4 - Occasional conformity in miniature: the rage of party, Jacobitism and anti-Jacobitism in South Carolina, c. 1702–1716

Summary

South Carolina provides an intriguing case study of the significance of the relationship between party politics, Jacobitism and anti-Jacobitism in the British Atlantic world. Party-inspired imperial appointments, religious controversies and the diffusion of party political conflicts shaped a variety of local political conflicts and religious debates. Consequently, both Jacobitism and anti-Jacobitism, important elements of British political culture during the rage of party, were significant features of South Carolina's social and political culture in the early eighteenth century. Although there were no Jacobite-led or -inspired rebellions in the colony, there is sufficient evidence of Jacobite political culture to warrant further consideration and explanation. This in turn suggests the transatlantic scope of the rage of party. An examination of political and religious controversies in South Carolina therefore provides a fuller understanding of the development of Britain's transatlantic political culture.

South Carolina possessed a distinct history, society and practice of politics that differentiated it from the Mid-Atlantic colonies, New England, England, Scotland and Ireland. First, South Carolina was a proprietary colony: it was the private possession of a group of individuals. The crown therefore had little influence over political appointments, which were almost exclusively the preserve of the proprietors, most of whom were located in England. Thus the political inclinations of the proprietors had great impact on political life in the colony. South Carolina was also a plantation society, dominated by a handful of elites. Moreover, early in the eighteenth century it lacked the vibrant, local print culture which was coming to fruition in New England and the mid-Atlantic colonies. In some respects this encouraged a more insular development, and yet, despite its unique attributes and the absence of an indigenous print culture, the colony was assimilated into a larger transatlantic political culture dominated by party political disputes imbued with the rhetoric of Jacobitism and anti-Jacobitism.

There are numerous examples of accusations of Jacobitism in early eighteenth- century South Carolina. Jacobitism, however, does not usually feature prominently in the historiography. The few mentions of Jacobitism and the colony together in historical works are usually with reference to the importation of Jacobite convicts at the request of, and purchased by, the lieutenant governor Robert Daniell in 1715–16 as a means of enlisting manpower in the Yamassee war of 1715.