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History of South Carolina
Home » South Carolina » Overview and History of South Carolina » History of South CarolinaPosted by Your Guide on May 11, 2006 5:07 PM
• 1500’s-1700: Spaniards explored the South Carolina coast as early as 1514. The French also tried to settle an area that is now known as Beaufort. Jean Ribaut led the Huguenots, but when he left to get more supplies, his soldiers revolted and built a ship, returning home. The Spanish, unrivaled, built Fort San Felipe in the area the Huguenots had originally planned to settle. They named the settlement Santa Elena. However, the Spanish settlers left to focus on taking over St. Augustine, and Native Americans were once again left over South Carolina. In 1670 the English established the first European settlement at Albemarle Point, which was on the Ashley River.
• Early 1700’s: King Charles II of England gave Carolina to English noblemen. They were known as the Lords Proprietors. The first settlers under the proprietors included many Barbadians and the area took on the flavor of the West Indies rather than England. The last major effort made by the Native Americans to keep their place in the land was the Yemassee War of 1715. The Yemassee Indians came from Georgia after being treated unfairly by the governor there. The Yemassee and a few other tribes rose up against the British and even killed around 100 settlers. After this battle, the Native Americans removed themselves to Florida. About four years later, the colonists were left rose up against the Lords Proprietors and South Carolina became a royal province. By the mid-1700s, the wet, deep, miry soil of lower South Carolina had made planters and merchants a rich surplus of rice and indigo. The settlers were some of the wealthiest in what would become the United States. The more northern sections of South Carolina had a different flavor since many of its settlers were migrants from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. Many of those settlers were German, Welsh and Scottish-Irish. They had smaller farms than their northern counter-parts.
• Civil War: The first real victory of the Civil War was when settlers of South Carolina went against a British fleet from a log cabin on Sullivan’s Island. Over two hundred fights and deadly encounters occurred in South Carolina, often between settlers of the state who opposed each other on the points of independence from England, and those who wanted to remain loyal to King George. At Kings Mountain in 1780, the Patriots won over the Loyalists and halted their ascent into North Carolina, causing them to retreat from Charlotte into South Carolina. A second decisive battle at Cowpens in 1781 helped to totally change the face of the war in the Southern Campaign. Historians recognize this battle as one of the most important of the entire American Revolution. The Civil War battles and Sherman’s rampage left the state in poverty for years to come.
• Late 1800’s to Present: The textile industry helped the state recover from the war, but the destruction of the boll weevil and the Great Depression were not far behind. The economy and racial problems caused many of the African American inhabitants to move north and South Carolina no longer had a black majority population. Since the early 1900’s the state has been revitalized through military bases and production as well as investment in manufacturing.
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