Ethnicity

Among Asian religious traditions, those introduced by Indian immigrants—including Hindu, Jain, and Sikh groups—have probably had greater impact on South Carolina’s religious landscape.

Also known as Little Carpenter, he was an influential leader of the Cherokees in the mid-1700s.

Catawba women have made pottery for hundreds of years, and archaeologists credit them with sustaining the tribe through this traditional pottery, which is the oldest art form still produced in South Carolina.

In 1824 forty-eight members of Beth Elohim, led by Isaac Harby and Abraham Moise, whose requests for changes in worship services had been rejected by the adjunta (board of trustees), formed the Reform Society of Israelites. This was the first attempt to reform Judaism in the United States; it functioned for nine years. The synagogue, now the oldest surviving Reform synagogue in the world, became a National Historic Landmark in 1980.

The grandson of former chief Samuel Taylor Blue, Gilbert Blue was elected chief of the Catawba Tribe of South Carolina in 1973. Under Chief Blue’s leadership, the Catawba successfully pursued their lawsuit against the state of South Carolina for land claims under the Nations Ford Treaty of 1840 and their quest for the reinstatement of status as a federally recognized Indian tribe.

Chief Samuel Blue was the driving force behind the political revival of the Catawba tribe. It was during his second administration that the Catawba finally became a federally recognized tribe and recovered parts of their original reservation.

The genesis of Boonesborough Township lay in the 1761 petition of John Pouag, the Reverend John Baxter, John Greg, John Rae, and David Rae for a grant of forty thousand acres to be reserved for the settlement of Irish immigrants. Pouag and Greg were merchants of Charleston and London, respectively, while Baxter had brought settlers from Belfast to Williamsburg Township.

Following the death of Governor Edward Tynte in June 1710, Broughton was a leading candidate for the governorship. He lost, however, after Robert Gibbes bribed a councilor and secured the post for himself. Broughton and armed supporters marched on Charleston in protest but withdrew shortly thereafter. Capitalizing again on family connections, Broughton became lieutenant governor of South Carolina in 1731, after being recommended by Governor Robert Johnson, his brother-in-law. Following Johnson’s death in May 1735, Broughton assumed the role of acting governor.

In February 1742, when Bryan sent the assembly a journal of his predictions that God would use the slave population to punish those who profaned his laws, the Commons House ordered his arrest. Bryan fled and underwent a grave crisis of faith. Witnesses claimed that, like Moses, he attempted to part the waters of a creek and cross that way, and he was nearly drowned. Shortly thereafter, Bryan wrote the Speaker of the House apologizing for “the Dishonour I’ve done to God, as well as the Disquiet which I may have occasioned to my Country.”

As a delegate to the 1868 constitutional convention, he served as chair of the education committee and advocated a statewide system of integrated public education. In 1868 he was elected secretary of state, becoming the first African American in the United States elected to statewide office.

Among the Catawba Indians in present-day York County, an unbroken chain of pottery production has helped preserve a cultural identity that was nearly lost after European settlement.

Catawba legend relates that the tribe arrived in South Carolina, near present-day Fort Mill, from the north a few hundred years before European contact.

The Cherokee Path was one of the most important trade networks of early Carolina, connecting the city of Charleston with the Cherokee Indians of South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee.

The conflict that led to war began in Virginia in late 1758, when settlers attacked and killed several Cherokee warriors returning from battles against the French. The Cherokees retaliated in North Carolina in spring 1759, and the conflict spread southward.

By the fall of 1776 the major campaign of the war had concluded. The Cherokees lost as many as two thousand killed and, despite continued British support, could fight no longer.

Stable villages were possible because of the Cherokees’ reliance on agriculture, especially corn. Agriculture was the domain of Cherokee women, and women retained important positions in Cherokee decision-making and politics.

Francisco was a youth or a young man in 1521, when Spanish slave raiders captured him with a group of sixty men and women from a land whose name the Spaniards understood to be “Chicora.”

On arriving at Cofitachiqui, De Soto was met by a young woman the Spanish called the “Lady of Cofitachiqui.” According to her, the province had suffered a great pestilence, and she ruled following the death of a male relative.

Colonoware is most closely associated with Native Americans and African Americans, but associations vary considerably. Although the pottery was a distinctive local creation, it had roots and influences that came from Europe and Africa as well as North America.

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.