This paper comes with an important caveat, it is very much a work in progress, in fact it is actually the
thought of a paper rather than a paper and there is the possibility that it may or may not evolve into a
polished piece eventually. I have submitted this piece to the group in the hope that some of your
comments and feedback may persuade me one way or another on the viability of the article.
Consequently on occasion it has a chatty tone and there may be several typos and a number of missing
citations.
The paper and its idea had its origin several years ago while I was working on my doctoral thesis and
would probably never have seen the light of day but for an unusual alignment of circumstances.
While working with the colonial records of South Carolina, specifically those dealing with the Cherokee
nation, the topic of my thesis and now manuscript, I came across the following quotation which states
that George I did commit
“a sufficient Quantity of arms & ammunition but the unnatural rebellion obstructed sending Men.” . . .
This quotation taken from a message to the Board of Trade from Joseph Boone and Richard Beresford
on June 28, 1716, referred to the lack of military support given to the Colony of South Carolina during
what has become known as the Yamassee War. As historian Gary Nash notes at the time Native
American combatants came “as close to wiping out the European colonists as ever [they] came during
the colonial period” Yet despite this as the major historian of the war noted “The Yamassee war has
attracted surprisingly little attention over the last half century”.
The combination of my knowledge of the Indian population that interacted with the British colonies in
the American southeast combined with the location of my birth ensured that a question entered my
mind, a question that sat with me over the next few years and, apart from a quickly written and hastily
prepared conference paper, has its first official outing into academia in front of this group.
I knew what, or rather why, Boone and Beresford had asked the King for men as well as arms, the
Yamassee War, however it was memories from my childhood that led me to instantly understand what
the unnatural rebellion from the quotation was.
I was born in the town, now city, of Derby and in my memory every time I visited my paternal
grandmother at her home on the outskirts of Derby - although in fairness it was probably not every time
- my father would point out of the car window and inform me that it was there, there being an old
bridge that snaked across wetlands, that Bonnie Prince Charlie had been stopped and forced to head
north where finally he would flee England by boat that sped:
like a bird on the wing
Onward, the sailors cry
Carry the lad that's born to be king
Over the sea to Skye.
I was then, at a young age introduced to the ’45. That is the 1745 Jacobite campaign to place a Stuart
back on the thrown of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland. Armed with this knowledge
my wandering childhood mind, led me to search out tales of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s adventure (indeed
my Grandmother was also to name her dog, a Scottie of course, Bonnie at my suggesting.)
My childhood research also revealed that this was not the first such attempt but that there had been
other attempts to restore the Stuart Monarchy since the departure of King James in 1688 and this early
interest led me to understand that the ‘unnatural rebellion’ mentioned in the quotation was the
Jacobite rising of 1715. The 1715 Jacobite rebellion although due to some naiveté in planning and
enactment is considered, by the leading scholar on the revolt Dr. Daniel Szechi, to have been
“potentially the most serious Jacobite rising of the eighteenth century”
So, as an adult I now have two “rebellions” occurring at the same time on either sides of the Atlantic
Ocean; two rebellions which were, at least to some degree, being linked by the people of the time; two
rebellions which challenged the periphery of the burgeoning British Empire; two rebellions which were
considered to be of great threat to the empire.
South Carolina, a restoration colony, was at this time the southern stop in the chain of British American
colonies that travelled along the western edge of the Atlantic Ocean, although I find that in America I
have to refer to the location as the eastern seaboard, a light hearted comment but one with a serious
underpinning, for in 1715 south Carolina was most definitely on the western edge of the Atlantic in the
eyes of most British people rather than being on the east of anything and was certainly a peripheral
region, effectively standing guard against the Spanish in Florida and the French in New Orleans.
Although Scotland was physically a lot closer to the centre, being both physically linked and by 1715
politically linked to Britain by the Union of 1707 it remained in the minds of many a periphery of the
British Empire.
Although my PhD is in Native American History my interest has always been focused on Native American
– British interaction during the colonial period and I have tried to bring Native Americans into what has
become known as the Atlantic World specifically the British Atlantic World.
The Atlantic world concept has been, and is again with this project, at the heart of my intellectual
understanding. (Indeed as is obvious by I am an Atlantic world historian in more ways than one, my
education was spread out over both sides of the pond BA and MA in England and PhD in America and I
am now an Englishman teaching American History )
Assessing the different ways in which historians approach the Atlantic, David Armitage has identified
three types of Atlantic history: “circum-Atlantic history,” which takes the Atlantic unit as a whole; “trans-
Atlantic history,” which emphasizes a comparative approach; and “cis-Atlantic history,” which looks at a
particular place within an Atlantic context. This project straddles two of these approaches, trans and cis
atlantic history, in that it focuses on two specific places with in the Atlantic world, but it seeks to
emphasize a comparative approach.
