Page:The Rise of American Civilization (Volume 1).djvu/79

 Without waiting for the philosopher to complete his scheme, the proprietors raised a fund of £12,000 and fitted out in 1670 a colonizing expedition which planted a settlement called Charleston, removed to the site of the present city ten years later. They also offered inducements to adventurers who would take up land in their concession, turning a current of migration in that direction. Indeed, already in the northern portion of their province were rude settlements made by Quakers who had fled from the rigorous rule of the Established Church in Virginia and by lawless elements that preferred the freedom of the forests to the most respectable offerings of the Old Dominion.

Assured religious toleration by proprietors anxious to sell land, the hunted and discontented from many quarters now poured into the colony: Dutch angered by English supremacy in New York, Puritans weary of the clerical régime, Huguenots fleeing from the dragoons of Louis XIV, Scotch Presbyterians involved in religious and economic disputes at home or in Ireland, Germans seeking land or religious liberty or both, and Swiss who found at New Berne a milder climate and a richer soil than their mountain home afforded. Under skillful management the cultivation of rice and indigo was soon introduced, and the basis of economic prosperity quickly laid, with the aid of a labor supply drawn from Africa. To protect masters against violence, a drastic code was adopted prescribing whipping, branding, ear clipping, castration, and death for various offenses; but the consolations of the Christian faith were not withheld, for the law, while denying the right of manumission, expressly authorized baptism.

It was not long before the proprietors discovered that they had a stiff-necked generation in their miscellaneous collection of subjects attracted to Carolina from many parts of the earth. The governors, whom they sent in turn to the two sections into which the colony was divided—North and South—were always in conflict with the popular assemblies. More than one executive was driven out by the