ernor of Albemarle had been appointed by Sir William Berkeley, the governor of Virginia, and one of the eight lords proprietors of the new province, as usual in an English colony in America, trouble broke out between the colonists and their government. That mischievous Navigation Act, which had been the exciting cause of Bacon's rebellion in Virginia, and Bacon at that time had looked to Albemarle to furnish him assistance to defy the power of the Crown, was to drive the Carolinians to open rebellion. A lucrative trade was carried on between the settlers on Albemarle Sound and the New Englanders, and their vessels were constantly crossing the short stretch of blue water to the West Indies, where they exchanged Virginia tobacco and cattle and lumber for rum and molasses and sugar, which could be sold in Europe for a round profit. It was profitable for every one concerned except the lords proprietors, who gained nothing by it, and as the colony existed for the enrichment of the men who owned it, according to the economic philosophy of the day, attempts were made to break up what was regarded as an illicit trade and divert it into its legitimate channels. At the end of the year 1677, a vessel arrived from the North with a cargo of rum and molasses, but as soon as her skipper landed he was arrested by the governor and held in £1,000 bail for a violation of the Navigation Act. Culpeper, a turbulent spirit, incited the mob to resist the governor, who, together with the council, were

seized and locked up, and Culpeper proclaimed governor, new justices appointed, and a de facto government set up, which existed for two years.

There was constant turmoil for many years. Attempts on the part of governors to establish the Church of England were stoutly resisted by the Dissenters; but Englishmen of all creeds made common cause in attempting to exclude the Huguenots from the franchise. The Indians, a treacherous and vindictive foe, were encouraged by the Spaniards to regard the English as their natural enemies. North Carolina marks the beginning of that important Scotch immigration which has left such a marked impress upon America; and there came also Germans from the Rhine provinces. The older colonies were colonized by Englishmen, and the first work of settlement was done and the government established without the assistance of men alien to their race. The younger colonies gave welcome to Germans and French and Scotch and Irish, and from that time the foreign element has never ceased to flow in a steady stream across the Atlantic.

North Carolina demands very little more attention at our hands. During the proprietary period the people clung to the coast and were behind the other colonies in their civilization. "Of all the thirteen colonies North Carolina was the least commercial, the most provincial, the farthest removed from European influences, and its wild

forest life the most unrestrained. Every colony had its frontier, its borderland between civilization and savagery; but North Carolina was composed entirely of frontier. The people were impatient of legal restraints and averse to paying taxes; but their moral and religious standard was not below that of the other colonies. The freedom was the freedom of the Indians, or the wild animal, not that of the criminal and the outlaw. Here truly was life in the primeval forest, at the core of nature's heart. There were no cities, scarcely villages. The people were farmers or woodsmen, they lived apart, scattered through the wilderness; their highways were the rivers and bays, and their homes were connected by narrow trails winding among the trees. Yet the people were happy in their freedom and contented with their lonely isolation." We may question the assertion that their moral and religious standard was not below that of other colonies, and regard the conclusion of another writer as more nearly describing their condition: "North Carolina, the poorest, most backward, and ignorant of all the colonies, was virtually a community of small proprietors living squalidly on the products of their own farms, and occasionally exporting their surplus products, pork, cattle, and tar."

It was characteristic of these turbulent, lawless people that they should not only have taken a 1 Elson: History of the United States, p. 87.

Cambridge Modern History, vol. vii, p. 56.

leading part in the Revolution but have anticipated it. On May 31, 1775, more than a year before the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, the people of Mecklenburg County adopted a resolution declaring that British authority had ceased, and officers were chosen to act independently of the Crown and Parliament. An attempt has been made by some writers to prove that the language of the Declaration of Independence adopted at Philadelphia was virtually a paraphrase of the Mecklenburg resolution, but the weight of evidence does not sustain this ingenious theory. The action of these fiery Mecklenburgers is an interesting side light, but without significance. They obtained no support from the rest of North Carolina, and events were neither hastened nor retarded by their defiance of English authority.

South Carolina demands closer study because of the great part it played in all that has gone to produce American development and the influence it has exercised on political and social institutions. About the time that "Rogue's Harbor" was giving haven to its derelicts the proprietors of the Carolinas established a settlement at Cape Fear, a hundred and sixty miles south of Albemarle. We need not again refer to it. The settlement disappeared and became merged into Charleston, from which sprung South Carolina. With the purpose of building up a community that should be self-sustaining, a grant of one hundred and fifty acres was given to every

freeman who went out at his own cost, with a like amount for every man servant, and one hundred acres for every woman servant he brought with him, and at the expiration of their terms of service each servant was to be given a hundred acres. Ablebodied men willing to work, but without money, were supplied with food, clothes, and tools. Realizing the sturdy character of the New Englander and noting how he had prospered, the proprietors attempted to induce immigration from the North and reproduce the social conditions existing there rather than those of Virginia and Maryland. Impressed with the economic importance of a colony of towns, they did everything to encourage urban life and check the acquisition of great estates. Some immigrants were attracted from New England, but they left little mark on the province, and recruiting went on actively everywhere, producing a very mixed population in the early days. Englishmen came from England and the Bahamas and the Barbadoes, Dutchmen from New York, Huguenots from France, Scotch and Irish from their own countries, Virginians and North Carolinians drifted in. In nationality they were no less different than they were in temperament and condition, but America has ever been the crucible to fuse the elements of race and amalgamate them into nationality, and what took place in South Carolina at the end of the seventeenth century foreshadowed on a grander scale a more important movement a century later.