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. 

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Coronation! British Monarchs Who Ended Badly, Part 9: Charles II to William and Mary

In 1660, the Convention Parliament invited the eldest son of Charles I to return to England as King Charles II. Having spent nine years in exile, he promised to rule in cooperation with Parliament. 

The event marked the beginning of the period known as the Restoration. The Restoration might as well be called the Counter Revolution. The Revolution of 1649 had abolished the monarchy, the House of Lords, and the bishops. In 1651, Cromwell had effectively abolished the House of Commons. The Restoration of 1660 brought them all back. 

One might shrug and say, "I guess the civil wars, execution of Charles I, and revolution that followed accomplished nothing." But that was far from the case. Charles II never forgot his father's fate. On his return, he is alleged to have said, "God has given us the throne, and we intend to enjoy it." Have fun and party was the order of the day. The theaters reopened after being banned under Puritan rule, and bawdy comedies were performed. Christmas, which the Puritans also banned in 1646, could once again be celebrated with feasting and jollity. 

It wasn't all cakes and ale. In 1665, London was hit by the Great Plague, the worst (and last) plague epidemic in the city's history. It killed around 100,000 people. The following year, the Great Fire of London destroyed most of the city, including old St. Paul's and many other churches. Many people believed God was punishing England for its sins. But that soon blew over and the party continued.

Despite making many poor decisions, especially in foreign policy, Charles was and remains one of the most popular monarchs in British history. For many people he was and is the Merry Monarch, famous for his good humor, wit, and mistresses as much as anything else. 

The poet John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, wrote of Charles:

"Restless he rolls from whore to whore, 

A merry monarch, scandalous and poor."

Wilmot is also supposed to have written: 

"We have a pretty, witty king, 

Whose word no man relies on,

He never said a foolish thing, 

And never did a wise one."

It would be a mistake to write Charles off as a hedonistic playboy. He could be serious about his job, and he wanted to be a player on the world stage. He admired and envied the power and wealth of his fellow monarch in France. 

In 1660, Louis XIV was well on his way to becoming an absolute monarch. He was able to rule without serious interference from a troublesome representative assembly or overmighty nobles.  

Like his father, Charles II believed he was king by divine right. But he knew that in practical terms it was not God but Parliament that had given him the throne. To keep it, he needed to avoid the kind of direct conflicts with that body that had cost his father his head. 

Charles II always needed more money for wars and palaces but was reluctant to adopt the arbitrary measures his father had used. Instead, he tried to increase his wealth and power by subterfuge and duplicity. An example is the Treaty of Dover (1670). It was treaty of alliance with Louis XIV of France against the Dutch. That much was public. 

The treaty contained a secret section that Charles did not reveal even to some of his closest advisors. Louis agreed to pay Charles a large sum of money. In return, Charles pledged to restore Catholicism in England. Whether Charles was sincere about that pledge may well be doubted. He did make an effort to relax the penal laws against Catholics and Protestant Dissenters in 1672 but backed down when faced with strong parliamentary opposition. His pro-French and anti-Dutch foreign policy also angered many in Parliament, who preferred an alliance with the Protestant Netherlands.

Around that time, suspicions grew that Catholics were plotting to destroy Protestantism in Britain. A shady Anglican minister, Titus Oates, claimed to have uncovered a Catholic conspiracy to kill the king, the so-called Popish Plot. It was pure invention, but the murder of a staunchly Protestant MP, Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, convinced many people that the plot was real.   

Oates claimed that Charles' Portuguese and Catholic wife, Catherine of Braganza, was involved in the plot. The hysteria that followed in England and Scotland led to the executions of more than 20 innocent people. [Image: Queen Catherine of Braganza by Peter Lely, 1663-65]

Charles did not believe the plot was real. He interrogated Oates himself and caught him out in several lies and inaccuracies. He had Oates arrested, but Parliament ordered him freed. His accusations became even more bizarre. The revelation of the plot led to what was called the Exclusion Crisis. This was an attempt by some members of Parliament to exclude Charles' brother, James, Duke of York, from the throne. 

