1663 - The Founding Charter of Carolina

Map of Carolina

January 4, 1663 - Ambrose Dixon (c. 1619 - April 12, 1687), a settler from Somerset County, Virginia, decides to take refuge in Maryland to escape the persecutions arising against the Quakers. He moves with his family to Annemessex. Other Quakers will soon join him.

January 6, 1663 - Mary Barnes appears before the Court of Hartford for witchcraft. She is, that very day, convicted and sentenced to death.

The wife of Nicolas Barnes, a farmer from Farmington, she was also cited by the young Ann Cole alongside Nicolas and the Rebecca Greensmith as responsible for her epileptic seizures. No evidence was really against her but, although a mother of three children, she definitely paid for a turbulent past with her husband, often mixed with violence and disputes with neighbors or servants.

January 25, 1663 - Convicted of witchcraft, Nathaniel Greensmith, his wife Rebecca and Mary Barnes are all three hanged in Hartford.

They had been accused by a young girl named Ann Cole who suffered for several years from epileptic fits and had declared that she was under their influence. The Greensmith spouses recognized their sin but Mary Barnes never stopped claiming her innocence.

January 26, 1663 - New England and New Netherlands are struck by a strong earthquake.
It is in New France, particularly in the Quebec region, that was situated the epicenter of the earthquake. Natural damages are considerable but no victim is to regret.

Long Island Sound with Gardiner Island

March 2, 1664 - Lion Gardiner dies at age 64 at East Hampton, Long Island.

Settled since 1639 on the island of Manchonat that he had bought from the Montaukett tribe, he had made it a plantation independent of any colonial government, Dutch as well as English, with its own religious and civil laws. He had called it Isle of Wight before it becomes Gardiners Island.
It was there that he wrote in 1660 Relation of the Pequot Indians Warres the manuscript of which was published in 1833.

cf: US Timeline May, 1639

March 24, 1663 - King Charles II creates the territory of Carolina between Virginia and Florida (from the 31st to the 36th parallel) to reward the loyal courtiers who helped him ascend the throne. Among the eight beneficiaries stands Lord Chancellor Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, 54-year-old. The new landlords appoint William Sayle as governor of the colony who expresses them the potential that can represent plantations in the Bahamas.

April, 1663 - John Winthrop, Jr. is re-elected governor of Connecticut.

April 6, 1663 - King Charles II signs the founding charter of Carolina. 

CHARLES the Second, by the grace of God, king of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c., To all to whom these present shall come: Greeting:

Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon
(1609-1674)

…. 2nd " … whereas the said Edward Earl of Clarendon, George Duke of Albemarle, William Lord Craven, John Lord Berkley, Anthony Lord Ashley, Sir George Carteret, Sir William Berkley, and Sir John Colleton have humbly besought us to give, grant and confirm unto them and their heirs, the said country, with priviledges and jurisdictions requisite for the good government and safety thereof: Know ye, therefore, that we, favouring the pious and noble purpose of the said Edward Earl of Clarendon, George Duke of Albemarle, William Lord Craven, John Lord Berkley, Anthony Lord Ashley, Sir George Carteret, Sir William Berkley, and Sir John Colleton, of our special grace, certain knowledge and meer motion, have given, granted atoll confirmed, and by this our present charter, for us, our heirs and successors, do give, grant and confirm unto the said Edward Earl of Clarendon, George Duke of Albemarle, William Lord Craven, Atolls Lord Berkley, Anthony Lord Ashley, Sir George Carteret, Sir William Berkley, and Sir John Colleton, their heirs and assigns, all that territory or tract of ground, scituate, lying and being within our dominions of America, extending from the north end of the island called Lucke island, which lieth in the southern Virginia seas, and within six and thirty degrees of the northern latitude, and to the west as far as the south seas, and so southerly as far as the river St. Matthias, which bordereth upon the coast of Florida, and within one and thirty degrees of northern latitude, and so west in a direct line as far as the south seas aforesaid; together with all and singular ports, harbours, bays, rivers, isles and islets belonging to the country aforesaid; and also all the soil, lands, fields, woods, mountlills, fields, lakes, rivers, bays and islets, scituate or being within the bounds or limits aforesaid, with the fishing of all sorts of fish, whales, sturgeons and all other royal fishes in the sea, bays, islets and rivers within the premises, and the fish therein taken; and moreover all veins, mines, quarries, as well discovered as not discovered, of gold, silver, gems, precious stones, and all other whatsoever, be it of stones, metals, or any other thing whatsoever, found or to be found within the countries, isles and limits aforesaid…..”

