The Scottish Conspiracy Against American Liberty: The Case of South Carolina

Did a Scottish conspiracy to crush colonial liberty provoke the American Revolution? Nonsense, you will likely say. But evidence from the 1760s and 1770s shows that colonial anger at the actions of the British government was paralleled by a rise of anti-Scottish sentiment. Some colonial leaders, who called themselves Whigs, claimed that Scots dominated the government in London and were conspiring to undermine the people's liberties, to enslave them in fact. Whigs, who later called  themselves Patriots, used the term "enslave" freely, despite the fact that many of them were themselves slaveowners. "Liberty or Slavery" was a common Whig motto.   

The Scottish conspiracy theory, like so many things political in the colonies, originated in British politics. In the early 1760s, disgruntled English Whig politicians claimed that George III’s former Scottish tutor, John  Stuart, Earl of Bute was the gray eminence behind the alleged conspiracy. 

George selected Bute as his Prime Minister in 1762, two years after he became king. English Whig politicians concocted the conspiracy theory while Bute was in office. He didn't last long in the job. King George discharged him in 1763. Yet Whigs continued to accuse Bute of plotting behind the scenes to “enslave” the English people. They accused him of influencing policy through an affair with the king's mother. 

Bute's critics portrayed him as a boot. The "Boot" became a common and convenient symbol of tyranny in Britain and its empire. American Whigs used it during the Stamp Act Crisis in 1765 and right up to the beginning of the revolution in 1775. 

The Scottish conspiracy theory gained additional traction in America in the early 1770s as a result of a judicial decision in London. The judge who made the decision happened to be a Scot, Lord Mansfield. He was educated in England, trained in law, and became one of the top English judges, Chief Justice of the Court of King’s Bench. In the widely reported Somerset Case in 1772, Mansfield ruled that slavery had no basis in English law, in either precedent or statute. 

The Somerset decision sent shock waves through the colonies, especially the southern colonies, where the wealth of the elite relied on enslaved African labor. Nowhere was the Somerset ruling more resented than in South Carolina, where enslaved Africans made up a majority of the population. Many planters feared Parliament might extend Mansfield's ruling to the entire empire. The fear had little basis in reality. Mansfield's ruling was narrow and applied only to England. 

Abolition of slavery in the British empire occurred, of course, but not for more than sixty years. In the 1770s, the anti-slavery movement in Britain was still in its infancy. Parliament was filled with MPs and Lords who derived much of their income from the slave trade and colonial plantations. Abolitionism was beginning to have some impact on the British  consciousness, but it did not have enough influence on Parliament to achieve abolition of the slave trade, let alone slavery itself. The sugar planters of the West Indies seem to have understood this, because they did not use it as a reason to defy the home government. 

Slave owning colonists in the American colonies, especially in South Carolina, did not understand the reality of British politics. Or they pretended not to. They panicked at the news of the Somerset decision. Their fear that it might be applied to the colonies led them to embrace a solution that aligned them with northern activists challenging Parliament’s power to tax the colonies. 

The solution had already been articulated by Charleston merchant Christopher Gadsden. Since the late 1750s Gadsden had been arguing that Parliament had no right to legislate for the colonies on any domestic matters. In the northern colonies the rallying cry of those opposing British policies was "No Taxation without Representation.” That cry was adopted in the South as well, but it was not the main issue that united southerners against Britain. The central issue in South Carolina, although never articulated directly, was “No Representation, No Slavery.” The political elite decided that the best way to protect its domestic institutions (read: chattel slavery) was for South Carolina to control its own destiny. That decision was a crucial step in the unification of the thirteen colonies into what became the United States. 

By the early 1770s, antislavery views in the northern colonies were gaining adherents. Some of the men who would sign the Declaration of Independence in July 1776 had previously denounced human bondage. But in the interests of colonial unity, northern antislavery figures muted their criticisms and accommodated southern opinion. John Adams and Benjamin Franklin had both condemned slavery, but in 1775 they argued that slavery, like taxation, was a domestic issue for Americans to deal with. The British Parliament had no right to interfere in the internal affairs of the colonies. They must be sovereign, and they must unite to achieve sovereignty. The issue of slavery would have to wait until that was accomplished. 

