Spanish explorers sent by
Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón in 1521, and de Ayllón himself in 1526, were probably the first Europeans to visit Port Royal Sound, although there is debate over their exact routes. Port Royal Sound was named in 1562 by
Jean Ribault, who founded a short-lived
Huguenot colony at the bequest of the French admiral
Gaspard de Coligny, called
Charlesfort, on Parris Island. Port Royal Sound is thus the second oldest surviving French place-name in the U.S. In 1566
Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded the settlement of Santa Elena in the Port Royal Sound area. It remained an important Spanish colony until about 1587. In 1663 the
Province of Carolina was founded. While
Charles Town became the colony's center, the Port Royal Sound area was important strategically and economically from the colony's earliest years. In the early 1684 a group of about 150 Scottish immigrants founded a settlement called
Stuarts Town on the shores of Port Royal Sound. After these colonists encouraged the
Yamasee Indians to begin raiding
Spanish Florida the Spanish retaliated and, in 1686, destroyed Stuarts Town. Port Royal was one of the first British settlements established in the colony of South Carolina. Beaufort, founded around 1710, became the island's main settlement and the island became the core of St. Helena Parish. The Yamasee Indians were South Carolina's most important native ally between about 1685 and 1715. They were an amalgamated confederation of the remnants of earlier tribes such as the
Guale and Tama. Having been allies and enemies of both the Spanish and the British over time, and having moved widely throughout the southeast, by 1710 the Yamasee had settled in about ten towns in the Port Royal area. The names of some of the towns survive to the present as placenames, including Altamaha, Chechessee, Pocotaligo, and Huspah. Relations with South Carolina deteriorated in the early 18th century until the Yamasee decided to change sides. After the
Yamasee War of 1715 they, and many other Indians of the Port Royal regions, moved south of the
Savannah River, mostly becoming Spanish allies. This left South Carolina's southern frontier exposed, leading to the construction of several forts and the eventual establishment of the new colony of
Georgia. Fort Frederick was built on Port Royal Island in the 1730s. Today the
Fort Frederick Heritage Preserve contains the remains. Two weeks after October 19, 1861, The Roanoke, which would also carry 700 New York troops, included 1000 barrels of dried apples, bacon, bread, coffee, flour, pickles and pork, and 380 barrels and boxes of beans, bread, coffee, flour, pork, potatoes, rice, salt, sugar and vinegar, for troop rations, (plus 63 boxes of soap, supplied by the Colgate company). The Roanoke was one of 16 steamships of the Naval expedition that carried 15,000 Union troops south from Annapolis to capture Port Royal Sound, South Carolina. Single sheet 12x7½" to Capt. M.R. Morgan, U.S. Army Commissioner of Subsistence. October 19, 1861. Port Royal Sound was the first large amphibious operation of the Civil War. a significant victory that gave the Union a strategic Southern harbor between Savannah and Charleston. When occupation troops landed after the Naval battle, Southern planters in the vicinity fled, leaving behind thousands of their Black slaves now freed from enslavement, and joined, after the Emancipation Proclamation, by thousands of other escaped slaves from points South. This became the nucleus of the first community of self-governing freedmen in America. During the
American Civil War the Union naval commander
Samuel Francis Du Pont reduced the forts guarding Port Royal Sound. It remained in Union control for the rest of the war and became a major naval base. According to the
United States Geological Survey (USGS), variant and historical names for Port Royal Sound include Brayne Sound, Winneau River, Weenea River, Portus Regalis, Port Royal River, and Port Royal Entrance. ==See also==