23 January 2022

Little Known Proprietary Era Materials in the Research Room

Latest update: 23 October 2023

Carolina has a unique history. Most of the English colonies founded in North America were royal colonies with the administrators directly appointed by the monarch. But King Charles II owed a lot of supporters for helping him claim the throne. Thus, he granted the land that became North and South Carolina to eight English noblemen in 1663.

Henry Woodward is considered the first English settler of Carolina, having volunteered to stay behind with the Native Americans in 1666 as Captain Robert Sandford sailed to Cape Fear in what is now North Carolina. He would become the scion of many generations of South Carolinians.

None of the original Lords Proprietors visited the Carolinas and by the time that the government of King George II bought out the last owners in 1729 there were nearly fifty individuals who owned or who claimed to own these eight shares. South Carolina owes its formative beginnings to these shareholders and their joint colonial enterprise. Few profits were earned for the Lords Proprietors. Settlers became noticeably disgruntled about land, political power, and security against Native Americans and other Europeans due to what they perceived as Proprietary administrative mismanagement and broken promises.

On December 10, 1719 South Carolinians openly revolted against the Lords Proprietors' appointee Governor Robert Johnson, asked for new elections of the General Assembly, and soon requested that King George I take direct control over the colony. It took two years for the first Royal Governor, Francis Nicholson to arrive in 1721; it took another 8 years for the colony to formally become a Royal colony and another year after that for the former Proprietors' administrator Robert Johnson to return to Charleston and assume his duties as King George II's royal governor on December 15, 1730. (King George I had died in 1727).

Listed below are some selected primary and secondary resources of a genealogical and historical nature created during the period 1663 - 1730 or about his tumultuous era of South Carolina's history. 

You can find the following titles in the public area of the Research Room. 

That means you can take the volumes off the shelves yourself and check text and indexes for your ancestors - provided that you have an appointment. 

Genealogical research always benefits from some basic historical context: What was daily life like for people who lived at that time? What important events happened in their lifetimes? What sort of records were created during that time?

For the basics one should start with South Carolina : A History by Walter B. Edgar (2001) who is considered the 20th century's Dean of South Carolina history.

Once you have the broad outline of proprietary era history from Edgar, then we suggest that you continue establishing the historical context of the period in Beaufort. Start by reading Chapters 3 - 8 of A History of Beaufort County, South Carolina, vol. 1, 1514-1861 by Lawrence Rowland and others (1996). Learn about the "English, Scots, and Yamasee at Port Royal," "Settling the Southern Frontier," "Yamasee War," "Settling the Indian Lands between the Combahee and Savannah Rivers," "Africans and Evangelists" and "Beaufort and the Caribbean Cockpit" between the English exploration and settlement of the area 1663 to circa 1740. Besides copies in the Research Room, we stock all three volumes of Dr. Rowland's History of Beaufort County in our local history sections at the branch libraries.

Captain William Hilton and the Founding of Hilton Head Island by Dwayne Pickett (2019) is also available in some of our local history sections at the branch libraries.

First Settlers of South Carolina by Agnes Leland Baldwin (1985) lists names of individuals, occupations, and arrivals into the English colony between the years 1663 and 1700 based on other sources such as ship passenger lists, tax records, etc.

Cities and Towns of Early South Carolina by Henry A.M. Smith, vol. 2 is a 1988 reprint of some of his articles published in the South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine. His article about Beaufort came out in 1908 and includes a chart of lot owners and a map of lot locations between 1711 and 1774. The article about the early settlers of Purrysburgh beginning in the 1730s was published in 1909. More materials about Jean-Pierre Purry and Purrysburg.

According to Chapter 8 of The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy: "Perhaps no category of records is more important to the genealogist than those relating to land.....As might be expected, the systems of land granting and land tenure in these jurisdictions varies widely, and each must be studied separately." On page 280, Szucs and Luebking note that before the American Revolution records may refer to the counties of Colleton, Craven, Berkeley and Granville (which is called Beaufort District later) but these are most useful as geographical locators.

