Leading Facts of American History

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98
LEADING FACTS OF AMERICAN HISTORY
[1670-1680

associates. Out of compliment to the King the territory was called Carolina.¹ On the coast it embraced the entire region now included in the states of North and South Carolina, Georgia, and a part of Florida; like Virginia (§ 43), Massachusetts (§ 77), and Connecticut (§ 98), it extended westward to the Pacific.
   115. Settlement of Charleston; the Huguenots. The first settlement direct from England was made (1670) on the banks of the Ashley River, in the southern part of Carolina.
   Ten years later (1680) the colonists moved across to the peninsula between the Ashley and Cooper rivers, and there laid the foundations of the city of Charleston.
   From the outset the Company granted religious liberty to all colonists. One of the results of that wise policy was that many Huguenots, or French Protestants (§ 23), fled to Carolina to escape the terrible persecution to which they were subject in their native land. No better class of emigrants could have been desired. They represented not only the best bone and sinew, but the best intellect and conscience of France. They brought with them that power and influence which spring not from rank or money but from character.
   A hundred years later, two of the descendants of those South Carolina Huguenots -- Henry Laurens,² the statesman,

    ¹Carolina: the name was originally given to the country by Charles IX of France at the time of the attempted French settlements (§ 23), and was retained out of honor to the English king Charles II. The name was derived from Carolus, Latin for Charles. It was customary for kings to employ the Latin form for their names.
   ²Henry Laurens: he was the fourth president of the Continental Congress (1777) and was one of the commissioners sent to Paris to sign the treaty of peace with Great Britain at the close of the Revolution.

1693-1712 ]
NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA
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and General Marion,¹ the noble Revolutionary leader -- won imperishable renown by their services in the cause of American liberty.
   116. The "Grand Model"; Division of the Territory into North and South Carolina. Meantime (1670), the eminent English philosopher, John Locke, had drafted a constitution for Carolina, called the "Grand Model."
   The "Grand Model" established a nobility who practically held all power. It also set up courts of justice intended to regulate everything from the gravest questions of law down to the cut of a man's coat, or the trimming of a woman's bonnet.
   This remarkable constitution gave the common people no rights. They could not vote; they could not hold landed property; they could not even leave the soil they tilled, without permission from the nobleman who owned it. When a wealthy planter bought a tract of land in Carolina he expected to purchase the white laborers on it: they, like the trees and the stones, were considered a part of the estate.
   But most of the inhabitants of the territory decidedly objected to the "Grand Model" They were resolved to own themselves, to own the labor of their hands, to own all the land they could honestly buy, and, lastly, to make their own laws. After twenty years of contest they succeeded. The colony was eventually divided (1712) into North and South Carolina, and from that time until the Declaration of Independence (1776) each was subject to a governor appointed by the King.
   117. Growth of the Two Colonies; Introduction of Rice and Indigo Culture; Charleston. The growth of North Carolina was very slow, and the manufacture of pitch, tar, and turpentine did not tend to build up large towns.
   In South Carolina, Charleston made little progress for the first twenty years. But about that time (1693) the Captain of a vessel coming from the Far East gave the Governor of the colony a bag of rice to plant as an experiment. He distributed the rice

   ¹General Marion: one of the heroes of the War of Independence (§ 184). His epitaph declares with entire truth that he "lived without fear, and died without reproach."

100
LEADING FACTS OF AMERICAN HISTORY
[1741

among the planters and they set their slaves to raising it. In time South Carolina became the largest rice-producing and rice exporting state in the Union.
   Next, a lady living near Charleston planted a little indigo 0741). The frost killed it. She planted more and the worms destroyed it. She began again and this time she succeeded. To the colonists the news of her crop, small as it was, was like the report of the discovery of a gold mine. Indigo then brought in Europe sometimes a dollar and a half a pound; and shortly before the Revolution Charleston exported over a million pounds in a single year. After the Revolution (1793) cotton (§ 205) was found to be even more profitable than indigo, and so the culture of that plant was given up.
   The exportation of rice and indigo made the city grow rapidly. Josiah Quincy of Boston visited it (1773), and said of it, "In almost everything it far surpasses all I ever saw or ever expected to see in America."
   118. Summary. Carolina, which was eventually divided into North and South Carolina, was settled by emigrants from Virginia, by English, and also by Huguenots, or French Protestants. General Marion of the Revolution was a descendant from a Huguenot family. The English Company owning the province undertook to govern it by a constitution called the "Grand Model," but the people refused to accept it and insisted on

1681 ]
GRANT TO. WILLIAM PENN
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governing themselves. North Carolina engaged in the manufacture of tar, pitch, and turpentine; South Carolina began the culture of rice and indigo, both of which proved highly profitable. At the time of the Revolution Charleston was one of the chief cities of America.

XII. PENNSYLVANIA (1681)

   119. Grant of Pennsylvania to William Penn; the "Holy Experiment." Charles II owed William Penn, the most influential of the English Friends, or Quakers (§ 83), a large sum of money. As that good-natured but extravagant monarch always contracted as many debts as possible and paid as few, Penn suggested to his Majesty that he might easily settle his claim by granting him a tract of land in America. The proposition pleased the King and he gave Penn a territory of about forty-eight thousand square miles fronting on the Delaware River. Charles named this vast region (which was nearly as large as the whole of England) Pennsylvania, or Penn's Woods. Penn was well known in Europe for his fair dealing. Everybody had confidence in him. For this reason not only English Quakers but many Germans got ready to emigrate to Pennsylvania.
   In those woods Penn resolved to begin what he called his "Holy Experiment." He set out to establish a "free colony" on the basis of that Golden Rule which commands us to do unto others as we wish them to do unto us. The Quaker founder thought that even the North American savages could understand that principle and would let the people who practiced it grow up in peace. The King suggested that the savages would be more likely to respect a well-armed regiment of soldiers; but Penn had

101
LEADING FACTS OF AMERICAN HISTORY
[1638

1681-1683]
THE "GREAT LAW"
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