The colonial period of South Carolina saw the exploration and colonization of the region by European colonists during the early modern period, eventually resulting in the establishment of the Province of Carolina by English settlers in 1663, which was then divided to create the Province of South Carolina in 1710. European settlement in the region of modern-day South Carolina began on a large scale after 1651, when frontiersmen from the English colony of Virginia began to settle in the northern half of the region, while the southern half saw the immigration of plantation owners from Barbados, who established slave plantations which cultivated cash crops such as tobacco, cotton, rice and indigo.
During the 18th century, South Carolina's capital city of Charleston became a major port in the triangular trade, and local colonists developed indigo, rice and Sea Island cotton using slave labor as export goods, transforming the colony into one of the most prosperous of the Thirteen Colonies. The colonial government of South Carolina fought several conflicts with local Indian tribes and Spanish Florida while fending off the threat of piracy. Birth rates were high and food was abundant, which offset the danger of malaria to produce rapid population growth among white South Carolinians. With the expansion of the colony's plantation economy, numerous African slaves were imported to South Carolina via the Atlantic slave trade, who comprised a majority of the population by 1708, and were integral to its development.
The colony developed a system of laws and self-government and a growing commitment to republicanism, which the Patriots feared was threatened by British policies after 1765. At the same time, men with close commercial and political ties to Great Britain tended to support the Loyalist cause when the American Revolutionary War broke out. South Carolina joined the American Revolution in 1775, but was bitterly divided between Patriots and Loyalists. British forces invaded South Carolina in 1780 and captured most of the state, but were eventually driven out.
Overview
The first European contact with the Carolinas was an expedition led by Pedro de Salazar from Santo Domingo which arrived between northern Georgia and Cape Fear between August 1514 and December 1516. It enslaved more than 500 Native Americans. Most died on the return trip to Santo Domingo. The rest were divided among investors in the expedition and crew, and died soon after arriving. The next contact was a 1521 trip led by Pedro de Quejo and Francisco Gordillo, which enslaved 60 Native Americans in Winyah Bay. De Quejo returned in 1525 and explored from Amelia Island, Florida to Chesapeake Bay, Maryland. He captured more Native Americans to use as interpreters, and his findings and place names were published on a 1526 map by Juan Vespucci. In 1526 Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón returned to Winyah Bay to found a colony, but after a month moved to San Miguel de Gualdape in what is now Georgia; Spanish coins, beads and a bullet have been found near the Georgia settlement.
In April 1540, the expedition of Hernando de Soto reached South Carolina before venturing onward to modern-day North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama. There the expedition recorded being received by a polity called Cofitachequi and their Great Mico, who gave her tribe's pearls, food and other goods to the Spanish soldiers. The expedition found no gold as intended, however, other than pieces from an earlier coastal expedition (presumably that of Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón.)
The French settled Charlesfort on Port Royal Sound in 1562–3, and briefly in 1576. The Spanish settled it as Santa Elena in 1566–87.
In 1629, Charles I of England granted his attorney general a charter to everything between latitudes 36 and 31. Later, in 1663, Charles II of England granted the land to eight Lords Proprietors in return for their financial and political assistance in restoring him to the throne in 1660. Anthony Ashley Cooper, later the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury emerged as the leader of the Lords Proprietors, and John Locke became his assistant and chief planner. The two men were chiefly responsible for developing the Grand Model for the Province of Carolina, which included the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina.Wilson, Thomas D. The Ashley Cooper Plan: The Founding of Carolina and the Origins of Southern Political Culture. Chapter 1.
The newly created province was intended in part to serve as an English bulwark to contest lands claimed by Spanish Florida. There was a single government of the Carolinas based in Charleston until 1712, when a separate government (under the Lords Proprietors) was set up for North Carolina. In 1719, the Crown purchased the South Carolina colony from the absentee Lords Proprietors and appointed Royal Governors. By 1729, seven of the eight Lords Proprietors had sold their interests back to the Crown; the separate royal colonies of North Carolina and South Carolina were established.
Throughout the Colonial Period, the Carolinas participated in numerous wars with the Spanish and the Native Americans, particularly the Yamasee, Apalachee, and Cherokee. During the Yamasee War of 1715–1717, South Carolina faced near annihilation due to Native American attacks. An indigenous alliance had formed to try to push the colonists out, in part as a reaction to their trade in Native American slaves for the nearly 50 years since 1670. The effects of the slave trade affected tribes throughout the Southeast. Estimates are that Carolinians exported 24,000-51,000 slaves to markets from Boston to Barbados.Joseph Hall, "The Great Indian Slave Caper", review of Alan Gallay, The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717, Common-place, vol. 3, no. 1 (October 2002), accessed 5 March 2017.
The emerging planter class used the revenues to finance the purchase of enslaved Africans and financing of indentured servants. So many Africans were imported that they comprised a majority of the population in the colony from 1708 through the American Revolution. Living and working together on large plantations, they developed what is known as the Gullah culture and creole language, maintaining many west African traditions of various cultures, while adapting to the new environment.