To salve their consciences, many American Whigs predicted that slavery would be abolished after independence was achieved. That was safely in the future. In 1775, colonists north and south proclaimed that the British government was determined to enslave them, while also threatening the institution of slavery. And the architects of this policy were Bute, Mansfield, and other villains, including ones implanted in the heart of the colonies. The cartoon of 1775 below, Virtual Representation, illustrates the colonial Whig view. The man in tartan pants with the gun is Lord Bute. Next to him is Lord Mansfield in his judicial robes. The gun is pointed at colonists. Britannia, at far right is coming to the rescue, but is about to fall into a pit, presumably dug by the Scots. On the far left are two French Canadians, a soldier and a monk, who are supporting Bute and Mansfield. Why? In 1774, Parliament had passed the Quebec Act giving French Canadian Catholics freedom of religion. Many American colonists viewed this with alarm. They believed it was part of the British strategy to subdue the thirteen colonies, in this case by enlisting French Canadians to fight them. 

In retrospect the view that Bute, Mansfield, and other Scots in Britain and the colonies were engaged in a conspiracy to eliminate American liberty and abolish American slavery -- a disconnect and an oxymoron -- seems preposterous. To many people in the colonies, however, the Scottish conspiracy theory seemed plausible. It was politically useful to American Whigs and they had the claims of English Whigs to support it. 

British Whigs were the political descendants of the parliamentary faction that had opposed royal absolutism in the turbulent seventeenth century. The monarchs in question belonged to the House of Stuart. The Stuarts were a Scottish dynasty. They had ruled Scotland for centuries before James VI & I became king of England on the death of Elizabeth I in 1603. 

American colonists claimed to be defending liberties secured by the seventeenth century struggles against the heirs of James I: Charles I, Charles II, and James II. In the wake of the conflicts, many people in Britain and its colonies associated the Scottish name Stuart with authoritarianism. Lord Bute's given name, John Stuart, surely did little to help his chances of political success.

By the time of the American Revolution, Stuart monarchs no longer ruled Britain and had not for sixty years. Their immediate successors, the Hanoverian kings George I and II, had favored Whig politicians during their reigns, from 1714 to1760, a period often called The Whig Supremacy. The rival Tory Party all but disappeared. 

Things changed when George III ascended the throne in 1760, aged nineteen. He believed that Whig oligarchs had gained too much power and had corrupted British politics. He was eager to reduce their influence and end the successful but hugely expensive war with France and Spain. His current Whig ministers wanted to continue the war. George removed several of them from his government. Among them was the popular William Pitt, who had led Britain to victory in the Seven Years War (French and Indian War in American history). 

Pitt had become a hero in the colonies as well, as the names of numerous towns and streets in the USA attest, from Pittsburgh to Pittsboro to Pittsfield. Charleston, South Carolina named a street after him (I lived on it) and erected a statue of him in gratitude for his efforts to abolish the Stamp Act of 1765. The statue originally stood at the intersection of Broad and Meeting Streets. It is now located in the Charleston County Judicial Center. It is missing his outstretched arm. Ironically, a British cannonball knocked it off during their siege of the city in 1780. 

English Whig claims of “Scots tyranny” merged with growing colonial resentment of Scottish influence and economic competition in British America. Ever since the Act of Union, Scots had been free to settle and trade in England and its colonies. Thousands took advantage of the opportunity and migrated to greener pastures. Scottish merchants and traders descended on London and every corner of the empire. 

