In the colonial years, English and Scots traders from Charles Town (later known as
Charleston) were the first Europeans to make regular forays into this back country, part of the traditional territory of the
Cherokee Nation, which had numerous towns on the upper tributaries of the Savannah River, especially along the Keowee River. Their territory extended into modern western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee and northeastern Georgia. The traders called this route in South Carolina the "Cherokee Path." The trade in deerskins was highly lucrative, and traders passed on information among them about landmarks and the distances to their customers in the Nation. They estimated mileage between streams based on their day's travel. They noted unusual aspects, such as the six creeks that ran unexpectedly south away from the
Saluda River and, further west, nine creeks that ran south away from the
Savannah River, noting them on maps as "6" and "9". A town in this area and a district both became known as "Ninety-Six", which historian David P. George believes is related to traders' references to these two landmark groups of streams. Using historical accounts and
USGS maps, he and other historians have traced the Cherokee Path across present-day Greenwood County, territory that at the time was part of other districts. After the Cherokee were removed from the area through treaty cessions and
Indian Removal, European Americans moved in, developing large cotton plantations that were dependent on the labor of
enslaved Africans. This upland region of the Piedmont supported widespread cultivation of short-staple cotton, a variety made profitable by the late 18th-century invention of the
cotton gin for processing it. Cotton was the chief commodity of the South before the Civil War, and was important afterward as well. The construction of the
Charlotte and South Carolina Railroad in 1852 in this area enabled planters to more easily get their products to market. Greenwood County was formed in 1897 from portions of
Abbeville and
Edgefield counties, which had originally been part of the old
Ninety-Six District. It was named for its county seat,
Greenwood. The town was named around 1824 after a cotton plantation owned by John McGehee, an early resident. The county and region has continued to be agricultural in the 21st century, although crops have changed. In the late nineteenth century, conservative white Democrats had continued efforts to suppress black voting, through fraud and violence. Beginning with Mississippi in 1890, state legislatures passed new constitutions and laws that essentially
disenfranchised most blacks. They maintained this political exclusion for decades, weakening the Republican Party throughout the South, where it had chiefly attracted
freedmen and their descendants. South Carolina passed such a constitution in 1895 but violence continued around elections as African Americans tried to vote for Republican candidates. White Democrats were determined to regain power after a fusionist ticket had been elected at the state level. In November 1898 the
Phoenix Election riot broke out, after an armed altercation at the polling place. The Republican Congressional candidate was
Rhett R. Tolbert. He came from a major planter family in the area. His brother Thomas P. Jr, was collecting affidavits in Phoenix from African Americans who wanted to vote for Tolbert but had been prevented from doing so. Democrat Giels O. Ethridge, came from a polling place two miles away and confronted him. Ethridge was fatally shot; blacks were accused of killing him. White Democrats attacked Republican Thomas Tolbert and African Americans with him, wounding them seriously. (Tolbert later said that Ethridge was shot by his own people.) John R. Tolbert, their father, was also wounded, and he and another son Joseph fled to Charleston, where the senior Tolbert was US customs officer of the port. Violence took place throughout the Phoenix area for four days, with armed groups of whites coming from around the county to hunt down black suspects. A mob of 600–1000 armed white men had gathered in Phoenix before events ended. Several African-American men were killed; at least six were lynched near Rehoboth Church. An inquest concluded their deaths were from "persons unknown." This region continued to depend on agriculture, which was struggling. Cotton crops throughout the South were damaged by the
boll weevil. Many African Americans left this and other rural counties in the early 20th century in the
Great Migration from 1910 to 1940, to escape
Jim Crow suppression and violence, and gain jobs in industrial cities of the North and Midwest. The
Great Depression of the 1930s altered the economy and landscape of Greenwood County. Farmers were impoverished, and land values declined. As local textile mills struggled to survive, they resisted union efforts to organize the workers. After 1933,
New Deal programs of the
Franklin D. Roosevelt administration offered limited work relief for the unemployed, as the federal government invested in numerous local infrastructure programs to provide jobs and build for the future. The largest New Deal project in the area was construction of Buzzard's Roost Dam on the
Saluda River to impound
Lake Greenwood and generate electricity at a county-owned power plant. Since then, the county sold the hydroelectric plant to
Duke Power Company, which dominates the regional market. The lake offers residents and visitors an array of recreational facilities. Since 1950, Greenwood County has developed a diversified industrial base. New factories have been constructed by such major corporations as
Capsugel (Lonza),
Fujifilm,
Monsanto (Ascend), and
VELUX. ==Geography==