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“L” is for Lords Proprietors of Carolina

“L” is for Lords Proprietors of Carolina. King Charles II granted the land that became North and South Carolina to eight English noblemen in 1663. Before the government of King George II bought out the last owners in 1729, nearly fifty individuals owned or claimed to own these eight shares. Settlement attempts by New Englanders and Barbadians failed, but the foundering colonial enterprise was rescued by Anthony Ashley Cooper in 1669. He persuaded the other proprietors to fund an expedition from England that established the first permanent English settlement in South Carolina in 1670. In December 1719 South Carolina colonists revolted against the proprietary regime and asked the crown to take direct control of the colony. A provisional royal governor arrived in 1721, and negotiations led to the1729 surrender of the proprietors’ ownership of Carolina to the British government.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.