England was a relative late comer to colonization on the world stage as compared to Spain and Portugal. However, the English monarchy had a great deal of experience in colonization dating back to Henry the Eight which consisted of confiscating lands from Gaelic clans in Ireland and granting the land to colonists (planters) from England. The confiscation of lands and transplanting of non-Catholics into Ireland accelerated under each monarch up through the Commonwealth period. It came to an end during the time of Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate after he settled thousands of Parliamentarian soldiers in Ireland during the 1650’s. At first the colonies were small settlements, later the practice created large plantations. It was an attempt to change the demography, religion and political attitude in Ireland by creating a English and Anglican culture. So, England’s experience with colonization and plantations in Ireland dovetailed with their early development of colonies in the Caribbean islands and North America by transporting the displaced Irish to foreign plantations as the labor force. The need for the labor drove the practice to eventually include convicts, orphans, vagrants, prisoners of war, political enemies and kidnapping off the streets of London. Long before Africans were imported as slaves to work the English plantations, they were worked by white Europeans from Great Britain.
... between 1651 and 1660, Emmet asserts that during this time, more that "100,000 young children who were orphans or had been taken from their Catholic parents, were sent abroad into slavery in the West Indies, Virginia and New England, that they might lose their faith and all knowledge of their nationality, for in most instances even their names were changed. Source: England's Irish Slaves, by Robert E. West, PEC Illinois State DirectorBy the time Burlingham Rudd was sentenced in the summer of 1728, the use of transportation to provide labor for the plantations in colonial America had been in practice for over 100 years. As the Old Bailey website says, the 1718 Transportation Act was a substantial expansion of the use of transportation. So, as much as I’d like to think that Burlingham stepped off his transport ship into a bright future in the land of opportunity that is not the reality that history dictates. We don’t know what his circumstances were back in Norfolk, nor do we know the details of his arrest, incarceration and sentencing, but one thing I think we can drawn from English history is that his life began here very much as a slave. The fact that he was English, most likely Anglican, and white had no effect on his circumstances when he stepped on that auction block. As a matter of fact, if he was young and strong, it probably made his circumstances worse.
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George Downing wrote a letter to the honorable John Winthrop Colonial Governor of Massachusetts in 1645, “planters who want to make a fortune in the West Indies must procure white slave labor out of England if they wanted to succeed.” Lewis Cecil Gray’s History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860 vol.1 pp 316, 318 records Sir George Sandys’ 1618 plan for Virginia, referring to bound whites assigned to the treasurer’s office. “To belong to said office forever. The service of whites bound to Berkeley Hundred was deemed perpetual.”
[ … ] The British government had realized as early as the 1640’s how beneficial white slave labor was to the profiting colonial plantations. Slavery was instituted as early as 1627 in the British West Indies. The Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series of 1701 records 25,000 slaves in Barbados in which 21,700 were white slaves.
Source: White Slavery, What the Scots Already Know, by Kelly D. Whittaker
Most convicts were sentenced for seven years, some for fourteen years, and a few for life. They could be bought at auction relatively cheap compared to African slaves. It was a booming business and very profitable to those who were contracted by the English government to provide the transportation. Ship captains were paid a fee per prisoner to cover the cost of the voyage and they received the revenue generated from the auction of the convicts. According to Peter Wilson Coldham, “a shipload of felons who were “well-conditioned” could be auctioned for 10 to 20 pounds each”. The ship’s captain then reloaded his cargo hold for the return trip to England with another source of revenue, such as tobacco, rice, animal furs, deer skins, sugar and the like, of which he generally received ten percent of sale once back in Great Britain.
Unlike Australia, there was no penal colony in America. Once the convict was put on the transport ship, England washed her hands of them. For a time, there was a requirement that the ship’s captain obtained a certificate of landing from the customs officer at the port of disembarkation, but very few of those records have survived the years. This was to ensure that the convict was placed on the ship and not just released back into the population by the captain, which often times was the practice if the convict was not going to be a profit making venture.
Once they arrived in port, the procedure called for a person appointed by the Crown to board the ship and inspect the cargo of convicts to ensure they were not disease infected, record the names of those who were to be auctioned, those who were too ill and needed to be quarantined, and those who had died during the voyage. The date of auction was set and announced to the public through newspapers or advertisements placed around the town. The ship’s captain would have his human cargo cleaned up, often they needed some clothing since they left England with what they were wearing unless they were fortunate to have family who had given to them clothing, food or money for the trip. When auction day came, the convicts were taken to the market place and, just as African slaves and Native Indians, they were auctioned off to the highest bidder. For the average convict, their labor was sold for seven years which meant that the person who bought them could work them, or sell their labor on daily, weekly, yearly basis, or take them to another location and sell them again for profit. The new master had authority over every aspect of their life for the term of their sentence and since that term did have an end date, they usually were not allowed to marry because the master did not want a family cutting into the profits. Basically, they had no rights, no liberty.
Also, Britain had passed a law forbidding any convict to return to England before they completed their sentence, to do so would result in hanging. Any convict who ran away from their master was severely punished when they were caught and the length of time they were gone was added to the end of their sentence. For most convicts, once they completed their sentence and had been given their freedom, they changed their names and relocated to a place where no one knew who they were. They blended into the fabric of society. Some returned to a life of crime because, after all, some were just criminals. Then I suspect there were the few, like our dear progenitor, who kept his name and raised a family who fought for freedom and became law abiding Americans who contributed to the building of this country.