Many people in England resented this invasion by their former enemies. English writers and cartoonists portrayed Scots as lean and hungry, a plague of locusts eager to feast on the land of milk and honey. The poet Charles Churchill described Scotland as a land where half-starved spiders fed on half-starved flies. In his dictionary, lexicographer Samuel Johnson defined oats as a grain which in England is fed to horses and in Scotland is fed to the people. Scots were uncouth, uncivilized, impoverished -- and historically traitorous. The last is a reference to the Jacobite Rebellions which were designed to restore the Catholic Stuart monarchs to the throne of Britain. The rebellions broke out in Scotland, and Highland clans provided most of the Jacobite soldiery. The last of the revolts penetrated into central England before being crushed in 1746. Most adults in England could remember the panic and fear it generated, and they told their children.    

[English Anti-Scottish Cartoons: Sawney in the Boghouse and London: A Flight of Scotsman] 

In America, Scots flocked to South Carolina and Georgia in particular, lured by the prospect of quick riches. They became merchants, planters, doctors, and shopkeepers. The Crown also appointed Scots to many colonial offices, a trend that accelerated after the defeat of the last Jacobite Rebellion in 1746 and the accession of George III in 1760. From the perspective of the British government improving opportunities for Scots in the empire was a means of keeping them loyal. Americans were not the only ones struggling to achieve unity in the late eighteenth century. We tend to forget that Great Britain was also a new country, not much older than the United States. “British” was a new and fragile national identity. 

Many Charleston creoles resented the new Scottish ascendancy in trade and government. They accused Scots of favoring one another and benefiting unfairly from British colonial and trade policies. Merchant Christopher Gadsden was one of the most vocal critics of the Scottish invasion. In 1767 Gadsden built a huge wharf in Charleston, one of the largest in any American port. During its construction of his wharf, Gadsden remarked that he was going to "fill the foundation with imported Scotchmen, who are fit for nothing better." The statement reflected Gadsden’s disdain for Scots, in particular Scottish merchants, who he viewed as the undeserving beneficiaries of British trade policies. 

About the same time, Gadsden was developing the area near Boundary Street. He called it Middlesex and named one of the streets after John Wilkes, Whig MP for the county of Middlesex. Gadsden admired Wilkes for his spirited defense of English liberties, which took an anti-Scottish slant. He became famed for his attacks on Lord Bute in his journal The North Briton. Wilkes became a hero to many colonists in the 1760s, despite notoriously rakish behavior and obscenity charges stemming from his satirical poem, An Essay on Woman. 

Gadsden’s hostility toward Scots may have initially developed as a result of his service as a militia officer during the Cherokee War of 1760. At the request of South Carolina, the British government sent a Highland regiment to help quell the Cherokee uprising. Gadsden was angered that the government gave command of the campaigns to Scottish officers. Gadsden believed that a South Carolinian should have been in command. 

Peter Timothy, printer of the South Carolina Gazette, was another prominent Whig who resented the success of recent Scots arrivals. His animosity was directed in particular against a rival Scottish printer, Robert Wells, who had arrived in the early 1750s. Wells printed and imported books, and established a flourishing bookstore. In the late 1750s, he started a rival newspaper. Timothy resented the competition, and claimed that Wells benefited from an unfair advantage. Interestingly, Wells supported the protests against the Stamp Act in 1765, but later became a staunch defender of the British government. He also became known for his belligerent Scottishness. He used to dress his son William Charles in a tartan jacket and Scottish bonnet to demonstrate his national pride. Poor William suffered harassment from other young boys of the town as a result. Robert was also the object of Whig harassment. In 1775, he left for Britain, declaring he could not live under the "Lilliputian" regime in South Carolina. 

When Timothy complained that Wells benefited from an unfair advantage, one of the persons he blamed was another Scot, who like Bute, also happened to to be named John Stuart. He had come to Charleston from Scotland in 1748. After mixed success as a merchant, including some slave trading, he married Sarah Fenwick, daughter of a wealthy planting family. He became a planter and built the house that still bears his name, the Colonel John Stuart House on the western end of Tradd Street. 