The beneficiaries of the charter:

George Monk , 1st Duke of Albemarle
(1608-1670)

Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon (February 18, 1609, Dinton, Wiltshire - December 9, 1674), Minister of the Exchequer and member of the Privy Council of King Charles 1, he remained at his side throughout all the Civil War. He then followed young Charles II during his exile and was appointed by him Big Chancellor of England in 1657, a distinction he held after the Restoration.

George Monck, 1st Duke of Albermarle (December 6, 1608 - January 3, 1670), this son of the Devonshire aristocracy commited himself, from his youth, to a military career. Engaged with the Royalists during the Civil war, he sided with Oliver Cromwell after the execution of Charles 1st and was given, from 1650, regimental command in the "New Model Army" before being upgraded lieutenant general of artillery. He took therefore an active part in various military operations during the first Anglo-Dutch War and severely suppressed a royalist uprising in Scotland. After the death of Cromwell, he supported at first his son Richard before preparing the return of Charles II, aware of the mess into which was moving the country. He took care to welcome personally the new king at Dover on May 25, 1660. By appreciation, his regiment was the only one of Cromwell’s army not to be dissolved after the Restoration.

William Craven (1606-1697)

William, Lord Craven (1606-1697) born into a poor family from North Yorkshire, he had become a wealthy man in London where he chaired the Committee for Fisheries. Craven had fought for King of Bohemia Frederick V on the continent and had fallen in love with his wife Queen Elisabeth, the elder daughter of King James 1st. He contributed widely to the backing of the war led by Charles 1st and remained throughout his life a loyal supporter of the Stuarts.

John, Lord Berkeley (1607-1678) served in the royal army during the Civil War and followed young Charles II during his exile. He was his friend and close adviser as well that that of his brother the Duke of York. He was raised in 1658 to the rank of 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton.

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Lord Ashley
(1621-1683)

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Lord Ashley (1621-1683) had inherited from the barony of his father and sat in the Parliament when the Civil War broke out. He first supported the king then served in the Council of State under Cromwell before helping finally George Monck to restore King Charles II. He was in 1661 appointed Baron Ashley and chosen as Chancellor of the Exchequer in charge of the royal treasury.

Sir George Carteret
(1610-1681)

Sir George Carteret (c. 1610-1680) served in his youth in the Royal Navy and became afterward Jersey Island’s governor. When Charles 1st was executed, he proclaimed king his son Charles II, what the latter remembered when he was restored on the throne eleven years later. Become a baron, Carteret held then various positions as that of vice - chamberlain of the king’s bedchamber.

Sir William Berkeley (1605-1677) the brother of Lord John Berkeley and a staunch supporter of King Charles 1st during the Civil war, he had been governor of Virginia from 1640 to 1652 and had just been restored in this office since the Restoration of the Monarchy.

Sir John Colleton (1608-1666) had supported Charles 1st during the Civil War. He left to the Barbados after the Parliament made seize his properties. Raised to the rank of baron by King Charles II, Colleton was also a member of the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa which held, for England, a monopoly on slave trade and shipped about 5000 slaves a year to America. 

April 7, 1663 - the delegates from Connecticut and Rhode Island find an agreement regarding the partition of the Narragansett country. It is decided that the Pawcatuck, also known as the Narragansett River will now mark the border between both provinces.

April 7, 1663 - Evert Hendickson, a Finnish settler of Delaware is judged before the Altena Court of Justice for various felonies. He is being sentenced to the banishment by Director William Beekman and the magistrates of the colony.

Evert was, however, back in the colony in June to sell his house and then left to settle down in New Amstel.

June 3, 1663 - Thomas Prence is re-elected governor of Plymouth for the 7th consecutive year.

June, 1663 - John Endecott, then 75-year-old, is re-appointed as governor of Massachusetts.

June 7, 1663 - The Esopus Indians burn the village of Nieuw Dorp (present day Hurley) on the banks of the Hudson River and attack the Wiltwijk settlement. They burn down a dozen houses, kill 18 colonists whose wife of the secretary of the court Matheus Capito and capture 45 Dutch settlers.

It was at first a question of peace talks and the Indians had required that these take place unarmed. Actually, it was nothing but trickery because once in the village remained open to welcome them, the Natives had free hands to carry out their plan.