In “The Complete Book of Emigrants in Bondage ~ 1614-1775”, by Peter Wilson Coldham where we find the extract of Burlingham Rudd’s sentence to transportation, we also find a list of those ships and captains who were contracted to transport the convicts to their destination. For the time period that would apply to Burlingham we find:
Sailing Date: May 1728; Name of Ship: Unknown; Master: Sam Waller; Destination: New YorkAs you see, all of these ships arrived in New York, Virginia or Maryland. This record of Burlingham and the later record of his 1748-9 Crown grant in Anson Co., NC led to assumptions that Burlingham had entered the colonies at Virginia and migrated down from there to North Carolina. This was then supported by the evidence that there is a John Rudd documented in early Virginia, but much earlier than our Burlingham arrives. Later this John Rudd, who married Avis Whittaker, had a son named BurlingTON Rudd who eventually settles in Blount Co., TN and marries a Mary Ogle. This caused great confusion about the origins of our Burlingham Rudd family. But there was a crucial piece of information that was missing at the time.
Sailing Date: Jun 1728; Name of Ship: Elizabeth; Master: Wm. Whithorne; Destination: Virginia
Sailing Date: Nov 1728; Name of Ship: Forward; Master: Wm. Loney; Destination: Virginia
Sailing Date: Mar 1729; Name of Ship: Patapsco Merchant; Master: Darby Lux; Destination: Maryland
Sailing Date: Nov 1729; Name of Ship: Forward; Master: Wm. Loney; Destination: Virginia
Register Book for Parish Prince Frederick Winyaw 21 (South Carolina)Prince Frederick Parish was created in 1734 out of Prince George Parish; both were located in Craven Co., SC and bordered by the Great Pee Dee River. Prince Frederick Parish is geographically above the area of Prince George moving towards the SC/NC border. The Pee Dee River flows down through the parish from North Carolina where it provides the eastern boundary for Anson Co., NC. At the time of these baptisms, the church was only a small wooden chapel on the Pee Dee River.
Baptized the 27 Oct' 1745, Burlingham Rudd Son of Burlingham Rudd & Ehzabeth (sic) his Wife, Born October the 13 1741
Baptized the 27 Oct' 1745, Walter Rudd Son of Said Parents, Born March 20 1743/4
Baptized the 21 (more likely 27) Oct’ 1745, Martha Rudd daughter of Said Parents, Born March 1 1738/9
This record of baptisms for three children indicates that Burlingham was in Prince Frederick Parish, South Carolina before he was in Anson Co., NC. So if he did enter at Virginia, he would have to either be taken down to South Carolina during his seven years of indenture or made his way down there after his indenture was completed. Since the record extract in Coldham’s book does not include the name of his convict ship nor the destination, that seems to indicate he was not transported out of London or Middlesex jurisdiction, but directly from Norfolk to the British colonies in America because, as we know, the 1718 Transportation Act also allowed for the Justices of each county to arrange transportation for those convicted during the Assizes sessions. Among the list of convict ships that Coldham provides in his book, there are a few that sailed to South Carolina, just not one listed for the period of time we know Burlingham would have been transported, but my best guess is Burlingham Rudd entered colonial America at South Carolina, most likely at Charleston Harbor.
Even though I’ve not found any evidence to support my best guess, I do know how the theory that Burlingham entered through Virginia came about and I know the John Rudd (who married Avis Whittaker) line that originated in Virginia is not our Rudd family. In addition, there are circumstances related to the history of South Carolina that support my best guess.
First, royal colonies were the designated markets for those sentenced to transportation. South Carolina became a royal colony in 1729, but the process of taking control from the Lords’ Proprietors began with a revolt in 1719 that ended with the colonists literally forcing out the Lords’ representative governor at the end of a musket and electing one of their own on December 21, 1719.
Second, according to Walter J. Frasier in his book, “Charleston! Charleston!: The History of a Southern City” 1726 had been the worst winter ever experienced in the colony. The small farmers were going bankrupt and organized an anti-tax committee to prevent the collection of debts and called for expansion of the currency. By June 1727 an armed mob of 300 took to the streets. The Assemble and Council could not agree on a tax bill and taxes went uncollected, the judicial system collapsed and the colony was on the brink of chaos. The next summer, 1728, was very hot and drought conditions caused ponds to dry up and livestock to perish, crops wilted in the fields, yellow fever returned with a vengeance and many people, black and white, died. Back country farmers who were fearful of contracting the disease would not bring their fresh produce to town so people went hungry and commerce ceased. Then in August a hurricane damaged the city and 23 ships in the harbor. A Charles Town merchant named Samuel Wragg and the former governor who had been forced out in 1719 made the Crown aware of the governmental crisis, natural disasters and the internal divisions. The conditions in the colony were at a crisis level and served as the impetus for the buyout of the proprietors by the Crown and at that time a plan was approved to ... increase the white population in the colony ... a moderate expansion of currency was endorsed and Robert Johnson was appointed as the first royal governor.
Third, remember, the Old Bailey website says that it was the overcrowded conditions in the gaols after the Jacobite uprising in 1715 that brought about the 1718 Transportation Act. The Scottish prisoners of war were exiled to Carolina, which at the time would have been Charleston. Also, Coldham lists in his book convict ships to South Carolina in May 1718, August 1718 and February 1724, no doubt there were more. So South Carolina was a destination for Transportation of convicts and prisoners of war.
In his book, “Charleston in the Age of the Pinckney’s”, George C. Rodgers describes for us on page 3 the sailing route from England and other European ports to the New World.
