South Carolina ( KARR-ə-LY-nə) is a state in the Southeastern, South Atlantic and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia to the west and south across the Savannah River. Along with North Carolina, it makes up the Carolinas region of the East Coast. South Carolina is the 11th-smallest and 23rd-most populous U.S. state, with a population of 5.12 million at the 2020 census. South Carolina is composed of 46 counties. Its capital is Columbia, while its most populous city is Charleston. Other urban areas include the Upstate, the state's largest metropolitan area which includes Greenville and Spartanburg, as well as Myrtle Beach.
South Carolina was named in honor of King Charles I of England, who first formed the English colony, with Carolus being Latin for "Charles". In 1712 the Province of South Carolina was formed. One of the original Thirteen Colonies, South Carolina became a royal colony in 1719. During the American Revolutionary War, South Carolina was the site of major activity among the American colonies, with more than 200 battles and skirmishes fought within the state. South Carolina became the eighth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution on May 23, 1788.
A slave state, South Carolina was the first state to vote in favor of secession from the United States in 1860; after being part of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, the state was readmitted to the Union in 1868. During the early-to-mid 20th century, the state started to see economic progress as many textile mills and factories were built across the state. The civil rights movement of the mid-20th century helped end segregation and legal discrimination policies within the state. Economic diversification in South Carolina continued to pick up speed during and in the ensuing decades after World War II.
In the early 21st century, South Carolina's economy is based on industries such as aerospace, agribusiness, automotive manufacturing, and tourism. In 2019, its GDP was $213.45 billion. Within South Carolina from east to west are three main geographic regions, the Atlantic coastal plain, the Piedmont, and the Blue Ridge Mountains in the northwestern corner of Upstate South Carolina. South Carolina has primarily a humid subtropical climate, with hot, humid summers and mild winters. Areas in the Upstate have a subtropical highland climate. Along South Carolina's eastern coastal plain are many salt marshes and estuaries. South Carolina's southeastern Lowcountry contains portions of the Sea Islands, a chain of barrier islands along the Atlantic Ocean.
History
Precolonial period
There is evidence of human activities in the area dating to about 50,000 years ago. At the time Europeans arrived, marking the end Pre-Columbian era around 1500, there were many separate Native American polities including the powerful Cofitachequi populated by a variety of nations including the largest the Cherokee and the Catawba, with a total population being up to 20,000 around 1600.
Up the rivers of the eastern coastal plain lived about a dozen tribes of Siouan background. Along the Savannah River were the Apalachee, Yuchi, and the Yamasee. Further west were the Cherokee, and along the Catawba River, the Catawba. These tribes were village-dwellers, relying on agriculture as their primary food source. The Cherokee lived in wattle and daub houses made with wood and clay, roofed with wood or thatched grass.
About a dozen or more separate small tribes summered on the coast harvesting oysters and fish, and cultivating corn, peas and beans. Travelling inland as much as 50 miles (80 km) mostly by canoe, they wintered on the coastal plain, hunting deer and gathering nuts and fruit. The names of these tribes survive in place names like Edisto Island, Kiawah Island, and the Ashepoo River.
Exploration
The Spanish were the first Europeans in the area. From June 24 to July 14, 1521, they explored the land around Winyah Bay. On October 8, 1526, they founded San Miguel de Gualdape, near present-day Georgetown, South Carolina. It was the first European settlement in what is now the contiguous United States. Established with five hundred settlers, it was abandoned eight months later by one hundred and fifty survivors. In 1540, Hernando de Soto explored the region and the main town of Cofitachequi, where he captured the queen of the Maskoki (Muscogee) and the Chelaque (Cherokee) who had welcomed him.
In 1562 French Huguenots established a settlement at what is now the Charlesfort-Santa Elena archaeological site on Parris Island. Many of these settlers preferred a natural life far from civilization and the atrocities of the Wars of Religion. The garrison lacked supplies, however, and the soldiers (as in the France Antarctique) soon ran away. The French returned two years later but settled in present-day Florida rather than South Carolina.
Colonization
In 1629, King Charles I of England established the province of Carolana, an area covering what is now South and North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. Carolana was granted to Sir Robert Heath, who intended to allow French Huguenots to settle there; however, King Charles refused to grant permission to settle to anyone who was not a member of the Anglican Church, leading to the failure of the colony. In 1663, King Charles II created the Province of Carolina by granting the same land to eight Lords Proprietors in return for their financial and political assistance in restoring him to the throne in 1660. Anthony Ashley Cooper, one of the Lord Proprietors, planned the Grand Model for the Province of Carolina and wrote the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, which laid the basis for the future colony. His utopia was inspired by John Locke, an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism".
The Carolina slave trade, which included both trading and direct raids by colonists, was the largest among the British colonies in North America. Between 1670 and 1715, between 24,000 and 51,000 captive Native Americans were exported from South Carolina – more than the number of Africans imported to the colonies of the future United States during the same period. Additional enslaved Native Americans were exported from South Carolina to other U.S. colonies. The historian Alan Gallay says, "the trade in Indian slaves was at the center of the English empire's development in the American South. The trade in Indian slaves was the most important factor affecting the South in the period 1670 to 1715".
In the 1670s, English planters from Barbados established themselves near present-day Charleston. Settlers from all over Europe built rice plantations in the South Carolina Lowcountry, east of the Atlantic Seaboard fall line. Plantation labor was done by enslaved Africans who formed the majority of the population by 1720. Another cash crop was the indigo plant, a plant source of blue dye, developed by Eliza Lucas.