Having laid out the origins of the question or topic which this project is focused on and also placed it
within a historical paradigm I now want to offer you my preliminary thoughts on the direction my work
will take and share the results of my research to date.
Proposed flow of article
1.
Jacobite political and cultural identity at the turn of the eighteenth century
2.
Yamassee political and cultural identity at the turn of the eighteenth century
3.
The Development of British identity and British authority in Scotland and South Carolina: The
Union of 1707 to the Hanoverian Accession of 1714
5.
British fear of France
6.
The Jacobite Rebellion and British response
7.
The Yamassee Uprising and British response
8.
Impact on colonial thought
As Historian Tim Harris as recently shown despite the over whelming emphasis placed upon the event by
scholars the English Civil war although an important piece of British history had less impact on the
development of eighteenth century British concepts of itself as a nation and an empire than did the
supposedly peaceful “glorious revolution” of 1688. As Harris notes “it is to the later seventeenth century
that we need to look in order to discover the revolution – in the modern sense of the word – that truly
transformed the British polity” Harris goes on to offer us an imaginative intellectual game to make this
clear as seen below:
“Imagine that someone – let’s make him an Englishman of moderate Whig leanings - who had died
towards the end of the 1630s, miraculously returned from the grave fifty years later (before William of
Orange's invasion): would he conclude that a major revolution had taken place in the intervening
period?
He would find in the 1688s, as in the 1630s, Stuart monarchs on the throne who preferred, as much as
possible, to rule without parliament, who sought to establish their royal prerogative above the law, and
who appealed to notions of divine right and non-resistance to legitimize their rule - if anything, our man
would see a more blatant articulation of theories of royal absolutism in the media in the 1680s than he
would have been familiar with from his earlier existence.
He would see a similar threat to the Protestant religion and English political liberties from popery and
arbitrary government in the 1680s as had been complained about in the years before the Civil war, with
the difference that after 1685 there was actually a Catholic monarch on the throne in possession of a
sizeable standing army, thereby making the threat seem even more real than it would have appeared in
the 1630s.
In all three kingdoms, our man would see a threat to the rule of law and the rights of borough
corporations. If there had been a revolution in the intervening fifty years, he might well be wondering
what on earth it had achieved, and how the political and religious freedoms of Protestants had been
secured as a result.
Imagine now that a man of similar political leanings, who had died some months prior to William's
invasion, returned from the grave just over thirty years later. He would immediately notice dramatic
differences. He would see a limited monarch, at the head of a British state . . . whose prerogative was
beneath the law and who shared his sovereignty with a parliament which was now assured meeting
regularly - albeit with general elections every seven years instead of every three, following the passage
of the Septennial Act a 1716. Protestantism would appear safe in all three kingdoms Presbyterianism
north of the border secured; and the threat of popery and arbitrary government finally extinguished. It
would be immediately apparent that 1720 was a very different world from that of the 1680s. Our man
could not help but conclude that something had happened in the meantime which had effected a very
fundamental transformation of the British polity.”
Part of the shift that would alter this fictional man’s view being the development of a united Britain in
1707 and the concurrent development of a more formal idea of ‘Britishness’ and all that that entailed,
particularly with its position in the world, and the securing of a protestant monarch in 1714. It will be
the contention of this article that the twin rebellions of 1715 were an integral part in helping to create
that understanding with particular reference to empire. Having established the fact that there era under
study and the two events I now examine the back ground of these events by looking at both the Jacobite
stronghold of Scotland along with the political status of Jacobites in England during the late seventeenth
and early eighteenth centuries followed by an examination of Yamassee society for the same time
period.
