Introduction to "Defining North Carolina" or How Historians Have Often Failed Us!

 

[In the Galaxy Magazine]: I shall not often meddle with politics, because we have a political Editor who is already excellent and only needs to serve a term or two in the penitentiary to be perfect.

- Mark Twain, a Biography

Also check out: B.C. Brooks: A Writer's Hiding Place: "Quest for Blackbeard" and the "Counterfactual" Politics of the South (bcbrooks.blogspot.com)

Mark Twain’s quote above might well have described the modern Republican Party, which far outnumbers the Democrat Party in criminal indictments and convictions. North Carolina has always suffered from a dominant criminal political conservatism. You might be surprised to learn it began over 300 years ago, first with Barbadians who settled Carolina, and then with Edward Moseley’s criminal “Family” syndicate. Twain was not alone in his assessment. The development of our American democracy in 1776 often brought conservatives and liberals to loggerheads in the attempt to finally realize the “American dream” proposed in the Constitution. We still haven’t reached that point and past historians, enamored with the "Great Men" who dominated our history, have often failed us all!

Carolina politics was an early example into this uniquely American warfare from within that helped shape the Civil War. Many battles have been waged within the colony and state – and, most historians have viewed these conflicts as growing pains – a perhaps divine push towards progress. Still, social progress has stagnated and truly, North Carolina politics has not changed a great deal since Carolina’s founding in 1671. Journalist Rob Christensen viewed North Carolina as “nuanced, multi-layered, and at times contradictory.”^[1] He may have envisioned Jesse Helms when he wrote the title for A Paradox of Tar Heel Politics. Still, his thoughts may have drifted farther back in North Carolina’s history to another man who had as much influence on Tarheel politics in the eighteenth century as Helms did in the twentieth.  Christ’s Hospital’s “Old Blue,” Edward Moseley easily defined Christensen’s notions of the Carolina “big boys,” or powerful Carolina conservatives! He came to Carolina from London, an educated member of an elite family fallen on ill fortunes. English Moseleys encountered uncomfortable religious discord and liberalizing political changes in their Tory empire of Stuart England. Edward left to escape these changes and to seek financial redemption… to build his own empire in a faraway frontier land of massive real potential!

He was a rare element of Carolina’s “Family” political syndicate that did not come directly from a “bedeviled” Caribbean world – a land “beyond the lines of amity” – most originating in Barbados. Excusing crude methods found unacceptable at home in England, America offered outcast conservative gentlemen like Moseley the greatest asset that islanders could only dream about: LAND and massive tracts of it! America was Edward Moseley’s chance to realize the riches that God had divinely ordained for all gentleman of his fiscal ideology after England’s so-called “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 chastised them for their Stuart impudence.

You see, that year, Protestant Dutchman William of Orange replaced the Stuart king James II, dispelling almost forever the Tory or conservative notion of a divine monarch on the throne – Stuarts had one last hurrah under Queen Anne (1702-1713). Yes, she was the last Stuart, but it cannot be ignored that her family influenced America the most, for more than 100 years. Edward Moseley attempted to emulate the habits of his ancestors as they followed Charles I and II and attempted to follow James III in the Jacobite Rebellions – as any Stuart-loving pirate in America! Moseley would carry on his own crude capitalist monarchy in North Carolina and helpd create the political “Paradox” that Christensen saw. 

These “land pirates” – took advantage of a crude swampy wilderness in America from which they might build their own unique – often aggressive – version of a mercantile Utopic kingdom. It must have offered everything of which Moseley dreamed because once he arrived, he never left.

Owing to his duplicitous self-serving methods, Moseley’s controversial actions were barely remembered for a century, but his posthumous reputation encountered a renaissance in the defeated anger of other conservative North Carolinians after the Civil War – searching for icons, heroes of their own martial political caste. Since this bloody conflict, North Carolinians have regarded him as a great champion for the state:

 

Of all the men who watched and guided the tottering footsteps of our infant State, there was not one who in intellectual ability, in solid and polite learning, in scholarly cultivation and refinement, in courage and endurance, in high Christian morality, in generous consideration for the welfare of others, in all true merit in fine, which makes a man among men, who could equal Edward Moseley.

---- Hon. George Davis^[2]

 

While reading this quote, we must keep in mind that the “Hon. George Davis” of Wilmington was once the Attorney-General of the Confederacy. He was not referring to the United States in totality, but to his own “State” (or, perhaps, “country” is the more apt word for Davis’ thinking) of North Carolina.

Most likely, Davis never believed that North Carolina belonged in the United States, even after the war – in fact, he surely did not. This same anti-government Christianized ideology and the veneration of such unlikely heroes dominated Southern Democrats through that war, the cold war of the Janus-faced“Progressive Era,” right up through the 1960s and Civil Rights. For these “Great Men” – compared to John Wayne by one author – “the heroes who best embodied militant Christian masculinity were those unencumbered by radtional Christian virtues.”[3] Militant masculinity linked religion with secular conservatism. In 1968, these early Southern Democrats joined the more comfortably fascist Republican Party. The Republican Party then adopted a similar white evangelist approach in the “Moral Majority” and truly devolved as these conservatives attempted to “Rise Again” and defeat the scourge of Black Power that threatened the master race![4]

The Deep South’s martial – essentially feudal – ideology was recognized quite early by many British writers, one who called America the “Commonwealth of Pyrates” in his book as early as 1724. Englishmen of the eighteenth century and perhaps some today considered “provincials” or Americans to be as “notorious” as Golden-Age pirates. British antiquarian Captain J. H. Lawrence-Archer in the nineteenth century wrote that the young, rebellious, provincial upstart of America was still a pirate or rogue nation and it was apparent in their Civil War. He offered that the king’s pardon of pirates in September 1717 “gave an abiding salvo to the consciences of English desperadoes, (similar to those under the belligerent Federals and Confederates, in the piratical Alabamas, Georgias, and Floridas lately sweeping the high seas).”[5]

Like many ex-Confederates, George Davis elevated a controversial kinsman he then believed was a “Great Man,” or hero to his “State” or “Country.” The man responsible for this early fallacious method of inquiry, Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle, called them “someone who was ‘unmistakably’ sent to earth by God.”[6] The state’s twentieth-century Southern “redeemer” historiography asserted that the byzantine Edward Moseley was, as D.H. Hill said in 1906, “always on the side of the people.”^[7] Hill’s reference did not actually say “against a secular United States Government,” but most of his ilk intended just that sentiment.

Although redeemer narratives still hold great sway among popular history in the state, Edward Moseley’s deeds did not survive as well as others before the Civil War. Then, he enjoyed a brief resurgence. Afterwards, he was again quickly forgotten and we must pose the question as to why that happened. What made Moseley such a difficult subject to explore? What happened to Edward Moseley’s reputation in North Carolina historiography?

