Royalizing South Carolina: The Revolution of 1719 and the evolution of early South Carolina governmen

The South Carolina Revolution of 1719 ousted Robert Johnson, governor of that province, who had been appointed by the Lords Proprietors of Carolina. The Carolina revolutionaries replaced him with James Moore, Jr. Moore received his authority from those revolutionaries but claimed to govern in the name of King George I. When the South Carolina rebels removed Johnson and chose one of their number in his place they left the ranks of Proprietary and charter colonies in North America and joined the British royal colonies in the New World.;A slow political and social revolution preceded Johnson's ouster in December 1719. By that year South Carolinians had already abjured the principles and mechanisms of Proprietary governance and were waiting for an opportunity to manifest in action their already-successful quiet revolution. This dissertation examines both revolutions: the evolving revolution that antedated 1719 and the events surrounding South Carolinians' take-over of their government in that year. This dissertation utilizes the term "royalization" to describe the replacement, quickly or slowly, of South Carolina's Proprietary government by a British imperial government.;One aspect of royalization, the active role the British King in Parliament took to recover South Carolina, has been neglected by modern historians. These imperial initiatives began in the 1680s in Charles Town and continued to the end of the Proprietary era. They are also part of the history of the Revolution of 1719. The Crown's resumption of South Carolina was a two-stage process. In 1720 King George I provisionally took over the government of the colony but it was not until 1729 that the King in Parliament extinguished by purchase the Lords Proprietors ownership of the soil of Carolina.;A third element in this study of royalization involves the history of the Proprietary colony of the Bahamas Islands. Owned by a group of Proprietors, many of whom were also Carolina Proprietors, the Bahamas suffered the same trials as South Carolina during the late Proprietary era. The history of the Bahamas Islands is an important adjunct to the history of royalization in South Carolina.