Louisa Wells Aikman of Charleston and Premature Burial

Louisa Wells Aikman was born in Charleston in 1755. She was the daughter of Robert Wells and Mary Rowand, who had emigrated from Scotland a couple of years before. Robert was a man of many talents: bookbinder, bookseller, printer of books and Charleston's second newspaper, The American and General Gazette. 

Robert's staunch support for the British government in its dispute with the colonies made his life difficult, and he went to London in 1775. Most of the family followed him early in the revolution. Louisa stayed in Charleston to help her brother John run the family business. In 1778, she was banished for her outspoken Loyalism and left for London. A few months after her arrival in London, she wrote a journal of her experiences, The Journal of a Voyage from Charlestown, S. C. to London. 

Most of the journal relates the story of her circuitous and adventurous journey from the time she left Charleston to her arrival in London. Along the way, she inserts a curious story. involving an alleged case of premature burial. The alleged victim was George Woodrop of Charleston, who had died in 1770 in his early twenties. The burial had been unusually quick. Woodrop was pronounced dead in the evening and was buried the next morning. His uncle, Andrew Robertson, insisted on dispensing with the traditional practice of "laying out" the body in the house for a a few days before interment. 

Louisa's father Robert Wells had been a mourner at the funeral. He had "expressed great uneasiness, and said that the body did not appear like a dead corpse, there seemed to be a bloom on the countenance!" Wells asked Robertson the reason for the hurry in burying Woodrop. Robertson replied, "Mrs. Robertson could not bear to have the deceased in the house as she had so many young children."

Afterwards, a rumor spread that Woodrop had been buried alive. During Louisa's voyage to London, one of her fellow passengers, John Mills, was the sexton of the church where Woodrop was buried. Mills told Louisa and other passengers that the rumors were true. Mills said he had kept silent on the matter until that time because he had promised the Robertsons that he would not speak to anyone about the subject. But now the Robertsons were dead and he felt released form that promise. 

One night Mills was preparing a grave for a morning burial, assisted by "two black boys." While they were digging, the shovel hit and broke off part of a coffin. Mills went down into the grave and discovered "the backbone of a human skeleton." The posture of the body seemed unusual. Aided by the boys, Mills "opened the grave, uncovered the lid of the coffin, and found the deceased lying on its side, with the cheekbone in the palm of the hand!" The coffin cover bore the words "George Woodrop died 1770." 

We may not be convinced by this evidence, or speculate that Mills was spinning a yarn to entertain his fellow passengers on a long and tedious voyage. Louisa Aikman was convinced that it was a genuine case of premature burial and that it was not the only one. The fear of being buried alive (taphophobia) has existed in western society for many centuries but it increased during the late eighteenth century, partly due to changes in burial practices. Another contemporary fear, of disease-causing miasmas emanating from decomposing bodies, led many doctors to urge quick interment instead of laying bodies out for several days.   

One famous Charlestonian who feared premature burial was Henry Laurens.  Laurens believed that his infant daughter Martha had narrowly escaped being buried alive. He had heard the rumors about Woodrop because he knew Robert Wells. Laurens stipulated in his will that his body be burned after death. His cremation on a funeral pyre at Mepkin Plantation inn 1792 is reputed to be the first documented case of the practise in the United States. 

In an appendix to her narrative, Louisa Aiken wrote that the Woodrop case had affected her mind so much that she "never forsook the apparently dead or dying until interment." During the twenty years she lived in Jamaica (1782-1801) she reckoned that her watchfulness had prevented eighteen people from being "sent to an untimely grave." 

She mentioned in particular the case of fourteen year old James Haughton, 1785. He seems to have been suffering from yellow fever -- Louisa mentions "a constant bleeding at the nose." For several hours "Animation was suspended." Two doctors declared him dead. His mother agreed with what Louisa considered a lack of emotion, and went off to dress for his funeral. 

Louisa persevered in trying to save him. With the help of "slaves" she applied the method recommended by the Humane Society. She does not say what they did or who did what. The Humane Society of London was founded in 1774 with the object of reviving people seemingly dead from drowning and other causes. The society's initial recommended method involved a combination of mouth to mouth resuscitation, warming and rubbing the body, purgatives, ointments, and tobacco smoke enemas.

The young man regained consciousness. When his "unnatural parent" returned, "curled and powdered" and dressed in a black silk dress, her son was sitting up "eating sago from my hands." James Haughton was still alive fifteen years later when Louisa left Jamaica. He had married twice and had several children. Louisa moved to Cowes on the Isle of Wight in 1801 to care for an ailing daughter. She died at Cowes in 1831, aged 76. Hopefully, was dead when she was buried. 

[Image: The Wells Residence and Shop at 71 Tradd St, Charleston, SC]

Further Reading:

 The journal of a voyage from Charlestown, S. C., to London. 