During the Cherokee War of 1760 Stuart served in the South Carolina militia. He developed a good relationship with some of the people he was fighting, including Cherokee headman Attakullakulla, the Little Carpenter. In 1762, the British government, eager to prevent war, appointed him as Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southern Department. In that capacity he tried to keep the peace between the backcountry settlers and the southern Indian nations. 

It was partly at Stuart's instigation that the British government established the Proclamation Line in 1763, which declared the land of the Appalachians and beyond was to be reserved as Indian land. Stuart argued that shady land speculators and white settlers encroaching on Indian land constituted the main danger to peace. He made powerful enemies trying to prevent fraudulent land deals, including one in which planter William Henry Drayton tried to swindle the Catawba nation out of thousands of acres. 

In the spring of 1775, Drayton and his other enemies revenged themselves by charging that Stuart was conspiring with the British government to incite Indian attacks on the colonists. In fact, he was trying to prevent the southern Indian nations from going to war. This fabricated tale enraged many people in the city. Stuart had to flee Charleston with a liberty mob at his heels. He ended up in Florida, where he continued to advise the Indians. In 1776, he tried but failed to prevent a disastrous Cherokee attack on the settlers of the southern backcountry. He died ion Florida in 1779. 

Into this hornet's nest sailed another suspicious Scot, the last royal governor of South Carolina. Lord William Campbell was the 4th son of the Duke of Argyll, Scotland's most powerful aristocrat. In 1763, he had been stationed in Charleston as a navy captain, and had married the daughter of a local planter, Sarah Izard. The Campbells arrived in June 1775 aboard the ship Scorpion. Prior to their arrival, a rumor had spread that the ship was carrying 14,000 stand of arms to be distributed to Loyalists, slaves, and Indians. 

The rumor was baseless, but people were disposed to believe it. The Whigs "uncovered" another conspiracy around the time Campbell arrived. They arrested some "suspicious" slaves who, after "rigorous interrogation" confessed the existence of a plot for a slave revolt to help the British. The alleged organizer was a wealthy free black, Thomas Jeremiah. After a mockery of a trial, the tribunal of five white men found him guilty. He was hanged and his body burned a few days later. Campbell was appalled by the proceeding and attempted to pardon Jeremiah, only to find he was powerless. 

When the Whigs spread the news of Campbell's efforts to save the condemned man, a liberty mob surrounded his  house at 34 Meeting Street and threatened to drag him out into the street and force him to hang Jeremiah himself. Campbell fled Charleston to a British navy ship a few weeks later, bringing an official end to British rule in South Carolina. In fact, it had ended months before. 

Many Scots in the southern colonies became Loyalists once the revolution began. One of the most interesting and insightful explanations of Scottish loyalism was offered by Charles Webb of St. Paul’s Parish, a few miles southwest of Charleston. Webb was himself a Loyalist, but not a Scot. In July 1775, the parish committee reported him to a justice of the peace for “malicious expressions" against the Whigs, who he said were "greater rebels than ever the Scotch were.” This was an obvious reference to the Jacobite rebellions in Scotland. Webb pointed to a key reason why many Scots in America supported the British government: many of them or their families had suffered severe punishments after the crushing of the rebellions. He was not surprised, he said, that the Scots were “such loyal subjects, for a burnt child would dread the fire.” They had learned from experience the folly of fighting the British monarch. This was true, but Whig attacks on Scots in America also contributed to this result. 

Further Reading: 

Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992)

Jim Piecuch, Three Peoples, One King: Loyalists, Indians, and Slaves in the Revolutionary South, 1775-1782. Columbia: University of South Carlina Press, 2008.

Robert G. Parkinson, Thirteen Clocks: How Racism United the Colonies and Made the Declaration of Independence. Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, and the University of North Carolina Pres, Chapel Hill.

Alfred W. Blumrosen and Ruth G. Blumrosen, Slave Nation: How Slavery United the Colonies & Sparked the American Revolution (Naperville, Illinois: Source Books, 2005)

John Drayton, Memoirs of the American Revolution 2 vols., Charleston, 1821.

