This article is from the Encyclopedia of North Carolina edited by William S. Powell. Copyright © 2006 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher. Colonial period (1600-1763) Encyclopedia of North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press. 1 January 2006 | Butler, Lindley S.
One of the thirteen original colonies, South Carolina has had a rich and varied history. When Spanish and French explorers arrived in the area in the 16th century, they found a land inhabited by many small tribes of Native Americans, the largest of which were the Cherokees and the Catawbas. The first European attempts at settlement failed, but in 1670 a permanent English settlement was established on the coast near present day Charleston. The colony, named Carolina after King Charles I, was divided in 1710 into South Carolina and North Carolina. Settlers from the British Isles, France, and other parts of Europe built plantations throughout the coastal lowcountry, growing profitable crops of rice and indigo. African slaves were brought into the colony in large numbers to provide labor for the plantations, and by 1720 they formed the majority of the population. The port city of Charleston became an important center of commerce and culture. The interior or upcountry, meanwhile, was being slowly settled by small farmers and traders, who pushed the dwindling tribes of Native Americans to the west. By the time of the American Revolution, South Carolina was one of the richest colonies in America. Its merchants and planters formed a strong governing class, contributing many leaders to the fight for independence. More Revolutionary War battles and skirmishes were fought in South Carolina than any other state, including major engagements at Sullivan's Island, Camden, Kings Mountain, and Cowpens. South Carolina ratified the United States Constitution on May 23, 1788, becoming the eighth state to enter the union. In the following years the state grew and prospered. With the invention of the cotton gin, cotton became a major crop, particularly in the upcountry. A new capital city, Columbia, was founded in the center of the state, reducing somewhat the political power of the lowcountry elite. Dissatisfaction with the federal government and its tariff policies grew during this period. In the 1820s South Carolinian John C. Calhoun developed the theory of nullification, by which a state could reject any federal law it considered to be a violation of its rights. Armed conflict was avoided during this period, but by 1860 tensions between the state and the federal government reached a climax. Unhappy over restrictions on free trade and about calls for the abolition of slavery, South Carolina seceded from the union on December 20, 1860, the first of the Southern states to do so. When Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861, the nation plunged into Civil War. The Civil War and its aftermath were devastating for South Carolina. The state lost nearly one fifth of the white male population, and its economy was shattered. The final blow came in early 1865 when General William T. Sherman marched his troops through South Carolina, burning plantations and most of the city of Columbia. The Reconstruction period that followed the war was marked by general economic, social, and political upheaval. The former white leaders found themselves without money or political power, while the large population of freed slaves sought to improve their economic and political positions. When federal troops withdrew in 1877, white conservatives led by Governor Wade Hampton were able to take control of state government once again. However, the economy continued to suffer in the years that followed. Cotton prices were low, and the plantation system that had brought South Carolina such wealth was dead. Populist reforms in the 1890s brought more political power to small white farmers, but African Americans were disenfranchised and increasingly segregated. By the beginning of the 20th century, South Carolina was starting to recover economically. The textile industry began to develop first, then in the years that followed other manufacturers moved into the state, providing jobs and economic stability. In recent years tourism has become a major industry, as travelers discovered the state's beaches and mountains. On September 21, 1989, Hurricane Hugo struck the coast, causing great damage to homes, businesses, and natural areas, but the state has made a remarkable recovery in the ensuing years. The second half of the 20th century also brought enormous change in the status of black South Carolinians. The civil rights movement of the 1960s brought a relatively peaceful end to segregation and legal discrimination. The most serious incident of this period occurred in 1968 at Orangeburg, where state police shot three black protesters. Two years later three African Americans were elected to the state legislature, and many others have subsequently served in state and local offices. As the century drew to a close, all South Carolina's citizens were able to take part in the state's government and economy. Page 2
Click the image to view an enlarged map The Carolina Grant began as one entity. Geographical and political differences among its English settlers would eventually cause a split, however. North Carolinians were small tobacco farmers, not plantation builders. South Carolinians developed a low-country agricultural system that relied upon slave labor to grow and export rice, cotton, and indigo. Small farmers and frontiersmen grew angry at the political and economic power held by coastal planters. These tensions would ignite during the American Revolution, turning the Carolinas into a fierce battle between north and south, east and west. Long before the arrival of the first European settlers, many American Indian groups lived in the region now known as the Carolinas. Three major language families were represented in the American Indian population: Iroquoian, Siouan, and Algonquian. Early inhabitants included the Cherokee, Catawba, Creek, and Tuscarora, among many others. The earliest European exploration of present-day South Carolina took place around 1514 by Spanish explorers. Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano explored the coastal region of present-day North Carolina in 1524. Although Spanish explorers made several attempts at colonizing both areas over the next few decades, no permanent settlements were established until 1670. Coastal North Carolina was the site of the first English attempts to colonize the New World. Two colonies began in the 1580s under a charter granted by Queen Elizabeth to Sir Walter Raleigh. Both were at Roanoke Island, and both failed. In another early colonization effort, a group of French Huguenots started a short-lived settlement on Parris Island in 1562. In the 1650s, the first permanent English settlers in North Carolina actually came from the southern part of the Virginia Colony and settled in the Albemarle area in the northern part of present-day North Carolina. Thirteen years later, Charles II granted a charter to eight Englishmen who would serve as Lords Proprietors of the Carolina Grant. In honor of King Charles I, the name Carolina was given to the colony—the Latin word for Charles is Carolus.
