In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

CHAPTER X THE CAROLINA-FLORIDA BORDER, 1721-1730 On May 22, 1721, H.M.S. Enterprise, with Governor Francis Nicholson, John Barnwell, and the royal troops aboard, dropped anchor at Charles Town bar. Her arrival, anxiously expected by the supporters of the temporary government, put an end to the attempts of Johnson and Captain Hildesley to defeat the popular revolution.1 Amid rejoicing at the beginning of a new order in the colony government, and in defense of the southern frontier, there were reasons for dissatisfaction on the part of Barnwell and the old soldier who had supported him so vigorously in his dealings with Whitehall. Official lethargy in England had come near to defeating in advance the one item in the expansionist program of the Carolinians and the Board of Trade to which the government had given assent. Instead of a battalion of foot, a single company of soldiers had come over on the Enterprise; and not the young artificers for whom Nicholson had pleaded, but a hundred invalids, half of them now ill of scurvy. Tools for building the fort had indeed been furnished by the Board of Ordnance, but the engineer had failed to sail with Nicholson as he had agreed. Barnwell had expected the lieutenancy of the independent company and a command on the same footing as at Annapolis and Placentia, but had been disappointed. 'Without an Engineer, without Carpenters, Smiths, Brick-layers and other Trades-men, and even without men Capable of doing any work, it was hopeless,' he declared, to employ the independent company in making the projected settlement on the Altamaha. But delay might be fatal. He therefore proposed that some of the province scouts should be sent at once to 'secure possession of that place by a small Palissado Fort and a few Huts,' until the regular royal fort could be built.2 Nicholson and his council concurred, and entrusted the task to Barnwell himself as the 1 c.o. 5 :387, ff. 23, 24. McCrady, S. C. under the Royal Government, p.34. 2 C.O. 5 :358, A 34: 'Letters and Papers relating to Landing His Maj esty 's Independent Company now in South-Carolina &ca. and likewise concerning ColI. Barnwell's going to Altamaha River in order to Build a Small Fort there' (16 folios), especially Barnwell's memorial, June 3, 172l. [235 ] 236 THE SOUTHERN FRONTIER commander of the southern scouts. He was ordered to take possession of the Altamaha in the King's name 'for use of the Crown of Great Britain,' and if interrupted by Indians or Europeans 'to repel force by force.'3 At Port Royal Barnwell met with further discouragement. The scoutmen, during his absence in England, had lost all semblance of discipline: 'a wild idle people,' he described them, 'and continually Sotting if they can get any Rum for Trust or Money.'4 Yet, he added, 'they are greatly usefull for such Expeditions as these if well and Tenderly managed.' Early in July he was ready to sail southward with twenty-six of these 'hopeful fellows,' 'all drunk as beasts,' and a white sawyer with his Indian slaves. At the 'passage fort' Captain Palmeter and several other scouts were added. Barnwell, with two small boats, followed the inland passage, and on July 13 made rendezvous with the supply sloop from Beaufort in the embouchure of the Altamaha. Meanwhile, in that vast expanse of marshland and cypress swamps, he had selected a site for the post. Several branches of the estuary were explored before he found a suitable bluff on the north bank of the northern branch, five miles below its exit from the principal stream, and near the town occupied by the Huspaw people in 1715.5 There he made ready to erect the temporary fort, save for the warehouses of the traders the first English establishment in the land which became Georgia. It was well that Barnwell had brought such seasoned frontiersmen as the Port Royal scouts. No timber could be found within three miles of Garrison Point, so he decided to build with cypress plank, four inches thick and musket-proof, instead of logs. 'This cypress,' he wrote in his journal, 'can't be gott out of the Swamp without wading naked up to the waist or sometimes to the neck, which is a Terrible Slavery, especially now in the dog days, when the Musquetos are in their Vigour.' By such herculean labors was built the Altamaha Fort, a 'planked house,' or...

Share