During the panic over the plot the public had learned that James had secretly converted to Catholicism. Charles had a dozen illegitimate children but fathered no legitimate heir. Queen Catherine had several pregnancies, but each ended in miscarriage. James was therefore next in line. The politicians who supported the Exclusion Bill became known as the Whigs. They supported a limited monarchy and toleration for all Protestant sects. Most Tories and Charles opposed the Exclusion Bill. 

At fist, most of the country accepted the new king. The Duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of Charles II, led a rising against James in the West Country but Monmouth's Rebellion was easily and brutally crushed. 

Monmouth and hundreds of others were executed. Hundreds more were transported to the West Indies to work on the sugar plantations. The trials of the rebels became known as the Bloody Assizes. The film Captain Blood starring Errol Flynn deals with these events.

James lacked his older brother's caution. Perhaps the easy defeat of Monmouth's rebellion made him overconfident. He suspended the penal laws against Catholics and non-Anglican Protestants, known as Dissenters. A good thing we might think, but not in the political and religious context of the 1680s.

Charles II had tried to do the same thing and failed. James might have got away with it. But he went on to place Catholics and Dissenters in important positions in the military, government, universities, and judiciary. He packed juries. All in violation of the current law.

Suspicions grew that James was intent on a Catholic coup. Across the Channel in France, Louis XIV had just revoked the Edict of Nantes, which since 1598 had guaranteed toleration of Protestant Huguenots. Refugees were streaming into England with tales of horrific persecution.  

Public fears increased when James' second wife, Mary of Modena, gave birth to a son in 1685. Many people were so upset at the news that they eagerly accepted a fake story that the infant was not hers but had been smuggled into the birthing room in a warming pan. 

James had two grown children from his first marriage, daughters Mary and Anne. Both had remained firmly Protestant. As long as they were his heirs, many people were willing to tolerate the elderly James. The newly arrived male child took precedence over the princesses in the line of succession, opening the prospect of a Catholic dynasty. 

The Tories faced a dilemma. They were staunch royalists who supported a powerful monarchy. But they were also fervent defenders of the Protestant Anglican Church. Would they support their king or their church? 

The Whigs had fewer qualms. They opposed absolute monarchy and supported parliamentary sovereignty. As James became more arbitrary in his actions, many Tories became seriously alarmed. In the autumn of 1688, several leading Tories and Whigs met in secret and came up with a plan. 

They invited Prince William of Orange, the Stadtholder (kind of a president) of the Netherlands to bring an army to England and stop James from his reckless course. You may ask why a Dutch prince? [Image: William III, of Orange, 1689]

William was married to James' eldest daughter, Mary. He was also a grandson of Charles I. William accepted the invitation despite the obvious risks. The Netherlands was at war with Louis XIV of France again, and he calculated that if he could turn England into an ally, his country might prevail. 

God, or luck, was on William's side. In November 1688, a favorable "Protestant Wind" blew his fleet quickly across the channel to Torbay in Devon. Auspiciously, they landed unmolested on the 5th of November, anniversary of the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot.

William's army marched towards London, picking up English supporters on the way. James initially decided to fight, but in the end, he fled to France. He was actually captured at one point, but William shrewdly ordered the captors to let him go. 

William entered London to great acclaim. He was viewed as the savior of Protestantism. He decided to cash in on his sudden popularity. He called a Convention Parliament to settle the issue uppermost in his mind: who should be the ruler of the British kingdoms. 

Members of Parliament had other concerns. They wanted to ensure that future monarchs would not be able to act arbitrarily. The result was the Declaration of Rights, which later passed into legislation as the Bill of Rights. 

The Declaration placed clear limits on royal power and guaranteed regular and free elections to Parliament. It outlawed "cruel and unusual punishments." It protected freedom of speech and the right not to pay taxes that were not approved by Parliament.

