson and Carolyn Arena.  “Building Dutch Suriname in English Carolina: Aristocratic Networks, Native Enslavement, and Plantation Provisioning in the Seventeenth-Century Americas.”  Journal of Southern History 86:(1):37–74:February 2020.  Aerssen’s name and title often are misspelled.

16.  Brabants Historisch Informatie Centrum entry for Johan van Aerssen II on Netherlands Archiven website.

17.  Wm. Jas. Rivers.  A Sketch of the History of South Carolina.  Charleston, South Carolina: McCarter and Company, 1856.  170.  He calls him John D’Arens.

18.  McCrady.  266.  He calls him John d’Arsens, Seigneur de Wernhaut.

19.  The charter for Carolina granted by Charles II allowed the proprietors to establish a nobility so long as they used different titles.  Thus, the head proprietor was the palitinate.  Below him were landgraves and caciques.  Each title brought a right to land.  As in England, where the governor of a an overseas colony was expected to have a title, so too a governor was expected to be a landgrave.  As mentioned in the post for 21 August 2022, Yeamans gained his title when he was named governor of the Clarendon colony on Cape Fear.

20.  Hewatt.  Chapter 3, section Thomas Smith appointed governor.

David Ramsey.  The History of South-Carolina.  Charleston, South Carolina: David Longworth, 1809.  Reprinted as Ramsay’s History of South Carolina.  Newberry, South Carolina: W. J. Duffie, 1858.  1:25.

McCrady.  231.

21.  Ramsay.  1:22.
Rivers.  155.
McCrady.  231.

M. Eugene Sirmans.  Colonial South Carolina: A Political History 1663–1764.  Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1966.  48.

22.  McCrady.  266.

David Duncan Wallace.  The History of South Carolina.  New York: American Historical Society, 1934.  1:124.

Sirmans.  53.

23.  Charles M. Andrews.  The Colonial Period of American History: The Settlements III.  New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937.  233.  “It was more than anyone could handle.”

24.  Hewatt.  Chapter 3, section John Archdale appointed governor.
McCrady.  267.

25.  Ramsay. 2: 113.  His source was probably a descendant of Smith, since he supports this section with a note that “a tradition has been regularly handed down among the descendants of Thomas Smith.”

Sirmans.  40 and 53.

26.  Agnes Leland Baldwin.  First Settlers of South Carolina, 1670–1700.  Easley, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1985.  Atkins, 7; Smith, 217, 219.

27.  Elizabeth Anne Poyas as the Octogenarian Lady, of Charleston, S. C.  The Olden Time of Carolina.  Charleston, South Carolina: Courtenay and Company, 1855.  3.

28.  Poyas.  18.
29.  Poyas.  19.

30.  She specifically quotes Ramsay on Smith’s role in jury trials that Ramsay had attributed to Smith family tradition.  Since she was born in 1792, she was too young to be Ramsay’s source.  

31.  Nich. Smyth.  “Smyth.”  264–265 in The Visitation of the County of Devon in the Year 1620, edited by Frederic Thomas Colby.  London: Taylor and Company, 1872.  George’s father married into a family that traced itself back to Edward I.

32.  Compton Reade.  The Smith Family.  London: Eliot Stock, 1904.  56.

33.  Mary Atkins.  Will, 1684.  Quoted by Salley.  172–174.

34.  Clare Gathercole.  An Archaeological Assessment of Chard.  Taunton, UK: Somerset County Council.  Available on Somerset Heritage website.

35.  Henry Walrond is mentioned in the post for 17 April 2022.

36.  Constance Fenimore Woolson.  “Up the Ashley and Cooper.”  Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 52(307):1–24:December 1875.  She was a northerner who toured the south when she spent her winters in Saint Augustine, Florida. [48]  She borrowed from Poyas.

37.  Salley.  174.  “It would all be very simple but for the fact that at the time of making of these records brother-in-law was used interchangeably with half-brother and step-brother, and nephew was used interchangeably with cousin.”

38.  Aaron Atkins.  Will, 1684.  Quoted by Salley.  171.  He says “my brother in Law Mr Thomas Smith” and further identified him as the father of Atkins’ “two nephews Thomas and George.”  After disposing of his goods, he names “Tho: Smith my Deare brother” as his executrix.”

39.  She was a grand-niece of James Fenimore Cooper. [49]

40.  Woolson.  15.  John Locke was the secretary to Cooper, and responsible for writing much of the colony’s governing constitution. [50]

45.  “Thomas Smith (Governor of South Carolina).”  Wikipedia website.  This proposes that the son of Nicholas Smith of Exeter married Joan Atkins, mother of Thomas Smith’s wife.

46.  Otto.  21.

47.  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.

48.  “Constance Fenimore Woolson.”  Wikipedia website.
49.  Wikipedia, Woolson.
50.  Roper.

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.