
Who and why did the settlers came to South Carolina?
While most of the Huguenots that left France went to European countries, a few did immigrate to the colonies. In South Carolina, the Lords Proprietors promoted settlement by Huguenots, hoping that they could assist with the production of cash crops such as wine, olives, and silk.
Who tried to settle South Carolina first?
What actually happened: In 1526, a wealthy Spanish accountant by the name of Ayallon decided to found a Spanish colony on the coast of what is now South Carolina. This wasn't your typical Spanish slash-through-looking-for-gold effort. Ayallon wanted to build something permanent, and he planned carefully.
Who were the first people who lived in South Carolina?
- Norman C. ...
- Bernard Baruch (1870–1965), born in Camden, financier, philanthropist, statesman, and adviser to President Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt
- Paul Benjamin (1938–2019), born in Pelion, actor
- Alfred W. ...
- Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1955), born and raised in Mayesville in Sumter County, civil rights leader and groundbreaking educator
Who is the great politician from South Carolina?
t. e. James Strom Thurmond Sr. (December 5, 1902 – June 26, 2003) was an American politician, military officer, and attorney who represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1954 to 2003. Prior to his 48 years as a senator, he served as the 103rd governor of South Carolina from 1947 to 1951.

When was the first settlement in South Carolina?
Following the initiative of the lords proprietor (or their deputies), the English made the first permanent settlement in the region, on the west bank of the Ashley River at Albemarle Point, in 1670.
What was the settlement of South Carolina?
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.
Who originally settled South Carolina?
The South Carolina Colony was founded by the British in 1663 and was one of the 13 original colonies. It was founded by eight nobles with a Royal Charter from King Charles II and was part of the group of Southern Colonies, along with North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, and Maryland.
What was the first town in South Carolina?
Firsts. Aiken was the first city in South Carolina and the second in the country to introduce polo on horseback to the community. It has been written that polo was first played outdoors in Aiken in 1882.
What was South Carolina originally called?
Clarendon ProvinceProvince of South Carolina, originally known as Clarendon Province, was a province of Great Britain that existed in North America from 1712 to 1776. It was one of the five Southern colonies and one of the thirteen American colonies.
Where did the slaves in South Carolina come from?
Overall, by the end of the colonial period, African arrivals in Charleston primarily came from Angola (40 percent), Senegambia (19.5 percent), the Windward Coast (16.3 percent), and the Gold Coast (13.3 percent), as well as the Bight of Benin and Bight of Biafra in smaller percentages.
What part of South Carolina had the most slaves?
Unlike Virginia, where most of the larger plantations and enslaved people were concentrated in the eastern part of the state, South Carolina plantations and enslaved people became common throughout much of the state.
Who was the first person in South Carolina?
The two largest tribes were the Catawba and the Cherokee. The Cherokee lived in the western part of the state near the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Catawba lived in the northern part of the state near the city of Rock Hill. The first European to arrive in South Carolina was Spanish explorer Francisco Gordillo in 1521.
When did slavery end in SC?
In effect, therefore, the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 freed a very small number of slaves in Southern areas captured by the Union Army, like Beaufort, South Carolina.
What is the oldest inland city in South Carolina?
CamdenCamden, South Carolina's oldest inland town has a storied history. Geographically situated on the head of the navigable Wateree River, Camden was the home of the Native American Cofitachequi civilization and one of the eleven townships decreed by King George II in 1732.
What's the second oldest city in South Carolina?
BeaufortBeaufort (/ˈbjuːfərt/ BEW-fert, a different pronunciation from that used by the city with the same name in North Carolina) is a city in and the county seat of Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States. Chartered in 1711, it is the second-oldest city in South Carolina, behind Charleston.
Which city is older Charleston or Savannah?
Savannah, the oldest city in Georgia, was established in 1733, and Charleston, the oldest city in South Carolina, was founded in 1670. They're located about 100 miles apart, so it's easy to visit both on one trip.
What was the reason for settlement in South Carolina?
Major settlement began after 1651 as the northern half of the British colony of Carolina attracted frontiersmen from Pennsylvania and Virginia, while the southern parts were populated by wealthy English people who set up large plantations dependent on slave labor, for the cultivation of cotton, rice, and indigo.
