A "Best Poor Huguenot's Country"? The Carolina Proprietors and the Recruitment of French Protestants

Bertrand Van Ruymbeke

In the early 1680s, influenced by prevalent mercantilist and populationist views and disillusioned by a colony that failed to return profits and settlers who challenged their authority, the Carolina Proprietors launched a vast promotional campaign in the hope of developing their domain while attracting migrants more favorable to their plans. Part of this recruiting effort was devoted to the Huguenots who, as foreign Protestants reputedly experienced in wine and silk culture, appealed to Proprietors anxious to introduce new commodities into their colony and unwilling to people Carolina at the expense of England. As the flow of Huguenot refugees crossing the Channel reached unprecedented proportions as a result of the intensification of Bourbon anti-Protestant policy, tracts promoting Carolina in French appeared in London, The Hague, and Geneva. Filled with traditional arguments that presented the colony as a land of milk and honey, these pamphlets successfully spread an Eden-like image of Carolina in the large urban refugee centers and the parts of France where they were circulated. Along with large land grants and little taxation, prospective Huguenot settlers were also promised free and easy naturalization that would enable them to benefit from the famed English liberties. In the same years, publications in French appeared in Holland in an effort to dissuade the Huguenots from going to Carolina. Though of limited impact, this counter-promotional literature, which consistently presents an unfavorable description of Carolina when compared to its northern neighbors, appeared as a reaction against the Carolina Proprietors' successful campaign. Thus, though wine and silk production never reached a profitable level in the colony, and the Huguenot geographic and socio-economic recruitment followed independent parameters, several hundred French Protestants migrated to Carolina primarily as a result of the Proprietors' recruiting effort.

[WP #96020]