Volume VII
Number 51
THE STATE
A Weekly Surrey of North Carolina
May 18
1940
Entered lecond'Clili m»tt»r. Jons 1. 1933. »t the Po.Wfle# at Ralolgh. North Carolina, under the Aft of March 3. 1879.
Rebellion in Carolina
Boston still brags about her “Tea Party.**
but one hundred years before they started
throwing* out tea in Boston. North Carolina
was throwing out governors in this state.
ALONG ill December each year the
. patriotic citizens of Boston.
* Massachusetts pet all excited
celebrating the anniversary of the Bos¬
ton Tea Party. This event happened
on the night of December 18. 1 77:*
when a party of Bostonians, disguised
as Indians, slipped aboard a ship and
pitched a number of chests of tea into
the bay. The pictured scene is engraved
in the memory of every school-child.
At the very same time the men were
getting rid of these chests their sym¬
pathetic wives were throwing out
their household stocks of tea. All this
was done in protest against what the
liberty-loving colonists termed. “Tax¬
ation without representation.”
Without casting aspersions on the
citizenry of Boston or trying to be¬
little their patriotic efforts, might we
here in North Carolina be pardoned
for a bit of tub-thumping of our own
when we point out that nearly a hun¬
dred years before the Boston house¬
wives were throwing out ten. the Caro¬
lina colonists were throwing out their
governors? This, too. in protest
against taxation without representa¬
tion.
The Tax on Tobacco
In 1G72 England imposed a duty
of one penny per pound on all tobac¬
co shipped from the Albemarle Col¬
ony. At first, it was half-heartedly ole
served; then the grumblings of the
colonists began to increase. The law
was England’s making — not their own
— and was imposed without their con¬
sent. Therein lay the nub of their argu¬
ment.
By MALCOLM FOULER
Finally, in December of 1G77 the
smouldering opposition «if the colo¬
nists flared into open rebellion when
Thomas Miller, acting for Thomas
Eastehurch, took over the combined
offices of governor and chief tax col¬
lector. But let’s turn to the colonial
Records of North Carolina and rend
the <le|Hosition of one Henry Hudson,
n deputy collector for Miller:
“In Xl»er of that yea re (1*577) the
inhabitants then riseing up in Armes,
thicr broke out a more violent resur¬
rection than heretofore, seazing and
imprisoning ye said Miller and his
Deputycs and all others in Authority.
“A few days later ye Rabble by
blast of horn met and went to rhusing
thicr own Burgesses, and being thus
chosen, had instructions from ye Rab¬
ble how they should proceed ntt thicr
Assembly, which was. first, absolutely
to insist upon a free fraid to trans¬
port their tobacco where they pleazed
without paying any duty to ye King's
Collector. Upon which some of them
oryed out G dame ye Collector, ami
this Deponent verily thought they
would have mu rt bored him.”
And the Thomas Miller in question
has this to say :
“That in lObcr, 1077. that John
Culpepper. George Durant, Wm. Crn-
ford. John Jenkins and others did
most cruelly imprison him ami his
Deputycs by ordering them to be
Clapt in Irons, which was accord¬
ingly done and they upbraided his
Majesty’s Proclamations ami Lords
Proprietors authority.”
And there you have it : open, un¬
disguised rebellion against any au¬
thority not emanating from them¬
selves. Miller fled the colony but the
rebellious comlition continued until
1083 when Seth Sothcl arrived to
act as governor.
Now Sothcl was not only a gov¬
ernor; he was a maker of governors,
for he was one of the Lords Proprie¬
tors. He lasted just six years— until
1089, when George Durant and Thom¬
as Pollock. goad«'«l beyond endurance
by his tyranny, roused the colonists,
surprised him on his plantation and
“Clapt him prisoner into a Logg
House ten f«-et square." Thus Sothcl
went the way of his predecessors.
Glover and Hyde were next to feel
the wrath of the free«lom-loving col¬
onists. They were turned out during
the so-called Carv Rebellion <>f 1708-
1711.
In 1711, Governor Spottswood of
Virginia, who had been called on to
aid in putting down the rebellion, said
the |>eople of North Carolina were
used to turning out their governors
that they thought they had a right
to do so.
An Important Solution
In 1710. the North Carolina As¬
sembly passed this momentous reso¬
lution :
"Resolved. That the impressing of
(Continued on page twenty-three)