As long as the age of sail lasted, Charleston was on the main Atlantic highway which circumnavigated the Bermuda High. Vessels leaving England or leaving any European port for North America, generally sailed southwestwardly to the Azores, to catch the trade winds then with full sail made for the West Indies, Barbados standing out front like a doorman to welcome all to the New World. Next they made their way through the West Indies to the Gulf Stream. From the Florida Keys to Cape Hatteras they hugged the American coast before veering off to England and northern Europe. It was a great circle and Charleston was on its western edge.The original English charter for the colony of Carolana was granted in 1629 by King Charles the First of England to Sir Robert Heath, but the name Carolana originates from the founding of the French colony of Charlesfort near present-day Parris Island in 1562 by Jean Ribaut for his king, Charles the Ninth of France. The colony was intended as an asylum for Huguenots from France, who were Protestants, but they abandoned the fort, some perished and others returned to France. In 1564 Rene de Laudonniere established Fort Caroline near the mouth of the St. Johns River in Florida. In 1565 Ribaut sailed to reinforce Fort Caroline and caused such alarm for the Spanish, who were colonizing at St. Augustine, that Catholic Spain dispatched Pedro Menendez de Aviles to drive out the Protestant French. Ribaut followed Menendez back to St. Augustine but his fleet of ships was wrecked in a hurricane. He and most of his men were captured and executed. Menendez took his men and marched overland to Fort Caroline and massacred most of the colonists. The threat of the Spanish in Florida to South Carolinians with episodes of invasion and fighting would last throughout the colonial period.
In 1663 Charles the Second changed the name to Carolina and granted the next charter to eight noblemen, some who had been supporters of his father, Charles the First and others who had assisted him in the Restoration of the English throne. All of them were handsomely rewarded with the new Carolina charter. But to understand the uniqueness of what will become the low country of South Carolina, we need to take a brief look back at England and these men who will become the Lords’ Proprietors.
During the Age of Discovery, in the 15th and 16th centuries, Spain had emerged as the global empire by circumnavigating the globe, founding far reaching trade routes and claming discovered lands by establishing colonies, not only as commercial ventures, but also as a means of spreading Catholicism. By the early 17th century, the Spanish Empire stretched from the tip of the South American coast, up through Central America, including much of the Caribbean island chains, to Florida in North America. So when it came to establishing colonies in North America, England had better success than Spain, or France. But in the Caribbean, it was another matter, Spain had the strong hold. In the mid to late 1600s, England and France, as well as, the Dutch, fought Spain and each other for every tiny island and in some cases, shared islands.
In 1607 on the way to establishing the Jamestown colony in Virginia, the Virginia Company shipwrecked on the island of Bermuda and claimed the island for England. Later, English Adventurers established colonies on the Lesser Antilles islands of St. Christopher, Barbados, and Nevis during the 1620’s. While St. Christopher, which England shared with France, was settled first in 1624, Barbados which was settled in 1627 would become the cultural hearth, the model for the rest of the British West Indies and for South Carolina.
The Caribbean islands were “beyond the line” of concern for the European powers since events there had no effect back in Europe and it became pretty much a no-man’s land. There was no restraint of any kind. The pursuit of pleasure and what it could buy was the rule of the day. In Barbados, from the beginning, whites were used as the labor force. It became common practice for those who were the labor supplies to kidnap young men off the streets and sell them off to the colony while no one questioned the legality of the practice. As Walter B. Edgar writes in “South Carolina – a History”
“Barbadosed” in the 17th century was the same as being “Shanghaied” in the 19th century.For the first fifteen years, the Barbados colony struggled. The work of clearing the thick underbrush was grueling and labor needs were very high. They experimented with tobacco and cotton but neither became a “cash crop” and a white labor force was proving more and more difficult to sustain. Then in the 1640s, sugar cane from Brazil was introduced. Sugar, molasses and rum dramatically changed the economy. Small plantation owners and tenant farmers were bought out or pushed out, the price of land skyrocketed and the labor force was wholly inadequate. The “Brazilian Model” that was brought into Barbados with the cultivation of sugar cane was based on African slave labor and eventually, white slave labor was replaced with African slave labor as a matter of economics rather than race. The developing culture bred a social order that was exploitive, materialistic, individualistic and highly competitive, and turned its eyes from the dark underside of society. In Barbados, the planter was the head of the family and responsible for keeping order. His white laborers were considered part of his family and when they were replaced with African laborers, that concept did not change. The interaction between the English and Africans produced a mixture that became the Creole culture. This culture was institutionalized on Barbados and between 1640 and 1670, there evolved a powerful local culture whose institutions would spread throughout the English-speaking Caribbean and was about to be exported to South Carolina.
Back in England, under Queen Elizabeth the First, unsuccessful attempts had been made to establish a permanent colony at Roanoke in 1585 and 1587 in present-day North Carolina by Sir Walter Raleigh. By 1590 the settlement had disappeared and is known in American history as the “Lost Colony”. Queen Elizabeth’s successor, James the First, was on the throne when the Virginia Company of London succeeded in establishing a colony at Jamestown in 1607. England had long desired to establish an outpost on the North American continent from which they could challenge Spain’s hold on the Caribbean islands. Under his reign, colonies in Virginia 1607, Massachusetts 1620 and New Hampshire 1623 were established.
