Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/687

This page needs to be proofread.
646
The Green Bag.

cincts being each subdivided into six col onies. All these allotments or divisions were made with reference to the support of the aristocracy. The eight seigniories, 96,000 acres, were the shares of the eight Proprietors, while the eight baronies went to the nobility, those upon whom the special marks of honor were to be bestowed. Until 1701 the Pro prietors were allowed to dispose of their shares, or seigniories, together with the pre rogatives that each exercised therein, but after that time alienation was allowed for the term of twenty-one years only, and then but to the extent of two thirds of the estate. One third was to remain in the actual possession of the Proprietor. It could not even be leased to tenants. The proprietorship, with its landed estate and its authorities, fell to the next male heir, and, for want of one, to a Landgrave or Cacique of Carolina descended from the female heir next in line. If there were no female heir, then they went to the next heir general. Each county was so mapped out that it contained 480,000 acres, or 750 square miles. Each seigniory, barony, or colony contained 1 2,000 acres. The share of each Landgrave was four baronies, or 48,000 acres; of each Cacique two baronies, or 24,000 acres. There were as many Land graves as counties, and twice as many Ca ciques. The remainder of the lands were for the people. There was another subdivision allowed, that of the manor. This tract con sisted of not less than 3,000 and not more than 1 2,000 acres. To legally establish the barony the order of the Palatine Court was necessary. When once established the Lord of the Manor, within his own boundaries, had all the rights and privileges of the Landgraves and Caciques. He was absolute in will and authority, as the following clause of the Pro prietary Code plainly indicated : " In every seigniory, barony, and manor all the leet-men shall be under the jurisdiction of the respec tive lords of the said seigniory, barony, or manor without appeal from him." This pro vision was an adaptation of the old law of

England with reference to leet-men and leetcourts. These courts were to be held once a year within each landed precinct, and to them each freeholder within the territory between the ages of 16 and 60, was to be summoned with the exception of peers, clergy men and women. But to the leet-laws of the Province of Carolina was added the op pressive one not observed in England, that no leet-man or leet-woman " should be at liberty to go off from the land of his or her lord without leave obtained from the said lord under hand and seal." No one could hold a leet-court except a Proprietor, Land grave, Cacique, or Lord of the Manor. The act of becoming a leet-man was voluntary. Whosoever desired to be such must enter himself in the registry of the County Court. For this complete abnegation of self to the interests of his Lord he was to receive, on mar riage, the magnificent allotment of ten acres of land for life, for which he was to return to his Lord, or heirs, " one-eighth part of all yearly produce and growth of the ten acres." A wonderfully generous concession indeed on the part of the aristocrat, who, in every thing that he did, seemingly to the better ment of the worldly prospects of these slaves of the manor, was really only looking for ward to his own interests. These leet-courts were soon absorbed in the county and precinct courts. It is no wonder that against this statutory array of idiocy and tyranny the people should have from the first made murmur, this dis content growing into a spirit of resistance that soon became a voice as of the surf tem pestuously beating upon the shore. How visionary, impracticable and void of even common sense in many of its rulings was this form of government foisted upon the people of the Province — the most of them men of hardy nature and independent spirit — is evidenced in that clause of the code which provided for a Court of Heraldry. The jurisdiction of this court was the regu lation of fashions, games and sports. An