Owing to a lingering revolutionary fervor that followed 1776, early American historians tended to elevate their own questionable souls – of course, I’m also thinking of Samuel Adams and his “Sons of Liberty” – to hero status. Essentially a terrorist – but, one for our side – Adams’ pro-American crimes were forgotten. Moseley’s Family also contributed their penchant for conflict to the Revolution. Understandably, American scholars were enamored with their shiny new country and all of its founding members – even the proudly felonious ones.

Dr. Hugh Williamson is considered North Carolina’s first official state historian. One should, however, hesitate to call him a true “historian.” In reality, Williamson was trained as a physician, became a soldier, and then a politician. Arguably, he was not trained for and had little time for history – for truly examining and studying the past in an objective, meaningful way. He was not taught the critical discipline of historical inquiry – the proper methods and theories. Most of these early antiquarians of past recorders and commentators had not, either – especially those of the American South following the Civil War. Williamson possessed similar biases to his friends in the Deep South. “Historians” of the Antebellum Era honed their political polemicism like their Barbadians ancestors before them – upon the blood and sweat of African and Indian slaves. They learned to use the stories of the past as a warrior’s tool to buy and sell people, get someone elected, pass a bill, or destroy an opponent. Like his adopted Family in North Carolina, Williamson served as a U.S. Congressman and House delegate to the Constitutional Convention. These types of men demonstrated perhaps the best fit for Mark Twain’s later impression of the “criminal” politician. As a political polemicist with a flair for the written word, Williamson wrote many “histories” of the state that the more astute professional later regarded as “fake news” – however, most North Carolinians were proud to call him “historian.” He’s still much quoted today – again – mostly within the state!

The physician, lawyer, and politician wrote History of North Carolina, Volumes I and II in 1812, establishing him as the new state’s official authority on history. Winners write history they say and this is absolutely true, though the “history” that they generate is artificial, biased, and invalid. History is supposed to be the scholarly struggle to seek truth – although it has rarely been used in so pure a fashion, especially by politicians with an agenda. Williamson’s writing was carefully sculpted by such agendas and needs of his friends – those in political power at the time – most of whom were members of Edward Moseley’s Family.

Williamson typified the “Great Man” “historian” or antiquarian, as most of those trained in the historical method will recognize the word. Wealthy and educated – again like his Carolina gentlemen friends – Williamson came to the state from Philadelphia to practice medicine in the midst of rebellion and revolution, late in his career. The rest of this state’s history he had to discern or recreate from scattered records and friendly tales of blustering hubris he learned over glasses of brandy with his fellow warriors.  He learned grandiose stories of family pride from conversations in officer’s tents at the battle for Charleston in the American Revolution. Perhaps he heard a few in the halls of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C.

North Carolina’s history has relied upon Hugh Williamson like the history of Golden Age pirates has relied upon an early eighteenth-century cheap dime novel written by a suspicious author, sold on docks and street corners in port cities to the few who could read, and craved a “plucky” tale to pass the time on the Atlantic crossing. I refer, of course, to “Capt. Charles Johnson’s” A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, published in 1724. This book is essentially historical fiction; it makes for great reading, but contains little if any valid opinions or analysis – simply regurgitated bravado. Eminent professor of literature Dr. Manushag Powell’s term for this book is “counterfactual.” Moreover, its author was actually a Jacobite polemicist newspaper publisher in London named Nathaniel Mist, a man who had been jailed repeatedly by government authorities – and who needed money to pay his fines. In other words, Mist was no reputable historical source. As every writer of fiction, he never used citations to support his tales – to demonstrate objectivity – to invite critical inquiry.

Like pirate populists with “Charles Johnson,” we North Carolinians have copied Williamson over and over and over. We spin it a little this way and that, referring to it as a valid historical source. Though more cautious today, we have rarely condemned it in the past, considering it established “truth” on which to build. Remarkably, his tales have essentially survived unscathed – perhaps we are yet reticent to give up the “Great Men” of our history?

Gen. Hugh Williamson’s associations with Edward Moseley’s Family tell the tale. He befriended Gen. John Baptiste Ashe, Jr. of Wilmington, a nephew of Edward Moseley and son of a man who once bailed Moseley out of jail. He served in the American Revolution with Ashe in South Carolina and again in the first two terms as U.S. Congressmen from North Carolina. He knew Ashe’s family well and should have regarded his uncle Moseley at least as well as Gen. Ashe, but even he barely mentions this “incidental” Edward Moseley in his two-volume History of North Carolina.[8] Even an antiquarian like Williamson regarded the accomplished statesman Moseley with suspicion. What he dares to say is brief. Moseley’s reputation must have been “too hot to handle” – even for a conservative gentleman polemicist! Still, his conservative friends had not yet lost a major war and popular refutation of their martial slaving ideology!

Perhaps a bit of light peeked through a few decades later, under a more determined examiner. Reverend and perhaps more astute and honest historian Francis Lister Hawks declared in 1858 that Moseley was "friend of Carey in his rebellion, the opponent of Governor Hyde while he lived, and of Colonel Pollock during the [Tuscarora] Indian war."^[9] The good Reverend Hawks goes on to praise Moseley’s devotion to church affairs and “patriotic” sense of duty, but intuitively questions his motives.

Hawks was not a revisionist, a redeemer, or even sympathetic with the Confederacy. He wrote his history before the Civil War. Even though he was from New Bern, he lived most of his life in Connecticut and New York. He was not inclined toward the latter Southern redeemer polemics or “fake news.” And, he was certainly no friend of Gen. Hugh Williamson.

Hawks accurately accused Williamson of being an amateurish historian, often giving “no reference at all” for his arguments “as was his habit.”^[10] Hawks appeared to admirably rely upon primary evidence for his conclusions – colonial records he studied on his trips home. Hawks saw Moseley much differently than North Carolina’s traditional historians: Hugh Williamson, George Davis, or James Franklin Shinn, the first to brave a short essay on Edward Moseley in 1899. Hawks accurately regarded Moseley as “Hasty in his temperament and resolute in his purposes, he unquestionably, in his moments of excitement, sometimes overstepped the limits prescribed by a sound discretion, and made himself more vulnerable than became a man of his talents and attainments.”[11] He also averred that the records showed “no better impression than that he was a factious man of acknowledged ability, who could find little use for his talents save that of stirring up strife and encouraging contention for ends purely selfish.”[12] Still, the kind and forgiving reverend yet added, “We do not think this was his true character.”[13]

Hawks’ publication, again, preceded the civil struggle.  Two years later, the defeated state grew hardened and bitter. History became an even more pointed weapon, an acrimonious and spiteful tool of political revenge. The political cyclic nature of North Carolina history during the post-war era almost never strayed from the right side of the political spectrum. Its ahistoric monarch – defeated, but not forgotten – remained seated upon a battered throne, patched back together and re-gilt with “Lost Cause” revisionism and more blatant lies. During this time of Southern conservative political dominion, the academic discipline of history well-represented by men like Francis Hawks faded. It was replaced by Williamson’s original state-glorifying brand, like that of John Baptiste Ashe’s descendent Samuel A’Court Ashe, or Waddell, or of many others whose biased rhetoric demanded no argument or criticism, much like today’s Fox News. In this vengeful martial atmosphere, historical truths became malleable objects of stubborn opinion – not fact, but “alternative fact,” or Dr. Powell’s “counterfactual.”

