"To the Youth of Carolina, whose ancestors, collected from various nations of
the old world, have coalesced into one in the new, and who, after two
revolutions, in less than one century, having acquired liberty and
independence, made a prudent use of these inestimable blessings, by
establishing, on the basis of reason and the rights of man, a solid,
efficient, and well balanced government, whose object is public good, whose
end is public happiness, by which industry has been encouraged, agriculture
extended, literature cherished, religion protected, and justice cheaply and
conveniently administered to a rapidly increasing population.  In hopes that
the descendants of such sires will learn, from their example to love their
country and cherish its interests, the following history is affectionately
dedicated by the Author."

RAMSAY'S HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
From ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT IN 1670 
TO THE YEAR 1808.
by David Ramsay, M.D. 

"The Muse of History has been so much in love with Mars, that she has seldom
conversed with Minerva." -- Henry

Volume I
Preface dated "Charleston, December 31st, 1808"
Published in 1858, by W.J. Duffie, Newberry, S.C.  
Reprinted in 1959, by the The Reprint Company, Spartanburg, S.C.   

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

CHAPTER V, Section II, pp 84-89

Contests with Indians.

When South Carolina was settled by the English, it was in the occupation of
more than twenty nations, or tribes of Indians. Their combined numbers were so
considerable that had they been guided by a spirit of union, or directed by a
Common Council, they would have been able at any time, for many years after
the settlement, to have exterminated the new comers. The Indians in their
military capacity, were not so inferior to the whites as some may imagine. The
superiority of muskets over bows and arrows, managed by Indians in a woody
country, is not great. The savage, quick-sighted and accustomed to perpetual
watchfulness, springs from his hiding place, behind a bush, and surprises his
enemy with the pointed arrow before he is aware of danger. He ranges through
the trackless forest like the beasts of prey, and safely sleeps under the same
canopy with the wolf and bear. His vengeance is concealed, till he sends the
tidings in the fatal blow.

Though the Indians viewed with a jealous eye the encroachments made on their
territorial possessions, they took no effectual measures for the defence of
their property. Finding many present conveniences to result from their
intercourse with the new comers, they acquiesced in their settlement.
Destitute of foresight, they did not anticipate consequences; nor did they
embitter present enjoyments, with forebodings of future evils. To the Indian,
a knife, a hatchet, or a hoe, was a valuable acquisition. He observed with
what facility the strangers supplied their many wants by means of the various
implements they used. The woods fell before the axe - the earth opened before
the hoe and spade - and the knife was useful on numberless occasions. He
admired the skill of white men in making these articles of ease and profit,
and voluntarily offered to them his deer skins, the only riches he had which
could procure them. The love of ease was as natural to the one as the other;
and the Indian would rather give to the white settler the profits of a year's
hunting, than be without his instruments. Having obtained these, in process of
time he found the tomahawk and musket equally useful. These he also coveted,
and could not rest till he obtained them. What was at first only convenient,
as his wants increased became almost necessary. The original bond was
therefore progressively strengthened and confirmed. As the channel of commerce
opened, the Indian found that he was not only treated with friendship and
civility, but that the white people were equally fond of his skins, furs, and
lands, as he was of their gaudy trinkets and various implements. It was this
connection that induced the native inhabitants of the forest peaceably to
admit strangers, though differing in complexion, language, and manners, to
reside among them and to clear and cultivate their lands.

By these means the first settlers of Carolina readily obtained foothold among
the native owners of the soil. The proprietors gave instructions to their
tenants to cultivate the good will of the aborigines. They also made many
presents to them, but nothing appears on record like a formal purchase or
transfer of any part of the low country from the one to the other.* Tradition
has informed us that some individuals, from a sense of justice, made private
purchases from the Indians; but in general a liberty to settle was neither
asked nor given; but was taken by white men, and acquiesced in by the savages.
Private contentions between them were frequent, but formal hostilities on
national grounds only occasional; many causes of the former existed, and but
few of the latter. While the English thought little of Indian rights to lands,
the latter were equally regardless of the rights of the former to moveable
property. (Accustomed to take wild animals where-ever found, they could not
readily comprehend the crime of taking such as were tame.) What the English
settler called theft, the Indian considered as the exercise of a natural
right. The ideas of a civilized and savage man were at greater variance in
other important matters. If the former in a fit of drunkenness, in the heat of
passion, or even in self defence, killed or wounded the latter, nothing less
than scalp for scalp - blood for blood - and death for death, could satisfy
the surviving friends of the injured party. If the real criminal could not be
found, they claimed the right of retaliating on any person of the same color
or nation that came in their way. They also admitted the voluntary
substitution of an innocent person as an atonement for one that was guilty,
who thereupon was free.