When James the First died, the throne passed to his second son, Charles the First in 1625 who continued to establish colonies in America. Religious conflicts and concerns that Charles the First was secretly a Catholic were heightened when he married Henrietta Maria of France, a Catholic, and they produced an heir to the throne, Charles the Second. During his reign, Charles the First and Parliament fought over the role of the monarchy and the role of Parliament which eventually led to an English Civil War, 1642-1651. In 1649, Charles the First was charged with treason and executed by Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protectorate. His son, Charles the Second, was banished into exile with his mother. As a result, Royalists fled England; some went to other European countries, some to the colonies in America, but others to the English-speaking Caribbean islands. One of those Royalists was John Colleton who established himself as a planter in Barbados. Of the eight noblemen, Colleton was the visionary behind the Carolina Charter.
In “South Carolina – a History”, Walter B. Edgar provides us with a very good description of the relationships between these eight Lords' Proprietors on pages 38-39.
One Englishman who was familiar with Barbados was John Colleton, a royalist exile. When the Puritans triumphed in England, he and other monarchists had escaped to the island. There he established himself as a planter and witnessed first hand the fortunes made from sugar. He also witnessed the colony’s relative economic decline as sugar spread to the other English islands and the cost of production increased. In addition, he was aware of the steady exodus of the white colonists as the slave population increased. Where some might have seen problems and been discouraged, Colleton evidently saw opportunities.It surely was filled with just about everything a capitalist’s heart could dream of! The charter granted the eight noblemen the rights to make war and peace, create towns and ports, grant “titles of honor”, raise and maintain an army, collect taxes and custom duties, impose the death sentence and issue pardons. Income could come from fees for the establishment of towns and fairs, taxes and custom duties. Control over all veins, mines and quarries, trade with Native Indians and fishing rights, including whales, sturgeons and all other royal fishes, a list of commodities that could be imported duty-free to England for seven years … and hundreds of thousands of acres of land. Since most of the proprietors were experienced in colonial matters, they felt that not only would the colony pay for itself, but it would also make them a very handsome profit.
With the Restoration in 1660, Colleton returned to London to seek reward for his support of the royalist cause. Through the intervention of an old friend, John Berkeley, Baron Berkeley of Stratton and member of the Privy Council, Colleton received a knighthood and an appointment to the Council for Foreign Plantations. Membership on the council brought him in contact with Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia; Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper (later the Earl of Shaftsbury), Chancellor of the Exchequer; Sir George Carteret, vice chamberlain of the household and treasure of the navy; Edward Hyde, Earl of Claderon, who was the King’s first minister. In addition to these new and powerful acquaintances, Colleton’s cousin was General Monck, Duke of Albemarle.
It is probable that Colleton turned first to his cousin and his old friend, Lord Berkeley, for assistance for his scheme for a colony between Virginia and Spanish Florida. Four other fellow members of the Council for Foreign Plantations (Berkeley, Ashley Cooper, Carteret, Hyde) and William Craven, the Earl of Craven, were soon party to the plan. It was a powerful group, and everyone had a claim on Charles the Second. Their request was successful, and on the 24 March 1663 the King granted a charter for the colony of Carolina that made the eight petitioners the “true and absolute lords and proprietors” of the province. While the proprietors were interested in promoting the expansion of the empire, it is also quite evident they were interested in making money. The charter certainly gave them every opportunity to do so.
Remember the Carolina charter included what today is North and South Carolina. The Virginia colony had been in existence for about sixty years when the Carolina charter was granted and settlements had migrated across the designated border into the upper area of what would become North Carolina. Sir William Berkeley had been returned as governor of the Virginia colony by Charles the Second and was now a member of the group of eight, so the original plan was based on the idea that colonists could be enticed into the northern portion of the Carolina colony from Virginia, as well as, the New England colonies. A group of New Englanders had explored around the Cape Fear area in 1662 but had left and returned to New England after six months. In 1663 a group called the Barbadian Adventurers commissioned William Hilton to explore the Carolina coast but the Adventurers and the proprietors could not reach an agreement. In 1665 the proprietors attempted to encourage settlement by issuing a document called “Concessions and Agreements”. Sir John Yeamans was one of the Adventurers and had been involved in the drafting of the “Concessions” part of the document which allowed for self-government, freedom of religion and generous land grants. A company of Barbadians led by John Vassall had established Charles Town on the Cape Fear River and Yeamans and another rival group had joined the settlement and it grew to about 800 in population. Another settler was Robert Sandford who had been a planter in Surinam and Barbados. In June of 1666, he undertook exploration of the coast south of the northern colony and reported back to the Lords’ Proprietors in glowing terms that the area was better than anything in the West Indies. However, the Barbadians were not impressed and by summer of 1667 they had abandoned the Cape Fear colony citing hostile Indians and lack of support from the proprietors as the reasons. But it was likely events back in England that were the reasons for the lack of attention by the proprietors. Albemarle was Admiral of the Royal Navy and England was involved in a second naval war with Holland and he was responsible for keeping order in London after the plague and Great Fire. His health failed and he withdrew from public life and died in 1669. Clarendon had finally accumulated enough enemies in government that he was held responsible for failure to win the war, was impeached by the House of Commons and went into exile. Sir John Colleton died in 1666 and his heir, Sir Peter Colleton, was in Barbados. Sir William Berkeley was in Virginia being governor. So the plans to develop the Carolina colony had been put on the back burner until 1668 when Lord Ashley instigated a plan to secure a grant for the Bahamas and other unnamed and unclaimed Caribbean islands which involved six of the group of eight. Ashley was invested in the slave trade, held part ownership in plantations in Barbados and was invested in several overseas trading companies so he believed that the Bahamas and Carolina would be mutually supportive and profitable. It was through his persistence that Carolina became a reality. He convinced the others that they would have to make significant investment in order to make Carolina a success, and they agreed the plan would require experienced settlers like those in Barbados, but they also wanted emigrants from the mother country to be among the first settlers.
