Upheaval in Albemarle: The Story of Culpeper's Rebellion

Unrest in Albemarle

Time served only to lengthen tensions already stretched near the snapping point. By 1675 the nearly 4,000 settlers scattered throughout the four precincts of Albemarle—Perquimans, Pasquotank, Currituck, and Chowan—were so irritated by vexations and resentment that they began to align themselves into proprietary and anti-proprietary factions. Those who led the anti-proprietary group included the oldest and most prominent persons of the county—John Jenkins, John Willoughby, George Durant, Richard Foster, William Crawford, Robert Holden, Thomas Jarvis, James Blount, John Harvey, and Valentine Bird—most of whom were serving, or had served, as members of the Governor’s Council, and some of whom had been appointed proprietary deputies.

Resentment had grown out of the feeling that the Proprietors were neglecting Albemarle with the devotion of their energies to the Ashley River settlement, and cast their eyes upon the northern colony only in moments of crisis. And although giving lip service to the principle of self-rule, the appointment of proprietary deputies had lent the impression of a steadily-increasing curtailment of privileges. Little things clung together to provoke a sullenness of spirit. For instance, all products of the whaling industry, promising additional income to industrious settlers, were, under the Fundamental Constitutions, restricted to the Lords Proprietors. With the realization that they were subject to the whims of a group of men in London who showed no inclination to familiarize themselves with their problems, the people of Albemarle became unhappy with a fluid situation that could eventually deprive them of their rights and privileges.

The neighboring colony of Virginia, priding herself upon her status as a royal colony, looked down with ill-concealed contempt upon the proprietary stepchildren of Albemarle. The area, claimed the Virginians, was little more than a refuge for “thieves,” “pirates,” fleeing criminals and runaway servants. And to protect their own planters, the Virginia House of Burgesses were placing restrictions upon the shipment of Albemarle tobacco through her ports.

To complicate the situation even more, the shallow waters of Albemarle Sound limited the size of ships entering the colony. It was only natural that, shackled by geography and the restrictions of Virginia, the people of Albemarle turn to smuggling as the answer to their commercial problems. The coastal traders of New England, whose shallow draft sloops and ketches could slide across the sand bars blocking the inlets, opened a profitable, though illegal, trade with the Carolina planters. Tobacco, some shipped in hogsheads, was carried in these light vessels to Boston and other northern ports, there to be transshipped in larger vessels to Scotland, Ireland, Holland, France, and Spain. John Liscomb, Joseph Winslow, Zachariah Gillam, Joshua and Caleb Lamb of Massachusetts, along with Mordecai Bowden of Rhode Island, became the half-dozen New England sea captains who gained control of the tobacco trade of Albemarle. This, in turn, not only defeated the purpose of the Navigation Acts, but gave rise to some alarm for the decreasing revenues of the Crown through the loss of customs duties.

The Plantation Duty Act, passed by Parliament in 1673, was designed to curb these infractions. Under this statute, ships clearing one colonial port for another, were to pay prior to sailing the customs duties on all enumerated articles (on tobacco amounting to one penny per pound). Collectors of the Customs in the colonies were to be held directly responsible to the Commissioners of the Customs in London. And in November, 1673, warrants bearing the signature of Charles II were dispatched to all colonial governors, directing them to appoint local customs officials, namely a Surveyor of Customs and a Collector.

John Jenkins, as acting Governor of Albemarle, seems to have ignored this warrant until pressures from England forced his hand in 1675. In that year commissions for two men by the names of Copeley and Birch arrived. If these appointees were not in the colony at this time, and apparently they were not, Jenkins was directed to name his own selections. Timothy Biggs, late of the Ashley River settlement and a Quaker, was appointed to the post of Surveyor. The more significant post of Collector went to Valentine Bird, a member of the Council.

Apparently neither Jenkins nor Bird had any intention of actually collecting customs duties, for Bird never turned in so much as a farthing to the Treasury. By the time he was replaced, it was charged that he was in arrears something like 150,000 pounds of tobacco supposed to have been collected as customs during his tenure of office. Even then the appointment of Bird, or any other Collector for that matter, was opposed by William Crawford, a member of his own political faction. Crawford, under pressure from the Massachusetts traders, and himself described as a New England man, issued a vigorous protest. Taking his case to the people, Crawford shrewdly pointed out that if the one-penny duty was collected, the New England ship captains had threatened to double the prices of the goods they brought in. With the spread of this rumor, the Albemarlians became “very mutunous & reviled,” issuing dark threats against those members of the Council who felt that such an appointment should be made. They remained sulky even after the appointment of Bird, an outspoken member of the anti-proprietary party.