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Charleston's Tea Parties, 1773-1774

Everyone has heard of the Boston Tea Party. Well, maybe not everyone, but it is one of the most famous episodes among the many events that led up to the American Revolution and War of Independence. But how many people know that Charleston, South Carolina had three tea parties? The first took place just a few days before the more famous Boston event, and was thus the first tea party in America. It was a more genteel affair,  at least on the surface.  [Image: Charleston Harbor, c. 1780] 

On December 1, 1773, an East Indiaman, the London, arrived in Charleston harbor carrying a large consignment of tea. Christopher Gadsden, a merchant or factor, called a “Mass Meeting” of local Whigs and Liberty Boys to discuss how to prevent the tea being sold. They called in the three merchants who had agreed to receive the tea. After some “threats and flattery” they persuaded the merchants not to receive the tea. The captain of the London and the owner of the wharf where the ship was moored received letters threatening them if they did not move ship out into the harbor. Before that could happen, however, the collector of customs seized the tea and put it in cellar of the Exchange to await the hoped-for resolution of the tax dispute. Threats had been made but no violence occurred. It was a relatively genteel affair compared to that in Boston. Although the tea was not sold, the local firebrands were upset that it was landed in the city at all, especially after they learned what happened in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York. In the latter two cities, the tea-bearing ships had been prevented from landing at all. They had to return to Britain with their cargoes.

Charleston's second tea party took place in July 1774. A merchant ship with the ironic name of Magna Carta, unloaded three crates of tea which were registered with customs officials at the Exchange. Since the first "party" the year before, opponents of British policies had established a General Committee to act as a watchdog for violations of the embargo. The General Committee summoned the ship's captain and demanded an explanation. Captain Maitland claimed that he was unaware his ship was carrying the tea. He offered to dump it into the river at his own cost. The customs officials refused to let him pay for and take the tea. The Liberty Boys decided Maitland was being duplicitous and took direct action. They aroused a mob of several hundred angry citizens and set out with tar and feathers to teach him a painful, possibly deadly lesson. Fortunately for Maitland, he learned of their approach and escaped to another British ship in the harbor. The Liberty Boys found the tea on the ship and took it to the Exchange to be stored. [Image: Charleston Harbor, 1773] 

The third Charleston tea party was a bit more like the Boston event in that it involved actual dumping of the tea into the harbor. In November 1774 the ship that had rescued Maitland, the Britannia, arrived carrying seven chests of tea. The captain, Samuel Ball, repeated Maitland’s plea, stating that he did not know of the presence of the “mischievous drug” on his ship. Ball was not being truthful, but the General Committee accepted his explanation and blamed the three Charleston merchants who had agreed to accept the consignments of tea. The committee convinced the merchants to dump the tea into the Cooper River at a loss to themselves. The memory of the liberty mob action against Maitland may have helped to persuade them. A large crowd gathered to watch them pour the tea into the water, but there was no violence. Peter Timothy reported the event with some glee in his South Carolina Gazette, calling the tea dumping “an oblation to Neptune.” He reported that the crowd dispersed afterwards as if nothing had happened.

Why is the Boston Tea Party so well known, while Charleston's tea parties were almost forgotten? One reason is the dramatic nature of the Boston event. The partygoers, members of Boston's Sons of Liberty, dressed as Native Americans and attacked the tea-laden merchant ship yelling war whoops and brandishing tomahawks. The image was violent and made a lasting impression, and throughout the war that followed, British cartoonists often portrayed the American rebels as Indians. Another, and even more important reason for the fame of the Boston Tea Party, is the British government's severe reaction.  Parliament passed a series of Coercion Acts (1774) designed to punish Boston and Massachusetts for tolerating such a wanton destruction of private property. The acts closed the port of Boston, suspended the colonial charter, and shut down the regular courts. They were to remain in effect until Massachusetts paid for the destroyed tea and the Crown was satisfied that order had been restored. The effect of the acts was to stifle the local economy and put Massachusetts under direct British rule. A third reason is that the history of the Revolution was long dominated by northern scholars, especially New Englanders, and they gave scant attention to southern events. Regional prejudice played a part, but after the Civil War, so did the perception that the Slave dependent South did not fit well into the narrative of a war for liberty.  

The government in London hoped that the Coercion Acts would deter other colonies from supporting resistance to British policies. The "Intolerable" Acts, as they soon became known in the colonies, had the opposite effect. By punishing the entire colony of Massachusetts rather than the individuals involved in dumping the tea, the acts aroused fears in the other colonies of being treated in a similar manner. The acts strengthened the influence of  radicals such as Sam Adams in Boston and Christopher Gadsden in South Carolina, who were already demanding independence in practice if not in name. 

Further Reading:

Stanly Godbold, Jr., and Robert Woody, Christopher Gadsden and the American Revolution. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1983.

Daniel McDonough, Christopher Gadsden and Henry Laurens: The Parallel Lives of Two American Patriots. Susquehanna University Press, 2000.

George C. Rogers, Jr., "The Charleston Tea Party: The Significance of December 3, 1773" The South Carolina Historical Magazine, 75, No.3 (July 1974), pp. 153-168.

