Founding and initial growth in Charleston (1718) Restored to the throne following
Oliver Cromwell's
Protectorate, King Charles II granted the chartered Carolina territory to eight of his loyal friends, known as the
Lords Proprietors, in 1663. It took seven years before the Lords could arrange for settlement, the first being that of "Charles Town," the original name for the city. The community was established in 1670 by English colonists from
Bermuda, under the first
William Sayle,
governor of South Carolina, on the west bank of the
Ashley River a few miles northwest of the present city. It was soon designated by
Anthony Ashley Cooper, leader of the Lords Proprietor, to become a "great port towne", a destiny which the city fulfilled. By 1681, the settlement had grown, joined by settlers from England, Barbados, and
Virginia; and it was moved to the current peninsular location. As the capital of the
Carolina colony, Charles Town was a base for colonial expansion and was the southernmost point of settlement by
English American settlers during the late 17th century. The settlement was often subject to attack from sea and from land. Countries such as
Spain and
France that still contested
Britain's claim to the region launched periodic assaults on the town.
Native Americans and
pirates both raided it, though the
Yamasee War of the 1710s did not quite reach it. An example of an assault is the 1706 failed expedition during Queen Anne's War. Charleston's colonists erected a
fortification wall around the small settlement to aid in its defense. Two buildings remain from the Walled City: the Powder Magazine, where the city's supply of gunpowder was stored, and the
Pink House, believed to have been an old colonial tavern. A 1680 plan for the new settlement, the Grand Modell, laid out "the model of an exact regular town," and the future for the growing community. Land surrounding the intersection of Meeting and Broad Streets was set aside for a
Civic Square. Over time, it became known as the
Four Corners of the Law, referring to the various arms of governmental and
religious law presiding over the square and the growing city. In late May 1718, Charles Town was besieged by Edward Teach, commonly known as
Blackbeard, for nearly a week. His pirates plundered merchant ships and seized the passengers and crew of the
Crowley while demanding a chest of medicine from
Governor Robert Johnson. Receiving it, they released their nearly naked hostages and sailed up the coast for North Carolina. The wreck of Blackbeard's flagship, the ''
Queen Anne's Revenge'', has since been discovered and found to include a urethral syringe (used to treat
syphilis), pump
clysters (used to provide
enemas), a
porringer (possibly for
bloodletting), and a brass
mortar and pestle for preparing medicine. St. Philips Episcopal Church, Charleston's oldest and most noted church, was built on the southeast corner in 1752. The following year, the capitol of the colony was erected across the square. Because of its prominent position within the city and its elegant architecture, the building signaled to Charleston's citizens and visitors its importance within the British colonies. Provincial court met on the ground floor while the Commons House of Assembly and the Royal Governor's Council Chamber met on the second floor. By 1750, Charleston had become a bustling trade center, the hub of the Atlantic trade for the
Southern Colonies, and the wealthiest and largest city south of Philadelphia. By 1770, it was the fourth largest port in the colonies, after only Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, with a population of 11,000, slightly more than half of that slaves. Cotton, rice and
indigo were successfully cultivated by
Gullah people who survived the Middle Passage as enslaved planters. They were captured from the Congo-Angola border and
rice-producing regions of
West Africa, like the "Rice Coast," the "Windward Coast," the "Gambia," and "Sierra-Leon", and forced to work in the surrounding coastal low-country. The South Carolina and Georgia colonists ultimately adopted a system of
rice cultivation that drew heavily on the labor patterns and technical knowledge of their African slaves. Cotton, rice, indigo and
naval stores were exported in an extremely profitable shipping industry. It was the cultural and economic center of the South. As time went on, they developed a creolized Gullah language and culture, retaining many elements from West Africa. On Monday, May 4, 1761, a large tornado temporarily emptied the Ashley River and sank five warships lying offshore.
Ethnic and religious diversity While the earliest settlers primarily came from England, colonial Charleston was also home to a mixture of ethnic and religious groups. In colonial times,
Boston, Massachusetts, and Charleston were sister cities, and people of means spent summers in Boston and winters in Charleston. There was a great deal of trade with
Bermuda and the
Caribbean, and some people came to live in Charleston from these areas.
French,
Scots-Irish,
Scottish,
Irish, and
Germans migrated to the developing seacoast town, representing numerous
Protestant denominations, as well as
Roman Catholicism and
Judaism.
Sephardic Jews migrated to the city in such numbers that Charleston eventually was home to, by the beginning of the 19th century and until about 1830, the largest and wealthiest Jewish community in
North America The Jewish
Coming Street Cemetery, first established in 1762, attests to
their long-standing presence in the community. The first
Anglican church,
St. Philip's Episcopal Church, was built in 1682, although later destroyed by fire and relocated to its current location.
Slaves also comprised a major portion of the population, and were active in the city's religious community. Free black Charlestonians and slaves helped establish the Old Bethel
United Methodist Church in 1797, and the congregation of the
Emanuel A.M.E. Church stems from a religious group organized solely by African Americans, free and slave, in 1791. It is the oldest A.M.E. church in the south, and the second oldest A.M.E. church in the country. The first American
museum opened to the public on January 12, 1773 in Charleston. From the mid-18th century a large amount of
immigration was taking place in the upcountry of
the Carolinas, some of it coming from abroad through Charleston, but also much of it a southward movement from Virginia,
Maryland and
Pennsylvania, until the upcountry population was larger than the coastal population. The upcountry people were viewed by Charlestonians as being unpolished in many ways, and had different interests, setting the stage for several generations of conflicts between the upcountry and the Charleston elite.
Culture As Charleston grew, so did the community's cultural and social opportunities, especially for the elite merchants and planters. The first theater building in America, the
Dock Street Theatre, was built in Charleston in 1736, but was later replaced by the 19th-century Planter's Hotel where wealthy planters stayed during Charleston's horse-racing season (now the Dock Street Theatre, known as one of the oldest active theaters built for stage performance in the United States). While the activity of the Dock Street Theatre was only temporary, the city was often visited by the
Old American Company and several playhouses was founded for their use, until the city was given its first permanent theatre in the famous
Charleston Theatre of 1793. Benevolent societies were formed by several different ethnic groups: the South Carolina Society, founded by French
Huguenots in 1737; the German Friendly Society, founded in 1766; and the Hibernian Society, founded by Irish immigrants in 1801. The
Charleston Library Society was established in 1748 by some wealthy Charlestonians who wished to keep up with the scientific and philosophical issues of the day. This group also helped establish the
College of Charleston in 1770, the oldest college in South Carolina, the oldest municipal college in the United States, and the 13th oldest college in the United States.
Slavery During the early 17th century, it was difficult to acquire enslaved Africans north of the
Caribbean. To meet labor needs,
European colonists had practiced
Indian slavery for some time. The
Carolinians transformed the Indian slave trade during the late 17th and early 18th centuries by treating slaves as a trade commodity to be exported, mainly to the
West Indies. Alan Gallay estimates that between 1670 and 1715, between 24,000 and 51,000
Native Americans were captured and sold, from
South Carolina – many more than the number of
African slaves imported into the colonies of the
future United States during the same period. A major establishment of
African slavery in the
North American colonies occurred with the founding of Charleston (originally Charles Town) and
South Carolina, beginning in 1670. The colony was settled mainly by
planters from the overpopulated
sugar island colony of
Barbados, who brought relatively large numbers of African slaves from that island. By the mid-18th century, Charlestown, described as "the Jerusalem of American slavery, its capital and center of faith",{{cite book == American Revolution: 1775–1783 ==