Researchers found that they had to be cautious with Moseley. He did not attain such “Great Man” status until well after 1865 and even then, his reign during the post-war Progressive Era was short. This caution was a complex thing to understand. Moseley reached “Great Man” status artificially; his misdeeds, greed, and war-profiteering left a bad taste in the mouths of even American historians before the War Between the States. His careful criminal methods, however, were not considered quite so distasteful for the losers of the South after that Civil War. These men were eager to redeem their heritage and for “Great Men” and other heroes to defend their “Lost Cause.”

The Carolinas adopted their uniquely Stuart/West-Indian conservative style well from their Barbadian ancestors. This autocratic style later transmitted across the Deep South. Indeed, Carolina was the heart and cradle of the Confederacy. One might expect anyone associated with Carolina’s early growth to figure prominently in Confederate redeemer history as well.

In confident contrast before and after the Civil War, the ex-Confederate George Davis of Wilmington – lately, the Attorney General of the Confederate States – suddenly crowned the forgotten Edward Moseley as a man of “scholarly cultivation and refinement.”^[14] William L. Saunders, alleged leader of the Ku Klux Klan – first man to take the fifth-amendment in a Congressional hearing and editor of the North Carolina Colonial Records – declared Moseley’s “undying love of free government, and his indomitable maintenance of the rights of the people.”^[15] One might wonder to which “government” Saunders had referred: the Union or his formerly defeated Confederacy. Saunders had read the colonial documents. He knew the details in them; the former Confederate soldier-turned politician simply used their words to formulate his own redeemer narratives. Secretary of the Historical Commission, Robert Diggs Wimberly Connor’s Makers of North Carolina History agrees with Saunders and flatters Moseley to the point of incredulity.[16] Conner, in his History, elevated Moseley to North Carolina’s historical “Swamp Majesty,” writing “For forty years Moseley’s biography is practically the history of North Carolina.”[17] He also said that few could deny this fact. “Those who did not hate him adored him,” continued Conner in the arguably Fox News fascistic tone of Tucker Carlson, “An aristocrat by nature, he was a [Southern] democrat by convictions and in practice.”[18]

Historian James Franklin Shinn wrote “Edward Moseley: A North Carolina Colonial Patriot and Statesman” in the Publications of the Southern History Association in 1899. This was largely another revisionist version of Edward Moseley’s life, again depending strongly upon George Davis, who erroneously believed the British Moseley hailed from Princess Anne County, Virginia – in the old capital of the American Deep South – not Britain! Shinn also erroneously argued that Moseley must have lived in Barbados – the original origins of Carolina – for a while before coming to North Carolina. Overall, Shinn defended Moseley, as did Davis, asserting “his good name is seriously damaged only by the obscurity which has lasted too long.”^[19] Davis, in this line, spoke directly to historian Francis Lister Hawks, who famously described Moseley’s aberrant behavior in 1858.

All this sudden praise for Edward Moseley! Still, no one then, or even later, bothered to write a full biography of the man. Odd, isn’t it?

Here, we encounter a twisted, confusing anomaly of our political language. This “democrat” to whom Conner refers was no Democrat of today. Ex-slaving “Southern Democrats” share nothing in common with the South’s disdainfully-viewed “party of African Americans” of today. Southern Democrats were highly socially conservative people of the early twentieth century. They had once enslaved the African, yet wanted “God” written into their Confederate Constitution. Their anti-government Republican cousins of today wanted the federal government “drowned in the bathtub,” as Republican lobbyist Grover Norquist so ineloquently phrased it. They were certainly not the “party of African Americans” of today with whom Democrats are presently associated – indeed, quite the opposite. Their glorified yet defeated Confederacy defiantly resisted social amalgamation into the Union like Republicans today threaten democracy. Their anti-government rhetoric then more ideologically reflected the recent so-called “Moral Majority” evangelicals of Jerry Falwell or today’s anti-democratic Ku Klux Klan, Tea-Party, America First, or MAGA (Make America Great Again) seditionist Republicans who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021! Politicians in North Carolina seem to have always hidden their fascist, undemocratic ways behind contradictory labels – again, Christensen’s Paradox.

Republicans of today – like Southern Democrats of yesterday – would have been quite fond of the controversial Edward Moseley. Still, not quite fond enough of Moseley to admit it openly and embarrass themselves. “Possessed of vast estates, of many slaves, and of great wealth,” again continued Conner of Moseley, as if describing a venerated scion of the Mint-Julip-drinking anti-government Confederacy, “a devoted Churchman,” like Falwells “Moral Majority,” he “espoused the cause of dissenters in their fight against the establishment.”[20]

Segregationists – advocates of keeping blacks and whites apart – in North Carolina usually spoke fondly both of God and slavery – often in the same breath, as though their god would approve of their inhumane and unchristian practices. Arguably, this is the way Conner envisioned his defeated Confederacy. Conner poured out “Lost Cause” veneration for Moseley’s wealth and power that literally dripped with worship. And, he asserted States-Rights ideology in his praise. He compared Moseley to great leaders, with “the boldness of thought and of action that people admire,” and “common sense and self-poise… and the honesty of purpose which, regardless of his own interests, made it impossible for him to wink at the usurpations of authority.”[21] Conner glorified Moseley’s wealth, rebellion, anti-government ideas, and slavery in a full page and a half of lionized worship – some 40-50 years after Robert E. Lee’s surrender! Indeed, Moseley and his Family wholly embodied the Southern Democrat’s political point of view with the unspoken caveat of the desire to “rise again.” And, with the establishment of segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, the paradoxically-named “Progressive Era” began. The second iteration of the Ku Klux Klan came about in 1915 and numerous statues were erected on courthouse grounds and other government property across the entire South and beyond!

