1669–1670
Carolina’s Fundamental Constitutions prescribe hereditary hierarchy and racial slavery
Proprietary Carolina
The Lords Proprietors’ Fundamental Constitutions combined hereditary political rank with racial slavery. The March version reserved one fifth of the land for proprietors and another fifth for hereditary nobility, restricted the movement of hereditary leet tenants, and asserted freemen’s absolute authority over enslaved Black people. Religious membership did not release enslaved people from their owners’ control. The text also forbade settlers to claim land through Indigenous grants or purchases instead of the proprietors.
Dates preserve the source’s precision. This entry is part of a selected historical record; its qualifications and sources are retained below.
Context / qualification
The first signed scheme dates to July 1669; the March text is dated 1 March 1669 Old Style, or 1670 with a January-start year. These provisions describe the proprietors’ constitutional design, which was only partly implemented and repeatedly revised. Leet tenancy and racial slavery were distinct statuses. Locke participated in drafting and revision; this does not establish his sole authorship of every clause.
Sources
- Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, chapter 3; supplied pp. 39–58 and bibliography pp. 690–691, edition/year unidentified
- Fundamental Constitutions, March text, articles 4, 22–23, 107, 110 and 112; Thorpe (1909), Avalon transcription ↗
- Mark Goldie, ed., Locke: Political Essays, introduction to the Fundamental Constitutions: July 1669 manuscript and March 1670 print version ↗