Traces of lost Scottish settlement are surfacing in Beaufort Love Yourself!

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By Gwyneth J. Saunders CONTRIBUTOR

On a hot, steamy August afternoon last year, two men dug in the dirt on The Green in Beaufort. Seemingly impervious to the heat, they concentrated on what they were doing.

Historical Archaeology Professor Charlie Cobb and graduate student Aaron Ellrich, both from the University of Florida, were part of a team of archaeologists and anthropologists looking for traces of a short-lived and long-forgotten Scottish settlement called Stuarts Town. Cobb said The Green was the only block in the city of Beaufort that was never actually built on, even though there were a few structures around the edges.

Following years of study, Chester DePratter, research professor with the South Carolina Institute for Archaeology and Anthropology, and Cobb launched the search hoping to find the exact location of

Stuarts Town.

The Scots arrived in the Port Royal Sound in November 1684 with two small ships carrying 51 colonists. Lots were surveyed and a church was built, followed by a fort and then houses. They made friends with the Yemassee Indians, a tribe that originated in central Georgia but moved up to the Lowcountry. Encouraged by the Scots, who did not like the Spanish, the Yemassee took it upon themselves to raid a Spanish mission in Florida, hauling off prisoners to become slaves – something that was clearly against the Scots’ charter. This was a catastrophe. The Scottish settlement was not thriving, as only 41 of more than 200 surveyed lots were occupied, and fewer people were crossing the Atlantic to fill in the colony. Duly angered, a Spanish unit of three galleons with a force of about 125 troops came up from St. Augustine, landed south of Beaufort at

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Spanish Point, and marched inland to the settlement.

Over the next three days, according to the researchers, the Spanish burnt the town to the ground, and reportedly kidnapped three women whom they later released. DePratter said the Spanish weren’t sure what the Scots’ role was in the raid, but they knew the settlers had armed the Yemassee, so there had to be retaliation. The incident was barely acknowledged at home.

“After all, [the settlement] lasted less than two years. It never had more than a few dozen colonists. It was essentially defunded after the first year, and when Spanish Corsairs plundered and burned it to the ground in 1686, it was abandoned by its parliament,” DePratter said.

The Scots forgot Stuarts Town even before it failed, because it was eclipsed by a much more spectacular failure: Scotland’s attempted colonization of distant areas, which bankrupted the whole country.

“Scotland sponsored several colonies in the Americas, and Panama was partic- ularly disastrous.” DePratter said. “I can’t imagine if you’re Scotland, why you would put a colony in the middle of Spanish colonies. That’s one reason why it was disastrous.”

On opening day for the dig, Aug. 8, about 100 people showed up to The Green in response to advanced publicity to see what all the excitement was about. The area of the dig was about 40 acres, bounded by Carteret Street on the west and Prince Street on the north.

DePratter wrote letters to more than 100 households in the neighborhood, asking if his team could come “disturb their wellkept lawns and dig holes in their yard.”

“Surprisingly, 31 of those 100 responded positively, so we were able to access properties with a promise that we would do as little damage as possible, fill the holes and record all the results of our explorations. And hopefully find the remains of Stuarts Town,” DePratter said. “It’s still a very big tract of land to work on in the search for a