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10 Facts About William Sayle

1.

William Sayle later became the first governor of colonial South Carolina from 1670 to 1671.

2.

William Sayle was appointed Governor in 1643, but as an Independent Puritan, aligned with the Parliamentary cause, the Commonwealth and then Oliver Cromwell's Protectorship, he was to be at odds with the majority of Bermuda's dominant elite.

3.

William Sayle established the first English settlement of the Bahamas between 1646 and 1648 on the island of Eleuthera, establishing England's claim to the Bahamas archipelago.

4.

William Sayle left Bermuda with seventy settlers, mostly Bermudians and some English, who were looking for a place where they could worship God freely.

5.

The exact dates and circumstances of William Sayle's voyage are uncertain.

6.

Rener mentions that he and Sayle had purchased half interest in a ship, the William, for the purpose of sailing to the Bahamas.

7.

In 1657, William Sayle returned to Bermuda, and in 1658, he was re-appointed Governor, a position he lost in 1662, when he was appointed to the Council of Bermuda.

8.

The Articles that William Sayle drew up in 1647 reflect the ambiguities of the English Civil War taking place at that time between Royalists and Parliamentarians.

9.

In 1669, William Sayle took over the command of a party of settlers to a new settlement in Carolina after Sir John Yeamans resigned, while undergoing repairs of his vessel in Bermuda.

10.

William Sayle arrived in South Carolina aboard a Bermuda sloop with a number of Bermudian families, and founded the town of Charleston.