Undeniably, Southern Democrats had given rebirth to their Confederacy – it had, indeed, “risen again.” Historian Heather Cox Richardson even declares as much in her book How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America! And, Edward Moseley finally became recognized as a hero – still, no biographies. The only thing that North Carolinians remember of his accomplishments is his famous map of 1733! We all love the map![22]

Moseley’s reputational resurrection continued to encounter difficulties. Most historians and even those who knew him best – his Family – always remained cautious and slack on detail. Williamson, Davis, and Conner, like Republican propagandists today, spouted praise, veneration, and sickly-sweet rhetoric – few words of actual substance. Even his own family tended to ignore him or mentioned him only in passing. Confederate captain Samuel A’Court Ashe, grandson of Governor Samuel Ashe and a great-nephew of Edward Moseley, in editing the Biographical History of North Carolina, included three generations of the Moore side of the family. Yet, he neglected to include his great-uncle, Edward Moseley in his list of one hundred prominent men of North Carolina. Still, Moseley literally drew the geographical boundaries of Ashe’s home state! Assuredly, his contemporaries would have placed the capable surveyor and statesman Moseley high on that same list – but, these men had been politically and militarily beaten and relied solely upon polemics to get beyond that defeat. They dare not elevate Moseley too highly or risk someone rereading Francis Hawks’ History, thereby losing their base![23] 

Cape Fear author James Sprunt, writing in 1906, speaks of Moseley’s famous map, but diverts around his significantly criminal contributions to the development of Lower Cape Fear. Why, certainly, did even James Sprunt not speak of him? Was it because Sprunt also understood the criminal methods used by Moseley and his Family to gain prominence and steal massive tracts of land in the Lower Cape Fear?

After the Progressive Era, the political landscape changed once again – through economic destruction and utter despair. Excessive capitalistic cycles broke down through three consecutive Republican administrations. Finally, with Republican President Herbert Hoover’s attacks on World-War I “Bonus Army” veterans and Robber Barons’ abuse of the Federal Reserve and the gold standard brought on the resulting Great Depression of 1929. Modern Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office after Hoover and dealt the “New Deal,” restoring public confidence. This was despite another rebellion – an oligarchic and fascist attempt to overthrow his presidency in the “Business Plot of 1933” – even before Nazis came to power in Germany![24] After the failure of wealthy capitalists in this first fascist insurrection, they then preferred the former, long-established status quo and Congress helped them by letting this history quietly fade into oblivion. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “New Deal” established social programs to help the majority of Americans and the country breathed a sigh of relief. This compares to President Joseph R. Biden’s work to fight the Covid Pandemic and once again save America from the second fascist attempt by Donald Trump to overthrow the United States’ government on January 6^th, 2021! Also comparable to FDR’s democratic work were the more egalitarian “Society” of the Quakers in the Albemarle during the Cary Rebellion, or the establishment of British royal control through the duke of Newcastle in the Brunswick Settlement in the Lower Cape Fear.  

Federal Socialism didn’t stop with Roosevelt, for the people enjoyed their Social Security – the constitutional effort of “promoting the general welfare” of the people. Surprisingly, a Southerner, Lyndon Baines Johnson – though perhaps not a true “Southern Democrat” – accelerated it forward with Civil Rights in 1964, Voting Rights and Medicare in 1965. Johnson has incurred conservative’s verbal wrath ever since. Civil Rights dealt yet another blow against the “Old South’s” formerly segregationist fascist regime and the Wealthy Industrialists of the North who liked cheap labor and their old factory towns. For the old Southern Democrats, however, this betrayal of Johnson’s resulted in great political realignments and more “paradoxical” behavior.

Confederates, or Southern Democrats, traded that now-despised name for one that better reflected their ideology and mood, the rhetorically cleaner – and much more conservative (after Civil Rights) – “Republican.”  “Democrat” remained with those who championed egalitarianism, democracy, socialism, or the rights of all the people. African Americans – with the new rights of a finally-growing democracy – then gained the same power as their former masters! This later term “Democrat” this time better fit the proponents of democracy, don’t you think?

We then elected our first African-American president to two terms. In this fresh cycle of progress, the revived democracy and their truly progressive social views rose to the top again. Again, working Americans nearly triumphed over the wealthy and powerful “Great Men” who once suppressed our democracy and ruled our history from their gilt political thrones.

Still, the old Stuart-Tory-conservative regime did not quietly acquiesce under a progressive pounding. Redeemers were again determined to “rise again” and they fought back in the next administration. They flared their nostrils like the Family did on the west shores of the Cape Fear River in 1733. Again, white-supremacists had just another racist reaction to our first African-American president. This time, however, they are essentially destroying what remains of their political reputation. MAGA and Q-Anon use blatantly ridiculous rhetoric, insanely waiting for the rising of the dead to come back and lead them against the oppressive government! Ironically, these conservatives trashed the reputation of their new designation of “Republican” as they had their old “Southern Democrat.” They exhibited no less than a childish tantrum and attempted another fascist insurrection, 2021 is 1933 like 1733, like 1708! The hits just keep coming!

Thus, stories of this nature can be told once again – social and economic progress and equality may be advanced once again. North Carolina enters that older, nascent realm once again – before the Anglicans came – before the rich slaving Barbadians came – before the Confederates came – before their ideological friend Edward Moseley came. 

This is the history of our struggle as a democratic people, North Carolinians and all Americans – the cyclic high-low process of reflection and repression. The parodoxical politics have a great deal to do with changing demographics – the descent from “white-dominated” or master-slave power dynamics. Truly inspirational, “Moral Mondays” has become a new phrase in our daily vocabulary, like “Me Too” or “Black Lives Matters (BLM).” North Carolinians of the 99% are again rising up and revolting against their wealthy capitalist “betters.” Truly inspirational! It can happen, even here, in the merciless Stuart conservative Paradox of the “Old North State.”

Conservatives like Edward Moseley may now be critically examined once again.  “Great Man” historical bias can be pushed aside once again. We can openly examine Moseley’s crimes – learn why he was ignored before – and, why the reticence to write his biography! “Quakers” are his judges this time! There’s a reason why Donald Trump’s insane MAGA movement is so large: because social historians are beginning to reach the truth and a lot of hateful and embarrassed people don’t want it told.

If history serves any profound purpose, it is this – to inform and reveal humanity’s weaknesses, faults, passions, and potentials. History should never be used to support fascist, anti-democratic attributes – indeed, Nazi Germany’s Adolph Hitler’s book-burning tactics gave us a clue. History repeats itself only because we fail to learn from it – we miss its lessons. It very often becomes the tool of the politician, especially in early paradoxical North Carolina, as journalist Rob Christensen viewed it when he wrote the often humorous and yet, revolting A Paradox of Tar Heel Politics.

