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Illustrated Episode · Volume II, chapter 23 · 21 December 1719

Muskets for the governor

On a cold harbor-front street a line of townsmen in plain coats and hats levels muskets across the open ground at a periwigged governor, stopped mid-stride with one hand up, while a grey-wigged colonel holds out a flat palm.
Charleston, December 1719. Colonel Alexander Parris has his militia present their muskets, and Governor Robert Johnson, who came to break up the muster, is told to stand off. Rothbard calls the revolt a popular revolution by the militia. That same morning Colonel James Moore is sworn in as governor without a shot. Chapter 23 of Conceived in Liberty.

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Adapted from Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Mises Institute, 2011), CC BY 3.0.

What happened

In November 1719 South Carolina's militia was under arms against a feared Spanish attack, and its men used the muster to do something else. Rothbard says they drew up articles of association, led by the ousted councillor Alexander Skene and signed by nearly every freeman, pledging to throw off the proprietors and make the colony royal (CiL, p. 601). The proprietors' government was run by Chief Justice Nicholas Trott and his brother-in-law William Rhett. The Assembly turned itself into a Convention, named Colonel James Moore governor, and on Monday 21 December the town militia turned out on East Bay Street. Governor Robert Johnson came early to break it up, pushed among the men, and demanded of Colonel Alexander Parris how he dared appear in arms. Parris answered that he obeyed the Convention. When Johnson stepped toward him, Parris had his men present their muskets and ordered him to stand off. Johnson followed the column to the Granville Bastion, shouting, until a retired admiral shouted him down, and Moore was sworn in there. Rothbard adds that Johnson threatened to have warships bombard Charleston and never did. The Crown took the revolution as a gift and in 1729 bought the proprietors out.

Sources

  1. Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2011 single-volume ed.), vol. II, ch. 23, 'Proprietary Rule in South Carolina', pp. 599-601. CC BY 3.0. Rothbard
  2. Charleston County Public Library, Charleston Time Machine, 'The South Carolina Revolution of 1719, Part 2' (a retelling of Yonge 1726; bibliography Lesser, McCrady, Moore, Rivers, Roper, Scheerer; accessed 2026-09-30). Secondary source
  3. Charleston County Public Library, Charleston Time Machine, 'The South Carolina Revolution of 1719, Part 1' (the letter the confederates sent Governor Johnson on the morning of 28 November 1719; accessed 2026-09-30). Secondary source
  4. Charleston County Public Library, Charleston Time Machine, 'Charleston's Half-Moon Battery, 1694-1768' (accessed 2026-09-30). Secondary source
  5. Francis Yonge, A Narrative of the Proceedings of the People of South Carolina, In the Year 1719 (London, 1726). Read only as retold and quoted by the Charleston County Public Library; the full text was not reached. Primary source
  6. 'Revolution of 1719', Wikipedia (accessed 2026-09-30), citing the Charleston County Public Library and George Edward Frakes, Laboratory for Liberty (University Press of Kentucky, 2015). Secondary source
  7. data/cil/registry/eras/southern-colonies-1710-1770.yaml, dress, arms and architecture entries (Charleston's revolutionary militia of 1719, the East Bay waterfront and wharves). Secondary source