Carolina Colony
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Carolina Colony
South Carolina stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Blue Ridge Mountains, containing 31,113 square miles. Fortieth in geographic area among the fifty states, it ranks twenty-sixth in population. The Palmetto State's more than four million citizens value its rich history, a legacy that is a prime factor in making tourism one of the state's largest industries.
In 1624, the Virginia Company's charter was revoked and the colony transferred to royal authority as a crown colony. The main tribes living in the area were the Kiawah, Cherokee, the Catawbas, the Creek, and the Yamasee. They grew corn and beans. The first Europeans to visit what we now known as South Carolina were from France and Spain. Part of the organization set up to establish the colony was the Fundamental Constitutions, a series of laws and rules for governing the colony. The laws were based on English laws and customs. The king also decreed that eight man called Lords Proprietors were in charge of the colony (although none of these men ever set foot in South Carolina).
The first English settlement was at Roanoke Island, an island in the Outer Banks of North Carolina in 1587. The Roanoke Colony was the first English colony in the New World (St. John's in Newfoundland was claimed in 1583 by Humphrey Gilbert but no settlement was attempted). It was founded at Roanoke Island in what was then Virginia (now North Carolina). Sir Walter Raleigh brought 150 people to the island of Roanoke (in present-day North Carolina) to settle. By April 1586, relations with the neighboring tribe had degraded to such a degree that they attacked an expedition led by Lane to explore the Roanoke River. His response was to attack the natives in their capital, where he killed their weroance, Wingina. April passed, and there was no sign of Grenville's relief fleet. When Sir Francis Drake arrived in June, on his way home from a successful raid in the Caribbean, he offered to take the colonists back to England, which they accepted. Shortly after Drake's fleet left, Grenville and the resupply arrived. Finding the colony abandoned, Grenville decided to return to England with the bulk of his force. Fifteen men were left behind to maintain both an English presence and Raleigh's claim to Virginia. In 1587, Raleigh dispatched another group of colonists. These 91 men, 17 women, and 9 children were led by John White, an artist and friend of Raleigh's who had accompanied the previous expeditions to Roanoke. The new colonists were tasked with picking up the fifteen men left at Roanoake and settling farther north, in the Chesapeake Bay area. The one local tribe still friendly towards the English, the Croatans on present-day Hatteras Island, reported that the men had been attacked, and the nine survivors had taken their boat and sailed up the coast.
A new charter for the settlement of the coast was granted to the London Company and Plymouth Company (the two branches of the Virginia Company) in 1606. The first settlements were at Jamestown Settlement (Virginia) in 1607 and at the Popham Colony (Carolina, Virginia, Massachusetts, Maine.) Subsequent charters for the Maryland/ Newfoundland Colony in 1632 and the Carolina/ Virginia Colony in 1665 further reduced the Virginia Colony to coastal borders it held until the American Revolution.
The colony expanded during the next several years and included much of what is now North Carolina as well. (It was named after the British king, Charles.) In 1710, a royal decree divided the colony into two, North and South. French settlers lived in the South as well. Many workers on the land in South Carolina were indentured servants, who signed contracts to work for a number of years and were then granted their freedom. The arrival of slaves (who had no such contract) speeded up an already thriving plantation economy producing rice and indigo. Other crops included corn, cotton, and tobacco. So many were the African slaves who arrived in South Carolina that by 1720, they formed the majority of the population. Another economic factor during the early days of the colony was that Charleston and points south became trading centers, of both commerce and culture, while northern areas, which were more rural, became farming centers. It was these farmers and small-time traders who pushed the Native Americans further west.
A series of attacks by the Yamasee in 1715 had frightened the colonists into taking action. The conflict was finished by 1716, but distrust between Native Americans and new Americans continued for many years. Another flare-up in 1760 involved colonists fighting against Cherokee; the result there was the same as before. One of the main ways that the northern part of the colony developed was under the Township Plan, which provided for a township with 20,000 acres of land on which settlers would live. The colony offered settlers 50 acres of land for each member of their family, provided food and equipment payments, and waived the land taxes for 10 years. Several hundred settlers took advantage of these incentives, and nine townships were settled in all, by people from England, Germany, and Switzerland. Among the most successful of these townships were Orangeburg and Williamsburg.
South Carolina turned out to be one of the major ports of the American colonies. South Carolina traders in particular enjoyed the protection of the British Navy that the Navigation Acts allowed. South Carolina was the site of the first European settlement in North America. In 1526 San Miguel de Guadalupe was established by settlers from Hispanolia. The party returned to Hispanolia after suffering many deaths due to fever the first year. South Carolina's outer banks were the scene of the first British colonizing efforts in North America. Both attempts, in the late 1500's, to form a colony on Roanoke Island did not succeed. The Spanish built Fort San Felipe on Parris Island in 1566 and made the new settlement there, known as Santa Elena, the capital of La Florida Province.
In 1576, under attack from Native Americans, Santa Elena was abandoned, but the fort was rebuilt the next year. The English also posed a threat. A decade later, after Sir Francis Drake had destroyed St. Augustine, the Spanish decided to concentrate their forces there. With the withdrawal from Santa Elena to St. Augustine in 1587, South Carolina / Georgia was again left to the Native Americans until the English established the first permanent European settlement at Albemarle Point on the Ashley River in 1670. When England began to colonize North America, "Virginia" was the name Queen Elizabeth I of England (who was known as the "Virgin Queen" because she never married) gave to the whole area explored by the 1584 expedition of Sir Walter Raleigh along the coast of North America, eventually applying to the whole coast from South Carolina to Maine/ Massachusetts and the Canadian Maritimes. The English first attempted to establish a colony in this region at what is now St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. Humphrey Gilbert took possession of the region for England in 1583. In 1585, Walter Raleigh attempted to establish another colony on the Outer Banks of what is now North Carolina on Roanoke Island.
The Carolinas were divided into North and South by 1729, when seven of the eight Lords Proprietors sold out (rendering Carolina a crown colony).
At the end of the 16th century, among Native American people living in what now is Virginia were the Cherokee, Chickahominy, Mattaponi, Meherrin, Monacan, Nansemond, Nottoway, Pamunkey, Pohick, Powhatan, Rappahannock, Saponi, and Tuscarora. The natives are often divided into three groups. The largest group are known as the Algonquian who numbered over 10,000. The other groups are the Iroquoian (numbering 2,500) and the Siouan. When the first English settlers arrived at Jamestown in 1607, the Algonquian tribes controlled most of Virginia east of the fall line and were united under Chief Powhatan in what has been called the Powhatan Confederacy.