A
N.C.
N
C AROLINA
I
England’s “Merry Monarch,”
King Charles II.
Gulf of Mexico
In 1670, Lord Ashley sent
130 settlers under the
leadership of Gov. William
Sayle to Carolina. They sailed
up the Ashley River to
Albemarle Point and built
Charles Towne. By 1680, the
village had moved to a more
agreeable location at Oyster
Point, later to be called Charleston.
Atlantic
Ocean
ver
Ri
Ash
le
arle
Albem t
Poin
N
0
MILE
17
Edenton und
So
rl e
a
lbe m
A
Windsor
GT O N
WA S H I N.
CO
H
SOUT A
IN
L
O
CA R
Drum
Island
17
t
Moun nt
a
s
a
le
P
ston
Charle
r
Oyste
Point
171
B E RT I E
C O.
ANS
N
0
10
MILES
The Lords Proprietors
26
y
2
Charles
Towne
1670
FLA.
e
s Town
Charle
se
Batts hou
13
er
Coop r
e
v
Ri
L
O
GA.
Batts built a house
three miles south of
the present-day
Chowan River Bridge
in Bertie County. The
“Batts House” is
shown on the 1657
Comberford map of
the “South Part of
Virginia.”
1653
NORTH
AMERICA
Chowan
River
M
PERQUI .
CO
1
arbor
ston H
e
Charl
Anthony Ashley Cooper,
Earl of Shaftesbury
The most versatile and brilliant
of the Lords, he had his friend John
Locke write “The Carolina Constitutions.”
John Berkeley, Baron of Stratton
Skillful politician; was friend of Charles I.
Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia
Youngest brother of John Berkeley.
Sir George Carteret, Isle of Jersey
Was lord proprietor of “New Jersey.”
Sir John Colleton, Barbados
Helped introduce slavery to North America.
William, Lord Craven (Earl of Craven)
Outlived all other proprietors.
Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon
Lord high chancellor and chief minister.
George Monck, Duke of Albemarle
Supported Charles II after Oliver
Cromwell’s death.
THE M-FILES ONLINE: www.charlotte.com/2000/mfiles/
SOURCES: “North Carolina: A History,” William S. Powell, The University of North Carolina Press, 1977; “South Carolina: One of the Fifty States,” Lewis P. Jones, Sandlapper Publishing, 1985.
Copyright © 1999 by The Charlotte Observer
NEXT WEEK: 1681 — First church in the Carolinas
Nathaniel
Batts 1
S.C.
R
T
he Carolinas’ first permanent white
settler moved south from a crowded
Virginia.
In 1653, Nathaniel Batts built a
two-story, 400-square-foot house
near the Albemarle Sound (1) to
trade with Indians.
Settlers who followed Batts
bought land from Indians and
recorded the deeds dating to
1660. In 1662, the Virginia
colony authorized the
appointment of a sheriff to
keep order and collect taxes.
In 1663, King Charles II used
“Carolina” for the first time in
granting land – stretching from
Virginia to present-day Florida – to eight
lords and dukes, the “Lords Proprietors.”
South Carolina’s first English
settlement, Charles Towne (2), rose along
the Ashley River in 1670.
— Foon Rhee
King Charles II granted a
huge slice of North America,
which he named “Carolina,”
to the Lords Proprietors. The
north-south boundary
(gold line), expanded in 1665,
extended all the way to the
Pacific Ocean, which
explorers believed lay just
over the mountains.
6
VA.
Carolina on his mind
A
TH E M F I L E S
No.
T H E M I L L E N N I U M I N T H E C A R O L I N A S TODAY: 1653 – NATHANIEL BATTS
C
TM
WM PITZER/Staff