Jacobite political and cultural identity at the turn of the eighteenth century
Jacobite politics and identity began in England in 1688 with the shift in dynasty from catholic James II to
protestant joint monarch’s William and Mary. The English civil war ended with the restoration of a
Monarch to supreme power England and the return of the Stuarts to that crown in the person of Charles
II, whose father had been executed in 1649 at the climax of the war. Charles was to reign from 1660
until his death in 1685 and would convert to Catholicism upon his deathbed; he was followed in
succession by James II. James, like his brother, had spent the duration of the English civil war in France
were he too had been drawn to the Catholic faith and secretly converted to the faith in 1688 or 89. This
public announcement of shift in religious allegiance came at a time of national stress and worry over the
future of a British protestant nation. In 1673 the British Parliament had passed the Test Act which
required all civil and military officials to oath disavowing transubstantiation and denouncing several
other Catholic religious practices. James at the time amongst his many titles acted as Lord High Admiral,
a position that was subject to the act, he refused to take the oath and his Catholicism became public
knowledge and a political time bomb, as many leading members of England as well as many of the lower
classes feared a creeping Catholicism invading and then dominating England. After a number of year and
an equal number of plots and moments of political intrigue things came to a head in November 1688
when William of Orange landed in Torbay and James the second left England seeking sanctuary in France
and early in the next year the English House of commons announced that James II had abdicated the
thrown by Flight and William and Mary were crowned joint monarchs. From this moment the Jacobite
cause became a major, though hidden and outlawed, factor in British politics (their name being derived
from Jacobus, the Latin for James.)
From this moment James was viewed by Jacobites as a King in Exile and was supported by a group in
England, Ireland and Scotland who “produced a self-sustaining, recognizable minority who rejected the
social, political and religious order installed after 1688.” The story of Ireland is outside the purview of
the paper and will not be discussed rather the focus will be on the base of Jacobinism in England and
Scotland. In these two locations Jacobinism was based on the congregations of three churches: the
Catholic Church, Anglican nonjuring and Scots Episcopalian. Although the Catholic was very much in the
minority in both England (c. 2 per cent) and Scotland (c. 1 per cent) almost 200 years of oppression had
allowed for a web of subterfuge and secrecy which made them uniquely equipped to support the
Jacobite cause. The Anglican Nonjurors were led by a group of approximately 400 Anglican clergy who
refused to take oaths of allegiance while James remained alive. As they continued to practice
Protestantism they were a visible but again small group they did become actively involved in any riot
and rebellion and provided more martyr’s to the cause than any other group. Although these two
groups were important and in many ways essential to the maintenance of the Jacobite cause “the bulk
of the rank-and-file always came from Scots Episcopalians.” From around 1690 the Episcopalians were
allowed, as Protestants, to openly worship were a minority in Scotland and “subjected to discriminatory
legislation.” These groups often revolved around networks of kinship and clanship throughout England
and Scotland which ensure that the earlier self-sustaining factor of the Jacobites as well as ensuring a
sense of isolation and cause being bound to certain regions and sections of the nation’s cities.
Yamassee political and cultural identity at the turn of the eighteenth century
The Yamassee as a nation have been kn0wn in European culture since the 16th century when Hernado de
Soto travelled in to areas known to contain the Yamassee or their antecedents. In 1570 mission were
established in the region by the Spanish and by 1675 the name Yamassee began to appear regularly in
Mission records. In the 1680s the Spanish developed a policy to enslave the Yamassee with the intention
of sending them to Spanish held islands in the Caribbean as labor. The Yamassee revolted and left the
region and moved northward into the new English colony of South Carolina. South Carolina was a
“Restoration colony” founded in 1663 following the restoration of the Stuart family to the crown of
England following the English civil war. Charles II gave the land that became the colony to eight nobles
who became known as the Lord Proprietors. Although the colony was officially founded in the 1660s is
was not until the 1670-80s as residents of Barbados began to move to the region that a secure foot hold
was developed and the colony began to prosper.
The primary foci of the developing colony was twofold firstly, the Indian slave trade in which local Indian
nations were encouraged to raid further inland and take captive for sale to the English and secondly, a
flourishing trade in deerskins developed. As the Yamassee had moved into the area around the colony at
the same time as the colony began to develop economically became a “vital cog in South Carolina’s
military and commercial policy.” They quickly became involved in both endeavors raiding to the south
towards the common enemy, the Spanish, and their allied Indians and also west towards the area that
France would attempt to assert influence from their troubled colony of Louisiana setting the scene for
later conflicts between the French colony and South Carolina. The Yamassee were also major players in
the deerskin trade, a trade that grew rapidly. At the end of the seventeenth century “South Carolina
exported 64,000 deer. Just seven years later the figure had risen to more than 120,000.” Indeed
Carolina’s Indian Agent Thomas Nairne – who would be one of the first victims of the war – would write
in the early eighteenth century that “the province owed for a long time its Subsistence to the Indian
Trade, which is now the Main Branch of Traffick.” However this flourishing trade came at a cost for the
Yamassee. The shift towards a market economy based on the trade had a troubling impact and by 1711
the roughly 400 active Yamassee warriors were in debt to British traders to the tune of 100,000
deerskins. These debts eventually developed a marginalization of the Yamassee within the colony and
also threated, and indeed in many ways did begin, to challenge the social structure and survival of the
Yamassee.