Aside from conservative redeemer politics, part of the state’s Moseley problem lay in his completely befuddled origins. Again, no definitive work to date – until now – has ever been produced about the controversial treasurer, surveyor-general, proprietor’s deputy, member of the governor’s council, even briefly acting-governor Edward Moseley. Nineteenth-century political rhetoric forced reality into near intellectual oblivion!^[25]

Such an important historical figure as Edward Moseley, having held numerous offices and producing maps of such value, forming the shape of the state we know today, one should expect numerous historical works devoted to him.  Still, none have emerged, certainly none of any length.

Few historians dare to enter this miry, murky, and mysterious political swamp of North Carolina’s early history. Voluminous extant primary records still reveal Hawks’ “factious man of acknowledged ability” quite unlike the man described by politician Davis, or historians Hill and Conner.[26] This book follows that deeply-explorative new direction despite whatever actual or imaginary dangers may be lurking in the swampy conservative political waters. Hopefully, there’ll be no flying flagpoles or fire extinguishers.

Moseley was not the glorified figure presented by revisionists and redeemers and it must be said! Myth must be dispelled! John F. Kennedy Jr. will not come back to life, no matter how many Q-Anon cultists march in the streets of Dallas, Texas!

Unquestionably, almost the day young Edward Moseley arrived in North Carolina, he began irritating his colleagues, presuming undeserved authority, and catalyzing rebellion. He was young and perhaps impetuous – but also a privileged narcissist who fled to America to find treasure – to rebuild his formerly-wealthy family’s failed finances. He was an educated, but inexperienced opportunistic London youth that, at first, was outmaneuvered by his betters – yet, he enjoyed the opulent gilt trappings of his Anglican church. Truly, Moseley was a talented and opportunistic politician. He played both sides when it gave him advantage. He left few writings of a personal nature. His will of 1749 and several maps and sketches are all that survive of an intelligent, yet greedy, careless, and socially-irresponsible man.

Moseley’s contemporary hometown bard, John Milton described “Satan” in Paradise Lost as a fallen angel who values earthly treasure over all other things.[27] Of course, posterity seldom looks favorably upon a follower of Mammon, greed, or… “earthly treasures.” It could be that in the wilds of early North Carolina, such a conservative gentleman and Mammon devotee from London might capitalize upon resources so effectively and attain such regal status so quickly – as well as the condemnation and reserve of many an historian.

At first, Edward Moseley’s career stalled in the Albemarle’s early colonial backwater politics; however, he did grow and learn. His intellect and fine education aided him to overcome his defeats on the early dividing line determination with Virginia. He may then have successfully sought revenge against a rival – perhaps even had this man killed. He secured coveted positions of power, started an Indian war, and developed two maps of extraordinary value to the colony and state. He also helped to end the life of his brief business partner-turned rival – the pirate Edward “Blackbeard” Thache – retaking control of North Carolina’s colonial markets from rival pirates who would disable his profits. Later, he helped blind British officials from his Family’s illegal actions to usurp the Lower Cape Fear as a separate colony – under their own private authority – as “kings of Cape Fear.” And, by default, he became the most important part of the beginnings of the lucrative port of Wilmington, Brunswick Town’s rival. Through his numerous profiteering ventures, he literally defined the shape of North Carolina, top to bottom. His motives were economic – not morally pure, despite what he might tell his fellow church deacons in Edenton. He truly was a “factious” man of personal profit – a follower of “Mammon” or greed and perhaps helped set the crude capitalist tone for America itself![28]

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[1] Rob Christensen, The Paradox of Tar Heel politics: the Personalities, Elections, and Events that Shaped Modern North Carolina (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 4.

[2] D. H. Hill, “Edward Moseley: Character Sketch,” The North Carolina Booklet, Vol. V, No. 3 (Raleigh, N.C.: North Carolina Society - Daughters of the Revolution, July 1905), 202.

[3] Kristen Kobes du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (Kindle version) (Liveright Publishing, 2020), 10.

[4] Oh, they warned us. They did. I’m sure you’ve seen the bumper stickers, t-shirts, and patches. As a young boy growing up with family in the Lower Cape Fear, I possessed some of these prideful paraphernalia myself – even had a Confederate flag once! But, I grew up, studied my family’s history, and discovered Christensen’s “Paradox” on my own. I always felt when driving from Fayettevile, where I was born, to Pender County where my mother’s family lived, that there was a subtle, but definite difference to that region.

[5] Captain J. H. Lawrence-Archer, Monumental Inscriptions of the British West Indies (London: Chatto and Windus, 1875), 6; Nathaniel Mist, writing as “Capt. Charles Johnson” in A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates (London: 1724).

[6] https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-guide/anthropology/great-man-theory; According to the early-twentieth century and now-defunct “Great Man Theory,” great leaders are born, not made. Leadership traits are inherent and cannot be learned. Great leaders come forward when they’re most needed, in order to become the foundation upon which history is built. Essentially, according to the Great Man Theory, people in positions of power deserve to lead because of characteristics granted to them at birth, which ultimately help them become heroes.

[7] Hill, “Edward Moseley,” 204.

[8] Hugh Williamson, The History of North Carolina, Vol. 1 and 2 (Philadelphia: Thomas Dobson, 1812).

[9] Francis Lister Hawks, History of North Carolina: with maps and illustrations, Volume 2 (Fayetteville, N.C.: E. J. Hale & son, 1858),  556.

[10] Francis Lister Hawks, History of North Carolina: With Maps and Illustrations, Vol. I (Fayetteville: E. J. Hale and Son, 1858), 143.

[11] Hawks, History of North Carolina, Vol. 2, 358.

[12] Ibid., 359.

[13] Ibid.

[14] George Davis, Address Delivered Before the Two Literary Societies of the University of North Carolina, June 6, 1855  (Raleigh: Holden and Wilson, “Standard Office,” 1855), 18; D. H. Hill, “Edward Moseley: Character Sketch,” The North Carolina Booklet, Vol. V, No. 3 (Raleigh, N.C.: North Carolina Society - Daughters of the Revolution, July 1905), 202.

[15] American Historical Association, “Annual report” (U. S. Government Printing Office, 1896), 197.

[16] R.D.W. Connor, Makers of North Carolina History (Raleigh, N.C.: The Thompson Publishing Company, 1911),  38-50.

[17] Robert Diggs Wimberly Conner, History of North Carolina, Vol. I (), 94.

[18] Ibid.; This hinted at Fox News’ fascist tendency to elevate nationalism while quelching criticism.

[19]

[20] Ibid.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Heather Cox Richardson, How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America (Oxford University Press, 2020).

[23] Biographical History of North Carolina: From Colonial Times to the Present, ed. Samuel A’Court Ashe, Stephen B. Weeks, and Charles L. Van Noppen (Greensboro, N.C.: Charles L. Van Noppen, 1905).

[24] See… Jules Archer, The Plot to Seize the White House (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1973).