Director Peter Stuyvesant appealed for volunteers and made Captain Martin Kregier responsible for leading the armed detachment to Wiltwijk. This included 12 soldiers, 41 volunteers, 30 Indians and 7 Africans.

After destroying two forts as well as crops, they killed more than thirty Esopus warriors and succeeded in saving 22 captives including Catherine Dubois, a rebel prisoner the Indians were about to burn alive. The survivors of the tribe reached to take refuge in the Wappinger.

June 10, 1663 - Sir John Colleton tells the Duke of Albermale that the people who wish to settle in Carolina are prevented by the Duke of Norfolk who claims this province on behalf of a patent granted in 1629 by King Charles 1^ST to Sir Robert Heath whose family has since inherited. From his part, Samuel Vassall claims to have received rights on Carolina remained valid to this day from the heirs of Sir Richard Grenville that would have given up to them Sir Robert Heath.

The answer was not long in coming and it was proved that within 35 years, the province of Carolina had not been subjected to any plantation. The charter granted to the late Sir Robert Heath was therefore void.

July 8, 1663 - King Charles II grants a charter to the Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. This charter written by Dr John Clarke on which has just been affixed the royal seal is particularly liberal and guarantees especially full religious freedom.

July 27, 1663 - the third law on navigation called Staple Act forbids the English colonies to trade directly with the European countries. European goods must be first unloaded then reloaded in English ports. The various taxes and fees levied by intermediaries disclose, in the end, prohibitive prices. 

It became clear, at that time, that England had designs on New Netherlands. It was, for example, specified in the Navigation Acts that only English ships were allowed to transport European goods to the American colonies, so that Dutch cheeses delivered in Boston could not come directly from Amsterdam without being seized. Yet, there was on the other hand no obstacle to the fact that the same cheese is unloaded in New Amsterdam and exchanged locally against tobacco from Virginia. The trade policy of the Dutch being on its side very liberal, the English colonies took the opportunity to deal directly with the New Netherlands despite all the decrees set by the Parliament. For the British authorities, it was thus impossible to introduce restrictive laws as this Dutch colony existed. On the other hand, the Hudson Valley was not only the main transit route of the lucrative fur trade but also an obvious strategic importance for the military control of the continent.

July 28, 1663 - The New Amstel sheriff is back from Holland aboard the St Jacob with a cargo of supplies and about fifty farmers including some women, mostly Finnish, recruited by his agent Israel Helme. The ship carries also 41 Mennonites who will found a colony called Hoornkill.

A letter from the Board of Amsterdam granted the request of Director Alexander d' Hinoyossa, who had expressed the wish to travel to Holland to discuss the future of the colony.
The commissioners of Amsterdam felt resentment against the West India Company whose manoeuvrings were intended to take over their colony while its officials tried at the same moment to get their support against English attacks.

Led by Pieter Cornelisz Plochkoy, the Mennonites aimed at founding a community sharing their same religious orientation based on tolerance and humility.
After having vainly sought Oliver Cromwell's support, Plochkoy, up to there known for his pamphlets criticizing the social problems of the time and struggling to promote a new society, had succeeded in securing the agreement of the Amsterdam Burgomasters to base a Mennonite settlement in Delaware Bay.

The Mennonites, named after their founder Menno Simon, a Dutch Catholic priest of the XVIth century converted to Anabaptism constitute a dissident Protestant movement based on the strict application of the Bible teaching, both pacifist and hostile to technical progress. Its churches present today in several countries have about 1 300 000 members mostly grouped in semi autarchic communities governed by a stiff and traditionalist patriarchal system.

August 15, 1663 - the province of Maryland legalizes slavery.
The new laws stipulate that all the black people imported from Africa are slaves, that all the women of European origin who marry slaves lose their freedom and that all the children born from this union are slaves.

According to the text " all the children born to a black or other slave, will be slaves like their parents for the rest of their lives "and" if a free woman comes to marry a slave, she will have to serve his master during her husband’s lifetime, and her children will be slaves as their father .”

August 10, 1663 – the burgomasters of Amsterdam appointed to run the affairs of the New Amstel colony, release their report.

This one stated that 110 farms were built on the banks of the South River (Delaware), with around 2000 cattle, about twenty horses, 80 sheep and several thousand pigs. These mainly belonged to the Finns. The Dutch had, from their part, built no farm and no other nationality was met on this part of the river. The commissioners praised the soil fertility but admitted that only could be sent hardworking people familiar with farming works.