On the future of the monarchy, Parliament debated long and hard. The majority favored declaring that James had abdicated, and Mary, his eldest daughter, should become queen. That solution bypassed his son, violating strict hereditary succession, but few in Parliament were now willing tolerate the idea of a Catholic monarch. 

William refused to accept the job of "gentleman usher" to the Queen. He demanded that he be declared king in his own right. If not, he threatened, he would take his army and navy home, leaving the British kingdoms to the mercy of James and the French. 

To avoid that, Parliament agreed to make William and Mary joint monarchs, the first and only time that has been done. If nothing else, it gave a certain college in Virginia its name. [Image: William and Mary]

More important is the reality that once again, Parliament had decided who the monarch should be. It would not be the last time. 

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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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Whatever Happened to the Whigs?

In a recent post I explained why British Conservatives are known colloquially as "Tories." The name goes back to 17th century British politics, as does the name "Whig." The Whigs represented the rival party or outlook to that of the Tories. "Tory" remains in common use politically in the UK, but "Whig" has disappeared. Why is that?

The names Whig and Tory emerged at the end of the 1670s during what became known as the Exclusion Crisis. The crisis arose from the efforts of some leading politicians to exclude James Stuart, Duke of York, from following his brother Charles II to the throne. 

Charles had fathered no legitimate heir. According to the normal rules of succession, James was next in line to be monarch. Supporters of James called his opponents Whigs, then a term denoting a sect of extreme Scots Protestants.

The Tories were firm supporters of strict hereditary succession. They defended James's right to succeed Charles, despite the fact he had converted to the Roman Catholic faith. 

The Tories were also firm supporters of the Protestant Church of England, so the choice was not easy. The great majority of the British people then were not only Protestant but fervently "anti-papist." Many of them belonged to recently emerged and politically radical sects like Baptists and Congregationalists. Whig efforts to prevent James from becoming king thus rested on broad public support.

But the Tories and the King prevented the Whig Exclusion Bill from being enacted in Parliament. In the aftermath, the Whigs were greatly weakened. Their leader Lord Shaftesbury fled to the Netherlands, where he died shortly after. [Image: Anthony Ashley Cooper, First Earl of Shaftesbury]. 

James became king upon Charles' death in 1685, but his reign was short. He appointed Catholic allies to key positions in the government, the army and navy, and the courts. Some leading Tories, fearing that he intended to restore Catholicism as the established religion, turned against him. 

They joined with leading Whigs who feared James intended to rule as an absolute Catholic monarch in the style of Louis XIV of France. At the time, large numbers French Protestants (Huguenots) were migrating into England, bringing tales of their persecution in France. 

The timing could not have been worse for James. The same was true of the recent birth of a son to James and his second, Catholic wife. James had two Protestant daughters from his first marriage, Mary and Anne, but the male baby would take precedence in the line of succession.  

With the prospect of a Catholic dynasty before them, a group of Whig and Tory leaders secretly appealed to William of Orange, the Protestant Stadtholder of the Netherlands, to intervene. William was married to James' eldest daughter Mary, and was himself descended from Charles I. 

William concocted a bold and risky plan. He assembled an army and fleet and landed them in the West of England on November 5, 1688.  He began a march toward London. James prepared for battle but lost his nerve and fled to France. Thus began the "Glorious Revolution."

After a great deal of negotiation, Parliament installed William and Mary as joint monarchs. The arrangement was a clear violation of the law of hereditary succession and laid the ground for future conflicts. Parliament, not God, had decided who should rule.

William at first employed both Tories and Whigs in his government. But he gradually leaned more heavily on the Whigs, who were more comfortable with the results of the "Revolution." 

Whig dominance in British politics increased in the early 18th century after the death of Queen Anne (1702-1714). Anne was the last of the Protestant Stuart line. She had many children, but all died at birth or not long after. [Image: Queen Anne]

Parliament addressed this issue at the beginning of her reign with an Act of Succession. It declared that on her death the Crown should pass to her closest Protestant relative. At the time that was a German princess, Sophia of Hanover. 

