A Place of Revolution, Resistance, and Risk

In June 1773, Caesar, the captain of a group of freedom seekers encamped between the Edisto and Ashley Rivers, led an armed raid on Drayton Hall. The group, whose camp site was near Beech Hill, was made up of long-term refugees from slavery, often referred to as a maroon community.

Holding a gun loaded with small-shot, Caesar stood guard while six other members of the camp entered Drayton Hall and seized food, fabric, and other supplies needed to sustain themselves in the wilderness. No one was injured.

They were fighting to survive on their own terms.

It was resistance.
It was revolution.

Within a year, Caesar was tried, convicted, and executed, all on the same day. At least four other men were executed.

At the same time, revolution was brewing inside the halls of power, and William Henry Drayton was at its center.

William Henry Drayton Drayton Hall Museum Collection

William Henry was elected to the South Carolina Assembly in 1765 as a representative of St. Andrew’s Parish. It had been a volatile time to enter politics, because the Stamp Act had just been imposed, igniting the first major wave of organized resistance to British rule. In Charleston, that organized resistance took the form of a Nonimportation Agreement that encouraged colonists to do business only with colonial merchants and to boycott British goods. Hundreds of people signed it.

William Henry Drayton not only refused to sign it, he called it illegal and saw it as a restraint upon men’s free will. The decision impacted him socially and financially, and he eventually moved to England for a time.

But in 1772, William Henry came back to South Carolina with a new job he’d been appointed to by his uncle, Lieutenant Governor William Bull: member of the Royal Council. William Henry’s father, John Drayton, owner of Drayton Hall, was also a member, and the family was firmly loyal to King George III.

Then, something changed. William Henry noticed something fundamentally changing within the colonial government. Men born and raised in Britain, called placemen, were being appointed to jobs and posts that had historically been filled by wealthy, land-holding South Carolinians—men like William Henry.

Even the Council itself was changing. There were only five South Carolinians on the 9-man Council by 1773, and the placemen held them back from taking action on important issues. He openly criticized the placemen and denounced the Council in a letter published in the South Carolina Gazette.

Nevertheless, William Henry was temporarily appointed to a vacant judgeship. While he was serving the British government in two roles, South Carolina sent a 5-man delegation to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. William Henry took a major risk by publishing a pamphlet, A Letter of Freeman of South-Carolina to the Deputies of North America, Assembled in the High Court of Congress at Philadelphia, declaring that he was joining the Patriot cause. It was circulated at the highest levels of the founding generation, read by figures like Washington and Jefferson.

It was dangerous.
It was resistance.
It was revolution.

William Henry continued in his role as judge and Councilman, calling himself a servant to the Constitution, not to the king. As he continued to publicly decry the failings of the Council, which was down to only 3 South Carolina natives and six placemen in 1775, William Henry was suspended from Council.

He quickly emerged as a leader of radical patriots in South Carolina, serving on a number of revolutionary committees, conducting raids to seize gunpowder and weapons, being sent to parts of South Carolina that were considered Loyalist strongholds to gain support. He became known as one of the state’s finest orators, brilliant enough to find the right words and passionate enough to make people care.

All the while, he continued to reject the efforts of middle-class whites, still contending power belonged in the hands of the elite. He suggested a hereditary branch of the legislature be created that would keep power concentrated in the hands of elite families, and wanted their positions to be permanent and not able to be rescinded, even by the government or by the will of the people.

Though he was firmly a patriot, William Henry continued to believe the British government was “the most perfect system the wit of man ever devised” and did not need to be inherently changed. Instead, he hoped to see similar structure retained—a traditional oligarchy that would preserve existing social hierarchies and perpetuate a traditional system in which elites held the most political sway. It put him at odds with many of his fellow conservatives, and he eventually moved on from the idea.

William Henry was elected President of South Carolina’s Second Provincial Congress and became the state’s First Chief Justice. When the Articles of Confederation were drafted, William Henry was part of that delegation as well. He was staunchly opposed to any language in the Articles that he saw as limiting the rights of individual states, particularly South Carolina and Georgia, and especially regarding slavery.

Meanwhile, the revolution at Drayton Hall was changing. Political upheaval and the realities of war created new challenges and dangers, but also presented new opportunities for escape, negotiation, and seeking ways to change one’s circumstances.

Beginning in 1775 with Lord Dunmore in Virginia, the British, and later the Americans, offered freedom to any enslaved person who would join them. Thousands of freedom-seekers from across the colonies decided to do just that. Others chose to join maroon communities or attempt to flee to other places, while some chose to remain where they were. By the same token, many were forced into specific roles. As many as 6,000 Black Loyalists may have been freed at the war’s end, but most people were, tragically, re-enslaved.

Samuel and Catherine Drayton were enslaved at Drayton Hall, and they bravely determined to leave the plantation and eventually joined with the British. The lack of extant records about their lives at Drayton Hall makes it easier to tell their story beginning in the year 1783.

In 1783, Samuel and Catherine Drayton boarded a ship, The Ann and Elizabeth, and sailed to Nova Scotia from New York. Their names were recorded in a ledger entitled The Book of Negroes, along with about 3,000 other Black Loyalists. In the book, Samuel and Catherine’s relationship was not defined, but they were described as being “formerly slave to Mrs. [Rebecca Perry] Drayton near Charles Town; left her before the siege of Charles Town [in 1780].” Samuel was later listed as Head of Family in the Muster Book of Free Blacks in the Settlement of Birchtown, Nova Scotia.

Book of Negroes
After July 31, 1783
Sir Guy Carleton Papers no. 10427
The National Archives, Kew

Samuel and Catherine were both born around 1743. Little is known about their lives from the existing documentary record, but it’s possible Samuel worked for a man named Edward Hannah around 1783.

In Birchtown, Black Loyalists built community, erected homes, and created new lives for themselves with no assistance from the British, facing tense hostility from white colonists in the area. They formed the largest free Black settlement in post-Revolutionary North America, yet their experiences reveal the limits of freedom through broken promises from the British and ongoing racial violence.

William Henry Drayton did not live to see what American Independence would look like. He died after a sudden illness in 1779 while serving in the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, having dedicated his career, fortune, and assets to the Patriot cause.

Samuel and Catherine left behind everyone they knew, Caesar’s community paid with their lives, William Henry staked his reputation and safety on his convictions. All of them risked their lives for liberty.

June 2026

Amber Satterthwaite