The Papers of Henry Laurens. 16 vols., Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1972-2003. Volumes dealing with the 1760s and 1770s.

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.

Kelcey Eldridge. A Forgotten Founder: The Life and Legacy of Christopher Gadsden (MA thesis). Clemson University, 2018.

Richard Walsh, Charleston's Sons of Liberty: A Study of the Artisans, 1763–1789. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1959. 

Peter McCandless, Slavery, Disease, and Suffering in the Southern Lowcountry. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2011, 2014. 

If you enjoyed this post and would like to become a follower of my blog, just click on the blue "FOLLOW" button on the right side of the first page. Below there you can also find my previous posts. Thanks! 

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

If you enjoyed this post and would like to become a follower of my blog, just click on the blue "FOLLOW" button on the right side of the first page. Below there you can also find my previous posts. Thanks! 

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 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.

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: 

Peter McCandless, Remarkable Charlestonians in the American Revolution. Charleston, The History press, 2025.

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

If you enjoyed this post and would like to become a follower of my blog, just click on the blue "FOLLOW" button on the right side of the first page. Below there you can also find my previous posts. Thanks! 

"Don't Tread on Me": Christopher Gadsden and His Flag

Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina is best known today as the designer of the iconic "Gadsden Flag." The flag features a rattlesnake on a bright yellow background, with the words "DONT TREAD ON ME" at the bottom. The snake is coiled to strike. 

The flag's message was directed towards the British government: Step on the liberties of the American people at your peril. The snake has thirteen rattles, symbolizing the thirteen colonies that were soon to declare their independence. [Image: Gadsden Flag]

Gadsden displayed the flag at a meeting of the South Carolina Provincial Congress in February 1776 to great acclaim. It became a popular symbol of Patriot resistance. In recent years it has been appropriated by far right groups to show their defiance of ... whatever they are currently defying, usually the federal government and other conspirators against "freedom."  It featured prominently in the January 6 insurrection that led to the storming of the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. [Image: January 6, 2021]

There is much more to Gadsden's story than his flag, however. First, a little background. Gadsden was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1724. His father, Thomas Gadsden, was a former British naval officer who had been appointed as customs collector for the port of Charleston. 

Thomas sent young Christopher to Bristol, England to be educated. Returning to America in 1740, he worked briefly as an apprentice in a Philadelphia counting house. He inherited a sizeable fortune when his parents died in 1741. During King George's War (1744-1748) he served as a purser on a British naval vessel. Afterwards, he became a merchant and planter. 

In 1767 he built a large wharf in Charleston. Gadsden's Wharf became a major receiving point for enslaved Africans. More than 100,000 were landed there between 1767 and 1808, when the legal slave trade ended. 

During the construction of the wharf, Gadsden quipped that he was going to "fill the foundation with imported Scotchmen, who are fit for nothing better." It was a joke, but it reflected his dislike of Scots, in particular Scottish merchants, who he viewed as undeserving beneficiaries of British trade policies. His dislike of Scots may also have derived from his service in the Cherokee War of 1760, when he clashed with Highland Scots officers. 

In the years leading up to the Revolution, many colonials accused Scots of conspiring to undermine their freedom. [Image: Scots Lord Bute and Chief Justice Lord Mansfield (in center) conspiring against American liberty, 1775. In fact, neither had any influence over British colonial policy at the time] 

  

In 1757 Gadsden was elected to the South Carolina Commons House of Assembly. He soon began to clash openly with the royal governors over British trade and taxation policies. In 1766, the assembly appointed him to represent South Carolina at the Stamp Act Congress in New York City. He was one of the most radical delegates at the Congress and formed an alliance and friendship with the equally radical Sam Adams of Boston, leader of the Sons of Liberty in Boston. Gadsden has often been called the "Sam Adams of the South."