Jordan Baker, "The Charleston Tea Parties," The Charleston Tea Parties – Legends of America

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The Execution of Isaac Hayne: Charleston, South Carolina, August 1781

During the American War for Independence, both sides executed enemy soldiers and civilians. Some were found guilty of spying or treason after a trial, although the “trial” was often pro forma. For many others a trial was dispensed with. After the Battle of King’s Mountain in October 1780, the victorious patriots shot dead many of the defeated loyalists after they had surrendered. King’s Mountain was part of a broader pattern of tit for tat executions that plagued the backcountry of South Carolina, especially during the British occupation of 1780-1782. Patriot Paddy Carr slaughtered every Loyalist he could lay his hands on, refusing quarter to those who surrendered. The Loyalist “Bloody Bill” Cunningham became infamous for butchering patriots and their families. Both sides murdered "enemies" in their beds. Patriots executed without trial Blacks alleged to have aided or joined the British enemy. Governor John Rutledge ordered partisan leaders Thomas Sumter and Francis Marion to hang “renegade Negroes.”      

Most of the victims of these war crimes, for that is what they were, were anonymous, or just names. Only a few of them are etched in our historical memory. We remember Nathan Hale, who the British executed as a spy in 1776. Why? Because of his supposed last words: “I regret that I have but one life to give for my country." Powerful stuff, even if not true. Isaac Hayne is not as well-known as Hale, but he was the most famous person to be hanged in the South during the war. A painting of Hayne being led to his execution is displayed in the Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon on East Bay Street in Charleston, where he was imprisoned in the summer of 1782. 

The British hanged Hayne on a charge of treason, which he vigorously denied. How he got into that situation is convoluted. Hayne had inherited several plantations south of Charleston, mainly near Jacksonborough. He had a reputation as an excellent breeder of horses. He served as a cavalry officer in the patriot militia. After the fall of Charleston in 1780, the British paroled him and others in the militia. He returned home. That summer and autumn smallpox spread across the state. One of his children died of it, and his wife and two other children became infected. He rode to Charleston to seek medical help. He had not wanted to come. The victorious British commander, Sir Henry Clinton, had issued a proclamation requiring the paroled militia to swear allegiance to the Crown. While Hayne was in Charleston, the town commandant, Colonel Paterson, convinced him to take the oath. Paterson assured him, he later claimed, that he would not be required to take up arms against his former comrades. Hayne signed and went home. His other children survived but his wife died from smallpox. 

After patriots regained control of most of the state in 1781, Hayne believed, or claimed, that he no longer owed allegiance to the invaders. He joined the partisans. In July 1781 he took part in a partisan raid on the plantation of Andrew Williamson. They kidnaped (or rescued) Williamson, a former patriot general who had defected to the British after the fall of Charleston. A British detachment intercepted the kidnapers and rescued Williamson. Campbell captured Hayne and took him back to Charleston as a prisoner. The commandant of Charleston was no longer Paterson, but Colonel Nisbet Balfour. He ordered Hayne to be imprisoned in the Provost Dungeon, the bottom floor of the Exchange Building. Balfour charged him with treason for having violated his oath of loyalty to the king. 

Hayne expected to receive a trial but Balfour and the commanding general in South Carolina Lord Rawdon, declared him guilty and sentenced him to hang. For months, Balfour had been placing warnings in the newspapers that militia who had taken parole and signed the oath of allegiance would be liable to treason charges if they rejoined the patriots. He had hoped it would stem a rising tide of defections to the partisan bands. The warnings failed to bring about the desired result. He and his superior, General Lord Rawdon, decided to make an example of someone to deter others. [Image: Francis, Lord Rawdon]

The British commanders had another likely motive, one all too common in war: revenge. The previous October, patriots in New York had captured Major John Andre. He was returning to British lines after a secret meeting with Benedict Arnold, to arrange Arnold's switch to the British side. Because he was caught wearing civilian clothes, they charged Andre as a spy, which meant he had no right to a trial. They hanged him at Tappan, New York, a few days later, with the approval of George Washington. Andre was a talented and popular officer, and his execution outraged many of his comrades. Nisbet Balfour had been his friend. 

Many people in Charleston protested the sentence on Hayne and urged Balfour and Rawdon to reconsider the verdict. Those who pleaded for Hayne’s life included several prominent Loyalists, including William Bull, the former royal lieutenant governor. Women from both sides of the political divide came to beg for mercy. The sister of Hayne’s deceased wife brought his two surviving children to see Rawdon and Balfour. They begged for mercy on their knees. British officers also petitioned for to save Hayne, including the one who had captured him. Rawdon refused to change the sentence. His only concession was to allow Hayne a stay of a few days to visit with his children. 

At dawn on August 4 Hayne’s captors led him out of the Provost Dungeon. Several hundred soldiers escorted him to the place of execution at Boundary Street (now Calhoun Street), close to the present-day College of Charleston.