Sophia died before Anne, however. Her son George became King of England and Scotland in 1714. George suspected that the Tories were behind efforts to restore the Catholic Stuarts to the throne. Some were. He and his son George II generally chose their ministers from the Whigs. 

The period 1714-1760 is often known as the Whig Supremacy, so dominant were Whig politicians. The Tories were virtually eliminated as a political force. It was not until the early 19th century that a new Tory Party emerged and held power. It changed its name officially to Conservative in the 1830s, but the old name stuck.

The use of Whig as a political term, however, gradually disappeared. In part this was due to the emergence of a lose group of Radicals who favored extension of democracy and modernization. It was also due to a split in the Conservative Party. The key issue was free trade, which some Tories supported, and others opposed. The division came to a head in 1846, during the Irish Famine. 

The Tory Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, decided that it was necessary to abolish the Corn Laws (tariffs on imported grain) to ensure supplies of food for the masses. The majority of Tories opposed him. His free trade bill passed only with the support of Whigs and Radicals. 

The Tory majority kicked Peel and his supporters out of the party. For a time, they sat together as "Peelites." In the 1850s, they gradually merged with the Whigs and Radicals to form what became known as the Liberal Party. 

The Liberals enjoyed great political success during the next few decades, especially under the leadership of William Gladstone. But "Whig" soon disappeared from political usage in the UK. [Image: W. E. Gladstone]

PS. In other posts I have referred to the use of "Whig" and "Tory" in the context of the American Revolution. I should add that in the 19th century, a Whig Party thrived in the USA between the 1830s and 1850s. The Whigs were the rivals of the Jacksonian Democrats. Their party fell apart in the early 1850s.Its place was taken by the new Republican Party that elected Abraham Lincoln in 1860. In Liberia, the "True Whig Party" was the dominant party for about a century after being founded in 1869. In recent decades, post-modern historians have used the term "Whig" to describe a progressive, linear, triumphal concept of history. 

 

        

   

  

  

Why Are UK Conservatives Called Tories?

The Conservative Party in the UK is known colloquially as the Tory Party. Its supporters are generally called Tories. Why? 

Many Americans may assume that it derives from the American Revolution. In the USA, the term "Tory" is generally associated with the War for Independence. People who supported the British government during the war were generally called Tories by their "Patriot" enemies.

American "Tories" did not embrace that term. Instead, they called themselves "Loyalists." The Patriots often called themselves "Whigs." Both Tory and Whig derived from British politics of the previous century, from a succession crisis during the reign of Charles II (1660-1685). 

Charles had no legitimate heir. According to the rules of hereditary succession, the Crown would pass on his death to his brother, James, Duke of York. [Images: Charles II and James II, by Sir Peter Lely]

 

Normally, James's succession would not have been a problem. What made it a problem was that James had converted to Catholicism. The great majority of people in England and Scotland were by this time Protestants of one kind or another. (Ireland was a different matter).

The Protestants generally feared and detested the "Papists." In their view, the Roman Catholic faith was not only religiously wrong, but politically dangerous. They associated it with the royal absolutism of Louis XIV of France. Many of them wanted James to be excluded from the thrones of England and Scotland. 

In the late 1670s a group within Parliament mounted a campaign to exclude James. Opponents of their "Exclusion Bill" called them Whigs, then a word used to describe fanatical Scots Presbyterians. 

The Whigs opposed what they saw as a trend toward absolute monarchy in Britain. They supported religious toleration for all Protestant sects, but not Catholics. The Whigs called their opponents in Parliament Tories. Tory was then a term used for Irish bandits. As political labels, both Whig and Tory originated as terms of insult. 

The Tories in Parliament were Protestant. But they were staunch defenders of the established Church of England who opposed any form of religious toleration. They were also firm royalists who did not want the monarch's power to be too restricted.  

