In March 1663, after 97 years of failed attempts by first the Spanish and then the English to establish settlements in North Carolina, King Charles II granted eight aristocrats a vast territory extending from the coast of today's North and South Carolina to the Pacific Ocean. These eight Lords Proprietor - George, Duke of Albemarle; Edward, Earl of Clarendon; William, Lord Craven; John, Lord Berkeley; Anthony, Lord Ashley; Sir George Carteret; Sir William Berkeley, who was again the governor of Virginia; and Sir John Colleton - would almost unwittingly authorize in their new colony a remarkably free and democratic society of small farmers, rivaled only by Roger Williams' Rhode Island in its respect for individual liberty.

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Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the website)

Lindley S. Butler, A History of North Carolina in the Proprietary Era 1629-1729

Noeleen McIlvenna, A Very Mutinous People: The Struggle for North Carolina, 1660-1713

George Bancroft, History of the United States of America, Vol. 1

Charter of Carolina - March 24, 1663

Charter of Carolina - June 30, 1665