The Colonization of South Carolina

• African Americans played a significant role in the developing economy of South Carolina.

• The economy of SC was largely based on the plantation system.

• Most of the crops were labor intensive, requiring many workers to cultivate the land.

• In Virginia, indentured servants were used as laborers at first. However, by the time of the settlement of the Carolinas, there were fewer workers willing to accept a contract of indenture.

• Need for Slaves

• Initially, Carolina planters attempted to use Indians as workers, however natives could easily escape into the land that they knew and male natives were not accustomed to cultivating the land.

• Carolina settlers from Barbados brought their slaves with them. Additional slaves were forced through the “Middle Passage” from the west coast of Africa by way of the West Indies and sold on the auction block.

• Need for Slaves

• Africans brought with them knowledge of cultivating land, tending cattle and cultivating rice.

• Africans were also used to harvest the naval stores and lumber from the forests of the Carolinas that contributed to a thriving trade with Barbados and Britain.

• With the development of cash crops and the plantation system came an increase in the slave trade. Large-scale importation of African slaves began in the 1690s & 1000’s of slaves came to SC through the Charleston port.

African Craftsmanship

African rhythms could be heard in the call and response songs that slaves used to sustain their work and their spirit. Drums kept the beat of the fields and communicated with slaves on other plantations until they were banned by fearful whites after the Stono Rebellion

Slave CultureGrowing demand for both rice and indigo led plantation owners to import more slaves.

Slaves brought their African culture directly from West Africa, including language, dance, music, woodcarving, folk medicine, and basket weaving.

Foods such as yams became a staple of the southern diet. Gullah was a spoken language and the shared culture of Africans that developed in the Sea Islands off the coasts of SC and GA, where it is called Geechee.

The Gullah language was unique to the coastal region because of this area’s limited access and the large concentration of Africans. It was a combination of English words and African rules of grammar.

Gullah

As early as 1698, the Assembly began to worry that there were too many slaves in the colony.

However, slaves were vital to the economic success of the colony.

The Assembly did not want to limit the number of slaves coming into the colony. With the demand for more slaves came an increase in the slave trade that created a population imbalance.

Slave Debates

Slaves outnumbered whites by large numbers in many areas and this fact raised concerns about controlling the slave population. How do you think the government should have handled this problem?

A) Charge a slave tax to provide extra protection

B) Let the plantation owners handle it themselves and let them be responsible for any damage caused by a rebellion

C) End slavery all together and have a farmer revolt

D) Or think of your own governing idea and share it with the class.

Problem with Slavery so far

The Stono Rebellion, a slave revolt near Charles Town, significantly increased this concern.

This uprising began when a small group of slaves, who wanted to escape to St. Augustine, Florida where the Spanish said they would be free, broke into a store on the Stono River and killed two settlers.

Using their drums, the rebels summoned more slaves to join them.

Stono Rebellion

Analyze the picture and tell me about the artist’s perspective. Was the artist wanting us to pity the owners or the slaves?

Stono Rebellion

By day’s end, many settlers and slaves had been killed. As a result of the Stono Rebellion, slave codes, originally brought from Barbados, were strengthened.

Slaves codes [the Negro Act of 1740]

Prohibited slaves from:

Gathering without white supervision,

Learning to read and write

Carrying guns

Dress in a way "above the condition of slaves."

Stono Rebellion

Codes established tighter control of slaves.

It created harsher punishments for disobeying the law, and also fined slave owners who were cruel to their slaves.

Even after the Stono Rebellion, the slave trade was not limited.

Slave Codes

South Carolina had fewer free African-Americans than many other colonies.

Owners had the right to free their slaves for good cause in the early 1700s.

Some slaves were free by the last will and testament of their owners, for faithful service, or from masters freeing their slave mistresses and their children.

However this occurred rarely because the slaves were so valuable.

Some slaves were able to purchase their freedom as the result of having some special talent or skill that allowed them to be hired out and earn money which they used to purchase their freedom.

Free blacks were required by law to leave SC within six months or be re-enslaved and sold at auction.

Other Slave Rules

• South Carolina’s natural resources: deer, and pine

• SC also had broad expanses of fertile land, a mild climate, and a long growing season.

• Geographic conditions in the Low country made it suitable for rice planting.

• A port at Charleston and navigable waterways along the coast and into the interior made shipping goods to market possible.

What made SC a great place to start a life?

They worked hard for the money,so hard, honey. honey.

As a result of the use of its natural resources, a flourishing trade made South Carolina a profitable colony. Initially, traders obtained furs and deerskins from Native Americans in exchange for beads, trinkets, guns, and alcohol. When some Native Americans were forced into slavery, this relationship ended.

More on trade… Because the early Carolina settlers came from Barbados, South

Carolinians established a thriving trade with this Caribbean island. South Carolinians sold cattle and Native American slaves to the people of Barbados. South Carolina pine trees were a source of pitch and tar (naval stores) which the British used for making ships watertight.

Agriculture…

The growing African slave trade brought not only laborers but also their knowledge of cattle herding and rice planting to SC.

Rice became known as “Carolina Gold,” a staple crop and the source of long-term prosperity.

The determination of the settlers and the hard work of their slaves resulted in a growing agricultural economy.

Indigo As an immigrant from

Antigua, Eliza Lucas planted indigo because she was determined to make the family plantation successful. Indigo was a plant used to make a highly valued blue dye. The British government offered a subsidy as an incentive to anyone who would grow it. Eventually, Eliza Lucas succeeded and shared her success with other area planters. Indigo became a new cash crop for South Carolina.

Mercantilism… Political factors also contributed to South Carolina’s

prosperity. Mercantilism was an economic system in which the mother country controlled trade in order to export more goods than it imported. By enforcing mercantilist policies, the mother country would amass more gold and silver and become wealthy and powerful.

An Economic Partnership… South Carolina served as both a source of raw materials

and a market for British manufactured goods. This lessened the mother country’s dependence on foreign trade and thus improved her balance of trade (exports over imports).

The British government encouraged the development of new products such as indigo by offering subsidies (or bounties) to planters who grew it.

Exclusive Customers… Both rice and indigo were on the ‘enumerated’ list of products that

could be sold only to England. South Carolina planters therefore had a secure market in which to sell their crops.

However the British government did not enforce this part of the law on Carolina rice, giving South Carolina the economic advantage of a wider market.

Free from interference…

The British government was lax in its enforcement of most mercantilist laws (a condition known as salutary neglect) and so the people of British North America were free to develop their economies without much interference from the mother country.