Hayne’s execution made him a martyr to the patriot cause in South Carolina and a figure in Southern folklore, celebrated in story and song. Unlike Nathan Hale, he was largely forgotten in the annals of American history, probably due to the sectional conflict that led to the Civil War. Growing up in Chicago in the 50s and 60s, I heard about Hale but not Hayne. 

Almost immediately after the execution, Rawdon returned to Britain.  Fear of retaliation for Hayne’s execution may have sped up his departure. He arrived home to find that Hayne’s execution was being criticized even in Britain. The Duke of Richmond, an opponent of the American war, moved to censure Rawdon’s conduct in the House of Lords. Although Richmond's motion lost by a large majority, Rawdon demanded the duke make an apology or meet on the field of honor. A duel was narrowly avoided when Richmond issued an apology. Rawdon went on to become Governor-General of India and racked up several peerages, including Earl of Moira and Marquess of Hastings. 

In later years, Rawdon blamed Balfour for Hayne’s death. Both played a role in it, of course, but it seems that Rawdon was the more determined to hang him. During Balfour’s time as commandant of Charleston,  Hayne was the only patriot to be executed. Rawdon had ordered many executions under his command in America, mainly of army deserters. Balfour, who remained in Charleston after Rawdon’s departure, bore the brunt of local anger about Hayne’s execution. In March 1782 General Alexander Leslie, who replaced Rawdon as commander in South Carolina, wrote to Sir Henry Clinton that Balfour’s situation in Charleston had become “very unpleasant” since Hayne’s execution. In August 1782 Balfour was transferred to New York. After the war, he went on to become a Major General.

Below are two illustrations purporting to be of executions that took place during the American War for Independence. The first allegedly records the execution of Major John Andre at Tappan, New York in October 1780. The second claims to portray the execution of Colonel Isaac Hayne in Charleston. 

The illustrations are almost identical, except for changes in the colors of the uniforms. Even the flags remain the same. It is likely that the artist or artists was not present at either execution. The artist of Hayne's hanging obviously copied the artist of Andre's. They were after all, copycat killings. 

David K. Bowden, The Execution of Isaac Hayne Lexington, SC: The Sandlapper Store, 1977.

David Ramsay, The History of the Revolution in South Carolina. Trenton, NJ, 1785. 

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Adventures of a Black Loyalist: Scipio Handley

 

At the beginning of the American Revolution, Scipio Handley was a free black fisherman who plied his trade in Charleston Harbor. We know very little else about him. We do know he was involved in a number of events during the revolutionary era, and after the war applied for compensation to the Loyalist Claims Commission in London. The memorial he submitted to the Claims Commission provides the little we know about Handley. It is part of thousands of pages of documentation, memorials and testimony, that now survives in the UK National Archives at Kew.

After the last royal governor, Lord William Campbell, fled Charleston in September 1775, Handley used his boat to carry supplies to the Tamar and its crew. When Lady William (Sarah Izard) decided to flee to her husband’s side, Handley took her. He was taking a great risk. The Committee of Safety prohibited any boats from town going to the British ships without a pass. Handley avoided Patriot patrols by going at night when the moon was down or when it was cloudy. But one night a patrol intercepted him ferrying supplies. They arrested him. According to Henry Laurens, Arthur Middleton wanted to hang Handley, and most of the council agreed. Laurens agreed that he should be hanged if guilty, but only after a “proper” trial. Exactly what would have constituted a proper trial in the wake of the Thomas Jeremiah incident is worth pondering. We will never know. Handley escaped from captivity one night shortly before Christmas and disappeared. That same night, a Patriot force numbering around 200 and disguised as “Indian warriors” attacked a camp of runaways and Loyalists on Sullivan’s Island. The “Indians” killed about two dozen runaways and captured others, including a few Loyalists. The rest managed to escape to the British ships anchored nearby or to Morris Island on the other side of the harbor mouth. The victors destroyed the pest house on Sullivan’s Island, which the runaways had used as a shelter. It is likely that many of them had resided there once before, on their arrival from West Africa, to perform quarantine.  In the aftermath of the Patriot attack, Lord William sailed off to St. Augustine. He took some of the runaways and Loyalists with him.

