Mark W. Buyck II: Colonial South Carolina

Colonial, South Carolina

story by Mark W. Buyck, III

From its inception, the state of South Carolina has been divided geologically, geographically, and socially into two distinct regions. The Sandhills running roughly from Aiken to Cheraw is generally accepted as the dividing line between the upstate and the low country. The fall line also marks the point where streams and rivers are generally not navigable.

Early settlements in South Carolina centered around the seaport of Charleston and the plantations with sailing access to the Ashley and Cooper Rivers. During the 100 or so years between the settlement of Charleston and the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the colony experienced steady growth both among the white population but especially among the enslaved. Throughout most of the Colonial Period, the South Carolina slave population was second only to Virginia among all of the colonies. It’s estimated that by 1700, the population of the colony was a total of 5700 persons, nearly 2500 of those were slaves. By 1708 enslaved African Americans outnumbered whites in the colony. By 1770 the colony had grown to a population of 130,000 of which 80,000 were enslaved and in 1780 the total population was 180,000.

In 1712 the British colony of Carolina was separated into the provinces of South Carolina and North Carolina. Georgia was later settled in the 1730s. The South Carolina backcountry became the “agricultural frontier” for the colonies. The low country’s proximity to St. Augustine and Spanish Florida also caused great angst among the colonists, the vast majority of which identified as British. In Europe, the relationship between Protestant England, and Catholic France and Spain continued to fester. These rivalries continued in North America. Throughout the Colonial Period, the colonists engaged in Wars with the Spanish and their Native American allies. In particular, the Yamasee War from 1715-1717 nearly saw the complete annihilation of the colony. So concerned was the Colonial Assembly that it ordered slaves enlisted and equipped to join the whites in the field. The sight of armed slaves marching through Charleston further unnerved many white settlers. By the end of the inconclusive war, the colony had lost 7% of its population.

The resolution of the Yamasee War also led to further colonists’ fractures with the Lord’s Proprietors. The Proprietors had essentially refused the colonists’ request for aid during the war. Beginning in 1719, the Colonial Assembly began refusing to recognize the Proprietary governor. By 1729 South Carolina officially became a crown colony.

The colony’s commitment to religious toleration also was a magnet for early settlers. The first English settlers were members of the Church of England. In 1707 the Anglican Church became the established church in the colony. French Protestants, the Huguenots, who were persecuted by the French Catholic government were early settlers of the colony. A group of Puritans from Dorchester, Massachusetts, established a congregational church in 1696 in what is now Dorchester County. Other denominations organizing in Charleston were English Baptists, Quakers, and Jews. Charleston had the largest Jewish population of any American city as late as 1820. In the 1730s and 1740s, Lutheran German-Swiss settled in the present Lexington, Calhoun, Orangeburg, and Newberry counties. In 1740 the upper Pee Dee became the home to a number of Welsh Baptists from Pennsylvania.

The largest influx of white settlers was the Scots-Irish who began arriving in numbers in the 1750s. The Scots-Irish had originally settled in Pennsylvania but over several decades had been migrating South through the Shenandoah Valley and into North Carolina. The Pennsylvania connection is evident in the present South Carolina counties of Lancaster, York, Chester, and Chesterfield, all Scots-Irish communities in Pennsylvania. By 1775 it is estimated that there were 40,000 of these fiercely independent Scots-Irish in the colony, most of these hardscrabble farm families in the Carolina backcountry. These Presbyterians had very little regard for England or its church, nor were they particularly fond of the Charleston political elite.

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