[25] James Sprunt, Chronicles of the Cape Fear River (Raleigh, N.C.: Edwards & Broughton Printing Company, 1916); Noeleen McIlvenna, A Very Mutinous People: The Struggle for North Carolina, 1660-1713 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2009); Stephen Feeley, Tuscarora Trails: Indian Migrations, War, and Constructions of Colonial Frontiers, Volume 1, Doctoral Dissertation, College of William and Mary, Department of History (May, 2007).

[26] Francis Lister Hawks, History of North Carolina, Vol. 1: Embracing the period of the proprietary government, from 1663 to 1729 (Fayetteville: E. J. Hale & son, 1859), 359.

[27] C. G. Herbermann, E. A. Pace, C. B. Pallen, T. J. Shahan, and J. J. Wynne, editors, The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Discipline, Doctrine, and History of the Catholic Church, pg. 580; "Mammon" by Hugh Pope. The Encyclopedia Press, New York, 1913.

[28] See “Mammon” and its importance to early 18^th century capitalism in John Francis, "Chronicles and Characters of the Stock Exchange" (1849), in The Church of England Quarterly Review, Vol. XXVII (London: William Edward Painter in the Strand, 1850), 130-131.

Private Proprietary Pirates - Early Capitalism in America, 1700

A letter from Edward Randolph depicts the arrogance of aristocratic oligarchs known as the Lords Proprietors in England and the negligence they placed upon their private possessions in the American colonies, particularly Carolina, the Bahamas, and New Jersey. This was a prime example of the dangers of private control in the matters of government. Privatization at this level facilitated piracy in the Bahamas as well as multiple abuses across America. Indeed, it began the development of America by the Stuarts of England as a criminal domain, given as gifts to these aristocrats who were charged with the theft of all the possessions of Spain "beyond the lines of amity" or friendship! This attitude remained in America through the reign of the Stuart Dynasty - nearly the entire 17th century - until the ascendancy of the Whigs, or more liberal administrators of England took control after the "Glorious Revolution of 1688." Still, the damage was already done.

These pervasive criminal tendencies involved theft, slavery, murder, extortion, bribery, rampant smuggling so far from authorities, 3,000 miles away in England. It probably infested the nascent United States with the same ubiquitous criminal element and led to the Confederate States of America attempting to maintain this criminal West-Indian society, slavery, and all the abuses that accrued hereto during the Civil War (1861-1865). And, it likely led to many abuses we find in government today under the outlaw Trump Administration. We are indeed, as "Capt. Charles Johnson," the author of A General History of the Pyrates, called us in 1724, a "Commonwealth of Pyrates!"

This is just a small window into the behavior of the men that came to rape Spain's colonial lands - before the development of the "Flying Gang" of Benjamin Hornigold in the Bahamas almost two decades later. Edward Randolph tried to warn the Board of Trade of the dangers still infesting these waters because of these criminal creoles. Many of today's Americans are their descendants.

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March 25, 1700  New Providence [separated for readability]

Edward Randolph to the Council of Trade and Plantations. Begins as March 11.

I am, I thank God, in health but not recovered of the lameness I got in gaol at Bermuda. I landed [at New Providence] the 10th inst.[March 1700] and finding Mr. Read Elding (tho'illegally, yet) actually in the possession of the Government,

... the next day, after some debate [I] had with him [Elding], I administered to him the oath, though several objections were at that time made to the contrary, viz. that he assumed the Government by virtue of an illegal commission clandestinely obtained from [Nicholas] Webb, being also contrary to the Lords Proprietors' instructions which direct the method of appointing another Governor, in case of the death or departure of the present.

Besides, Webb went away on a suddaine to Philadelphia, not having first advised with the Council nor had the consent of any one of them about his appointing Elding his Deputy, which was not known to any of them till Webb was under sail, so that the Government is of right invested in Mr. Richard Peterson, a Lords' Deputy and the first in Council.

But they, finding the inhabitants divided and ready to cast off all Government, chose rather to sit still than hazard the peace of the country, and expect the Lords Proprietors' directions in that matter.

But the chief thing before I gave the oath that I scrupled at [had a problem with] was, that Elding, under pretence of a commission to him from Webb to apprehend pirates, etc., piratically seized a briganteen of Boston, John Edwards, Master.

Webb, Elding, and the others to whom he had given the like commissions, shared the money they found aboard.

Elding does not only brave it out [take advantage of?] upon the Commission Webb gave him to be Lieutenant Governor, but supports himself in the lawfulness of the other commission to take pirates, but sets a very high value upon his services by the accidental seizing Hind the pirate and afterwards executing six of his accomplices.

Hind and four of his men were surprised upon an island 10 or 12 leagues from hence by a Bermuda man [Bermuda vessel]: the three others were taken by chance and executed also, but one of the four, having nothing proved against him, [though he] was discharged and sent by Elding to cut logwood at Campeach, run away, and [Elding] believes his good services against Hind, etc., will expiate for his own piracy upon Edwards.

[Elding] a day or two ago caned Mr. Gower, a Lords' Deputy, most severely, and keeps him in prison, for questioning his power to appoint a Judge to try the pirates, a thing questioned by all the Lords' Deputys.

Their Lordships [Lords Proprietors] at home are very careless and ignorant of their own interest and of the good of the inhabitants. Though many complaints upon just grounds are made to them, praying for relief, yet they take no notice of it, nor of the most arbitrary government of Trott and Webb; neither of the late action done by Elding against Edwards, which they had notice of, but discourse him very indifferently upon that matter.

These inhabitants are daily more unsettled, and will give little credit to what their Lordships [Proprietors] say or promise them they will do for their encouragement, when at the same time they sell and dispose of their privileges for very inconsiderable sums, as Hog Island, lying to the north of Providence, which makes the harbour, 'tis, after several grants and confirmations thereof to the inhabitants, sold to [ex-Gov] Mr. Trott for 50l., to the utter ruin to the inhabitants of this town.

Hog Island in the Bahamas - just across Nassau Town Harbor from Nassau, New Providence Island

Their Lordships [Proprietors] have likewise granted away the royalty of the whale fishing and a great part of the Island of Abbico to one Dudgeon, late Secretary and Marshall of Bermuda a sort of stock jobber, for 30 years, as appears upon record here;

... neither do they regard into whose hands the Government of these Islands comes [lawlessness].

I am well informed that for more than seven years past seldom less than four known pirates have been [on] the Council.

I brought Commissions to persons upon the place to be Officers in the Court of Admiralty, but all of them, except Ellis Lightwood, the intended Judge, are either dead or removed.