August 12, 1663 - King Charles II confirms the founding charter of Carolina he signed on April 6 of that year and revokes all previously granted patents, so putting a term to Lord Norfolk’s claims.

The Adventure on Carolina's coast
Painting by Walter Greer (1963)

August 26, 1663- Captain William Hilton reaches Carolina's coast aboard the Adventure and explores the area stretching from St Helena Sound and Parris Island up to Cape Fear. He rescues a group of English who recently wrecked and fell to the Indians.

He had been sent on mission by the Corporation of the Barbados Adventurers, a group of planters who tried to found a new settlement. These had informed the new Lords Proprietors that they agreed to send 200 settlers who would be granted the right to deal with the Indians for the purchase of lands.
Hilton, who had already a look around the places, had made the previous year a report for a group of Puritans from Massachusetts. Enthusiasts, these had chosen to go to settle down in Cape Fear but had given up a few months later, leaving their cattle behind.

The promising reports sent by Hilton to Colonel Thomas Modyford and Peter Colleton, the agents of the new Proprietors, were quickly printed in London and widely spread with the aim of encouraging candidacies to emigration. It was proposed to every subscriber able to pay his trip in the two months a 500-acre land, coupled with an additional 20-acre plot by male slave and 10 acres by female slave.

cf. Proposal concerning the settlement of Carolina

William Hilton (1617 - c. 1675) was born in Norwich, Cheshire. He left with his family to the Plymouth colony in 1623 while he was 6-year-old. He lived then in Newbury and Charlestown in the Massachusetts Bay colony. It is for the group of Puritans of Boston that he left on August 14, 1662 exploring Carolina's coast. His second Nicholas Shapey had to draw up the first comprehensive map of the region.

Sir Thomas Modyford (c.1620 - September 2, 1679) the son of a mayor of the city of Exeter, his family was related to the Duke of Albemarle. He left in 1647 with a part of his family for the Barbados, in the early days of the Civil War. His fortune allowed him to purchase a vast plantation and to appear quickly among the most influential settlers of the island. Although he found himself in an awkward position after attempting to negotiate the governor's place with commissioners of the Commonwealth, he was nevertheless appointed president of the Assembly of Barbados at the time of the Restoration of Charles II. He was actively involved in the foundation of the " Royal Adventurers " who were granted a monopoly on slave trade in the Carribean colonies. Appointed as governor of Jamaica on February 15, 1664, he arrived 4 months later on this island along with seven hundred planters and their slaves, introducing, therefore a new economic culture based on slavery.

September 13, 1663 - A first slave revolt threatens to burst in Gloucester County, Virginia, but its inspirators are denounced by one of the servants. They are executed and their heads hung at the top of chimneys as a warning.

To guard against this kind of action, the Virginia Assembly decided that it now fell within the responsibility of the head of the family to forbid servants to leave their home on Sunday or any other day of the week without a special authorization, to avoid that they meet illegally.
It seems that this revolt was prepared by indentured servants come from England who were none other than former partisans of Cromwell forced to flee to the colonies at the time of the restoration of Charles II.

Director General of New Netherlands
Peter Stuyvesant

September, 1663 – Director General of the New Netherlands Peter Stuyvesant travels to Boston to meet the eight commissioners to the United Colonies of New England.

He came to complain about the fact that Connecticut had violated the provisions of the Treaty of Hartford concluded in 1650 by illegally occupying lands which belonged to the Dutch. The discussions did not lead to any solution but underscored on the contrary the territorial claims of England over the Hudson Valley. This attitude had the effect of humiliating and outraged the Dutch delegation which chose to cut short the conference and withdraw. Peter Stuyvesant hastened to write to the Dutch West India Company requesting the urgent dispatch of soldiers and equipment to save " the ship that’s sinking ».

October 10, 1663 - The Quakers come to settle down along the Annemessex River, in the new Somerset County located at the Maryland border, refuse to give in to Colonel Edmund Scarborough's orders who would want to oblige them to return to Virginia.

Edmund Scarborough (1617-1671) had, at the time, become the most powerful man on the Eastern Shore, competing virtually with the governor of the colony. He had particularly frowned upon the establishment of Somerset County in the nearby province of Maryland and the fact that it had become in a short time a privileged place of refuge for the Quakers of Accomac. He was, however, no stranger to this exodus because he had been since the restoration of Charles II at the root of all persecutions of the nonconformists living in the Accomac and Northampton Counties.

