Political connections. Favors for past support. Power, money and land. We’re not talking about stories about today’s political climate, we’re talking the factors behind the founding of the Carolina colony.
We packed a lot of information into our Tuesday DIHS program “Homes of the Lords Proprietors and Governors of Carolina.”
Historian Robert Stockton gave us a rundown on the original eight Lords Proprietors of Carolina…politically connected guys with familiar names like Monck, Berkeley, Colleton and Cooper.
Stockton showed us their 17 century palatial homes, all of which were back in England. Yep, these guys were absentee landlords. For more details on the Lords Proprietors, check out this link.
Below the Lords Proprietors in the Colonial pecking order were two other levels of nobility…Landgraves and Cassiques. A landgrave was entitled to four baronies for a total of 48,000 acres. The lesser cassiques had to get by with a paltry 24,000 acres.
Our island’s namesake, Robert Daniel was a landgrave and, therefore, a major landowner. His holdings ranged from North of Georgetown to the eponymous island, but also included two large plats in downtown Charles Town near what is now East Bay Street.
According to Stockton, Daniell was kind of quirky in that he was constantly selling off his land. That was unusual in a time when land equated power.
Despite that quirk, Daniell still had some political clout serving as deputy governor of Carolina in 1706 and 1715. He served as acting governor in 1716-17 before dying in 1718. For more about Robert Daniell, check out
Daniel Island by Michael K. Dahlman and Michael K. Dahlman Jr.
You can also pick up a copy at any DIHS meeting.