Upheaval in Albemarle: The Story of Culpeper's Rebellion

A Word About Sources

The natural and only point of departure for a project of this nature must fall within Hugh T. Lefler and Albert R. Newsome, North Carolina: The History of a Southern State (Chapel Hill, 1954). With the basic details as outlined here, the excellent bibliography leads the researcher into those fields where the harvest is most plentiful.

As for primary materials, Volume I of the Colonial Records of North Carolina (Raleigh, 1886-1890), edited by W. L. Saunders, contained the bulk of depositions, affidavits and petitions from which this study was framed. Many little nagging details, however, were often clarified in William S. Powell’s Ye Countie of Albemarle in Carolina (Raleigh, 1958), not only in the documents contained therein, but within that editor’s excellent annotations and editorial comment. A work of great value, especially with reference to English sources, is Volume III of Charles M. Andrews’ The Colonial Period of American History (New York, 1937). And not to be overlooked is Wesley Frank Craven’s The Southern Colonies in the Seventeenth Century (Baton Rouge, 1949), valuable for its revelations of the pressures and attitudes of the colonists, as well as placing Albemarle within the framework of English colonization. These four works made up the core of the research that make up this work.

Fugitive bits of information, some most revealing, were discovered in other nests. For instance, Hugh T. Lefler (ed.), “A Description of ‘Carolana’ By a ‘Well-Willer,’ 1649,” The North Carolina Historical Review, XXXII (January, 1955), 102-105, offers an interesting commentary on early Carolina. William S. Powell’s The Carolina Charter of 1663: How It Came to North Carolina and Its Place in History (Raleigh, 1954) is an easily found publication useful for its peripheral material. Although not directly concerned with Culpeper’s revolt, the Publications of the Champlain Society: Hudson Bay Series (Toronto, 1938-1959) offer interesting background as to the early and later lives of such characters as Zachariah and Benjamin Gillam, and in these volumes lies the suggestion that John Nixon became the Governor of the Hudson Bay area. The Narratives of the Insurrections: Original Narratives of Early American History, 1675-1690 (New York, 1915), edited by Charles M. Andrews, contain many of the same accounts found in the Colonial Records of North Carolina, but are easier to read because of the modernization of language and the annotations should not be ignored.

Official English reaction to the upheaval in Albemarle is found in several British publications: The Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial (London, various dates), the Calendar of State Papers, Domestic (London, various dates), and the Calendar of State Papers America and West Indies (London, various dates), all contain pertinent and necessary information.

The two publications of J. Bryan Grimes, Abstract of North Carolina Wills (Raleigh, 1910), and North Carolina Wills and Inventories (Raleigh, 1912), are helpful in the determination of the life spans of some of the participants in Culpeper’s rebellion. Stray capsules of useful information were discovered in The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, The William and Mary Quarterly, and The Journals of the House of Burgesses (Richmond, various dates). Incidentally, Edmund Jennings’ comment on the penchant of the Quakers for fostering “Commotions” in early Carolina is included in a letter to “My Lord,” September 28, 1708 in the Preston Davie Collection in the Southern Historical Collection, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

These, then, are the major sources from which this account of Culpeper’s rebellion has been taken. There are some thin areas, but the necessary information is buried deep in English archives and until a thorough search is made of those repositories, it seems unlikely that the final word on the revolt will be disclosed.