Part 9 (1/2)

1695-96.

5. Thomas Harvey ruled next in Albemarle, while John Archdale, a wise and benevolent Quaker, was put in charge of all the settlements in what was North Carolina, and also those on Cooper and Ashley Rivers, in South Carolina. In the year 1696 a severe pestilential fever visited all the tribes of Indians along Pamlico Sound and destroyed nearly all of them. The Colonists, soon after this, feeling somewhat safer from Indian attacks, began to form settlements southward.

1704.

6. Henderson Walker succeeded to the rule by virtue of his place as President of the Council. After him Colonel Robert Daniel, who had made reputation in an expedition against the Spaniards in Florida, became, in 1704, the Governor of the province.

7. Governor Daniel was probably the mistaken and ignorant agent of Lord Carteret, who happened then to be the Palatine, or chief of the Lords Proprietors, in a foolish effort at reform.

Carteret, like James II., was by no means a pattern in morality, but became impressed with his duty to cause the a.s.sembly to pa.s.s a law making the Episcopal Church the State Church in the province, as it was in England.

8. The Baptists and Quakers were numerous, and both of these sects were sternly opposed to any such regulation. The law was pa.s.sed in spite of their votes to the contrary, and provided for building churches, buying glebe lands, and public taxation to pay the rectors' salaries, but did not visit any disqualification or punishment upon nonconformists. The first Episcopal preacher arrived at Albemarle in 1703, and the first church was built in 1705, in Chowan county.

9. These persons, who were not members of the Episcopal Church, said they were already paying for the support of their pastors, and at once declared that they would not submit to the injustice of paying money to men who were the leaders in the persecutions of Baptists and Quakers in England and America.

10. The Presbyterians of South Carolina sent John Ashe, of that section, to London to resist the confirmation of the law, and Edmund Porter was sent, for the same purpose, by the people of Albemarle. Ashe died in London before he knew of his success.

Both Queen Anne and the House of Lords denounced the innovation as unjust and impolitic, and the law was therefore annulled by Her Majesty in her privy council.

11. It was thus, year by year, that the Carolinians kept up their struggle for freedom and equality before the law. The ocean stretched between them and the men who sought their oppression, and large expenditures, both in money and heartwearing efforts, were undergone, as the dangerous and alarming years went by; but these men of the woods never wavered in their determination to be free.

QUESTIONS.

1. Who was sent from England to succeed John Culpepper as Governor of Carolina? Who followed Governor Harvey in office?

What was the condition of affairs in the colony under these Governors?

2. Who became Governor in 1681? Who was Seth Sothel, and why was he selected?

3. What befell Sothel on his way to Carolina? What kind of man was Governor Sothel? What did the people do?

4. Who next took charge of Carolina? What important thing was accomplished under this administration?

5. Who was Governor in 1696? Who had charge of all the settlements?

6. What two Governors are next mentioned?

7. Whose agent was Governor Daniel? What law was pa.s.sed by the a.s.sembly?

8. What two religious sects were strongest opposers of the act?

What was provided for in the statute?

9. What complaint was made by the Baptists and Quakers?

10. Who was sent to London in the interest of the Presbyterians?

What man from Albemarle? What was the success of the mission to London?

11. What was the almost constant struggle of the people of Carolina?

CHAPTER XV.