Was Scipio Handley one of them? Had he fled to the island the night he escaped, just before the Patriot attack? We don’t know, but we do know that somehow, Handley made his way to Florida, along with other Blacks and Loyalists. Or so he said in his memorial. He claimed that in escaping he had to jump from a second story window, that he landed badly, and suffered a rupture. In severe pain, he made his way to the British in St. Augustine. From there, he went on to Barbados. He took up fishing again and remained there for the next three years. Whether the British offered him a position as an auxiliary during that time he did not say.  When the British captured Savannah in the last days of 1778, they recruited him to work for their army as a Black Pioneer. He learned to make munitions, a dangerous and noisome job. He was at Savannah in the autumn of 1779 when a combined Patriot and French force attacked the city with disastrous results. He claimed that the “Negroes” did everything they could to repel the attack. They knew that “the rebels” would show no mercy to them if the British had to surrender. Handley was wounded during the battle. He was carrying grapeshot to the artillery when a musket ball hit him in the leg. It took months for the wound to heal so that he could walk. He would have taken part in the British siege of Charleston the following spring, he declared, if he had not been wounded. At the time he submitted his memorial, he stated that he remained unable to walk properly and that the pain was so bad that at times he could not work. He requested compensation from the Claims Commission in the amount of £97 for the loss of his possessions, livelihood, fishing boat, seven hogs, and furniture. The total claim would be about $25,000 in today’s money. That may seem substantial but many white planters and merchants claimed thousands of pounds, literally millions today. When the commission interviewed him  he brought along a white widow from Charleston as a testimonial witness. Mrs. Eleanor Lister. She had made and sold pies for her living, which she sometimes traded for fish from Mr. Handley. Lister testified that she believed Scipio was free and that he had possessed at least some of what he claimed. When one of the commissioners asked what kind of  furniture Handley possessed she answered tellingly: “Good enough for Negroes.” She asked the commission to give him “something” because he had “risked his life to serve His Majesty.” The commission dismissed her and asked Handley why he did not return to South Carolina to recover his property. “They’d hang me if I went back,” he replied. “During the war, Governor Rutledge ordered that all slaves who helped the British be executed.” The records of the Loyalist Claims Commission record the amounts awarded to the claimants, at least some of them. It does not contain any information about what Scipio Handley received, if any. Other Black Loyalists did receive varying amounts of compensation, although not a great deal.  The commission took about six years to make its final report on the awards. It may be that by then, Scipio Handley had died. Perhaps we will never know that either.

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Images of Anti-Slavery

The UK has the unenviable distinction of having been a global leader in the Atlantic slave trade, second only to Portugal. British ships transported more than three million Africans to the Americas between the 1600s and 1807. The profits of the trade and the labors of the enslaved were huge. 

[Image: British Slave Ship, Insurrection on Board a Slave Ship, Carl Wadstrom, An Essay on Colonization, 1795]

By the late 18th century, a movement to end the trade and eventually slavery itself began to gain momentum in Britain. Anti-slavery sentiment arose from both religious and secular sources. 

Religious sects like the Quakers had long opposed slavery. After mid-century, they were joined in Britain by members of Dissenting (Non-Anglican but Protestant) sects such as Methodists and by some Anglicans. 

The influence of Enlightenment thinkers also played a role. The illustration below, from Voltaire's popular novella Candide, shows Candide and his companion Cacambo encountering a slave who has had his hand destroyed in a mill and a leg cut off for running away. The slave tells them, "This is the price of your eating sugar in Europe."

In the 1780's, the pioneering potter Josiah Wedgwood, Charles Darwin's grandfather, produced the famous medallion below on behalf of the movement to end the slave trade.

The image below, of "tight packing" aboard the slave ship Brookes, was published in Plymouth, England in 1788. It became an icon of the antislavery movement. Mortality onboard such vessels was often enormous. As much as 50% of the "commodity" did not survive the voyage. 

In the same year, British artist George Morland exhibited his sentimental genre painting "The Slave Trade," showing Africans being loaded into boats on the West African coast.

The painting below, by JMW Turner, depicts the infamous case of the slave ship Zong . The Zong Incident occurred in 1783, almost sixty years before Turner painted his take on it. 

When the Zong overshot its intended destination in Jamaica and ran low on water, the captain ordered more than 100 Africans thrown overboard in order to save the rest. The captain claimed insurance on the "lost cargo." The insurance company refused to pay.

In the court case that followed, Lord Chief Justice Mansfield (pictured below), who had effectively declared slavery illegal under English law in 1772, denied the insurance claim. Many people thought the captain and his henchmen should have been tried for murder.

The Zong "Massacre," as it is often called today, galvanized opponents of the slave trade. In its wake, they mounted a mass popular movement to end it, led by MP William Wilberforce. Parliament finally abolished the slave trade in 1807. 

Abolition of slavery itself in the empire followed in 1833, but the institution survived decades longer in many parts of the globe. Turner's painting the Zong Massacre in was done in 1840 for the International Conference on Abolition of Slavery, held in London.

The legal slave trade to the USA ended in 1808, but a clandestine trade and slavery itself lasted until the end of the Civil War. British artist Eyre Crowe produced a famous depiction of a slave sale in Charleston, South Carolina in 1856. 

During the Antebellum Era (1820-1860), abolitionists in the USA produced many anti-slavery images. They tended to focus on the brutality and violence of the slave system, in which slaveowners wielded tyrannical power over their human chattels. Below are a few examples.

Today, a new curriculum for US History in the Florida of Governor Ron DeSantis, emphasizes the "benefits" of slavery to the enslaved.  He is simultaneously at war with one of Florida's biggest economic powerhouses, Disney, Inc. 

There is a certain irony in this. Disney famously produced a film that, inadvertently, perhaps, made slavery look like a Good Barbie land. I refer of course to Song of the South (1946), the movie based on the Uncle Remus Stories of Joel Chandler Harris. 