In the public area of the Research Room, we have several series to help you unravel who owned what land and when.

South Carolina Deed Abstracts, 1719 -1772 abstracted by Clara A. Langley, 4 vols. (1983; reprinted 1999)

South Carolina Royal Grants compiled by Brent H. Holcomb, 7 vols. (2006 - 2012) were the product of the switch from Proprietary to Crown rule after 1719. The Crown had to certify land grants made under the Lords Proprietors and begin making land grants under the name of King George II. The earliest Royal Grants were made in 1732 but often refer to even earlier property holdings under the Proprietors. Be sure to read and understand the introductory material to each volume as source material and type of documents covered in each vary.
 
An Index to Deeds of the Province and State of South Carolina, 1719-1785 and Charleston District, 1785-1800 compiled by Silas Emmett Lucas, Jr. (1977)

Warrants for Land in South Carolina, 1672-1711 edited by Alexander Salley, Jr. (1973) refer to grants of public lands during the Proprietary period.

Resources with genealogical information in the public area of the Research Room include:

Proprietary Records of South Carolina
 edited by Susan Baldwin Bates and Harriot Cheves Leland, 3 vols. (2005-2007) offers an intriguing look into the inner workings of the fledgling colony between 1675 - 1698 based on primary material. Family relationship, marriages, surnames, death dates, estate records, ships' manifests, inventories, apprenticeships, indentures, help illuminate the lives and social histories of master, servants, slaves, Native Americans and women of the period.
 
Carolina Families: A Bibliography of Books about North and South Carolina Families by Donald M. Hehir (1994)
 
Surname Index to Sixty-Five Volumes of Colonial and Revolutionary Pedigrees by George Rodney Crowther, III (1964) is an index to other series of genealogical volumes, Colonial Families of America, Colonial and Revolutionary Lineages of America and 18 other individual volumes "about families who helped to make America." This volume supplements the multivolume Genealogies in the Library of Congress and Richard Côte's Local and Family History in South Carolina : A Bibliography.

South Carolina Indians, Indian Traders and Other Ethnic Connections beginning in 1670 by Theresa Hicks (1998) includes family trees for some Indian and mixed race families up to 1900 based on census and other records.

South Carolina Jury Lists, 1718 through 1783 compiled by Mary Bondurant Warren (1977) lists men eligible to serve on the 1718, 1720 and 1731 Petit and/or Grand Jurors. Men who paid tax in their parish of residence were eligible depending on the amount of tax. Those with tax bills of more than 5 pounds sterling per annum were eligible to serve on Grand Juries. This book can give researchers a sense of how prosperous their ancestors were and where they lived at the time the lists were compiled.

The Story of an American Family by Stephen Barnwell (1969) begins with the arrival of scion, John "Tuscarora Jack" Barnwell in Charleston about 1700 and quickly settled in Beaufort District. His descendants are legion in and intermarried with other prominent South Carolina families for generations.

Original Lists of Persons of Quality ..., 1600-1700 by John C. Hotten (1962) has one of those long and elaborate titles that serve as chapter headings. This is more a collection of selective ships' passengers lists of voluntary emigrants and prisoners arriving in the English North American colonies during the 17th century. The section relating to Carolina's emigrants is very short and only covers the period 1678-1679.
 
Omitted Chapters from Hotten's Original Lists of Persons of Quality ... and Others who went from Great Britain to the American Plantations, 1600 - 1700 ... edited by James C. Brandow (1982) supplements not only Hotten's Original Lists but also a few other reference books that we have about Barbados. Anyone familiar with the origins of South Carolina know that the original first English settlers sailed from Barbardos and that those Barbadians had a profound effect on early South Carolina laws and the establishment of chattel slavery in the colony.

Barbados Records: Wills and Administrations compiled and edited by Joanne M. Sanders, 3 volumes covering documents dated 1639 - 1725 (1979) is important because so many of South Carolina's original settlers had been Barbadian residents.
 