The Development of British identity: The Union of 1707 to the Hanoverian Accession of 1714
The crowns of Scotland and England had unified in 1603 and were from this point held in common
hence King James, before his exclusion, had been both James II of England and King James VII of
Scotland however there remained, two separate countries, two separate Thrones, two separate
Parliaments. It was not until 1707 that a formal political unification of the two countries was put in
place, a unification which heavily favored the English side of an uneven partnership and led to
considerable unrest amongst the population of Scotland. The idea of unification had been discussed for
many years but activity toward that end increased post the shift in monarchies in 1688 and by the early
eighteenth century structures were in place to push it through.
In 1701 English Parliament Pass Act of Settlement which designated the House of Hanover as heirs to
William III, and assuring a protestant monarch after the death of James II daughter Anne, who had
become queen following the death of William in 1702, his wife Mary had died in 1694.1 An indication of
the continued hatred for William held by the Jacobites and other supporters of the exiled King is the
frequently used toast to “the little gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat” William had died of
pneumonia which had developed as a complication to a broken collar bone following a fall from his
horse, Sorrel, after the animal stumbled in a mole hole. Anne was a confirmed protestant however when
she ascended to the thrown in 1702 despite being only 37 she was already an old woman and was
carried to her coronation in a sedan chair as Mark Kishlanksy notes Anne “had been physically depleted
by seventeen pregnancies psychically debilitated by their futility – not a single child had survived.” It was
this lack of heir from either William as King or Anne as future Queen which led to the passage of the
afore mentioned Act of Settlement. The English parliament was worried that after Anne’s death the
Scottish may invite King James to return to the thrown in Scotland and from there a challenge could be
made to take the English Crown as well thereby reinstalling a Catholic as monarch of England
However the Act also challenged Scotland’s role as an independent country with its right to select their
nations Monarch. This act challenged not only the die-hard Jacobite followers of the exiled King James
but also sections of the population who saw this unilateral decision by the English Parliament as an
attack on Scotland’s sovereignty. The lack of consultation in this decision led to Scottish outrage in both
political circles and from the general population and resulted in the Scottish Parliament passing of the
Act Anent [in relation to] Peace and War in 1703 and the Act of Security in 1704. The former of these
two Acts denied control of Scottish Foreign Policy to Westminster after death of Anne, James’s
daughter, effectively denying the Hanoverian succession. The second Act basically stated that unless
Scottish grievances, primarily economic and political, were satisfactorily redressed during Anne’s
lifetime, Scotland would reclaim the right to select its monarch and stated that whoever inherited the
English throne would be unable to succeed her in Scotland without Scotland’s consent. Anne initially
refused the Act of Security however the Scottish parliament refused to vote supply (i.e. raise funds for
the crown) and also passed the Wine Act which allowed Scottish trade in that product with France
despite an English embargo thereby raising the specter of France and King James. The need for supply
eventually led Anne to accept the Scottish Security Act however this in turn inflamed those members of
the British elite who wanted to force a submission from Scotland. This English anger led in turn to the
passing of the Aliens Act in 1705 which threatened to treat Scotts on par with other foreigners unless
the Hanoverian accession was accepted. This would mean that Scotts would be “denied right of English
citizenship, all trade would be interdicted, and Scottish ships would be captured or sunk” the English
government set a 15 month timeline on the decision.
The Alien act of 1705 became the big stick that forced negotiations toward the Union of 1707. The union
would be incorporative it would lead to a creation of Great Britain. However the incorporative union
would have exceptions: political institution could merge legal one’s could not; trade would be both free
and protected; discussion on forms of Protestantism would need to continue. What the Act of Union did
ensure was one British Parliament (in England) with 45 Scottish Members of parliament (out of a total of
558). The Hanoverian succession was also secured, the two countries military institution were merged in
to a single British military and there would be one coin, one flag, one measure, one seal of Great Britain.
While this “localized” debate and series of developments were taking place England and later Britain
had been actively involved in the war of Spanish Succession – I have yet to complete my research on the
full layout and intent of the war - the war was for all intents and purpose ended with the signing of
several treaties that are known as the Treaty of Utrecht after the city in which they were signed. The
peace was, for Britain, as successful as the war. “At a stroke, it made Britain the greatest maritime
power in the world. Naval bases in the Mediterranean ensured the Levant trade and made English
merchantmen competitive with the Portuguese. The acquisition of the Canadian fisheries supported the
burgeoning North American trade and weakened the French position in the New World. The exclusion of
the Dutch from all aspects of the South American trade completed the sweep against European rivals.