My, oh my, what a wonderful day! Zippity do da! Zippityay, sings Uncle Remus to the nice little white children of his owner. Yes, it was that good. 

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John Laurens: Liberty and Slavery

John Laurens is remembered today, if at all, for two things. One is his advocacy of freeing enslaved blacks to fight against the British during the War for Independence. The other is his tragic and senseless death in one of the last skirmishes of that war. 

To be sure, he is now remembered for something else. Some historians argue that he had a homosexual relationship with his undoubtedly close friend, Alexander Hamilton. But I'll leave that issue to others, and focus on the first two.

John Laurens (1754-1782) was the eldest son of planter Henry Laurens of Charleston (then Charlestown), South Carolina. [For more on Henry, see my previous post, The Tower of London's Only American Prisoner: Henry Laurens Detail of portrait of Henry by John Singleton Copley, 1782]

In the middle years of the 18th century, Henry Laurens had amassed a huge fortune, first as a slave trader and then as a rice planter. During the disputes with Britain that led to the American War for Independence, he became an important Patriot leader, even serving as president of the Continental Congress.

Following the example of many of South Carolina's elite, Henry had sent John to Europe for education. The War for Independence began while John was finishing legal studies at Lincoln's Inn in London. Against his father's wishes, he returned to America and joined the Continental Army. Also against his father's wishes, he left behind his heavily pregnant wife, Martha Manning, daughter of one of Henry's British business associates. 

John later confessed that he had carelessly gotten Martha pregnant and married her not for love, but out of pity. He never saw Martha again after he left England, nor did he ever see the daughter she gave birth to a few months later. 

Once in the Patriot army, John rose quickly to the rank of colonel -- too quickly in the view of some fellow officers. He fought bravely at Brandywine and other battles, and earned a reputation for courage bordering on recklessness. He became an aide de camp to George Washington and formed close friendships with two other aides, Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette.

In 1779 Laurens returned to South Carolina. The British army had captured Savannah, Georgia and were threatening Charleston. He subsequently fought bravely in several actions in the Southern Campaign. 

His return is best remembered for the shocking proposal he brought before the South Carolina General Assembly. With the blessing of Congress and Washington, Laurens moved that South Carolina, which had a black majority, enlist blacks in the Patriot army in return for their freedom.

He sought the support of his father, who in a letter to John declared his commitment to abolition of slavery. Henry's declaration was  inspired in part by British critics who ridiculed the sincerity of slaveholders proclaiming liberty and equality for all men. 

The letter was subsequently published. It is difficult to see it as anything more than a publicity stunt. But John took it seriously and continued to press his father on the issue. 

Henry also promised to give John forty of his enslaved blacks to form a nucleus of a unit of free black soldiers. When John formally proposed the creation of a black regiment after he returned to South Carolina, however, Henry got cold feet. He tried to convince John that the idea could never win a majority in the state assembly.

Henry proved correct, but he also did nothing to help his son. John moved the proposal before the assembly three times between 1779 and 1782. Much to his distress and disgust, the delegates repeatedly rejected it by large majorities. The most vocal of Laurens' opponents were John and Edward Rutledge and Christopher Gadsden, designer of the famous "Don't Tread on Me" flag. 

(Images: John Rutledge and Christopher Gadsden)

The second rejection took place in early 1780, as the British were advancing on Charleston with a large army and fleet under Sir Henry Clinton. The invaders took the city after a several weeks' siege. It was the worst Patriot defeat of the war to date. 

The entire defending army of more than 5000 men was made prisoner, including a furious John Laurens, who was convinced that the enlistment of black soldiers could have saved Charleston from capture. (Image: The Siege of Charleston, 1780, from the British lines. Artist: Alonzo Chapelle, 1860s)

Laurens was soon exchanged for a British officer, and resumed his crusade against slavery. On one occasion he wrote that if South Carolina could not be cultivated without slaves, "we should flee from it as a hateful country." This remark may hold the key to his ultimate fate.

John was an enthusiastic but impetuous soldier given to grand gestures. He often ignored or disobeyed the commands of superior officers. Sometimes he acted so rashly as to seem as if he was courting martyrdom. 

A few months after the last rejection of his black regiment proposal, in August 1782, he was killed leading his men against a British foraging expedition. He had advanced against orders to await reinforcements. He was only 28.

The Battle of the Combahee, a minor skirmish in fact, was one of the last actions of the war, and it was absolutely meaningless. The British were ready to concede independence. They evacuated Charleston in December 1782. 

One must wonder if John Laurens was seeking death in battle, having despaired that his new country would eliminate the institution that mocked its call for liberty.  

John is buried at his father's favorite plantation, Mepkin, now a Catholic monastery, near Moncks Corner, South Carolina. The epitaph which Henry chose for his son's grave marker, is a famous line from the Roman poet Horace: "Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori." (It is sweet and proper to die for one's country.") 