What was the purpose in settling the colony of Carolina?
On March 24, 1663, Charles II issued a new charter to a group of eight English noblemen, granting them the land of Carolina, as a reward for their faithful support of his efforts to regain the throne of England.
Who explored the coast of South Carolina?
Spanish explorers were the first Europeans to explore the coastal regions of present-day South Carolina. In 1521, Francisco Gordillo sailed to the Carolina coast from his base in Santo Domingo; no settlement was attempted, but several dozen Native Americans were enslaved.
What were the immigrants in South Carolina?
In the early years of the 18th century, southern Carolina became home to thousands of immigrants — Germans, Swiss, Welsh, Scots-Irish and migrants from colonies to the north.
What was the economic base of the Carolinian colony?
By the late 1680s, the colony was beginning to enjoy prosperity, especially in the coastal areas. Its economic base depended initially on the fur trade, which fostered generally good relations between the Carolinian settlers and the local Indian tribes. Tobacco production flourished briefly, but was supplanted by rice.
When was the settlement of Albemarle Point?
A small settlement under the authority of proprietor Cooper was started in 1670 at Albemarle Point; 10 years later the settlement was moved a short distance to the peninsula between the immodestly named Ashley and Cooper rivers.
When did South Carolina become Georgia?
In 1729, northern and southern Carolina were formally divided, and in 1732 the southern portion of South Carolina separated and became Georgia a year later.
When did the Spanish establish their base in Florida?
Nonetheless, later in the 1500s the Spanish established new bases in Florida and spread northward with a string of small settlements. The French presence was established in 1562 when Jean Ribault brought a group of French Huguenots to Parris Island, but Spanish power in the area rendered the colony untenable.
When did the first people settle in South Carolina?
Earliest settlement. The first inhabitants of present-day South Carolina likely arrived about 11,000–12,000 years ago. Hunting and gathering typified their first 10 millennia, but they developed agriculture about 1000 bce.
Who was the first European to visit South Carolina?
The first Europeans to visit South Carolina, in 1521, were Spanish explorers from Santo Domingo ( Hispaniola ). In 1526 Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón founded what is believed to have been the first white European settlement in South Carolina, but this Spanish colony failed within a few months.
What languages did South Carolina speak?
In 1600 South Carolina was home to perhaps 15,000–20,000 native people, representing three major language groupings: Siouan (spoken by the Catawba and others), Iroquoian (spoken by the Cherokee ), and Muskogean (spoken by peoples related to the Creek ). Disease, conflict, and continued European expansion contributed to the virtual disappearance ...
What were the two provinces of South Carolina?
In 1729 the colony was divided into two provinces, North and South ; Georgia was carved out of the southern part of the original grant in 1731. Under crown rule, South Carolina prospered, and exports of rice and indigo contributed to its growing wealth.
Who occupied Charleston during the American Revolution?
British troops occupied Charleston during the American Revolution, which, in South Carolina, was largely fought as a civil war between the patriots, who demanded freedom from Great Britain, and the loyalists, who supported the crown.
Who established the colony of Carolina?
In 1665 Edward Hyde, 1st earl of Clarendon, and seven other members of the British nobility received a charter from King Charles II to establish the colony of Carolina (named for the king) in a vast territory between latitudes 29° and 36°30′ N and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
When did the Mississippian civilization begin?
The Mississippian cultures, the most advanced in the southeastern region of pre-Columbian North America, arrived about 1100 ce with their complex society, villages, and earthen mound-building; they disappeared soon after European contact in the 16th century, however.
Who settled the South Carolina back country?
In contrast to the Tidewater, the back country was settled later in the 18th century, chiefly by Scots-Irish and North British migrants, who had quickly moved down from Pennsylvania and Virginia. The immigrants from Ulster, the Scottish lowlands, and the north of England (the border counties) composed the largest group from the British Isles before the Revolution. They came mostly in the 18th century, later than other colonial immigrants. Such "North Britons were a large majority in much of the South Carolina upcountry." The character of this environment was "well matched to the culture of the British borderlands."
When was South Carolina discovered?