Index to Wills of Charleston County, South Carolina, 1671-1868 by Charleston Free Library (1950) is included in case one finds a will registered for a person who owned property or resided in Beaufort District filed there.
 
Abstracts of the Wills of the State of South Carolina, 1670-1740 compiled and edited by Caroline T. Moore and Agatha Aimar Simmons (1978) is volume 1 of a 4 volume series. Names of the dead, witnesses and persons mentioned in the wills are indexed.
 
South Carolina Marriages, volume III, 1671-1791 Implied in the Provincial and Miscellaneous Records of South Carolina compiled by Barbara R. Langdon (1993) contains almost 2000 entries that offer clues to marriages first formed in the period. I write "clues" because South Carolina's government did not require marriage certificates or registration of marriages until the early 20th century. She provided separate indexes for males and females.
 
South Carolina Marriages, volume 1: 1688 - 1799 compiled by Brent H. Holcomb (1980) also captures data provided in 34 primary sources that point towards a formal marital relationship between male and female persons of the period covered. Volume 2 covers the years 1800 - 1820.
 
Records of the Secretary of the Province of South Carolina, 1692-1721 compiled and edited by Caroline T. Moore (1978) includes references to inventories, warrants, marriage settlements, judgments, guardianships, claims and wills which can help you establish family relationships between individuals.

In the stacks of the Research Room, we have a number of important reference materials about this period of South Carolina's history as well. Here are the ones that I consider the most valuable for most of our customers interested in this fascinating period of the Palmetto State's history:

Proprietary Land Grants in Granville County - Beaufort District by Robert E. H. Peeples is an unpublished and undated 20th century research manuscript that covers some land transactions in this area.
 
The Behan Papers are an archival collection consisting of 4 large binders of land genealogies covering most of the coastal portions of Beaufort District from its English settlement period through the antebellum period.
 
South Carolina Begins : The Records of a Proprietary Colony, 1663-1721 by Charles H. Lesser (1995) contains detailed descriptions of most of the historical records for the period when South Carolina was owned by the eight Lords Proprietors. This is a critical introduction and manual to researching archives held at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History for the period.
 
Records of the Court of Chancery of South Carolina, 1671-1779 edited by Anne Gregorie King (1950) consist of those created by the Governor and Council acting as the executive board for the colony with both legislative and judicial powers. It was designed to act as a "'court of conscience' for the eternal principles of equity." (p. 9)

Records in the British Public Record Office relating to South Carolina compiled by Alexander S. Salley, Jr., 4 vols. cover the period 1685-1710 (1947). The volumes contain beautifully handwritten transcriptions by W. Noel Sainsbury and his assistants in London that were commissioned by the State of South Carolina in 1895.
 
Records in the British Public Record Office relating to South Carolina, 1663-1782 prepared by Helen Carson, 12 rolls of microfilm (1995). Roll #12 contains indexes of persons, places, and topics.
 
South Carolina Court of Common Pleas : Judgment Rolls, 1703-1790, 148 rolls of microfilm (1986). Rolls #146 and #147 are indexes to the Judgment rolls, A-Z; Roll #148 contains Renunciations of dower, 1726-1775 and a personal name index.

Memorials of Seventeenth-and-Eighteenth Century South Carolina Land Titles, 1731-1775 prepared by Judith Brimelow and Joel Shirley, 12 rolls of microfilm (1984). In certain cases, this is the only surviving record of a particular transaction. The series contains Proprietary land grants, certificates of admeasurements, wills, leases and releases of property.

The Shaftesbury Papers by Anthony Ashley Cooper (2000) is the most important and sweeping accumulation of correspondence relating to South Carolina's founding as a proprietary colony, struggling to survive in the harsh climate and establish a civilization based on that of England's wealthiest Caribbean colony, Barbados. 

Among the secondary works about the period one should review are:

An oldie-but-goodie is The History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, 1670-1719 by Edward McCrady (1901) who was highly regarded as a historian in the early 20th century.

A Sketch of the History of South Carolina to the Close of the Proprietary Government by the Revolution of 1719, with an appendix containing many valuable records hiteherto unpublished by William J. Rivers (1856) is useful.
 
