The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina

1514-1861

Lawrence S. Rowland, Alexander Moore, George C. Rogers, Jr.

• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781570030901
• eBook ISBN: 9781643361635
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early American History
• Index: History

The complex, colorful history of South Carolina's southeastern corner

In the first volume of The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina, three distinguished historians of the Palmetto State recount more than three centuries of Spanish and French exploration, English and Huguenot agriculture, and African slave labor as they trace the history of one of North America's oldest European settlements. From the sixteenth-century forays of the Spaniards to the invasion of Union forces in 1861, Lawrence S. Rowland, Alexander Moore, and George C. Rogers, Jr., chronicle the settlement and development of the geographical region comprised of what is now Beaufort, Jasper, Hampton, and part of Allendale counties.

The authors describe the ill-fated attempts of the Spanish and French to settle the Port Royal Sound area and the arrival of the British in 1663, which established the Beaufort District as the southern frontier of English North America. They tell of the region's bloody Indian Wars, participation in the American Revolution, and golden age of prosperity and influence following the introduction of Sea Island cotton.

In charting the approach of civil war, Rowland, Moore, and Rogers relate Beaufort District's decisive role in the Nullification Crisis and in the cultivation, by some of the district's native sons, of South Carolina's secessionist movement. Of particular interest, they profile the local African American, or Gullah, population - a community that has become well known for the retention of its African cultural and linguistic heritage.

Table of contents

• Cover
• The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina Volume 1, 1514–1861
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 American Indians in Beaufort County
• Chapter 2 Window on the Atlantic: The Rise and Fall of Santa Elena, 1514–1618
• Chapter 3 English, Scots, and Yemassee at Port Royal
• Chapter 4 Settling the Southern Frontier
• Chapter 5 Yemassee War
• Chapter 6 Settling the Indian Lands between the Combahee and Savannah Rivers
• Chapter 7 Africans and Evangelists
• Chapter 8 Beaufort and the Caribbean Cockpit
• Chapter 9 Indigo Culture, 1750–1775
• Chapter 10 Beaufort Economy on the Eve of the Revolution
• Chapter 11 Beaufort Assembly of 1772
• Chapter 12 American Revolution in the Beaufort District, 1775–1778
• Chapter 13 American Revolution in the Beaufort District, 1779–1783
• Chapter 14 Beaufort District and the New Nation
• Chapter 15 Introduction of Sea Island Cotton to the Beaufort District, 1790–1829
• Chapter 16 Upper St. Peter's Parish: The Last Frontier of the Beaufort District
• Chapter 17 Savannah River Rice Plantations, 1820–1860
• Chapter 18 Nullification Crisis and the Rise of the Rhett Faction
• Chapter 19 Beaufort District's African American Communities
• Chapter 20 Beaufort District's Farmers and Planters in 1850
• Chapter 21 The Mind of Antebellum Beaufort
• Chapter 22 The Bluffton Movement and the Road to Secession
• Chapter 23 The Battle of Port Royal Sound
• Bibliography
• Index