South Carolina was one of the original thirteen states of the United States. European exploration of the area began in April 1540, with the Hernando de Soto expedition, who unwittingly introduced new Eurasian diseases that decimated the local Native American populations, because they lacked immunity.
Why did South Carolina indigo have a mediocre reputation?
Carolina indigo had a mediocre reputation because Carolina planters failed to achieve consistent high quality production standards. Carolina indigo nevertheless succeeded in displacing French and Spanish indigo in the British and in some continental markets, reflecting the demand for cheap dyestuffs from manufacturers of low-cost textiles, the fastest-growing sectors of the European textile industries at the onset of industrialization.
How many tribes were there in South Carolina?
By the time of the first European exploration, twenty-nine tribes or nations of Native Americans, divided by major language families, lived within the boundaries of what became South Carolina. Algonquian -speaking tribes lived in the low country, Siouan and Iroquoian -speaking in the Piedmont and uplands, respectively.
What was the name of the Spanish town in South Carolina?
By the end of the 16th century, the Spanish and French had left the area of South Carolina after several reconnaissance missions, expeditions and failed colonization attempts, notably the short-living French outpost of Charlesfort followed by the Spanish town of Santa Elena on modern-day Parris Island between 1562 and 1587. In 1629, Charles I, King of England, granted his attorney general a charter to everything between latitudes 36 and 31. He called this land the Province of Carolana, which would later be changed to "Carolina" for pronunciation, after the Latin form of his own name.
How did the reconstruction government help the South?
Reconstruction government established public education for the first time, and new charitable institutions, together with improved prisons. There was corruption, but it was mostly white Southerners who benefited, particularly by investments to develop railroads and other infrastructure. Taxes had been exceedingly low before the war because the planter class refused to support programs such as education welfare. The exigencies of the postwar period caused the state debt to climb rapidly. When Republicans came to power in 1868, the debt stood at $5.4 million. By the time Republicans lost control in 1877, state debt had risen to $18.5 million.
What happened to South Carolina after the Civil War?
The Civil War would ruin the states economy, and continued over reliance on agriculture as its main economic base, made South Carolina one of the poorer states economically in the country.
Where did the early settlers of South Carolina come from?
Many of the early settlers of South Carolina came from the island of Barbados, in the Caribbean, bringing with them the plantation system common in the West Indies colonies. Under this system, large areas of land were privately owned, and most of the farm labor was completed by enslaved people. South Carolina landowners initially claimed enslaved ...
When did the colony of South Carolina become a royal colony?
As a result, it became a royal colony in 1729 and was divided into South Carolina and North Carolina. Cite this Article.
What was the South Carolina slave trade?
South Carolina's captive enslaved people were not limited to people of African descent. It was also one of the few colonies to claim enslaved Indigenous peoples. In this case, they were not imported into South Carolina but rather exported to the British West Indies and other British colonies. This trade began in about 1680 and continued for nearly four decades until the Yamasee War led to peace negotiations that helped end the activity.
What was the name of the North Carolina colony?
North and South Carolina. The South Carolina and North Carolina colonies originally were part of one colony called the Carolina Colony. The colony was set up as a proprietary settlement and governed by a group known as Carolina's Lord's Proprietors. But unrest with the Indigenous population and fear of rebellion from enslaved people led White ...
Why was South Carolina the wealthiest colony in the world?
South Carolina became one of the wealthiest early colonies largely due to exports of cotton, rice, tobacco, and indigo dye. Much of the colony's economy was dependent upon the stolen labor of enslaved people that supported large land operations similar to plantations.
When did the French settle in Parris Island?
In the middle of the 16th century, first the French and then the Spanish tried to establish settlements on the coastal land. The French settlement of Charlesfort, now Parris Island, was established by French soldiers in 1562, but the effort lasted less than a year.
When did the Spanish establish Santa Elena?
In 1566 , the Spanish established the settlement of Santa Elena in a nearby location. Indigenous peoples from the neighboring Orista and Escamacu communities attacked and burned the settlement in 1576. While the town was later rebuilt, the Spanish devoted more resources to settlements in Florida, leaving the South Carolina coast ripe for the picking by British settlers. The English established Albemarle Point in 1670 and moved the colony to Charles Town (now Charleston) in 1680.