In ninety days, Ashley bought and supplied three ships, commissioned Captain Joseph West as commander of the fleet for the expedition, enticed about one hundred English men and women to immigrate to Carolina, and worked with his friend, John Locke, to draft the first version of the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina. In mid-August 1669 three ships, the Carolina, the Port Royal and the Albemarle under the command of Captain West set sail on the first leg of the journey. The first stop was in Ireland where Captain West hoped to take on more settlers but the opposite happened when several on board jumped ship. The fleet then set sail for Barbados. They arrived in October and remained on the island until February. While in Barbados, the Albemarle was wrecked in a tropical storm and was replaced by a Barbadian built sloop called The Three Brothers. On February 26, 1670 they set out for Carolina and while sailing through the eastern Caribbean they encountered a storm that ran the Port Royal aground in the Bahamas. The remaining two ships headed for Bermuda but another storm drove The Three Brothers into Virginia. Only the Carolina with most of the settlers on board made land fall on March 15, 1670 at Bull’s Bay, about thirty miles north of Charleston. The Three Brothers passengers later joined them.
Accounts vary as to the number and make-up of the first group of settlers, but they were mostly English and a few from Barbados with one family from Nevis. The majority were indentured servants who had indentured themselves out of England to the people of wealth who had joined the expedition. Here you will find a list of those who are recorded as being onboard the Carolina. Among the arrival party was ship’s master of the Carolina, Henry Brayne, who had previously explored the area, Colonel William Sayle who was the official governor for the expedition, Captain Florence O’Sullivan for whom Sullivan’s Island will eventually be named and Captain Joseph West who will become the second governor of Carolina. Over the next few years about half of the whites and over half of the African slaves came from the islands. Some of the family names of the early settlers will be familiar to those of you who have ancestors in the low country of early South Carolina. They were not just of English descent; they were English-West Indian: Allston, Beadon, Beresford, Colleton, Daniel, Drayton, Fenwicke, Gibbes, Godfrey, Ladson, Logan, Middleton, Moore, Schenchingh and Yeamans from Barbados; Amory, Parris, Pinckney and Whaley from Jamaica; Lucas, Motte and Perry from Antiqua; Lowndes and Rawlins from Saint Christopher’s; LaMotte from Grenada; Woodward from Nevis.
These were the offspring of those planters who had made their fortunes in the Caribbean. They had learned from their parents how to develop a prosperous colony, economically, socially and politically. They brought with them the Barbadian cultural model and looked at Carolina as their opportunity to make their fortunes. Among them were servants, merchants and the younger sons of planting families. Eighteen of the biggest planting families and thirty-three of the middle size planting families of the English Caribbean sent representatives or families members to the colony of Carolina. These were not the “gentlemen” of Virginia or New England. Because the Barbadians, as all of the islanders came to be called, became the majority of the white population within two years of settlement, they defined the culture of the colony, the life-style of the settlement, and those who came from Old and New England learned quickly to assimilate into the culture or move on. The Barbadians brought with them the slave code that had been developed on Barbados. It became the model for the Carolina slave laws. Their society combined the old world elegance with the boisterousness of the frontier. They were ostentatious in dress, dwellings and furnishing; had the tradition of large mid-day meals and light suppers. They used military titles like captain and colonel and enjoyed hunting, guns and dogs. Most of them were Anglicans, members of the Church of England, ex-patriot British Royalists. Their interest was in prosperity, their own. The prosperity of the proprietors was never their consideration. Many of them settled around the area of Goose Creek and developed large plantations; after all, their families had been in the plantation business for decades. They quickly dominated the seats of government and made many attempts to exclude non-Anglicans from elected positions in the Assembly and on Council. If they believed the designated colonial governor appointed by the Proprietor’s was not supportive of their agenda, then they took action to have him removed and often manipulated the legislative process to usurp his authority. They began to deal in the Native Indian slave business, selling kidnapped Indians to New England and West Indies plantations. They also dealt in trade with pirates who raided ships along the Atlantic coastline and paid them in gold and silver coins. These things didn’t set well with the Lords’ Proprietors, living thousands of miles away, who were attempting repeatedly to get the colonists to accept the Fundamental Constitutions for Carolina. So the proprietors set about advertising the colony in London with glowing rhetorical flourishes intended to entice those looking for health, wealth and freedom of religion, which did succeed in encouraging immigration and boosting the population during the 1680’s.
In 1680 a group of Dissenters arrived. The Lords’ Proprietors had hoped that by encouraging Dissenters to immigrate to the colony they would help to neuter the growing control and influence in the Council and Assembly by the Anglicans. Dissenters were a diverse group of Protestant denominations who were non-conformists. They refused to accept the doctrines of the Church of England. This brought Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers and Congregationalists to the colony from England, Scotland, Ireland and other European counties. In April of 1680 forty-five French Huguenots arrived aboard the sailing vessel Richmond. Over the next decade an estimated 1500 Huguenots fleeing France migrated to South Carolina when King Louis the Fourteenth of France revoked the Edict of Nantes. They mostly settled in Craven county in an area along the Santee River which became known as the French Santee. Among those family names were; Bonneau, Cordes, DeSaussures, Deveaux, DuBose, Fort, Gaillard, Gendron, Guerard, Horry, Huger, Laurens, Legare, Manigualt, Marion, Peyre, Porcher, Prioleau, Ravenal, Simmons, and Timothy. In 1695 a group of Puritans from Dorchester, Massachusetts Bay relocated and founded the town of Dorchester. But after two decades of trying to adjust to the Barbadian culture, they decided to relocate and the entire congregation moved to Medway (Midway), Georgia.