The Black population of the Lowcountry was dominated by wealthy planters of English descent and indentured servants from southern and western England. The interior Carolina upcountry was settled later, largely in the 18th century by Ulster Scots immigrants arriving via Pennsylvania and Virginia, German Calvinists, French Huguenot refugees in the Piedmont and foothills as well as by working class English indentured servants who moved inland after completing their terms of service working on coastal plantations. Toward the end of the Colonial Period, the upcountry people were underrepresented politically and felt they were mistreated by the planter elite. In reaction, many took a Loyalist position when the Lowcountry planters complained of the new taxes, an issue that later contributed to the colony's support of the American Revolution.
In North Carolina a short-lived colony was established near the mouth of the Cape Fear River. A ship was sent southward to explore the Port Royal, South Carolina area, where the French had established the short-lived Charlesfort post and the Spanish had built Santa Elena, the capital of Spanish Florida from 1566 to 1587, until it was abandoned. Captain Robert Sanford made a visit with the friendly Edisto Indians. When the ship departed to return to Cape Fear, Dr. Henry Woodward stayed behind to study the interior and native Indians.
In Bermuda, Colonel William Sayle, an 80-year-old Puritan Bermudian colonist, was named governor of Carolina. On March 15, 1670, under Sayle (who sailed on a Bermuda sloop with a number of Bermudian families), they finally reached Port Royal. According to the account of one passenger, the Indians were friendly, made signs toward where they should land, and spoke broken Spanish. Spain still considered Carolina to be its land; the main Spanish base, St. Augustine, was not far away. The Spanish missionary provinces of Guale and Mocama occupied the coast south of the Savannah River and Port Royal.
Although the Edisto Indians were not happy to have the English settle permanently, the chief of the Kiawah Indians, who lived farther north along the coast, arrived to invite the English to settle among his people and protect them from the Westo tribe, slave-raiding allies of Virginia. The sailors agreed and sailed for the region now called West Ashley. When they landed in early April at Albemarle Point on the shores of the Ashley River, they founded Charles Town, named in honor of their king. On May 23, Three Brothers arrived in Charles Town Bay without 11 or 12 passengers who had gone for water and supplies at St. Catherines Island, and had run into Indians allied with the Spanish. Of the hundreds of people who had sailed from England or Barbados, only 148 people, including three African slaves, lived to arrive at Charles Town Landing.
Monarchs NameReign Portrait Arms Birth Marriage(s)Issue Death Claim Charles II1663–6 February 1685Recognised by Royalists in 1649() 29 May 1630 (N.S. 8 June 1630)St James's PalaceSon of and Henrietta Maria of France Catherine of BraganzaPortsmouth21 May 1662No children 6 February 1685Whitehall PalaceAged 54 Son of (cognatic primogenitureEnglish Restoration) James VII & II6 February 1685–23 December 1688 (deposed)() 14 October 1633 (N.S. 24 October 1633)St James's PalaceSon of and Henrietta Maria of France (1) Anne HydeThe Strand3 September 16608 children(2) Mary of ModenaDover21 November 16737 children 16 September 1701Château de Saint-Germain-en-LayeAged 67 Son of (cognatic primogeniture) Mary II13 February 1689–28 December 1694() 30 April 1662 (N.S. 10 May 1662)St James's PalaceDaughter of and Anne HydeSt James's Palace4 November 1677No children 28 December 1694Kensington PalaceAged 32 Daughter and son-in-law of James VII & II and Grandchildren of (offered the crown by Parliament) William IIIWilliam of Orange13 February 1689–8 March 1702() 4 November 1650 (N.S. 14 November 1650)The HagueSon of William II, Prince of Orangeand Mary, Princess Royal 8 March 1702Kensington PalaceAged 51after breaking his collarbone from falling off his horse Anne8 March 1702–1 May 1707()(from 1707) 6 February 1665St James's PalaceDaughter of and Anne Hyde George of DenmarkSt James's Palace28 July 168317 pregnanciesno surviving children 1 August 1714Kensington PalaceAged 49 Daughter of (cognatic primogenitureBill of Rights 1689) Anne1 May 1707–1 August 1714() 6 February 1665St James's PalaceDaughter of and Anne Hyde George of DenmarkSt James's Palace28 July 168317 pregnanciesno surviving children 1 August 1714Kensington PalaceAged 49 Daughter of (cognatic primogenitureBill of Rights 1689) George I1 August 1714–11 June 1727() 28 May 1660 (N.S. 7 June 1660)LeineschlossSon of Ernest Augustus, Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburgand Sophia of Hanover Sophia Dorothea of Brunswick-Lüneburg-Celle21 November 16822 children 11 June 1727OsnabrückAged 67 Great-grandson of (Act of Settlementeldest son of Sophia of Hanover) George II11 June 1727–25 October 1760() 30 October 1683 (N.S. 9 November 1683)HerrenhausenSon of and Sophia Dorothea of Brunswick-Lüneburg-Celle Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach22 August 17058 children 25 October 1760Kensington PalaceAged 76 Son of George III25 October 1760–July 4, 1776() Monarchy Abolished 4 June 1738Norfolk HouseSon of Frederick, Prince of Walesand Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha Charlotte of Mecklenburg-StrelitzSt James's Palace8 September 176115 children 29 January 1820Windsor CastleAged 81 Grandson of
Proprietary rule