University unearths account of early life in Carolinas

A DOCUMENT containing the earliest known map of Charles Towne, the first permanent European settlement in the Carolinas, has been discovered in the archives at Aberdeen University.

The document was uncovered while staff were carrying out an assessment of historic material ahead of the creation of the university's new library and special collections centre.

It was among papers belonging to James Fraser, who was born in Inverness-shire in 1645 and educated at King's College, Aberdeen. He became tutor to one of Charles II's illegitimate sons in the mid-1660s. Some letters to and from Fraser survive in the collections at King's College, as well as rare books and manuscripts he deposited there.

They include a manuscript account of Carolina by Jean Boyd, a Frenchman of Scots ancestry and believed to be Fraser's cousin. The document dates from about 1691, just 21 years after the city of Charles Towne was founded.

It includes a description of Native Americans, plants, wildlife, the price of goods and the local cuisine. The map shows a handful of streets, two forts and houses scattered in the woods.

Historians spent months translating the French script, which describes the rivers being full of fish, with birds, including pelicans and kingfishers. The creeks, he says, are full of crocodiles, some 22ft long.

He also recounts trade with Native Americans involving swapping skins of bears, racoons, otters and foxes for guns, lead and gunpowder, knives, rum and tobacco.

The colony was established when the ship Carolina, sailing from Barbados, landed in March of 1670 at a site on the Ashley River.