The Tories foiled the Whig attempt to exclude James from the throne. Some radical Whigs plotted against the government, which struck back with arrests and executions. The Whig leader Lord Shaftesbury fled to the Netherlands where he died soon after. [Image: Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, by John Greenhill]

James became king when Charles died in 1685. But three years later Whig and Tory leaders cooperated to force James from power in what became known as the Glorious Revolution. Some leading Tories had also become alarmed by James's arbitrary and pro-Catholic actions.   

In the aftermath of the Revolution, Whigs and Tories continued to compete for ascendancy in Parliament. Between 1714 and 1760 the Whigs all but eliminated the Tory opposition, a period known as the Whig Supremacy. 

The Supremacy collapsed after George III came to the throne in 1760. He believed the Whigs had gained too much power and had corrupted the political system. He sought the support of "new men" outside the Whig oligarchy. Many of them were disaffected Whigs. 

The Old Whig establishment blamed George III for their decline. They claimed he was bent on tyranny, which was not the case. He considered his role to be that of a constitutional monarch, although he sometimes acted in a clumsy and ill-advised manner. (George wasn't "mad" either until almost 30 years later).

British Whig attacks on King George influenced events in North America. The colonists' real problem was not with the king, but with the British Parliament, which claimed the right to tax them. But the American Whigs adopted the rhetoric of their British namesakes and attacked the king. They called his supporters Tories, although none of them used or accepted that term. 

By the 1780s, what some historians call the Second Tory Party was emerging. Its supporters did not call themselves Tories but "Independent Whigs" or "Pittites," after their leader, William Pitt the Younger. It was only around 1812 that Pitt's successors began to use the term "Tory" to describe themselves. 

The Tories of the early 19th century are the true ancestors of the present-day Conservatives. In 1834, they changed their name officially to the Conservative Party. In the 1880s, they officially became the Conservative and Unionist Party, after a merger with Liberals opposed to Irish Home Rule. That bulky term is little used nowadays. But everyone still calls them Tories, a term they use themselves. 

"Whig" is no longer used to describe a political party. Why not? That is a subject for another post.

   

   

Loyalist and Patriot: George Milligen

George Milligen was one of the staunchest supporters of the British government in South Carolina on the eve of the American Revolution. 

Milligen was born in or near Dumfries, Scotland, probably in the 1720s. After training as a surgeon he joined the British army on 1745. He came to South Carolina in 1753 with the title Surgeon to His Majesty’s Forces in South Carolina and Georgia. 

The title was grander in name than in reality. The number of British soldiers and sailors in the two provinces was usually quite small. He supplemented his government income by medicating civilians as well. Given the prevalence of malarial and other fevers, there was plenty of work for doctors in South Carolina, especially in the late summer and autumn. 

In 1759 Milligen accompanied Governor Lyttleton's disastrous punitive expedition to the Cherokee country. Lyttleton's bungled campaign precipitated the Second Cherokee War and the spread of smallpox across the province. 

In 1763, Milligen published a short but useful book about the local diseases and other aspects of colonial life: A Short Description of the Province of South-Carolina: With an Account of the Air, Weather, and Diseases of Charles-Town. The American Philosophical Society elected Milligen to membership in 1772. 

Up to this point, he seems to have been an accepted member of the Charleston community, active in civic and philanthropic affairs. By the early 1770s, however, the political situation in South Carolina was becoming increasingly polarized, as colonial conflicts with the mother country intensified. 

In January 1775, matters came to a head. Advocates of resistance to British colonial policy, who called themselves Whigs, established a provisional government. The Whigs would later call themselves "Patriots" and those who disagreed with them, "Tories." 

In practical terms, the old Tory Party had ceased to exist in Britain, and the modern one had not yet emerged. Calling someone a Tory in the 1770s was much like calling them a communist. Those who remained loyal to Britain viewed themselves as patriots. They did not generally view themselves as Tories, but Loyalists.  