The Barbadians seemed to have had the attitude that they were there first, their plantations were the basis for the economy, and they would make the rules. They had been relentless in their drive for control of the government and the Protestant Dissenters had been just as relentless in pushing back the Anglican Barbadians. At one point the Barbadians conspired with the colonial governor to call for the Assembly to meet before the scheduled meeting and before the Dissenters could organize. They then passed legislation allowing only members of the Church of England to be elected to the Assembly. Then they passed legislation which made the Church of England the established church of the colony and imposed a tax on the colonists to provide financial support only for their Church. Then they told the French Huguenot minister that any marriages he performed were not legal. This pushed the line and the legislation was overturned. During the chaos that was created, Queen Anne authorized the Catholics the right to vote in 1702. Up until this time, Catholics had been forbidden in the colony and if there were any, they kept their religion to themselves. The first Anglican Church was St. Phillips built in 1683. The French Huguenot Church was built in 1686 and the Baptist Church with William Screven as minister was built in 1690. The Quakers arrived about 1682 and met in private homes. The White Meeting House of the Presbyterians and Congregationalists also was built between 1680 and 1690. As you can see the colony was quite diverse religiously, and that was an important selling point to the Proprietors because religious tolerance was one the magnets that drew people from Europe.
By the dawn of the 18th century there were four major cities in colonial America; Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Charleston. The port was emerging as a shipping capital and was filled with merchant ships during the peak shipping season from December to March. It was strategically located to harbor English ships during those times when England was at war with one or more of the other European powers who shared the continent and the Caribbean. During these times the city was flooded with marines and sailors … and drunks, prostitutes, gamblers, trappers, beggars and others from the lower classes of society. Charleston had endured reoccurring epidemics of yellow fever and malaria, floods, droughts, hurricanes, fires and an earthquake in 1698, invasions and attacks by the Spanish from St. Augustine, marauding Indians and plundering pirates with still more to come.
In August of 1712 a yellow fever epidemic and this time a small pox epidemic fell on the colony until about February the following year, 1713. It is said to have been the worst in history and one-quarter of the population died, black and white, which appears to have been somewhere between 1000 to 1200 people total.
Then in the summer of 1713 a hurricane raged for twelve hours. It flooded the city carrying away houses and businesses and about seventy people drowned.
Then about two years later, in 1715, the Yamassee joined with the Creeks, Choctaws and Catawbas for a surprise attack that slaughtered about 100 people in the area of Beaufort. As the Indians moved towards Charleston murdering, pillaging, burning houses and crops, slaughtering livestock and destroying everything in their path along the upper reaches of the Ashley, Cooper and Santee rivers, the surviving settlers fled into Charleston looking for protection. The colonists eventually succeeded in pushing back the Indians, but not until they had to resort to arming African slaves to assist the men in fighting. The sight of armed slaves was very unnerving to the white colonists. The Yamassee were not halted until the Cherokee agreed to assist the colonists in putting them down in 1716. It was one of the bloodiest and most costly Indian wars in colonial history, killing about 400 of the Carolinians.
In June 1718 the notorious pirate, Edward Teach otherwise known as Blackbeard, with four ships and 400 men plundered ships in Charleston Harbor and kidnapped some of the passengers who he held for ransom … demanding a chest of medicines. He promised to send the heads of Samuel Wragg, a merchant and a member of Council, and his four year old son if his demands were not met. Blackbeard and his men paraded through the streets of Charleston while the governor contemplated his response. He eventually complied with 400 pounds of medicines to which Blackbeard responded by stripping his captives almost naked and sending them ashore, leaving Charleston inhabitants humiliated and angry. The colonists appealed to England for help, but none was to come. Then in August the black flag of the pirates again appeared on the horizon of Charleston Harbor seizing and plundering merchant ships waiting to dock and unload. This time the merchants enlisted William Rhett who organized a fleet and captured the notorious pirate Stede Bonnet, his sailing master David Herriot, and about thirty-nine pirates on the Cape Fear River. While awaiting trial, some of those (Anglican Barbadians) who had traded with the pirates were afraid the testimony might tie them to the crimes so, the guard posted to secure Bonnet and Herriot was bribed and a small boat was provided for their escape. Colonel Rhett organized a posse and two pirate ships were seen off the harbor which motivated about 300 men to volunteer. Rhett eventually captured Bonnet and retuned him to Charleston for trial where he was found guilty and eventually hanged. In all, about forty-nine pirates were hanged and after that, those few who appeared on the horizon of Charleston Harbor … did not stay very long.