He then triggered a dispute over the boundary between Virginia and Maryland, saying that it would have to be thirty miles further north. Starting from this challenge, he surrounded the Annemessex and Manokin village requiring the inhabitants to take an oath to him as if they were his subjects. Charles Calvert, the governor of Maryland intervened with his counterpart of Virginia to secure permanently the border between both colonies and obtained from him Edmund Scarborough's withdrawal.
cf. US Timeline, May, 1651

November, 1663 -  An army of 300 men from New England is preparing to surround the English cities of Long Island.

The makings of the drama that was soon about to go down dated back to the early year when an earthquake had struck the Hudson Valley, from Beverwyck to New Amsterdam. The river had then overflowed causing crop destruction. To this had been added a smallpox epidemic and the massacre carried out by Esopus Indians, causing some to say that the wrath of God had descended on the New Netherlands.

The curtain rose on the first act thanks to schemers close to the English throne. There was captain George Baxter, the own secretary of Director Peter Stuyvesant and with him John Scott, an unscrupulous adventurer sometimes royalist, sometimes Cromwellian, known for mobilizing, in the past, the English cities of Long Island against the Dutch and who had now managed to be heard by Charles II. There was also 61 year-old veteran Samuel Maverick, who had pioneered the creation of several settlements in Massachusetts and saw himself honored to serve the king of whom he hoped that he would permanently establish his authority over all American coast. These three men assured Charles that Navigation Acts would remain dead letters as long as the Dutch would have control over the Hudson River. Scott was then sent in the fall to New England, carrying letters of recommendation to Governor John Winthrop, Jr.

December, 1663 – Oratamy, the chief of the Esopus tribe who sought refuge at the Wappingers after organizing the attack of Wiltwyck, has the support of the Hackensacks to go to the Council of New Amsterdam.
He concludes with the Dutch people a two-month truce, the time for him to locate the 5 missing captives.

December 3rd, 1663 - Director of New Amstel Alexander d' Hinoyossa is back from Amsterdam aboard the Purmerlander Kerck accompanied with Israel Helme and Peter Alrich, the son of the former director, both belonging to the High Council. He also brings with him hundred new settlers, mostly Finnish, and about fifty black slaves. Israel Helme is appointed Trade Commissioner for the Finnish colony and settles at Passayunk, whereas Peter Alrich holds the same position at Hoornkill.

D’Hinoyossa was back with good news as far as the Board of Nineteen had decided that the best way for ensuring the survival of the Delaware colony was to place it under the direct supervision of Amsterdam, what the direction of the New Netherlands had apparently agreed.
Therefore, the Dutch West India Company renounced all rights to the colony and its representatives were asked to leave. As the new director, d’Hinoyossa offered, however, William Beekman to continue to live in Altena but the latter refused and asked his father-in-law Director Peter Stuyvesant to get him a new responsibility

December, 1663 - In Massachusetts, 3 Quaker women are victims of a further tightening of the law against them. They are walked naked in a cart and forced to travel several cities under the snow to get ten lashes in every stage.

Although the death penalty had been abolished, the persecution of Quakers was far from over, the king no longer insuring his protection as he had promised during his restoration. The new law had been softened about them but it nevertheless provided that any Quaker would be arrested, rid of all his clothes and to pulled in a cart to the border of the colony and that he would be given ten lashes in three crossed cities.

The obstinacy of the Massachusetts and New Hampshire governments nevertheless seemed not to stop the expansion of Quakerism in New England. The anti-Quaker laws, in this regard, were much less repressive in Maine but even in cities like Salem where Puritans were keeping order, the settlers were more likely to attend the Quakers assemblies.

December, 1663 - John Scott declares to the residents of Hampstead that King Charles II promised to grant Long Island to his brother the Duke of York.

December, 1663 - a joint force of Mohawks and Senecas attacks the main Pocumtuc village at Fort Hill (Deefield, Masachusetts). The assault is repelled but nearly 300 warriors are killed.

Feeling directly threatened after the Mohawks destroyed a Sokoki's villages in the upper Connecticut valley,the Pocumtucs had, the first ones, responded by taking a Mohawk village by storm. But after the loss of most of their fighters, they had unsuccessfully requested the Dutch to arrange them a truce.

1663 - John Eliot releases the first complete translation of the Bible in Massachusett language. About 1000 copies are published by the Harvard College Indian Printing managed by Marmaduke Johnson under the title " Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe up-Biblum God naneeswe Nukkone Testament kah wonk Wusku Testament " - (the Old and and New Testament of God's Holy Bible).