Colonial Period (1670-1764)

In 1707 the Commons House of Assembly created the Board of Indian Commissioners to regulate the traffic between Indian traders and nations such as the Cherokees, Creeks, and Catawbas.

The chief theme in the early history of the Commons House was its transformation from an impotent institution to an imperious political body that jealously guarded its immense authority.

Although revised several times until abandoned in 1698, the Fundamental Constitutions framed the colony as a social hierarchy, encouraging new settlement based on landownership and a provision for religious freedom.

With the aid of John Locke, who was a member of his household and secretary to the proprietorship, Lord Ashley wrote the Fundamental Constitutions for the colony and oversaw arrangements for the expedition that brought the first permanent English settlers to South Carolina.

In South Carolina, Cooper completed his philosophical journey and became an ardent proponent of states’ rights. He was appointed the second president of South Carolina College in May 1820 and taught courses in chemistry, mineralogy, and political economy.

The first known professional artist in the South to explore the art of landscape for purely aesthetic purposes, Coram derived his initial style and approach by studying and copying picturesque English books and engravings.

At the heart of country ideology was a profound distrust of human nature. Endowed with reason, man deserved the liberty to chart his own destiny, yet he inevitably hurt others in his quest for fulfillment.

Craven had one of the longest tenures of any proprietary-era governor, and despite political conflict and the outbreak of the Yamassee War in 1715, his was considered one of the most successful terms of office.

According to legend, Cunningham developed a relentless animosity for all patriots in 1778 after the murder of his invalid brother by backcountry Whigs.

To the merchants and planters of Charleston, Dale appeared as an embodiment of the virtues of civility: he was learned, witty, and sociable.

An active member of the South Carolina Agricultural Society, Davie also assisted in negotiating the boundary dispute between North and South Carolina.

Davis’s most significant public undertaking was his involvement in the campaign to establish a public lunatic asylum in Columbia.

On October 20, 1757, De Brahm’s fortunes rose with the publication of his cartographic opus, “A Map of South Carolina and a Part of Georgia.” The elegant and precedent-setting map brought De Brahm to the attention of Europe.

His military career in Europe culminated in 1776, when he was commissioned a brigadier general in the French army. De Kalb subsequently decided to seek his military fortune in America, where he was contracted as a major general in the Continental army.

At trading posts the Catawbas, Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws exchanged dressed deerskins for blankets, firearms, shot, gunpowder, cloth, axes, hoes, and brass kettles.

DeSaussure and many of his fellow lowcountrymen feared that upcountry growth would overwhelm their interests, especially the protections given to both plantation and slave holdings. Regarding the increasingly egalitarian rhetoric of upcountry leaders and their yeomen constituents with “dread,” he warned of the “ultimate effects of a degrading, calumnating democracy.”

Dorchester was gradually abandoned following the Revolutionary War. Loss of population, an unhealthy location, and war-time destruction all contributed to the town’s demise.

As the seat of vast plantation holdings in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Drayton Hall was the home of scores of African Americans who lived and worked there as slaves and later as free men, including the Bowens family, whose ancestors probably arrived as slaves from Barbados with the Draytons.

He won a seat in the Provincial Congress in January 1775 and soon after sat on all important revolutionary committees. Drayton used his extensive powers to lead raids against the city’s royal post office and armories, thereby obtaining both crucial information regarding the intentions of the British Ministry and arms for the patriot forces.

This unique settlement of Lutheran refugees from Salzburg, Austria, was included in the Lutheran Synod of South Carolina until the formation of the Georgia Synod in 1860.