Carolina
In the deteriorating economic conditions of the 1660s and 1670s many Barbadian planters sought better opportunities. In 1663 a number of planters in Barbados made arrangements with the proprietors of Carolina for establishing a colony at Cape Fear. The proprietors, by the exercise of their influence at court, secured a baronetcy for Yeamans, conferred on him 12 January 1665, and on 11 Jananuary 1665 they appointed him governor of their colony, with a jurisdiction extending from Cape Fear to San Mateo.
The region was named Clarendon County. Yeamans was also instructed to explore the coast south of Cape Fear. He sailed with three vessels from Barbados in January 1665, and reached Cape Fear, but sustained heavy loss on the way from rough weather. Accordingly he soon returned to Barbados, leaving the management of the new settlement to a deputy, Captain Robert Sandford (whose lieutenant was Joseph Woory, Yeamans's nephew). However the colonists abandoned Clarendon by the autumn of 1667.
In 1669 another attempt at colonisation was made. Three ships of settlers were sent to Port Royal Island from the British Isles calling first at Barbados. Instructed by the proprietors to name a governor Yeamans named himself and joined the expedition until it reached Bermuda. In Bermuda he appointed the elderly William Sayle in his place and abruptly returned to Barbados. The expedition continued and successfully founded South Carolina's first permanent English settlement in April 1670.
Sayle died in March 1671. Before his death he nominated as his successor the deputy governor, Joseph West, and this appointment was approved by the colonists. Yeamans arrived in the new colony in 1671 and was disappointed not to be made governor immediately, and used his position as speaker of the colonies first parliament to harass West. He also started to build a plantation into which he brought 200 African slaves.
On 21 August 1671 the proprietors, to the great dissatisfaction of the colonists, appointed Yeamans to the governorship. He was proclaimed Governor of the English Province of Carolina at Charles Town on 19 April 1672. Early in his governorship at the bequest of the proprietors he initiated a land survey for what would become Charles Town and expanded his plantation.
The colony during his governorship suffered from internal dissensions, and was threatened both by the Spaniards and the Indians. The proprietors found fault with Yeamans as extravagant and indifferent to their interests. The colonists objected to his profits as an exporter of food-stuffs from Barbados. In April 1674 the proprietors replaced Yeamans with his predecessor Joseph West, and in the same year Yeamans returned to Barbados, where he died in August.
Yeamans epitomized the enterprising Barbadians who played a large part in settling South Carolina. That some, like him, resembled pirates ashore probably both promoted and retarded development of the colony; it certainly contributed to political factionalism endemic during the early years. —Robert Weir.Read more about this topic: John Yeamans
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