Reviews of Two Books about Henry Woodward

Latest update: 20 August 2024 - gmc

Way back in 2000, I wrote book reviews for the Palmetto Dunes newsletter. In one issue, I reviewed Hilton Head by Josephine Pinckney (New York: Farrar, Rinehart, 1941) and Dr. Henry Woodward: Forgotten Man in History by Effie Leland Wilder (Columbia, SC: Sandlapper, 1970) that I repeat here with some updates to reflect more recent historical research as well as to be more politically and gender correct:

As drawn for Leland’s Dr. Henry Woodward: Forgotten Man in History, (1970)

The facts of a person's life are usually very genealogical [pun intended]. A person is born, parented by two people, and lives until s/he dies. It is what a person accomplishes and how a person treats other people between their birth and death that measures the mettle of a human being. By any one's measure, Henry Woodward was quite a man.

The early facts of his life are sketchy. Historians offer Barbados or Nevis or England as his probable birthplace sometime around 1646. He married at least twice, appears to have been given an Indian concubine who produced no progeny, and fathered at least two children with his second wife Mary Godfrey Browne, a widow. [Some sources indicate that he had three legitimate children.] From his loins arose numerous and talented descendants. Among the Beaufort District luminaries who count Henry Woodward among their ancestors are Stephen Elliott, Robert Barnwell Rhett, Rev. Richard Fuller, the Gonzales brothers, Ambrose and Narciso, and Robert Y. Hayne.

Woodward has two unique distinctions. On the one hand, he is considered the first permanent settler of South Carolina. On the other hand, he is falsely credited with the introduction of rice culture to America. While it makes for an entertaining story that a slave-running sea captain happened to have a few rice seeds left over from his oceanic crossing that he gave to Dr. Woodward, historians generally agree that he was not personally responsible for the introduction of rice culture in the Lowcountry. Instead they credit the slaves from rice producing areas in Africa for the introduction of rice in South Carolina or like Dr. Richard Porcher, Jr. in Market Preparation of Carolina Rice: An Illustrated History of Innovations in the Lowcountry Rice Kingdom, they credit Col. Hezekiah Maham (1739 - 1789) with Carolina Gold. However, even if Woodward did not bring rice to Carolina, his accomplishments with the Indian trade make him one of the key figures in the early Proprietary Period of South Carolina history.

Dr. Henry Woodward: Forgotten Man in History: A Sketch of South Carolina's Intrepid Pioneer by Effie Leland Wilder addresses the significance of her ancestor to the successful English settlement in South Carolina at Charles Towne. Leland emphasizes the facts of Woodward's life that can be supported by written documentation. By all accounts, it was a rather short life. Woodward died around age 40 having put excitement in his 20 years of adulthood than most people can hope to experience in 100!

Although much of his early life is in shadow, we know that by 1664, Woodward was a settler at Cape Fear in what is now North Carolina. In 1665 around age 20 Woodward joins the Carolina expedition of sea captain Robert Sandford to explore coastal Carolina around Port Royal Sound. As a surgeon, Woodward is chosen to go along on the expedition and to provide medical treatment when it should come necessary. Sandford sails his ships up the Broad River to the Tullifinny and Coosawhatchie Rivers and around Daufuskie and Hilton Head Islands, befriends the Escamacu and Edisto Indians of the area, and intends to provide a beach head for further English settlement of what became South Carolina.

From South Carolina Indian Lore …, edited by Bert W. Bierer,  (Self-published, 1972), p. 139

As Wilder states, and Pinckney describes in her novel Hilton Head, Woodward was quite the explorer and pioneer. He volunteered to stay behind with the Escamacu Indians in order to learn their language and culture and to conduct espionage for the Lords Proprietors when Sandford returns to Cape Fear. By forging personal relationships with the leaders of some of the Indian tribes in the area, Niquesalla of the Escamacu, the Edistos, and the Cassique of Kiawah, Woodward learns much about the geopolitics of the Southeast. In a sense, then, Woodward is the first English spy in Carolina. He actively gathers intelligence for his employers, the Lords Proprietors of Carolina, about the area's Native Americans, geography, potential sources of profit, and how to wrest control of what becomes the southeastern United States from the Spanish Crown.

It is not long before word reaches Spanish Florida about the resident Englishman of the Sea Islands. Such a man cannot be left alone. Spaniards go ashore at Port Royal, capture Woodward and imprison him in their fortress at St. Augustine. Among his many adventures are conversion to Catholicism, appointment as official surgeon at St. Augustine, a raid by pirates (this time of the English variety) and freedom, and surviving a shipwreck near Nevis. He finally returns to the Carolina colony with the 1669-1670 English expedition to establish what became Charles Towne. All these adrenaline producing experiences in the space of less than five years!

Woodward is considered the first English settler of South Carolina since he used what became South Carolina as his home base from approximately 1665 until his death about 1686. What made him so special? Pinckney, the novelist, maintains that the key to Woodward's success was his openness to change and his adaptability to the situation of the moment. Wilder, the descendant historian, says that the key to Woodward's success was his interpersonal skills. His involvement with the various Native American tribes throughout the Southeast allowed him to smooth the path for trading relationships thereby making him critical to the early economic life of the colony.

I must confess that I adore sweeping historical novels. Josephine Pinckney captures the essence of the frontier environment that was early Carolina in her 1941 novel, Hilton Head.  It was a very unsettled time. Numerous small tribes of Native Americans were roaming the area, the Spanish had claims to Carolina and missionary settlements to back up those claims, and the English appeared unprepared to meet the challenges. Then enters Dr. Woodward. Hilton Head makes a very satisfying read because Pinckney is a deft creator of characterization. Dr. Woodward is shown to be part master negotiator, part political bungler, part capitalist, and something of a religious chameleon.

If you'd like to know even more about Henry Woodward and his work among the Indians tribes of the Southeast, review our "Henry Woodward, ca 1646 - ca. 1686" list of links and materials in the BDC's Wordpress blog.

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