Indian troubles increased tension. The “Chowonoc” Indians, restless since Sir William Berkeley had sent an expedition against them in 1648, took up the war hatchet in 1675. Although the uprising was put down “by God’s assistance though not without loss of many men,” the terror it had generated left a nervous and apprehensive populace. Because of this crisis and, perhaps, the threats of the New England traders to abandon the colony during the uprising, the anti-proprietary faction persuaded Jenkins to remit three farthings of the one penny a pound customs duties—which they probably did not pay anyway.

Thomas Eastchurch, Speaker of the Assembly and Surveyor-General under the Proprietors who, along with the twenty-nine year old Thomas Miller, an “Apothecary,” was a leader of the proprietary party, saw in the unhappy spirits of the people an opportunity to strengthen his own position. Eastchurch had been for some time harassed by his political enemies. In 1671 he had penned an angry letter to Carteret, protesting the vandalism of those who, claiming he was indebted to them, broke into his home “and otherwise made spoyle of my estate.” Eastchurch and the proprietary party gained strength following an appeal of Virginia officials to the King to return Albemarle to that colony where, the Virginians held, it rightfully belonged, and where it had been before the Charter of 1665. Not only would such a move jeopardize land titles issued under the Proprietors, but if this appeal were granted, the anti-proprietary party would be maintained in power.

In opposition, acting Governor John Jenkins had the support not only of George Durant, probably the most powerful single political figure in Albemarle, but also of John Culpeper, a man who seemed to thrive on schemes, plots and internal turmoil. Of a gentle family, he is believed to have been the brother of Frances Culpeper Stephens, the wife of Sir William Berkeley. Coming from the island of Barbados in 1671, he had landed in Charleston, bearing a commission from the Lords Proprietors as Surveyor-General of the southern settlement and addressed “To our Trusty and well beloved John Culpeper gent.” Considered a very able artist, Culpeper had drawn several maps of the Ashley River. In 1672 he had become a member of the Assembly but, according to Colleton, had fled to Albemarle “from South Carolina where he was in danger of hanging for laying the designe & endeavouring to sett the poor people to plunder the rich.”

At a meeting in July, 1675, at the house of Governor Jenkins, he and Culpeper plotted to strike at the Eastchurch faction through Thomas Miller. Miller, not known as a person of tact, had a penchant for speaking his mind without thought to the consequences, and it was not difficult to bring charges against him for uttering treasonable sentiments. Among those statements attributed to his loose tongue was that the Cavalier supporters of King Charles I had been “the veriest rogues.” In a like manner he had spoken disrespectfully of the Lords Proprietors, declaring them to be “turned fooles or sotts.” Not only had the morals of the present King been questioned, but his ability as a sovereign had been doubted, with Miller declaring that in times of stress he would never give up his life for a King who led his subjects into so many unrighteous causes. And, or so the depositions stated, on November 18, 1675, “at the instigation of the Devil,” Miller had, in a “most Atheisticall & Blasphemous manner,” declared that the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper held little meaning for him.

Culpeper brought the charges against Miller before Magistrate John Nixon, himself a proprietary man. Nixon, commenting that this one bit of evidence was not sufficient to convict a man, rather airily dismissed the case with the observation that Miller “Would allways be talking of such matters.” Despite this, additional witnesses were summoned and Miller arrested on a formal indictment brought by George Durant, the Attorney-General.

Jenkins next attempted to muzzle Eastchurch, a move which was calculated to allow him to dispatch an appeal to England for betterment of the “deplorable situation” in Albemarle. His first step was to order the dissolution of the Assembly, but that legislative body, under the tight control of Speaker Eastchurch, refused to disband. Turning against the Governor, the proprietary element drew up charges against Jenkins, accusing him of trying to undermine the Proprietors’ interests, in addition to “several misdemeanors.” Voted out of office, Jenkins was placed in confinement.

Eastchurch’s heavy hand fell upon several others of the malcontents. Captain John Willoughby, a judge described as arbitrary and a man possessed of “a natural habit of pride or ambition,” was among those selected for the Speaker’s vengeance. It was important that Willoughby’s influence be dimmed, for he was a good politician, courteous to those of lower rank, but only, claimed the proprietary faction, because he was “factious and would be popular.” When Eastchurch would have appealed the Albemarle situation to the Proprietors, Willoughby scornfully dismissed the proprietary faction with the observation that the Assembly felt “That they were the Court of Courts and Jury of Juries.” His angry words implied that they were little more than an extra-legal body from whom no justice could be expected. For his contempt, the judge was summoned before the proprietary deputies, sitting as a Palatine Court. He taunted them by ignoring their edict. And when a constable was dispatched to fetch Willoughby before them, he set upon the representative of the law and gave him a sound thrashing. Eastchurch thereupon outlawed Captain Willoughby, and persuaded the Assembly to place a price on his head as the fugitive fled into Virginia.