It was an odd choice, given that Henry had tried to keep John out of the army. It also says nothing about John's attempts to create an army of free blacks, which Henry had never truly supported. After all, what would the neighbors think? 

Was John Laurens sincere in advocating African emancipation? It is impossible to be sure. I think he was, whether out of a sense of guilt or conviction. He first expressed abolitionist views in Britain while being educated. He became friends with British opponents of slavery, including Thomas Day and John Bicknell, who had written an abolitionist poem, "The Dying Negro."

Laurens was influenced as well by British claims that the American demand for liberty was hypocritical, given the large number of African slaves in the colonies. There was loads of hypocrisy on the British side as well, given that Britain was the largest slave trading nation in the world. 

But the fact that the British commanders freed thousands of slaves who came over to their lines put a sting in their claims of American hypocrisy. The new freedmen also helped to swell British manpower. 

When opponents of his proposals claimed that the enslaved blacks were incapable of appreciating and handling liberty, Laurens countered that blacks and whites shared the same humanity, abilities, and desires. It was slavery itself that had debased a people who, under better circumstances, would prove to be excellent citizens of the republic:

"We have sunk the Africans and their descendants below the Standard of Humanity, and almost render'd them incapable of that Blessing [Liberty] which equal Heaven bestowed upon us all." Here John echoed the preamble of the Declaration of Independence.

John had his own blind spots, his own hypocrisies. Like most southern officers he had a black manservant named Strawberry who it seems he did not treat well. 

During the early nineteenth century, southern writers extolled John Laurens as a chivalric model for the region's youth, but ignored or suppressed his views on slavery. Many of those young men went on to die for a cause far less worthy than his.

Further Reading: 

Gregory Massey, John Laurens and the American Revolution. Columbia, South Carolina, University of South Carolina Press, 2000.

The Papers of Henry Laurens. Columbia, South Carolina, University of South Carolina Press. Volumes dealing with the revolutionary years in particular.

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Anthony Ashley Cooper, First Earl of Shaftesbury

Visitors to Charleston, South Carolina quickly become familiar with two names: Ashley and Cooper. The Charleston peninsula, where the town was situated after 1680, is surrounded by the Ashley and Cooper Rivers, which according to a local joke, come together to form the Atlantic Ocean. Ashley Ave. is one of the major thoroughfares on the peninsula.  

If you live in Charleston or have lived there, you will be familiar with all this. You will more than likely know that Ashley and Cooper form part of the name one of the founders of the Carolina Colony: Anthony Ashley Cooper, First Earl of Shaftesbury. There is also a Shaftsbury Lane in Charleston, but someone apparently forgot the "e". 

The names Ashley, Cooper, and Shaftesbury abound in Charleston in other places and ways:  businesses, shops, apartments, schools, and more. Ashley and Cooper are common names in the region. 

Why did AAC get so much local publicity? He must have been an important guy in the Carolina Colony. In fact, he never set foot in the place. Yet he was important. 

Cooper was a leading politician in England before and during the reign of Charles II (1660-1685), for whom Charles Town* was named. In the 1660s, Charles granted the land of Carolina* to eight men, known as the Lords Proprietors [hereafter, LPs]. Originally, Carolina denoted all the land between Virginia and Florida. 

In making this grant, Charles' was rewarding these aristocrats for remaining loyal to his father, Charles I, or helping to restore the monarchy in 1660. Being able to mount the throne and the ladies of the court after 11 years of republican rule made Charles II a very Merry Monarch. He wanted to share his good fortune and keep these fellows loyal.

Cooper was one of the LPs who had opposed Charles I during the Civil War of the 1640s. He had also served in the government of the Republic (1649-1660), dominated by Oliver Cromwell. After the death of Cromwell, however, he worked for the restoration of the monarchy. The alternative, he believed, was another civil war or military dictatorship. [Image: Anthony Ashley Cooper as a young man, miniature by Samuel Cooper, c.1650]

No one asked the Native Americans what they thought about Charles II's grant of Carolina to the LP's, of course. Nor were the Spanish consulted, although they had claimed the territory a century before. That led to trouble.

AAC, or Lord Ashley, as he then was, was one of the LPs. He had a strong influence on the early development of the colony. He and his secretary, the philosopher John Locke, wrote the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, the legal blueprint for the colony. The colonists were unhappy with certain aspects of the document, especially the power it granted to the LPs, and they often contested or ignored them. That led to more trouble. 

During the formative years of Carolina, AAC had troubles of his own at home. In 1661, a happy Charles II had made him a Baron, Lord Ashley. In the early 1670s, he was one of an inner council of five men the king relied on to implement his policies. The five became known as The Cabal, an acronym formed from their names. In 1672, Charles raised him to a higher rank in the peerage as First Earl of Shaftesbury. [Image: Shaftesbury by John Greenhill, 1672-73]

Shaftesbury's close relationship with the king did not last. In the later 1670s, a political and religious crisis arose in Britain. The Exclusion Crisis, as it was known, centered on the succession to the throne. Charles II, famed for his mistresses, had not managed to father a legitimate heir. 

