charlestonrevwar

Yamassee War

In 1707, the Common House passed the first act to regulate South Carolina's Indian
Trade. A commission was created, "Indian Commission" and an agent was hired to live
among the Indians. The act outlawed the sale of liquor to Indains and the enslavement
of free Indians. It required that all traders be licensed with the Common House and to
pay an annual fee of 100 pound sterling ($6,775.00) in lieu of him getting dearskins from
visiting Indians, which would then be sold for the benefit of the public treasury.
The Indian Commission hired Thomas Nairne as its agent. Nairne took his job very seriously
and when he prosecuted the governor's son-in-law for enslaving friendly Cherokee Indians
and for stealing deerskins belonging to the colony, Governor Johnson threw him into jail and
charged him with treason. Eventually Nairne was released but the regulation of trade was
over as well. As the amount of traders increased so did the abuses toward the Indians. They
were enslaved, cheated and physically abused. As the amount of debt owed to Charleston
merchants from the Indians increased so did the pressure from the merchants. By 1715
the Indian trade was totally out of control and the SC government did little to correct the
problem. The native Yamassee became very angry. Not only did they have to endure the same
abuses as the other tribes but also the fact that the government was encouraging settlers to
move onto their land between Combahee and the Savannah, by which the government creation
of the town of Beaufort and the parish of St. Helena. In the spring of 1715, Charleston had
gotten word of an Indian conspiracy involving most of the Indian nations in which SC traded.
Nairne was called upon once more to travel into the Yamassee settlements and discover the facts.
He was too late.

On April 15, 1715, Good Friday, the Yamassee attacked isolated plantations near Port Royal
and killed about 100 settlers. By June, more than 90 percent of the traders among the Indians
had been killed, including Nairne who had died a slow, painful death when he had pine splinters
inserted under his skin and then lit. By this time most settlers had abandoned their plantations and
farms and had seek shelter in Charleston, where a defense perimeter, abt. 35 mile radius around Charleston,
was considered the only safe place. Governor Craven had formed a militia which was composed of 600
white and 400 black adult men to defend the colony.
Even though the war wasn't just with the Yamassee but with all the nations in the southeast,(joined
together under the leadership of the Lower Creek) with the exception of the Cherokee and Chickasaw
nations, SC was basically on its own. NC sent very little help and VA almost nothing at all. The only
meaningful help came from Mass., who supplied the weapons. The Yamassee were defeated in the battles
of Port Royal and Salkehatchie and were driven south of the Savannah River....but the war wasn't over_
the settlers still had to endure the continual raids by the Creek and the Yamassee. There were also
rumors that the Cherokee were getting ready to join forces with the Lower Creek and the settlers knew
if that indeed did occur they would lose everything. Governor Craven sent a group of 300 men to the
lower Cherokee towns to ask for alliance with the settlers against the Creek. After much negotiation, the
Cherokee agreed and proceeded to attack the Creek in January 1716. With the Yamassee defeated and
the Creek fighting the Cherokee, the other smaller nations began seeking truce. By April 1716 the main
war was over, however, there were several raids until 1718 and a few scattered until the mid 1720's.

Colony after the war...
In 1718, SC was in a state of great loss. One-half of the cultivated lands were deserted.
It would take until the 1730's to re-occupy all of the lands again. Four hundred settlers,
which was equal to 6% of the white population in SC had been killed. Property loss estimated
in the 200,000 sterling (21 million). The defense cost alone amount to 116,000 (10.6 million),
a sum that equaled three times the annual net value of their exports over imports.
The SC government realized they had to prevent anything of this magitude to ever happen
again. They made the Indian Trade a public corporation and private trade was prohibited. A
ranger company of 100 men was put into place to patrol the frontier on a regular basis. Duties
were placed on liquors and slave imports to raise revenue to help pay for the cost of the war.
Other acts provided orderly settlement of the Yamassee lands and the encouragement of
white Protestant immigrants.

The day of the....
Stono Rebellion

The year was 1739. September 09 caught most of the colony at its most weakest and
threathened condition. Disease had lingered for almost a year. An outbreak of small pox was
upon them from the the latter part of 1738 into the early months of 1739. With the arrival of
the hot muggy days of August came yet another deadly companion...yellow fever. It killed
as many as 8-10 Charlestonians a day, among the dead was several key government officials.
The fever remained to take its toll until October.
It appeared that some of the slaves were aware of this fact and saw an opportunity to
head toward St. Augustine. They had heard the inticements by the Spainards...freedom.
A group of slaves from different plantations joined together and their rein of terror began.

From the facts gathered this is the events that occurred on Sunday, September 09, 1739...
A band of slaves meet at Stono River, twenty-five miles southwest of Charleston. They
first targeted a local store at the Stono Bridge, where they robbed and took weapons and
ammunition, ramshaked and killed the owners by decapitation and left their severed heads
on the front steps for all to see. With weapons in hand and moving south, they looted and
burned houses and barns. They killed whites who they happen to come across with no
regard to age nor sex. It is said that only two whites excaped death when they came
into the way of the group only because they were known to be kind to their slaves.
Their group began to grow by word of mouth through the black grapevine and drum calls.
Many slaves were even coerced into joining to help reduce the chances of betrayal.
By late afternoon, they had reached Jacksonborough on the Edisto River and the group
had over 100 followers. While on the road to Jacksonborough, they had met Lt. Governor
William Bull. Bull had quickly realizied what was happening and turned his horse around
and outran his pursuers. He immediately spread the word and militias began to quickly
form. The companies moved toward the groups camp and attacked it late Sunday afternoon.
The group now armed had fought back but the militia had more firepower. About 14 in the
group were killed and many more captured. After a brief questioning by the militia, they were
executed on the spot. Some of the group were scared and had decided that they would sneak
back on their plantation before their masters knew they had left. That feat was unachieved.
They were caught and killed, most by their own masters or from orders of their masters.
About two-thirds of the group had managed to escape. By late evening, the mitiliamen
pursuring the escapees had behead many and placed their heads on milepost.

During the week from September 09th thru 16th, about forty to sixty of the escapees were
caught and killed. Thirty of the original group was tracked down on September 15th and after
a brief fight, all but a handful was captued or killed. One of the leaders of the group excaped
into the swamps and eluded capture for three years, only to be betrayed by two runaway slaves.
He was captured, tried and hung.
The Stono Rebellion was the largest incident of its kind in British North America. It resulted
in the deaths of about seventy-five white and black Carolinians. It also resulted in new acts to
regulate the number of blacks inported into the colony.

This page was last revised on 6/24/99