Although Culpeper seems to have remained in Albemarle, others of the anti-proprietary faction soon joined Willoughby in Virginia. Captain Thomas Cullen, accused of selling firearms to Indians not friendly to the English, slipped across the border to escape trial before a hostile court. Patrick White, member of the Assembly from Chowan precinct, joined Willoughby in insulting the proprietary faction by appealing to Governor Berkeley and his Virginia Council rather than submitting his grievances to London.

In Virginia, they met with only “discountenance” from Governor Berkeley, who at this time was himself burdened with the rebellious faction headed by Nathaniel Bacon. And for some undisclosed reason, among those opposing Sir William was Robert Holden, the Secretary of Albemarle, whose name was later included in the list of warrants issued against the “most iminent Rebels.”

There was still the question of Thomas Miller. Inasmuch as the charges brought against him were of a treasonable nature, and the government of Albemarle floundering in a state near turmoil, it was thought best to send him to Virginia. There, Governor Berkeley, as a Proprietor, could determine the issue. Under an armed guard, Miller was escorted to Virginia, followed by John Culpeper as the principal complaining witness. Berkeley, to whom Miller had made himself obnoxious in the past, brought him before the Council who acquitted the prisoner from Albemarle. And, according to one witness, after the investigation, John Culpeper was seen frequently in the company of Miller before the latter sailed for London in the Constant in late July. Culpeper apparently remained in Jamestown for the time being rather than return to Albemarle. Eastchurch also soon sailed for England to report the situation, and the anti-proprietary faction, wishing to have their story presented to the Proprietors, sent George Durant on a similar mission.

It is not surprising that the reports of Eastchurch and Miller found more favor with the Proprietors than did that of Durant. Eastchurch’s firm control over the legislature, the Proprietors felt, would be more effective in remedying the two great failings in Albemarle: the loose operations of the New England traders; and the failure to promote the southward expansion of Albemarle. A strong governor, they reasoned, would be able to control those leaders of the colony who feared a southern expansion would disrupt their lucrative trade with the Indians.

To cure these evils, and upon the recommendation of an influential relative, Lord Thomas Clifford, the Lord High Treasurer, who endorsed him as a “Gentn of good fame,” and “a very discreet and worthy man,” Thomas Eastchurch was issued a commission as Governor of Albemarle. As a subordinate, Thomas Miller was given a dual appointment as Secretary of the Colony and Collector of the Customs. Eastchurch’s instructions, possibly because of the unrest then prevalent in both Virginia and Albemarle, were the most liberal and conciliatory yet issued by the Proprietors. Included were provisions calculated to make the unsettled area south of the Chowan more attractive to prospective settlers. An effort was to be made to placate the Chowan Indians by offering them a measure of protection from the abuses of the white man. Justice for all was to be administered to “best secure the antient and native rights of Englishmen,” and in such a fashion that “it may neither be tedious, troublesome nor chargeable for men of prudence and of estates ... to venture themselves in any place where liberty and property are not well received.” And to better control the illegal trade, three port towns were to be established and designated as the only areas where goods could be loaded or unloaded, “it beinge a certain Beggary to our people of Albemarle if they should buy goods at 2d hand and soe much dearer than they may be supply’d from England.”

Prior to the departure of Eastchurch and Miller in the early summer of 1677, George Durant was given the opportunity to register the complaints of his faction before the Proprietors. With anger and boldness Durant declared that Thomas Eastchurch should never become Governor of Albemarle, and if the Proprietors insisted in their intention of issuing him a commission then he, Durant, would “turn Rebel.”

Eastchurch and Miller cruised leisurely back to Albemarle, their vessel making a stop at Nevis in the West Indies. And there, as it so often does, love complicated the future. The roving eyes of Eastchurch “lighting upon a woman that was [of] a considerable fortune, [he] took hold of the opportunity [and] marryed her.” The newly appointed Governor of Albemarle lingered in Nevis, enjoying his honeymoon. To perform the functions of government, Miller was sent on ahead. His commission as President of the Council, issued by Eastchurch, allotted him “very full and ample powers,” and, in effect, gave him all the powers of governor until the arrival of the bridegroom. This was in itself an illegal move, for it was the right of the Council to elect their president, and not within the appointive authority of the Governor.

Already harboring plans to apply more stringently new methods for the regulation of smuggling, Miller journeyed to Bermuda. On that island he met Solomon Summers, a London shipwright who owned a small shallop, the Success. Visualizing this as a possible revenue boat, Miller refitted the vessel, and hired on a crew at his own expense. Around the middle of July, 1677, the Success sailed for Albemarle. On board was Thomas Miller; his destination—Rebellion!