I find him [Lightwood] an ill man, and was a busy promoter of oppression in Trott's and Webb's time, as appears by the records of the Courts in which he was Judge. Besides, he is the only security for Bridgeman [Henry Bridgham], alias Every's appearing here when demanded, in one bond of 1,000l., and also for 10 or 12 of his company in a like bond of 1,000l. for each of their appearance.

I have suspended the delivery of the Commission to him for that reason. 'Tis expected that orders will be directed to some persons here to put those bonds in suit, ('twill deter others); the securities have got a great deal of money.

I know no man so fit for that service as Mr. Thomas Walker;

... as to Mr. Warren, the Attorney General, he is security also for some of Every's men.

Packer, one of that gang [Henry Avery/Bridgham's], is married to Elding's sister now in town. His Majesty will have little justice done him by Elding and others of his party, who bear all the sway here.

Webb was directed and proved an apt scholar under Trott's discipline and advice: Elding writes after his [Webb's] copy and expects to be made the Governor, by which appears the deplorable and miserable conditions the poor inflicted inhabitants have lived in from the time of their resettlement, after they were drove off and destroyed in 1680 by the Spaniards, who watch an opportunity to do the like again.

The Lords Proprietors laid out money and sent over a few arms with some ammunition to the value of 3,600l. [it actually came to just over 800l., which was the presumed profit of the Bahamas] sterling towards the defence of the country. After all their charge their fort is not serviceable. Certainly the inhabitants will either desert the place or submit to any foreign Power that will protect them.

The interests and the affairs here between the Lords and the inhabitants are so different and distracted that it will require a long time to bring them to a right understanding. From the consideration whereof I humbly propose that His Majesty will please to require Read Elding to answer in England for his piracy against Edwards, and, further, that in the meantime till there be a complete settlement in this and all other the Proprieties, that His Majesty be pleased to direct his Commission to Thomas Walker, Esq., an ingenuous man, one of the Lords' Deputies, to be the President, and to Richard Peterson [father-in-law of Adm. Judge Edmond Porter of North Carolina], a Deputy, Isaac Rush, Richard Tollefero, Thomas Williams, Martin Cook, Samuel Frith, Perient Trott, Jeremiah Wells, and John Bethel, to be the Council and to take upon them the administration of the Government of these Islands, (being all of them settled inhabitants,) during His Majesty's pleasure.

Probably the Draft Commissioned below... in the Library of Congress maps

I have the promise of an exact draft of these Islands and of the fort and harbour of of this town, but being presently bound to Carolina in my return to Bermuda, I have recommended the care thereof to Mr. Walker, who will make it his business to see them exactly drawn and transmit them with a complete narrative thereof to your Lordships. Signed, Ed. Randolph, S.G. Endorsed., Recd. July 20, Read July 25, 1700. Holograph. 2½ pp. Enclosed,

    250. i. Abstract of above. 1¼ pp.
    250. ii. Copy of Read Elding's Commission from Gov. Webb to be Deputy Governor of New Providence, etc. April 13, 1699. Endorsed., Recd. July 20, 1700. 1 p.
    250. iii. Copy of a clause in the Lords Proprietors' Commission to their Governor about appointing Deputy Governors, Jan. 12, 1692. ½ p. Same endorsement.
    250. iv. Copy of Gov. Webb's Commission to Read Elding to take pirates, July 13, 1698. 1 p. Same endorsement.
    250. v. Copies of depositions by John Edwards, Master; Ebenezer Dennesse, Mate; and John Stiles, Boatswain; William Gray and John Ashcroft, Mariners, of the Bohemia Merchant, which was chased and piratically seized by Read Elding off Cape Florida, August 2, 1698; and of Daniel Kenney, of the Sweepstakes. 3 pp. Same endorsement.
    250. vi. Copy of letter from Lords Proprietors of the Bahama Islands to Gov. Webb and Council, May 27, 1699. 1¾ pp. Same endorsement.
    250. vii. Copy of an Order of the Grand Council, Nassau, July 8, 1690, making Hogg Island a free Common. On back, Copy of disallowance of the same by the Lords Proprietors. Sept. 21, 1699. Same endorsement. [Board of Trade. Proprieties, 5. Nos. 31, 31.i.–vii.; and (without enclosures), 26. pp. 248–256.]

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Just published 2nd Electronic Edition of Quest for Blackbeard!

Some of the poorer sort went aboard pirate ships and sloops as crew, certainly, but they usually were not as well educated as those who navigated them. The tale of these early pirate leaders’ gentlemanly demeanor, formerly wealthy privateers, has been confined, narrowed, and almost eradicated by literary rhetoric. Worse still, modern historians attempt to explain them all as an early form of democratic society, confusing some of these gentlemen with the common people and further skewing their reality. The people we call “pirates” today most resemble those found in the Bahamas after 1715, driven out by 1718, scattered refugees of a barren island and rude maritime subsistence, but the real pirate leaders of the Golden Age were wealthy – the 97% were blamed for the crimes of the 3%! This injustice is where we must begin the true Quest for Blackbeard!

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Anti-Slavery Politics in the Legend of "Goody" Hallett, "Witch of Wellfleet!"

The legend of “Maria” Hallet appears to have first begun in 1934 with a reprise in 1937 from Josef Berger, who wrote the 1930's classic Cape Cod Pilot.  On pages 193-197, he regales the story of the "simple Eastham farm girl" of Cape Cod - and supposed wife of legendary pirate Samuel Bellamy - whose fate was linked with the wreck of Bellamy's Whydah. 

Her name was said to be "Goody" Hallett. This has since been a legend concerning the Golden Age pirate from Devon, England, who captured the most prizes of any Caribbean pirate before the legendary Bartholomew Roberts six years after him. 

But where did this legend come from? It certainly was not as old as Charles Johnson's A General History of the Pyrates.. coming up on 300 years! Halletts had been well-known and respected mariners in Massachusetts for more than a century – never even associated with maritime disaster until Elizabeth Reynard’s 1934 publication, The Narrow Land: Folk Chronicles of Old Cape Cod (1934). This legend has persisted to the present day. Indeed, in 1977, the Boston Herald published - on Halloween day, of course - the add below:

Boston Herald, 30 Oct 1777

This is almost certainly legend. It should be said that "Goody" or Mary or Maria Hallett has never been identified. No court records of her jailing or arrest have ever been found. Certainly, no bloody contract with Satan has ever appeared in print. And, no Cape Cod Hallett girl has ever been associated with "scuttling ships" off the Massachusetts coast.

Indeed, why make such pejorative slurs against a 15-year-old girl named "Goody" or Mary Hallett, the alleged “Witch of Wellfleet?” I thought only narcissistic, misogynistic, and pedantic jerks like Donald J. Trump were prone to abuse young women, either in bathrooms, or - like the 16-year-old Swedish climate-change activist girl - on his Twitter account - even as his statuesque Slavic model wife yells at Democrat witnesses to stop mentioning her young son, Barron Trump in hearings! Did such tribal politics also come into play with young Miss Hallett? 