After his death, the law of succession meant the Crown would pass to his nearest male relative, his brother James, Duke of York. That was problem for many political leaders because James had recently become a Roman Catholic and married a Catholic, Mary of Modena. 

Shaftesbury became suspicious of James' intentions in the early 1670s. He feared that James intended to establish arbitrary rule and force Catholicism on the country with the aid of Louis XIV of France. He believed correctly that Charles was helping him. 

AAC was a trained lawyer and a firm advocate of the rule of law. He had opposed Cromwell's adoption of military rule in the 1650s and now he opposed the danger of an absolute monarchy. 

In the later 1670s, Shaftesbury helped establish a political movement to exclude James from the throne and limit the power of the monarch. The movement's supporters in Parliament became known as Whigs. Their opponents, who supported James, became known as Tories. 

Charles II supported his brother and lashed out against the Whigs. In 1682, fearing arrest, Shaftesbury fled to the Netherlands, where he died early the next year. The Whig Party lived on, however, as did the Carolina Colony he helped found. 

*Carolina was not named for Charles II, but his father Charles I, best known for starting the English Civil War and having his head removed by the victors. In the early 18th century, the Carolina Colony was divided into South and North Carolina. 

Charles Town (or Charlestown) was renamed Charleston in 1783.

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Loyalist by Marriage: Sarah Izard Campbell

In Revolutionary South Carolina, people became Loyalists for various reasons. Some held office under the British government and/or had taken oaths of loyalty to it. Some felt gratitude toward the Crown for granting them land or mercantile privileges. 

Others became Loyalists because the neighbors they hated had joined the other side. For them the war was a continuation of old family feuds. Many enslaved persons supported the British government because they believed it might bring them freedom. For thousands, it did. Native Americans, mainly the Cherokee in South Carolina, sided with Britain because it tried to limit the movement of whites onto their lands.   

Sarah Izard became a Loyalist through marriage. Genealogical sources on her are conflicting. She was born in South Carolina, around 1745, the daughter of planter Ralph Izard and his wife Rebecca. Sarah's cousin Ralph Izard (1742-1804) made his name as a Patriot, Senator, and American Diplomat. * Her life took a far different trajectory. 

She was a teenager, about 18, when she met and fell in love with a Royal Navy captain who arrived in Charleston in 1762. Lord William Campbell, commander of HMS Nightingale, was the 4th son of Scotland's most powerful aristocrat, the Duke of Argyll. The British were engaged at the time in the Seven Years War, known as the French and Indian War in British North America.

Sarah and William married in April 1763. The notice in the South Carolina Gazette mentions that she was "a young lady esteemed one of the most considerable fortunes in the province." In other words, a fine catch for the 4th son of a duke. But the 4th son of a duke was also a good catch for the daughter of a provincial planter. 

By the time they married, the war was officially over, and the couple moved to Britain in 1764. She was now Lady William Campbell and Sir Joshua Reynolds painted her portrait.

[Image: Miniature watercolor of Sarah by Charles Fraser in the Collection of the Gibbes Art Gallery, Charleston, SC. Fraser listed it in 1834 as a copy of a painting by "Sir Joshua." The original would have been painted sometime before 1775. Sarah is pictured with one of her pet whippets. I have been unable to locate Reynolds' original.] 

Back in Britain, Lord William served a term in Parliament as MP for his family's seat in Argyllshire. In 1766, the government appointed him royal governor of Nova Scotia. He remained in the post until 1773.  

For some time, he had been lobbying for the position of royal governor of South Carolina. Sarah wanted to return to her home and family. William was suffering from an eye problem he blamed on the climate.

Family influence got him the South Carolina appointment. The couple arrived in Charleston in June 1775 to a cold welcome. Rumors had spread before their arrival that their ship was carrying thousands of guns and munitions to distribute to the "slaves" and "savages." In fact, the most dangerous weapons it carried were probably Sarah's whippets.

Opponents of the British colonial policy in South Carolina had taken over the reins of government several months before. Lord William found himself virtually powerless and eventually physically threatened. 

In September the last royal governor of South Carolina fled to a British ship in the harbor. Sarah, who also faced harassment, joined him a few weeks later. They sailed away in late December 1775. Sarah would never return to South Carolina. 

Lord William did come back, and it proved his undoing. He served on a Royal Navy ship during the British assault on Sullivan's Island in June 1776. He was wounded in the side, a festering wound that his doctors believed the cause of his death two years later. Sarah lived out her life as a widow and mother of three children in Britain, presumably supported by William's wealthy family. She died in 1784.   

*Online sources on Sarah and her family are conflicting and sometimes hilarious. Some genealogy sites say her mother was nine years old when she gave birth to Sarah! Others says Sarah was the daughter of Ralph and Alice DeLancey Izard, who were born in the same decade as she was. Some say that Ralph was her brother. To add to the confusion, Sarah had a brother named Ralph Izard, but not that Ralph Izard, the other one!