All of these events, disease, Indians, pirates and natural disasters came one upon the other and were having a detrimental effect on the economy. There was a growing concern among the colonials that they had been left to fend for themselves and resentment for the Lords’ Proprietors was growing among the people who increasingly felt that men who lived thousands of miles away had no right to tell them what they could and could not do if they were not financially responsible of their security and infrastructure. In early 1719, the Assembly met and passed new import duties to help defray some of the cost of the war and rebuilding the town. They presented to the Proprietors a list of requests that they felt would help improve the economic situation. The response from the Proprietors was … no to the new import duties … no to the issuance of land grants to new settlers … no to the expansion of currency … no to the idea of a new settlement on the lands confiscated from the Yamassee after the war, the Proprietors wanted that land for themselves. They went even further, in June that year the Proprietors order the colonial governor, Robert Johnson, to reorganize the Council, dissolve the Assembly and hold new elections. Then in November that same year came the rumors that the Spanish Armada was planning an invasion of Charleston. The influential citizens beseeched England to send troops to protect the colony and warned if England did not come to their aid, they would seek independence. In early December that year the Assembly met and voted to make themselves the government until the King’s wishes were known. They appointed governor, Robert Johnson, refused to accept the Assembly’s decision, but they would not back down, so they elected their own provisional governor, General James Moore, Jr. who was a popular son of an unpopular former governor and who had also led successful raids into Florida against the Spanish and the Indians. The Assembly set December 21st which was a muster day for the militia as the date of inauguration for the new government. During the muster, Governor Johnson ordered the militia to disperse the crowd attending the ceremony but Colonel Parris ordered the militia to point their muskets at Governor Johnson and “bid him stand off”. Later Johnson’s attempt to regain control failed and he returned to England. The “Charles Town Revolution” was effectively the beginning of the end of proprietary control over the colony and South Carolina would soon become a royal colony by default until the last Lords’ Proprietor was bought out in 1729.
1721 brought the arrival of the Crown’s appointed provisional governor, Francis Nicholson, sixty-six years old, a profane, passionate, headstrong, religious zealot, with deep interest in science and education, an experienced professional soldier who had served as England’s representative governor in the American colonies since 1686 and was fervently pro-Anglican. The Anglican community which was largely the plantation class cheered him; the others who were largely the merchant class despised him. He attempted to change the name to Charles City and Port, he appointed a mayor, six aldermen and twelve councilmen who would serve for life and appoint their successors. The Carolinians successfully petitioned the Crown and he was overturned. Then he attempted to exclude the Dissenters from the Assembly, told their ministers any marriages they preformed were not legal and in 1724 chased three newly arrived Presbyterian ministers out of the colony. His governorship ended in 1725. Then came the series of events I mentioned earlier, freezing winter, spring and summer drought, yellow fever and another devastating hurricane; these would provide the impetus for the last of the Proprietors to sell his charter back to the Crown and complete the process of turning South Carolina into a royal colony.
Walter J. Fraser in his book, “Charleston! Charleston!: The History of a Southern City”, does an excellent job in describing the situation in Charleston by 1728 on pages 43 and 44. But in a few words he sums it up:
The colony seemed to be on the brink of anarchy.Burlingham likely arrived in the spring of 1729 and this is the condition the colony was in when he arrived. The colony was roughly sixty years old. For perspective, the colony of Virginia was roughly 120 years old. There were only twelve colonies at the time of Burlingham’s arrival. Georgia would not be founded until 1733.
A unique aspect of South Carolina in relation to the other colonies in America is that its origins came from a colony, Barbados. So it was a colony born from a colony. The colony was populated in the early years by more planters from the Caribbean who brought their slaves with them. It also was the only colony to have used African slave labor from the inception. Early in the developmental years, the population was twice as many slaves as whites and that only increased with time. The influence that those who came from the Caribbean had on shaping the psyche of the low country in South Carolina was passed from generation to generation. The fear of a slave uprising was a constant among the settlers, as was the fear of the Spanish in Florida and the Indians. Almost on a regular basis, each summer an outbreak of yellow fever and malaria killed a good percentage of the population, as well as, the occasional outbreak of small pox and whooping cough. Then there was hurricane season!
We can only imagine what Burlingham Rudd experienced when he was taken from his transport ship to the auction block. I think it is a safe assumption that he had never seen an Indian or an African in his life and now, he stood there among them, being sold to the highest bidder. I also think it a safe assumption based on what we know about the development of the South Carolina colony that Burlingham was most likely bought by a plantation owner, and many of those families were settlers in the area of Goose Creek. Such irony.
We know that Burlingham was sentenced in the summer of 1728 and he likely arrived in Charleston by the spring of 1729 since as the history tells us shipping season generally ended in March. He was sold for seven years, and that brings us to about 1735-36 assuming he did not have any additional time added to his sentence. The baptisms recorded in the Prince Frederick Register date the first child, Martha, as born in 1738/9. So we have about a two year span between the completion of his sentence and the first record of the birth of a child which gives time for marriage. The last child listed, Walter, was born in 1743/4 and the baptisms are in 1745. Burlingham’s Anson Co., NC grant is dated 1748 and was first recorded in Bladen Co., NC, the mother county for Anson which would be founded the following year. So this gives us a timeline:
1728 Sentenced
1729 Sold
1736 Freed
1737 Married
1738 Martha born
1741 Burlingham 2nd born
1743 Walter born
1745 Baptized three children
1748 NC Crown Grant
Burlingham would spend the next two decades in the low country of South Carolina. It appears that shortly after his arrival an economic boom was in the making because of the changes that were made when the Crown reached an agreement for the buy out of the charter from the last Lords’ Proprietor. In September 1730 the British government removed the export restrictions on Carolina rice which opened up foreign markets. Heretofore, the restrictions limited the sell of rice only to British colonies and the British mainland. That spurred a scramble for land and more slaves. While they waited for the 1731 crop, other exports began a steady increase that lasted a few years. In late summer 1731 the currency was stabilized which in turn stabilized the financial sectors which created an even larger market for land throughout the low country adding about one million acres to the tax base. In 1732 rice sold for six shillings per 100 pounds, in 1738 it sold for 10 shillings. The rich were getting richer and a second class of wealthy families began to emerge. The power struggle between the Anglicans and the Dissenters had ebbed to some extent. The plantation families and the merchant families began to integrate with arranged marriages and a plutocracy was emerging. The improved economy was a draw for new immigrants from Europe, many whom were poor and seeking health, wealth and prosperity, but the increase in the number of slaves limited the employment opportunities for these new immigrants. Mr. Fraser tells us that in the mid 1730’s many white people were begging door to door and dependent on the benevolent societies that had been established by the various ethnic-religious groups.
