South Carolina - Primogeniture

Aristocratic South Carolina wasn’t promoted by England’s aristocrats, but by their sons who were disinherited by primogeniture, the law that dictates the eldest son inherits everything.

The legal tradition, dating back to the Normans, produced a large number of ambitious young men with no inherent stake in the status quo, not only ready to support whoever seemed most likely to further their personal needs to amass fortunes, but willing to reconsider alliances whenever it suited them. The changing course of civil war in England in the 1640's increased the fluidity in society.

After the execution of Charles I in 1649, his sons, Charles and James, took refuge in Holland, where their supporters could see the profits made by the Dutch West Indies Company from sugar and slavery. When Charles II returned to England in 1660 and began consolidating a loyal peerage by granting new titles, the largest number, indicating the greatest concentration of wealth, went to 13 men in Barbados in 1661.

When the Stuart brothers were restored, their supporters maneuvered for patents to establish new colonial enterprises. The charter for lands stretching south from Virginia was issued in 1663 to Anthony Ashley-Cooper, John and William Berkeley, George Carteret, John Colleton, William Craven, Edward Hyde, and George Monck.

Some were direct supporters of Charles like Monck and Ashley-Copper who engineered his return, but most were friends or supporters of his ambitious, younger brother, James, who had no resources to reward them himself. Hyde’s daughter, Anne, was James’ wife while Craven was financially supporting his aunt Elizabeth. John Berkeley and Carteret drew closer to James during their shared exile in Holland.

More important, of the original Lords Proprietors, three were oldest sons, but only one enjoyed the privileges of fortune and rank. Craven’s father was a self-made man who had risen to mayor of London without title. Ashley-Cooper’s father died in Dorset when he was a minor and the estate dwindled through trustee mismanagement. Carteret was the son of an unpropertied man on Jersey.

Of the others, Colleton was the second son of the high sheriff of Exeter, Monck was the second son of an Exeter gentlemen in straitened circumstances, Hyde was the third son of a Cheshire county family, and the Berkely brothers were the fourth and fifth sons of a courtier to the king from Somerset who died in debt.

Monck and John Berkeley are the only ones who were active in battle for some period of time. John’s brother William spent the war in Virginia, Carteret retired to Jersey, and Craven stayed in Bohemia. However, each contributed funds to the royalist cause when necessary. Of the others, Ashley-Cooper changed from a royalist to a supporter of Parliament and Hyde moved the other way. Colleton raised troops for John Berkeley in the early 1840's, but then steered a moderate course in Barbados in the 1850's.

The quest for title and fortune meant most of the Carolina proprietors were involved as investors or proprietors in at least one other colonial grant. Many of these began as schemes promoted by the Stuart cousin Rupert, the younger son of Elizabeth. The first, to explore for gold in Africa in 1660, included Ashley-Cooper, John Berkeley, Craven, and Monck. Three years later, the company was reorganized to handle the African slave trade and included John Berkeley, Carteret, Colleton, and Craven.

When England took possession of the Dutch territories north of Virginia in 1664, Charles II gave them to his brother, who then gave the part of the land now New Jersey to John Berkeley and Carteret. The first investors in 1665 in what became the Hudson Bay Company of Canada included Carteret and Peter Colleton, John’s oldest son. In 1668, Ashley-Cooper, Craven, and Monck became involved.

The swirling coterie of younger sons and ruined oldest ones circling the younger Stuart seeking reward for temporary loyalties in overlapping charters is reminiscent of the crony capitalism of George Bush’s presidency when the energy, mortgage and private equity industries flourished in a time of negligent surveillance. There even came a time when the need for more money to finance the colonial stock companies brought in the talented men in the next orbit like Robert Boyle and John Locke.

As we pick through the debris of the current economic crisis, we recognize how many were simply out to amass wealth with as little effort as possible, and how few were willing to do the hard work necessary to build new enterprises. Likewise, among the Carolina proprietors, the ones with some experience in the colonies, regardless of their royalist ties, were the only ones willing to work to convert the charters and investments into profitable enterprises. William Berkeley sent William Drummond to colonize the Albermarle area in 1664 while Ashley-Cooper sent settlers from England to what’s now Port Royal in 1670, after Colleton died in 1666. In the next generation, the only Carolina settler was the third son of Colleton, James.

Note: Many of the proprietors are now better known by their titles. In order of rank, Monck became the Duke of Albemarle while Hyde was made Earl of Clarendon, Ashley-Cooper the Earl of Shaftesbury, and Craven the Earl of Craven. John Berkeley rose to the Baron of Stratton. The others were made baronets without rights to sit in the House of Lords.