Gadsden became a leader of the Charleston Sons of Liberty, who terrorized the town looking for stamps and other evidence of pro-British leanings. Among the houses they raided was that of planter and slave trader Henry Laurens. According to Laurens, they frightened his sick wife Eleanor half to death. He threw them his cellar keys and told them to help themselves to wine. They found no stamps, apologized and left. Laurens subsequently supported Gadsden and the Liberty Boys, but with some hesitation. 

In 1771, future Patriot William Henry Drayton called Gadsden a madman who ought to be in Bedlam. But Drayton was then defending the British Crown. After he abruptly switched sides in the early 1770s, the two became allies in the Patriot cause. 

As the conflict with Britain escalated, Gadsden was elected to the First and Second Continental Congresses in Philadelphia. In early 1776, he left Congress to assume command of the newly formed 1st South Carolina Regiment and serve in the South Carolina Provincial Congress. It was then that he first displayed his famous flag. He also brought a pamphlet written by a recent immigrant from England, calling for American independence, Common Sense by Thomas Paine. It was less well received. 

The interim President of South Carolina, John Rutledge, appointed Gadsden brigadier and commander of the state's military forces. In 1778 Gadsden helped draft a new state constitution under which he became lieutenant governor.  

When the British besieged Charleston in the spring of 1780, Rutledge left for the backcountry to rally resistance. Gadsden remained to help coordinate the defense of the city. 

By the middle of April, however, the British had nearly encircled Charleston. Benjamin Lincoln, the commander of the Southern Continental Army, decided that his only option besides surrender was to flee with his army while escape remained possible. 

Word got out to Gadsden. He and several of his councillors stormed into Lincoln's headquarters as he was discussing his proposals with his officers. Gadsden accused Lincoln of cowardice. Lincoln agreed to stay.  

In early May, the British unleashed a ferocious bombardment of the city. Gadsden led another delegation to see General Lincoln. This time, he demanded that Lincoln surrender to save the property and lives of the citizens. On May 12, Lincoln surrendered. It was the worst defeat for the Patriot forces in the war. The entire army, more than 5000 men, was made prisoner. 

The militia and many civilian leaders were initially given parole; that is, allowed to go free, as long as they did not continue to oppose the Crown. A few weeks after the surrender, however, the British arrested Gadsden and about twenty other rebel leaders on the grounds that they were plotting further resistance. 

Shipped to the British stronghold in St. Augustine, Florida, they remained prisoners until the following summer. The commander in St. Augustine offered them parole and the freedom of the town. Gadsden alone refused it. The British, he argued, had already violated their original promise of parole. 

In July 1781, the British released the prisoners on parole and sent them to Philadelphia. Gadsden returned to South Carolina in time to serve in the Jacksonborough Assembly in early 1782. At the time,  Charleston was still under British occupation. The Assembly elected him as governor, but he declined the office due to poor health. 

One of the most contentious items on the Assembly's agenda was drawing up a list of Loyalists to be punished after the war, which was nearing its end. Proposed punishments ranged from banishment and confiscation of property to amercements or fines. 

Gadsden shocked the assembly by urging leniency towards Loyalists. His words had little effect on the majority of delegates, who shouted him down. They demanded severe punishments. Some accused Gadsden of trying to protect Loyalists in his family. 

Thousands of Loyalists left South Carolina with the British or shortly thereafter. (Some were later able to get their punishments reduced and returned.)

Gadsden lived for another 23 years. He sat in the state convention of 1788 that ratified the United States Constitution. After 1798 he lived in Charleston at the house he built at 329 East Bay Street. He died in 1805 after falling from a horse. [Image: Gadsden House and Gadsden in old age]

 

 Further Reading: 

John Drayton, Memoirs of the American Revolution 2 vols., Charleston, 1821. Based on documents John's father William Henry Drayton had collected prior to his death.

The Papers of Henry Laurens. 16 vols., Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1972-2003. Volumes dealing with the 1760s and 1770s.

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).

If you enjoyed this post and would like to become a follower of my blog, just click on the blue "FOLLOW" button on the right side of the first page. Below there you can also find my previous posts. Thanks! 