In 1730 Colonel John Barnwell came up with the idea to develop townships in a ring around the populated areas near Charleston in order to encourage Europeans to settle. Governor Robert Johnson took the idea to the Board of Trade who approved the plan. The idea was to build a defensive buffer between the population and the Indians and Spaniards that allowed for orderly settlement of the back country by white immigrants that would also counteract the increasing slave population. A headright system was created and economic incentives were given to new settlers and they came in droves. Most of the new townships developed into ethnic enclave and between 1730 and 1740 Charleston doubled in size, property value rose 500% and hundreds of structures went up, quickly and cheaply.
Then on Sept 9, 1739, one of Carolinian’s worse fears came to pass. The Stono Rebellion, the bloodiest slave rebellion in American history began at Stono River Bridge, twenty miles south of Charleston. A group of slaves murdered about thirty whites, looted a store, burned houses and set out for Spanish Florida. They were intercepted at Jacksonbrough Ferry by a posse of planters, who shot fourteen of them, questioned the other captives and shot them. About thirty escaped into woods. About forty were seized and killed. Next year a group of slaves at Goose Creek planned to take the city. About sixty-seven were tried and punished or killed. As a result the importation of slaves was shut down for a period of time. On Nov 18, 1740 the great fire of Charleston raged for four hours and destroyed 300 houses, many business, wharfs and warehouses storing export and import goods, as well as, the security fortification along the Cooper River causing many of the weapons to become useless. This caused commerce to cease and an economic depression.
The threat of Spanish invasion heightened in 1739 when war broke out between Spain and England. It widened to include several of the European powers followed by France declaring war on England in 1744. It became known as the Great War for Empire as the continental powers fought for control of North America. This brought British troops who were barracked at Charleston, British warships to Charleston Harbor and French prisoners of war from Canada into the colony until the war ended in 1749. As a result of the long war and the previous fire, the export of rice suffered greatly. It was during this time that indigo was introduced and slowly replaced rice as the main export.
So we see that the two decades following Burlingham’s arrival at Charleston, the town grew in size, the colony developed a back county with thousands of new immigrants from all over Europe, the economy ebbed and flowed, the slaves rose up in rebellion, a fire destroyed most of Charleston and their defenses, the Spanish threatened invasion, and from about 1742-49 the town was occupied by British soldiers and sailors with warships in Charleston Harbor. Burlingham was probably primed for migration!
One of the things that stands out about Burlingham Rudd, and something I will talk more about when we get to Anson Co., NC, is that his land documents bear his legal signature, not his mark. So he had the ability to write his name. We don’t know if he came to South Carolina with that ability or if that was something he learned prior to migration to North Carolina, but I think it very likely he had that skill before he was transported. And if he could write, he could probably read. For his time period back in England, that would not be unusual. It would be unusual in the American colonies for quite a while. That might have been to his benefit when he was auctioned. The fact that he had been convicted of stealing a horse might also indicate for us another skill he brought with him. NO.. not as a horse thief, but as a horseman. It’s possible that back in Norfolk he worked with horses; that might be how he ended up with a horse. If so, that skill would have been to his benefit also.
Most all those who have researched the number of convicts who were transported to the American colonies by the British agree that the estimate is about 50,000 up until the Revolution, which they tell us would be about 25% of the total population that came to the American colonies. But as you can see from the documentation, the practice of emptying the gaols of England and selling off the convicts to the plantations in the British colonies goes way, way back. Then there are all those Irish Catholics and Scottish Presbyterians, orphans and stolen children, poor peasants and vagrants. My guess is the percentage of those who came to the colonies involuntarily is much higher.
White slavery was used on the plantations in British colonial America and the British Caribbean before African slaves. That’s just a fact.
We have a tendency in America to begin our history with the Revolution, and rightly so, the history of the United States does begin with the Revolution, but the history of America begins with Jamestown in 1607, one hundred and sixty-nine years before the Declaration of Independence. That means that in 2011, the United States of America is only sixty-six years older than the colony of Virginia was at the time of the Revolution.
Perspective.
Resources used for this narrative:
Caribbean History
Carolana - One Vision - Many Dreams!
Charleston! Charleston!: A History of a Southern City, by Walter J. Fraser
Charleston in the Age of the Pinckney’s, by George C. Rogers
Colonial South Carolina- a history, by Robert M. Weir
Early American Crime › Convict Transportation to America
Irish Slave Trade
National Humanities Center
South Carolina: a History, by Walter B. Edgar
South Carolina Department of Archives and History
South Carolina GenWeb, Ship’s lists
The Internet Archive
White Slavery, What the Scots Already Know
Wikipedia: Plantations of Ireland
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