This conduct and these rules of action, were hostile to peace. As the
forgiveness of injuries is so far from being any part of the creed of Indians,
that they consider it as pusillanimous not to avenge the death of their
friends, one quarrel often produced another. Feuds which were originally
private and personal, soon became public and national, and seldom failed to
multiply and extend their tragical effects. The Indians made very free with
the planters' stock, and these as freely made use of their arms in defence of
their property. Lives were frequently lost in these petty contests. If an
Indian was killed, his countrymen poured their vengeance indiscriminately on
the innocent and guilty. Governor West found it necessary to encourage and
reward such of the colonists as would take the field against them for the
public defence. Accordingly a price was fixed on every Indian the settlers
should take prisoner, and bring to Charlestown. These captive savages were
disposed of to the traders, who sent them to the West Indies, and there sold
them as slaves. This traffic was an inhuman method of getting rid of
troublesome neighbors, yet the planters pleaded necessity in its vindication.
It is certain that the reward for Indian prisoners encouraged bold
adventurers, and the sale of them made a profitable branch of trade. These
advantages weighed with interested persons as an extenuation, if not a
justification of the practice. The proceeds of the Indians, when sold in the
West Indies, were generally returned to the colonists in rum. This
appropriation of the gains of the iniquitous traffic was so injurious, that in
many instances it was doubtful whether the evil ultimately suffered or that
originally committed was greatest.

The Carolinians soon found out the policy of setting one tribe of Indians
against another, on purpose to save themselves. By trifling presents they
purchased the friendship of some tribes whom they employed to carry on war
with others. This not only diverted their attention from the white settlers,
but encouraged them to bring captives to Charlestown for the purpose of
transportation to the West Indies.

A war commenced in the beginning of the year 1680 with the Westoes, a very
powerful tribe between Charlestown and Edisto, which well nigh ruined the
infant settlement. The cause of hostilities, thus inconvenient and dangerous,
may be found in injuries which had been mutually given and received. A peace
was concluded in the subsequent year, the old giving security for the good
conduct of the young. To prevent the return of similar mischiefs, and to
advance justice, the proprietors erected a commission for Maurice Matthews,
William Fuller, Jonathan Fits, and John Boone, to decide all complaints
between the English and the Indians. Some complaints were made against these
commissioners, the particulars of which have not reached us. They were
discharged and the commission abrogated. In lieu thereof the proprietors
ordered that the Indians within 400 miles of Charlestown, should all be taken
under their protection.

The next Indian war was an offensive one on the part of the Carolinians. The
Apalachian Indians, by their connection with the Spaniards, had become
troublesome. Governor Moore, in 1702 or 1703, marched at the head of a body of
white men and Indian allies into the heart of their settlements. Wherever he
went he carried fire and sword. He laid in ashes the towns of those tribes who
lived between the rivers Alatamaha and Savannah; captured many savages, and
obliged others to submit to the English government. This exertion of power in
that quarter filled the savages with terror of the British arms, and helped to
pave the way for the English colony afterwards planted between these rivers.
The Governor received the thanks of the proprietors, wiped off the ignominy of
his expedition against St. Augustine, and procured a number of Indian slaves
whom he employed as slaves or sold for his own advantage.

The first serious war with the Indians, in which Carolina participated, took
place far to the north of Charlestown. This appears to have been entered upon
by the natives with a view of exterminating the English settlers. What they
might have accomplished in the first years of the settlement, was beyond their
power when forty-two years had given it strength and stability.

