Charleston Time Machine

Episode 319: The Tamar in Rebellion Road: Asylum for Loyalists in 1775 by Nic Butler, Ph.D.

In the summer of 1775, amid smoldering tension between the British government rebellious colonists, officers of the Royal Navy in Charleston quietly negotiated with an enslaved mariner named Sampson Waldron. The warship Scorpion briefly required his piloting skills to exit the harbor, but the prospect of freedom via service to the king induced him to remain aboard and commence a new life as an enemy to colonial resistance.

Lord William Campbell, the new royal governor of the colony of South Carolina, stepped ashore at Charleston in late June 1775 to an uneasy reception. Family, friends, and old acquaintances greeted him politely, but a pervasive spirit of rebellion clouded their sentiments. Insulted by apathy for his authority and direct expressions of seditious opinions, Campbell nevertheless chose to stand his ground and jettison a convenient means of escape.

The first sparks of the American Revolution ignited during the spring of 1775, while Lord William Campbell prepared to sail from England to his post as Governor of South Carolina. His contacts and conversations during that turbulent year presaged an uncertain reception in Charleston. As civil war erupted in Massachusetts, the king’s ministers empowered Campbell to choose his future course—either trim the sails of unruly Carolina, or abandon the provincial ship of state.

The newlyweds, Lord and Lady William Campbell, settled in England after their 1763 marriage in Charleston, but the young couple actively nurtured familial connections to South Carolina over the course of the ensuing decade. Political, financial, and naval alliances made during the 1760s, followed by a tour of the colonies and a relaxing sojourn in Charleston in 1772, fortified their bonds to His Majesty’s most profitable colony in North America.