John Locke authored The Fundamental In 1669, the proprietors attempted to implement a rigid social structure. The plan was outlined in The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, which was written by the political philosopher John Locke, secretary to Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, one of the eight proprietors. According to the Fundamental Constitutions, the Carolina Grant was divided into square counties. In every county, each of the eight proprietors owned 12,000 acres. Other ranks of nobility were assigned tracts of land no smaller than 3,000 acres. Labor on each manor was done by "Leet" men and women, over whom their owners were guaranteed absolute power and authority, and who were bought and sold as part of the property of the manor. More than a few colonists questioned the practicality of the system laid out by the Fundamental Constitutions, however. While a city might be laid out in squares, a country shaped by rivers, creeks, hills, swamps, and mountains was not so easily demarcated. The colonists felt that the mere abundance of land meant that development would be free and open, not subject to strict regulation. Although the Fundamental Constitutions remained technically in effect for several decades, the document had little to do with the actual development of the Carolinas.
DID YOU KNOW?North Carolina has 1,500 lakes of 10 acres or more in size and 37,000 miles of fresh water streams. Click to learn more facts and trivia about North Geography also shaped the Carolina culture. The vastly different environments of the northern and southern parts of the Carolina grant dictated that settlements would develop in significantly different ways. The harbor and natural coastline of southern Carolina allowed easier trade with the West Indies. The result was the development of an urban, cultured, and cosmopolitan society made up of wealthy planters and merchants. In the north, many settlers were small farmers who drifted down from Virginia and planted tobacco, as they had done at home. Centered on Albemarle Sound, northern Carolina was poor, but independent. The population was diversified with the arrival of thousands of emigrants from Scotland, Ireland, and Germany. Their practice of farming was not heavily dependent upon slave labor in the southern region.
DID YOU KNOW? Eliza Lucas Pinckney a teenager at the time, helped make indigo a profitable crop in South Carolina by conducting experiments in her back yard. In the southern part of the grant, the proprietors and early settlers from Barbados founded Charleston in 1680 on the coast where the Ashley and Cooper rivers flowed into the Atlantic. The planters learned how to grow rice, a lucrative export crop. The easily-flooded lowlands along the rivers were ideally suited to its cultivation. Cotton, a staple crop used in manufacturing textiles, found favorable conditions on the sandy sea islands that fringed the coast. Indigo, a plant that produced a coveted blue dye, was later added to the list of Carolina products that were sold profitably abroad. All of South Carolina's crops lent themselves to being worked by large groups of laborers, and by 1720 more than half of the people in South Carolina were enslaved workers. Large plantation and slave owners dominated South Carolina society. Because the low country that produced their wealth was so rampant with disease, however, the planters took to keeping town houses in Charleston. They spent at least the summer months in the city, when malaria was at its peak. In the meantime, the enslaved workers labored in the midst of heat, humidity, and swarms of mosquitoes. Pirates posed another problem for Carolina. The colony's unusual coast, with its sandbars and shallows, provided a haven for pirate ships. Furthermore, the colonists frequently benefited from purchasing the pirates' goods. The capture and execution of the pirate known as Blackbeard in 1718 ended the threat of piracy in the Carolinas.
Learn more about the Trouble with the native inhabitants started when the settlers began encroaching on their farmland and capturing and enslaving them. Between slave raids in 1670 and a strain of deadly smallpox brought over by Europeans, the American Indian population in the Carolina region declined sharply. Some groups of American Indians decided to fight back, beginning with the Tuscaroras, an Iroquoian tribe. After a long, bloody war, the Tuscaroras were defeated in 1713, with many survivors drifting north to rejoin other Iroquois tribes. In 1715, two more American Indian groups battled the colonists in South Carolina—the Yamasees and the Creek. Had the Cherokee tribe elected to ally themselves with the Yamasees and the Creek, English colonialism in South Carolina might have come to an end. The Cherokee did not participate, however, and the colony remained intact.
Find out more about conflict. Meanwhile, the colonists themselves were divided by political disagreement. Edward Hyde came from England in 1711 claiming the office of governor. His right to the post was disputed by Thomas Cary, who had been named governor in 1705. In the dispute that followed, known as Cary's Rebellion, Hyde and Cary both attracted supporters who actually took up arms against each other. The conflict ended with Cary's defeat. In 1712, recognizing the different social underpinning of the northern and southern settlements, the proprietors granted the two Carolinas separate assemblies and governors. When the proprietors sold their holdings to the king in 1729, he confirmed North Carolina and South Carolina as separate royal colonies. This boundary was not established until 1732, nor fully surveyed until 1815. Until the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775, a more efficient government brought about increased settlement and greater prosperity. Settlement extended to the Blue Ridge Mountains and beyond. With this movement arose the deep-seated differences between east and west that continued for decades. The colonial government was dominated by the eastern planters, and the poorer west suffered from corrupt government and excessive taxes. The whole structure was conducive to abuses of power. The conflict resulted in the War of Regulation, in which the western insurgents were crushed at the Battle of Alamance Creek on May 16, 1771. The battle-weary Carolinians fought through the French and Indian War in the 1760s and the Revolutionary War in the next decade only to become the site of the first shots fired in the Civil War on April 12, 1861. South Carolina lost one-fifth of its adult white males over the course of the Civil War. When the Union troops led by General William Tecumseh Sherman overcame the Confederates, they left a path of destruction in their wake. It took many years for the war-torn area to recover. [Return to Top] The Carolinas | Bibliography |
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