 

The British Seize Charleston, May 12, 1780

[A somewhat fanciful depiction of The Siege of Charleston from the British lines by Alonzo Chappell, 1862.] 

On May 12, 1780, Charleston, South Carolina surrendered to a British army under the command of Sir Henry Clinton. It was the worst Patriot defeat in the American War for Independence. Clinton not only took the city, the most important in the South, he also captured most of the garrison, more than 5000 soldiers. It was not until the Surrender at Bataan in World War II that more American soldiers surrendered to an enemy army. [Image: Sir Henry Clinton]

The victory was the culmination of a campaign that had begun three months before, when Clinton had disembarked an army of more than 8000 men on Simmons (now Seabrook) Island. Marching through the difficult terrain of Simmons and James Islands, they crossed the Ashley River onto Charleston Peninsula on March 29. 

They immediately began to construct siege lines that moved them and their artillery ever closer to the city. The map below shows the gradual encroachment of the British lines. 

Thousands more British and Loyalist soldiers from Savannah and New York soon joined Clinton, as did thousands of black runaways attracted by his promise of freedom. Many of them were enlisted as Black Pioneers, auxiliaries to the British Army. 

The American commander, Benjamín Lincoln of Massachusetts, had advocated Colonel John Laurens' idea of arming enslaved men on the same promise. The state legislature voted the proposal down by a large majority. Some local leaders argued that allowing the British a free passage through South Carolina was preferable to the prospect of arming Africans.

By late April the British had completely surrounded Charleston. Lincoln proposed to escape with his army before the British had encircled the city. He backed down in the face of local hostility to the move. [Image: Benjamin Lincoln]

Acting Governor Christopher Gadsden (of "Don't Tread On Me" flag fame) led an angry crowd to Lincoln's headquarters. Gadsden accused Lincoln of cowardice. One of his entourage threatened to open the gates to the enemy and attack Lincoln's soldiers before they could get to their boats. [Images: Christopher Gadsden and his flag]

Most of Lincoln's officers also opposed a withdrawal at this point. Lincoln agreed to remain. In the end, cut off from escape and reinforcements, running out of food, and under increasingly heavy bombardment, he accepted Clinton's terms. Ironically, Gadsden and others who had accused Lincoln of cowardice earlier now demanded he surrender to save the city from destruction. 

Under Clinton's terms, the Continental soldiers became prisoners of war. They were interned in and around the city. The militia were paroled. They could go home, as long as they did not take up arms against the British. Lincoln, Laurens, and other officers were also paroled not long after. They were able to return to active service after being exchanged for British prisoners of equivalent rank. 

A few weeks later, Clinton returned to his headquarters in New York. He left General Lord Cornwallis in command in the South. The two men despised each other, a fact that would cause serious problems for British operations for the rest of the war. [Image: General Charles, Lord Cornwallis]

Before leaving, Clinton made a serious mistake. He decreed that men who had taken parole had to swear an oath of allegiance to the Crown. In effect, they might have to fight for the British against their former comrades. 

Anger at Clinton's proclamation helped fill the ranks of the partisan forces that soon emerged in the backcountry under Francis Marion and Thomas Sumter. Cornwallis won a decisive victory over General Gates at Camden in August, but his inability to subdue the partisans (and Carolina fevers) led him to march his army to Virginia and Yorktown.  

Footnote: On the same day Charleston surrendered to Clinton, an enormous tragedy occurred. As the Patriots were surrendering their weapons at the powder magazine (on Magazine Street), the powder exploded, killing scores and injuring hundreds. The dead and wounded included soldiers from both sides, women from a nearby brothel, and most of the "lunatics" at the adjacent poorhouse and hospital. Each side blamed the other, but the explosion was most likely caused when a soldier threw down a musket that had not been unloaded and discharged into the magazine.

Further Reading: 

Carl P. Borick, A Gallant Defense: The Siege of Charleston, 1780. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003. 

.