In the year 1712, a dangerous conspiracy was formed by the Indians of North
Carolina against the settlers in that quarter. The particular cause of the
quarrel is unknown; probably they were offended at the encroachments made on
their hunting lands.  The powerful tribes of Indians, called Corees,
Tuscororas, and some others, united and determined to murder or expel the
European invaders. They carried on their bloody design with amazing cunning
and profound secresy. They surrounded their principal town with a wooden
breast-work, for the security of their own families. There the different
tribes met together, to the number of twelve hundred bowmen, and formed their
horrid plot. From this place of rendezvous they sent out small parties, who
entered the settlements, under the mask of friendship, by different roads. All
of them agreed to begin their murderous operations on the same night. When
that night came they entered the planters' houses, demanded provisions, were
displeased with them, and then murdered men, women, and children, without
mercy or distinction. To prevent a communication of the alarm through the
settlement, they ran from house to house slaughtering the scattered families
wherever they went. None of the colonists knew what had befallen their
neighbors before the barbarians reached their own doors. About Roanoke one
hundred and thirty-seven settlers fell a sacrifice to savage fury in one fatal
night. A Swiss Baron, and almost all the poor palatines who had lately come
into the county, were among the slain. Some, who had hid themselves in the
woods, escaped, and by alarming their neighbors, prevented the total
destruction of that colony. Every family that survived was ordered instantly
to assemble at one place, and the militia under arms kept watch over them day
and night until relief arrived.

Governor Craven lost no time in forwarding a force to their assistance. The
Assembly voted four thousand pounds for the service of the war. A body of
militia, consisting of six hundred men, under the command of Colonel Barnwell,
marched against the savages. Two hundred and eighteen Cherokees, under the
command of Captains Harford and Turston; seventy-nine Creeks, under Captain
Hastings; forty-one Catabaws, under Captain Cantey, and twenty-eight
Yamassees, under Captain Pierce, being furnished with arms, joined the
Carolinians in this expedition. Hideous and dreadful was the wilderness
through which Colonel Barnwell had to march. To reach North Carolina in time
for the relief of the people the utmost expedition was requisite. It was
neither possible for his men to carry with them a sufficient quantity of
provisions, together with arms and ammunition, nor to have these things
provided at different stages by the way. There was no road through the woods
upon which either horses or carriages could conveniently pass. His army had to
encounter all manner of hardships and dangers from the climate, the
wilderness, and the enemy. In spite of every difficulty Barnwell advanced,
employing his Indian allies to hunt for provisions on the way. At length,
having come up with the savages, he attacked them with great execution. In the
first battle he killed three hundred Indians, and took about one hundred
prisoners. After which the Tuscororas retreated to their town, within a wooden
breast-work There they were surrounded, many of them killed, and the remainder
forced to sue for peace. Some of Barnwell's men being wounded, and others
having suffered much by watching, hunger and fatigue, the savages easily
obtained their request. In this expedition it was computed that Barnwell
killed, wounded and captured near a thousand Tuscororas. The survivors
abandoned their country and joined a northern tribe of Indians on the Ohio
river. Of Barnwell's party, five Carolinians were killed and several wounded.
Of his Indians, thirty-six were killed and between sixty and seventy wounded.
Never had any expedition against the savages in Carolina been attended with
such difficulties, nor had the conquest of any tribe of them ever been more
complete.

Although this expedition was well conducted, and proved successful, the
expense incurred by it fell heavy on the province, the revenues of which were
ill adapted for such enterprises. Great harmony at that time subsisted between
the Governor and Assembly, and they were well disposed to concur in every
measure for the public good. The stamping of bills of credit had been used as
the easiest method of defraying similar expenses. At this time the Legislature
thought proper to establish a public bank, and issued £52,000, in bills of
credit, for answering the exigencies of government and for the convenience of
domestic commerce. This money was lent out at interest on bonds, secured by
landed or personal security, and made payable by easy instalments.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

* The people of Carolina hold their lands in the southern and western parts of
the State partly by conquest, and partly by treaties with the aborigines.
These were valid against the natives. The charters from the sovereigns of
England were in like manner good against the grantors and other Europeans, but
the rights of the present possessors have a higher origin than either of these
sources. The earth was made for man, and was intended by the Creator of all
things to be improved for the benefit of mankind. The land which could support
one savage in his mode of living, is capable of supporting five hundred under
proper cultivation. These wild lands therefore were not the seperate property
of the few savages who hunted over them, but belonged to the common stock of
mankind. The first who possessed a vacant spot, and actually cultivated it for
some time, ought to he considered as the proprietor of that spot, and they who
derive their title from him have a valid right to the same. This doctrine is
agreeable to the judicial determination of the courts of South Carolina with
respect to rights in lands derived solely from possession, and is the ground
on which the claims of Spain to the whole country can be invalidated.

[to be continued....]

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