What is the history of South Carolina?
v. t. e. The history of the colonial period of South Carolina focuses on the English colonization that created one of the original Thirteen Colonies. Major settlement began after 1651 as the northern half of the British colony of Carolina attracted frontiersmen from Pennsylvania and Virginia, ...
Why was South Carolina created?
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.
How many settlers were there in the Upcountry?
By the time of the Revolution, however, the Upcountry contained nearly half the white population of South Carolina, about 30,000 settlers. Nearly all of them were Dissenting Protestants. After the Revolution, the state legislature disestablished the Anglican Church.
How many Native Americans were exported from South Carolina?
Historian Alan Gallay estimates that between 1670 and 1715, between 24,000 and 51,000 captive Native Americans were exported from South Carolina—much more than the number of Africans imported to the colonies of the future United States during the same period.
How many hurricanes hit South Carolina?
South Carolina was struck by four major hurricanes during the colonial period. Colonists became constantly aware of the threat these storms posed and their effects even on warfare. The 1752 hurricane caused massive damage to homes, businesses, shipping, outlying plantation buildings and the rice crop; about 95 people died.
Why was South Carolina called South Carolina?
Because South Carolina was more populous and more commercially important, most Europeans thought primarily of it, and not of North Carolina, when they referred to "Carolina". By the time of the American Revolution, this colony was known as "South Carolina.".
What was the most prosperous colony in the world?
The colony was separated into the Province of South Carolina and the Province of North Carolina in 1712. South Carolina's capital city of Charleston became a major port for traffic on the Atlantic Ocean, and South Carolina developed indigo, rice and Sea Island cotton as commodity crop exports, making it one of the most prosperous of the colonies.

Overview
Revolutionary War
Prior to the American Revolution, the British began taxing American colonies to raise revenue. Residents of South Carolina were outraged by the Townsend Acts that taxed tea, paper, wine, glass, and oil. To protest the Stamp Act, South Carolina sent the wealthy rice planter Thomas Lynch, twenty-six-year-old lawyer John Rutledge, and Christopher Gadsden to the Stamp Act Congress, held in 17…
Early history
Humans arrived in the area of South Carolina around 13,000 BC. These people were hunters with crude tools made from stones and bones. Around 10,000 BC, they used spears and hunted big game. Over the Archaic period of 8000 to 2000 BC, the people gathered nuts, berries, fish and shellfish as part of their diets. Trade between the coastal plain and the piedmont developed. There is evidence of plant domestication and pottery in the late Archaic. The Woodland period brought …
Colonial period
By the end of the 16th century, the Spanish and French had left the area of South Carolina after several reconnaissance missions, expeditions and failed colonization attempts, notably the short-living French outpost of Charlesfort followed by the Spanish town of Santa Elena on modern-day Parris Island between 1562 and 1587. In 1629, Charles I, king of England, granted his attorney genera…
Antebellum South Carolina
South Carolina led opposition to national law during the Nullification Crisis. It was the first state to declare its secession in 1860 in response to the election of Abraham Lincoln. Dominated by major planters, it was the only state in which slaveholders composed a majority of the legislature.
After the Revolutionary War, numerous slaves were freed. Most of the norther…
American Civil War
Few white South Carolinians considered abolition of slavery as an option. Having lived as a minority among the majority-black slaves, they feared that, if freed, the slaves would try to "Africanize" the whites' cherished society and culture. This was what they believed had happened after slave revolutions in Haiti, in which numerous whites and free people of color were killed during the revolution. So…
Reconstruction era (1865–1877)
African Americans had long composed the majority of the state's population. However, in 1860, only 2 percent of the state's black population were free; most were mulattos or free people of color, with ties of kinship to white families. They were well established as more educated and skilled artisans in Charleston and some other cities despite social restrictions, and sometimes as landowners an…
Conservative rule (1877–1890)
The Democrats were led by General Wade Hampton III and other former Confederate veterans who espoused a return to the policies of the antebellum period. Known as the Conservatives, or the Bourbons, they favored a minimalist approach by the government and a conciliatory policy towards blacks while maintaining white supremacy. Also of interest to the Conservatives was the re…