The newly created South Sea Company — Harley's Tory rival to the Whig Bank of England — was given
what amounted to a licence to print money, for the barbarous slave trade was believed to be immensely
profitable.”
With all these achievements Great Britain was poised to take a step forwards toward becoming the
dominant player on the world scene. The transfer of royal authority was assured, the unification of the
state had been achieved and there appeared to be a prosperous future with a burgeoning empire and a
seemingly endless increase in trade. However, within a short period of time the new nation and empire
were rocked by two rebellions one the challenged the stability of Britain itself and the other provided a
serious and deadly threat to the expanding American arm of the empire.
British fear of France
Although as I shall show both rebellions had deep and longstanding and more recent localized causes
there was a constant fear by the British that French intrigue was behind them. There was a degree of
truth in this, more so for the Jacobite than the Yamassee, yet it is the discussion of the French and the
fear that it induced and how that helped to reinforce a sense of national identity that interests me and is
relevant for this piece. The quotes below show this fear:
In South Carolina:
- “Council of Trade and Plantations to Mr. Secretary Stanhope. Enclose following, "relating to the
apprehension lest our five Nations of Indians should be drawn over to the French, which is the more to
be fear'd, for that we find the Governor of New York has not been inabled to make the usual presents to
the said five Nations to keep them in friendship with us, and considering the insurrection of the Carolina
Indians, the insolent answer of the Eastern Indians to Col. Caulfield, when he wou'd have proclaim'd
H.M. in their country (v. June 30th), and by the advices we have received from Virginia, there seems to
be a general defection of all the Indians, from the British interest in those parts,” “The case of the
Colony of South Carolina in America, humbly offered to the consideration of both Houses of Parliament.
Urge that the Government be resumed to the Crown. Otherwise it will inevitably be overwhelmed by
the Indians, and possessed by the French and Spaniards”
“ We also understand that the French Indians will help the Creeks. If so, our friendly Indians will be
intirely cut off in all humane probability, and then any may judg the consequence what will become of
us next. I cannot see how it is possible such a handfull of men tired out with this warr can much longer
keep this country, without a relief from our native country England”
In London:
We know that the Britain knew by 1715 Louis and Torcey were willing to “covertly supply the Jacobite
with arms and ammunition”
One government informant reported in August 1714, believed that 'if the Pretender can but lett the
French see that he has any thing like a party to back him either in England or Scotland worth the while...
then the French king will assist him to the outmost of his power'.
By July 1715 the Lord Justice Clerk was receiving reports that 'in Angus and further north they talke
confidently that the Duke of Berwick is to land in Brittain with 15 or 20,000 men and another army is to
land in Ireland at the same time, and this is beleeved as the greatest certainty'
The Jacobite Rebellion and British response & The Yamassee Uprising and British response
I have chosen here to spare you a detailed blow-by-blow account of the battles involved in both
rebellions I do however want to highlight some interesting similarities.





Both were rebellions on the periphery that challenged British polity and identity.
Both had long term causes dating back to the 1680s.
Both also had causes linked to both a shift in British trade practices and environmental
problems; William’s 7 ill years (7 poor crop years in Scotland) and overhunting in Carolina due to
the expanding market.
Both were viewed by the British as potential, and real, plots by the French to challenge Britain.
Ironically prisoners from the 1715 Jacobite rebellion were shipped to Carolina to fight against
the Yamassee.

In differences: The Jacobite rebellion due to naiveté and inept leadership caused little physical
damage or threat whereas the Yamassee came close to wiping Carolina of the map.
Impact on colonial thought
As I noted before Historian Tim Harris views the late seventeenth century as an important moment in
transforming the British state into a modern world and I argue that the rebellions of 1715 were part of
this development. Both are now viewed as two of the most threating rebellions to British identity and
power in the eighteenth century. This is partially to their early date within the century but also, I
contend, to the fact that they helped solidify the concept of British Empire.
Neither was the end of revolt in the region. There was a war with the Cherokee around 1750 which
again challenged Carolina and the Jacobites would rise again in 1745. On both occasion the British
although challenged were more confident, if not always more able, in their ability to deal with the
threat.
This last section still needs to be more fully research in primary documents, both colonial and metropolis
documents, however my initial delving suggests that concerns of safety and identity do enter into
discussion of the result and follow up to the twin rebellions.
As an example in South Carolina we see the return of control of the colony to the crown and the
development of the colony of Georgia as a buffer colony against attacks against Spanish and French
attacks.
1
In order to gain Scotland’s approval of William and Mary as joint monarch in 1688 concession had been given that
strengthened the Scottish parliament in relation to the English parliament