Henry Woodward (colonist) - Stuarts Town and The Yamasee

Stuarts Town and The Yamasee

A group of Scots founded a settlement, called Stuarts Town, in the Port Royal Sound area of South Carolina in 1684. The Scots of Stuarts Town and the English of Charles Town never got along. The Scots asserted their independence by initiating their own Indian trade, establishing a strong alliance with the powerful and newly arrived Yamasee Indians. In 1685, Henry Woodward found himself arrested in Stuarts Town while passing through the area on mission to the "proto-Creeks" of the Chattahoochee River. His arrest was apparently due to the desire of Lord Cardross of Stuarts Town to control trade with the Creek. Woodward was soon released and seems to have assisted the Stuarts Town Scots and their Yamasee Indian allies. Although part of the English Charles Town faction, Woodward may have been Scottish himself.

The Yamasee, backed by the Stuarts Town Scots, conducted a series of devastating raids on the Spanish mission province of Guale and then proceeded to invade the province of Timucua in Florida, bringing back many Indian slaves to sell to the Scots of Stuarts Town. Woodward, once back in Charles Town, was among those who loudly denounced the Stuarts Town settlement for these events. The Yamasee raids soon brought a Spanish counterattack that destroyed Stuarts Town. It is likely, however, that Woodward profited from the Yamasee raids, and even assisted. In denouncing the Scots he was probably taking the Charles Town side in the political dispute between Charles Town and Stuarts Town.

By 1684 the Spanish mission province of Guale was in ruins and generally abandoned.