The Patriot Whigs established a Provincial Assembly and elected Henry Laurens president. They also created a council of safety and other executive committees. The council and committees became a de facto government, rendering the royal administration almost powerless.   

In early June, following the news that British soldiers had opened fire against the Massachusetts militia, delegates to the Provincial Assembly voted to raise two regiments of soldiers. They also approved a document called the Association. It declared that the people of South Carolina would use force if necessary to protect their liberties. 

Whig leaders called on all white inhabitants, including royal officials, to sign the Association. Anyone who refused to sign should be considered "inimical to the Liberty of the Colonies," in other words, as enemies. An amendment requiring that they be imprisoned failed. 

Many citizens refused to sign, including those who held jobs in the royal administration. The council of safety summoned the officials and pressed them to change their minds. They remained defiant. Milligen was one of the most outspoken.

Henry Laurens, the chair of the council, asked Milligen if he agreed that the colonists "possessed the rights and liberties of Englishmen?" It seems an odd question now for a former slave trader to pose, especially to a Scot. Milligen replied without hesitation, "I support the civil and religious rights of mankind." 

It was a riposte worthy of Rousseau. Laurens then asked Milligen if he considered himself a patriot. "I do," Milligen answered. "Then why can't you stand with us?" Laurens continued. Milligen had clearly prepared his answer: 

“For me, patriotism includes support for the king, protector of the rights and liberties of his subjects. For thirty years, I’ve served His Majesty as a soldier and a surgeon, and eaten his bread. Allegiance as a subject, gratitude as a man, honor as a gentleman, and my duty to the king all forbid my joining your Association." 

Laurens dismissed him and asked him to appear before the council again on August 15. Milligen's stance made him a special target of Charleston's radical "Liberty Boys." He had once been friendly with several of their leaders, who, like him, were Freemasons and had helped raise funds for charitable projects. 

The Liberty Boys was an organization modeled on one in Massachusetts. Its members, mostly artisans and shopkeepers, acted as "enforcers" of the policies of the provisional government. They harassed suspected Loyalists (or "Tories") in the streets and even invaded their houses. 

A few days before Milligen appeared before the council of safety, on June 2, the Liberty Boys had inflicted a violent punishment on two Irishmen accused of supporting British plans for subduing the colonists by force. 

James Dealey and Laughlin Martin were accused of publicly cheering news that the British government was shipping guns to the colony to arm blacks, Indians, and Roman Catholics. 

What the pair did not know was that the news, published in the South Carolina Gazette, was fake news. Its purpose was to anger and frighten people into supporting the resistance to the British government. It seems to have accomplished that aim, but also "outed" two treacherous "papists" who appeared ready to help the British. 

Dealey and Martin were both Roman Catholic, although their neighbors may not have known that before. The practise of their faith was not yet legal in South Carolina, and they likely kept it a secret. Most South Carolinians shared British prejudices against the "popish" religion. 

Liberty Boys assembled an illegal citizens' court to hear the "evidence" and pass judgment. They sentenced Dealey and Martin to be dressed in "An American Suit of Clothing." This was a euphemism for tarring and feathering. 

The enforcers came prepared with a barrel of hot tar and a bag of feathers. They removed the upper clothing of the guilty parties, poured hot tar over them, then dropped the feathers on the sticky tar. The procedure was humiliating, painful, and potentially dangerous. 

[Image: A Tarring and Feathering in Boston. Here, the Patriots are pouring tea into the mouth of the "transgressor."]

In early August the Charleston Liberty Boys tarred and feathered a British soldier. His accuser claimed that Sergeant Walker had refused a toast of "damnation to King George" and said he would "drink damnation to rebels instead." A hastily assembled crowd that included newly raised provincial soldiers demanded that Walker be tarred and feathered. 

After the enforcers had suitably "dressed" him, they put him in a donkey cart and dragged him around town. They pelted him with stones and filth along the way. Their route took them to the houses of several alleged Tories. At each house they forced Walker to drink damnation to the residents. 