Did she even exist for that matter?

Prior to 1935, the only similar reference – at least in Massuchesetts newspapers – was a shipping record for the vessel “Water Witch, of Wellfleet” in 1846. Furthermore, many vessels have carried "Witch" in their name. There have been as many as 2,899 newspaper references for both “witch” and “Cape Cod” together between 1716 and 1935, so the fairly recent Witch Trials of Salem in 1692 and the frequent devastating nor'easters probably left a lasting mark upon local Cape Cod maritime history. 

There was also Elizabeth Reynard’s other story about one Capt. Sylvanus of Cape Cod who blamed his oversleeping and allowing his sails to be ripped away in a storm upon the “Truro Hag” or witch – a woman in Truro who had sold him some milk – having drugged him by poisoning the milk! Truro is only a few miles north of both Wellfleet and Eastham), by the way. 

Another legend may have been influenced in 1851 by the wreck of Water Witch of Salem on those same shores. In fact, maritime disasters were so common in Massachusetts that 19^th century newspapers carried a “Disasters” column in their shipping section! 

Culturally, associating witches or other such ominous supernatural phenomenon with disasters has been quite common in maritime folklore and disasters on Cape Cod were indeed frequent. Marine insurance company rates of the 19^th century reflected Cape Cod’s shores as literally crawling with such “witches”  causing disasters to occur against their profit margins!

Still, why make the “witch” reference to a 15-year-old “Goody” Hallett girl (note that the term “Goody” made a timely cultural reference to the 1692 Witch Trials)? Was this simply a cultural recollection from 1692 - an attempt to demean the Hallett family as such a disaster? 

There may have been a coincident political reason to demean the Halletts of Cape Cod as possessing of some... “evil!” And, in this case, there was plenty of evidence... hanging in a Massachusetts train depot shortly before the Civil War!

A well-known Anti-Masonic (later Whig) politician Chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1848-1852 and US District Attorney for Massachusetts between 1853-57, appointed by President Franklin Pierce - and native of Cape Cod – named Benjamin Franklin Hallett suffered political derision as a “soldier of fortune,” a betrayer of “every party and faction,” and a “flaming, intolerant, persecuting, temperance (anti-alcohol) man, and called loudly upon all the friends of temperance” before his death in 1862. Long-time researcher of Hallet, Roberto Poli, tells that:

Hallet was a staunch abolitionist, and a militant protector of minorities such as the native Mashpee Indians of Cape Cod, whom he defended in court in 1833 against 'whites' stealing their property in their own land... The various slanderous epithets with which he was labeled come from an episode that drew great attention, both from the public and the press - the trial of Anthony Burns, a fugitive slave escaped from the estate of Charles F. Suttle in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1854, and arrested in Boston. The trial became one of the most controversial episodes involving slavery in the years leading to the Civil War. As an abolitionist, Hallett openly despised everything the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 stood for; as a man of law, he was forced to use “reasonable force or restraint as may be necessary under the circumstances of the case” (Fugitive Slave Law, 1850; Section 6) to return fugitives to the claimants. Predictably, northern Democrats, fiercely opposed to slavery, heavily criticized him. He was described as a political machine, and was accused of turning his back to the cause. (added 2-1-2020)

Aside from his nominal abolitionism, Hallett was seen in Massachusetts as often sided politically with Southern Whigs (ancestors of slavery proponents known as Southern Democrats) in the nationalist and anti-immigrant Know-Nothing party. He incurred northern wrath for this distinctly un-Massachusettian political position. 

Stauffer Miller, author of Cape Cod and the Civil War, mentioned that during one slave trial in Boston, an unknown Cape Cod party felt that Boston (but Cape Cod-born) politician Benjamin F. Hallett “was too allied with Southern interests and suspended his effigy at the West Barnstable Depot. A note pinned to the effigy, dressed in a black coat, fancy pants and black hat, read, ‘Benj. F. Hallett, Attorney General for Southern Kidnappers. Cape Cod disowns the traitor to liberty.’ Attached to the coattail was a copy of the Barnstabie Patriot, with this message: ‘We would have hung the editor of this paper along with him but for want of time.’ Hallett never saw the effigy, as it had been removed when his train stopped at West Barnstable.” 

Even for a "hardcore abolitionist," B. F. Hallet suffered terribly from this political misunderstanding, re: perceived sympathy for slavery, conservative slavers, or Southern Democrats, as Roberto Poli writes:

It's not difficult to see why Hallett would be completely character-assassinated simply for being forced to apply the law [- return a slave to his owner]. The Burns [Anthony Burns, a fugitive slave escaped from the estate of Charles F. Suttle in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1854, and arrested in Boston] case was at the very early stages of his position as US DA, and once riots began on the streets of Boston (thousands of people gathered in front of the courthouse, shouting, spitting at and insulting the guards), Hallett's fate was sealed. He received specific directives via telegraph from the White House to increase the number of guards protecting the courthouse and Burns himself as he left the building, which was of course interpreted as an affront to liberty and dignity. At the end of the trial, thousands of people marched in protest on the streets; business owners hang black drapes outside their shops. Hallett was insulted publicly, and even assaulted in front of his home.

It may be that Massachusettians – particularly in Cape Cod - were notably relieved by his death in 1862 as he left a foul memory of their political opposition to - and hatred of - the South's peculiar institution of slavery. For their descendants today, Benjamin Hallett remained a disgusting reminder of tribal politics that precipitated the Civil War. This probably remained with his former constituents for decades, especially when white-supremacist resurgence flared once again in the early 20th century. 

The resulting political recollections possibly gave rise to the legend of Goody or Maria Hallet, the “Witch of Wellfleet” – a posthumous way of damning Benjamin Hallett and his family forever and chastising them for ever giving birth to such a contemptible slavery-loving politician! 

A Hallett girl, like Eve with an apple, a truly evil “Witch of Wellfleet” may then have slithered upon the pages of Elizabeth Reynard’s Chronicles of Old Cape Cod in 1934.

References:

Elizabeth Reynard, The Narrow Land: Folk Chronicles of Old Cape Cod (1934), reprint (Boston: Houghton-Mifflen, 1968); Cape Ann Light and Gloucester Telegraph (Gloucester, MA), Jul 25, 1846, 4; National Aegis (Worcester, MA), Sep 30, 1840, 2; Nantucket Inquirer (Nantucket, MA), Aug 29, 1840, 3; Boston Shipping List, May 24, 1851, 1; Stauffer Miller, Cape Cod and the Civil War: The Raised Right Arm (Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2010); Email interviews with Roberto Poli.