Public Treasury of Colonial South Carolina by Maurice Crouse (1977) examines how the British financed the colony and how controversies about financial affairs over the years from 1691 to 1776 ultimately led to the Revolutionary War.

Creating and Contesting Carolina : Proprietary Era Histories edited by Michelle LeMaster and Bradford Wood (2013) contains essays that shed new light on how the various peoples of the Carolinas responded to the tumultuous changes shaping the area during the period. These essays focus attention on some of the most important and dramatic watersheds in the history of British colonization in the New World.

From New Babylon to Eden : The Huguenots and Their Migration to Colonial South Carolina by Bertrand Van Ruymbeke (2006) traces the persecution of Huguenots in France and the eventual immigration of a small bloc of the French Calvinist population to Proprietary South Carolina.
 
Money, Trade and Power : The Evolution of Colonial South Carolina's Plantation Society edited by Jack P. Greene et al. (2001) has fifteen essays that provide "a comprehensive exploration of the colony's slave system, economy, and complex social and cultural life, 1670-1800.
 
South Carolina and Barbados Connections : Selections from the South Carolina Historical Magazine edited by Stephen Hoffius (2011) chronicles the efforts of early Barbadians to settle South Carolina in the late seventeenth century and expands our understanding of that remarkable connection.
 
Colonial South Carolina : A Political History, 1663-1763 by M. Eugene Sirmans (1966) is a seminal study.
 
Robert Johnson, Proprietary & Royal Governor of South Carolina by Richard Sherman (1966) explains why the role of the Governor in colonial America was a difficult task due to always new and untried situations. Robert Johnson served as Governor of South Carolina twice in the early history of the Province: as an administrator for the Lords Proprietors and later as the monarch's Royal Governor.
 
Black Majority :Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion by Peter H. Wood (1996, 1975) was a groundbreaking thesis in 1972; an important book of 1975; and has remained in print since. Wood explored the consequences of importing the largest single group of non-English-speaking migrants to the North American colonies on United States history through a thorough and penetrating case study of the Palmetto State during the period.
 
The Indian Slave Trade : The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717 by Alan Gallay (2002) More materials about Native Americans of the area in this era.

A Colonial Complex : South Carolina's Frontiers in the ear of the Yamasee War, 1680-1730 by Steven Oatis, 2004. More materials about the Yamasee War.
 
Nairne's Muskhogean Journals: The 1708 Expedition to the Mississippi River by Capt. Thomas Nairne, edited by Alexander Moore, 1988 is an oldie but goodie. Moore was in England researching a different topic when he happened to rediscover four letters that Nairne wrote to his friends and fellow Indian traders, Thomas Smith, Ralph Izard, and Robert Fenwick are replete with insightful observations into the lifeways of the Southeastern Indians. However, Nairne miscalculated the tolerance of the Native Americans for European meddling in their intertribal affairs. As the foreword by Patricia Galloway notes: "Perhaps there was justice rather than irony in the fact that Nairne was the first victim" (p. viii) of the Yamasee War at Pocotaligo on Good Friday, 1715. 
 
The Carolina Pirates and Colonial Commerce, 1670-1740 by Shirley Hughson (1973). More materials about pirates

Vertical Files are collections of newspaper and magazine clippings, pamphlets and/or flyers maintained to answer brief questions or provide points of information not easily located . Among those in the BDC about the people, places, themes, and families of the Proprietary Period are:

HISTORY-PROPRIETARY PERIOD, 1663-1720
GRANVILLE COUNTY
FAMILY SURNAMEs such as WOODWARD FAMILY, BARNWELL FAMILY, etc.          BARNWELL, JOHN, CA. 1671-1724 
NAIRNE, THOMAS, ? - 1715

If you would like to set up an appointment to sit down with one of our staff and get some guidance using these and other materials inside our Research Room e-mail bdc@bcgov.net or call 843-255-6468. We will do our best to work out a date and time for your research visit that is mutually agreeable.

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