At one house, Milligen sat on the porch with his mother-in-law. Some in the crowd charged towards him, shouting that he should join Walker in the cart. A melee ensued in which his wife, who had come out to see what the matter was, fainted. He carried her to safety and with the help of a "faithful" black servant, held off the attackers. 

The crowd dispersed soon after. They dumped the battered Walker in the harbor, where he might have drowned. A boat rowed by crew from a British ship rescued him, but he had sustained severe burns and damage to one eye. [Image: Charleston Harbor at the time of the Revolution. The Old Exchange is in center background, flanked by St. Michael's (left) and St. Philip's churches.]

Several of Milligen's friends, including one member of the council of safety, possibly Henry Laurens, urged him to flee the colony before worse happened. He agreed but refused to leave just yet. The council had summoned him for another interview. He told his friends that he felt honor bound to attend. 

Standing before the council in the State House, Milligen remained as defiant as ever. On this occasion Laurens was absent. Charles Pinckney was in the chair. The others present included Arthur Middleton, Thomas Heyward, and Thomas Bee. The first two would later be signatories to the Declaration of Independence. 

The council president, Henry Laurens. had excused himself, pleading indisposition. Perhaps he did not want to be part of what was planned for Milligen. The council asked Milligen sign an oath that he would not do anything to oppose or counteract the actions of the Provincial Congress and its committees. Milligen refused. 

Arthur Middleton asked him if he understood the possible consequences of his refusal. " I do," Milligen replied. "I have observed the justice meted out by liberty mobs," an obvious reference to the tarring and feathering incidents. Middleton protested that those were the justified actions of the people, not a mob. 

The council dismissed Milligen. As he left, Middleton advised him to "be careful of your attire" and remember to take his kilt along. It was a joke, perhaps, but also a threat and an insult. After Milligen left the council room, followed by laughter, Middleton added another joke. The "good doctor," he said, was sure to "gain a high place in Scotland after kissing some Tory behinds."

Milligen left the building and immediately jumped into a waiting carriage. It sped off to a nearby wharf, where a naval skiff waited to take him to safety aboard a British sloop in the harbor, HMS Tamar. His escape had been arranged by the Royal Governor, Lord William Campbell. Campbell himself would flee there a few weeks later. 

Milligen arrived in England around the end of September aboard a mail packet. During the trip he wrote a report on the situation in South Carolina which he delivered to the government. In it, he characterized the rebels as having used lies, threats, and violence to achieve their "wicked" ends. 

Many of the people who signed the Association, he claimed, did so under duress. They were faced with threats of economic ruin and/or physical intimidation. Others were frightened into signing by carefully spread but false rumors of British-inspired slave rebellions and Indian attacks. 

When no uprisings occurred, some people had begun to question the rumors. The rebel leaders responded by arresting several blacks in late June and claiming they had found evidence that a revolt was planned. An illegal tribunal condemned one of them to death, a free black named Thomas Jeremiah. He was hanged and his body burned on August 18. Milligen wrote that the rebels had sacrificed Jeremiah to achieve their goal of frightening the public. 

After returning to Britain, Milligen settled in Dumfries, Scotland, his place of birth. His mother was the last of her family line. In her memory he added her maiden name, Johnston, to his own, becoming Milligen-Johnston. He died in Dumfries in 1799. 

Further Reading: 

George Milligen, A Short Description of the Province of South-Carolina, With an Account of the Air, Water, and Diseases at Charles-Town. [1763]

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

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

The Charleston Tar-and-Feathers Incident of 1775 | Charleston County Public Library (ccpl.org) This thoroughly researched article provides a detailed and insightful analysis of the tarring and feathering incident involving James Dealey and Laughlin Martin.

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

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

Report by George Milligen, Surgeon to the Garrison for His Majesty's Forces in South Carolina, dated 15 September, 1775. National Archives, Kew CO_5_396_037.pdf