Meanwhile, Upstate South Carolina, west of the Fall Line, was settled by small farmers and traders, who due to resource competition fought a number of wars with confederated Native American tribes westward. Colonists overthrew the proprietors' rule, seeking more direct representation. In 1712, the former Province of Carolina split into North and South Carolina. In 1719, South Carolina was officially made a royal colony.
South Carolina prospered from the fertility of the lowcountry and the harbors, such as at Charleston. It allowed religious toleration, encouraging settlement, and trade in deerskin, lumber, and beef thrived. Rice cultivation was developed on a large scale on the back of slave labor.
By the second half of the 1700s, South Carolina was one of the richest of the Thirteen Colonies.
The American Revolution
On March 26, 1776, the colony adopted the Constitution of South Carolina, electing John Rutledge as the state's first president. In February 1778, South Carolina became the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation, the initial governing document of the United States, and in May 1788, South Carolina ratified the United States Constitution, becoming the eighth state to enter the union.
This flag flew during the Battle of Sullivan's Island (June 28, 1776), where patriot forces defended a fort made of palmetto logs against a British naval attack. The spongy palmetto wood absorbed cannon fire, helping the Americans repel the British and save Charleston for years. Sergeant William Jasper's heroic act of retrieving the shot-down flag became legendary.
During the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), about a third of combat action took place in South Carolina, more than any other state. Inhabitants of the state endured being invaded by British forces and an ongoing civil war between loyalists and partisans that devastated the backcountry. It is estimated 25,000 slaves (30% of those in South Carolina) fled, migrated or died during the war.
Antebellum
America's first census in 1790 put the state's population at nearly 250,000. By the 1800 census, the population had increased 38 per cent to nearly 340,000 of which 146,000 were slaves. At that time South Carolina had the largest population of Jews in the sixteen states of the United States, mostly based in Savannah and Charleston, the latter being the country's fifth largest city.
In the Antebellum period (before the Civil War) the state's economy and population grew. Cotton became an important crop after the invention of the cotton gin. While nominally democratic, from 1790 until 1865, wealthy male landowners were in control of South Carolina. For example, a man was not eligible to sit in the State House of Representatives unless he possessed an estate of 500 acres of land and 10 Negroes, or at least 150 pounds sterling.
Columbia, the new state capital was founded in the center of the state, and the State Legislature first met there in 1790. The town grew after it was connected to Charleston by the Santee Canal in 1800, one of the first canals in the United States.
As dissatisfaction of the planters ruling class with the federal government grew, in the 1820s John C. Calhoun became a leading proponent of states' rights, limited government, nullification of the U.S. Constitution, and free trade. In 1832, the Ordinance of Nullification declared federal tariff laws unconstitutional and not to be enforced in the state, leading to the Nullification Crisis. The federal Force Bill was enacted to use whatever military force necessary to enforce federal law in the state, bringing South Carolina back into line.
An 1831 House Report from the Committee on Military Affairs noted that Before the commencement of the war with Great Britain, and for a long time afterwards, the State of South Carolina was almost destitute of any of the means of military protection, excepting as such could be furnished by her own resources. In the harbor of Charleston alone were there any forts, and these were in so feeble a condition, that at a period, when a British squadron was engaged in sounding the depth of water off the bar, and its commander apparently meditating an attack upon the forts, the quantity of gunpowder in the harbor, belonging to the United States, was not more than sufficient to have enabled the garrison to fire a single round.
In the United States presidential election of 1860, voting was sharply divided, with the South voting for the Southern Democrats and the North for Abraham Lincoln's Republican Party. Lincoln was anti-slavery, did not acknowledge the right to secession, and would not yield federal property in Southern states. Southern secessionists believed Lincoln's election meant long-term doom for their slavery-based agrarian economy and social system.
Lincoln was elected president on November 6, 1860. The state House of Representatives three days later passed the "Resolution to Call the Election of Abraham Lincoln as U.S. President a Hostile Act", and within weeks South Carolina became the first state to secede.
American Civil War 1861–1865
On April 12, 1861, Confederate batteries began shelling the Union Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, and the American Civil War began. In November of that year, the Union attacked Port Royal Sound and soon occupied Beaufort County and the neighboring Sea Islands. For the rest of the war, this area served as a Union base and staging point for other operations. Whites abandoned their plantations, leaving behind about ten thousand enslaved people. Several Northern charities partnered with the federal government to help these people run the cotton farms themselves under the Port Royal Experiment. Workers were paid by the pound harvested and thus became the first enslaved people freed by the Union forces to earn wages.
Although the state was not a major battleground, the war ruined the state's economy. More than 60,000 soldiers from South Carolina served in the war, with the state losing an estimated 18,000 troops. Though no regiments of Southern Unionists were formed in South Carolina due to a smaller unionist presence, the Upstate region of the state would be a haven for Confederate Army deserters and resisters, as they used the Upstate topography and traditional community relations to resist service in the Confederate ranks. At the end of the war in early 1865, the troops of General William Tecumseh Sherman marched across the state devastating plantations and most of Columbia. South Carolina would be readmitted to the Union on July 9, 1868.
Reconstruction 1865–1877
In Texas vs. White (1869), the Supreme Court ruled the ordinances of secession (including that of South Carolina) were invalid, and thus those states had never left the Union. However, South Carolina did not regain representation in Congress until that date.
Until the 1868 presidential election, South Carolina's legislature, not the voters, chose the state's electors for the presidential election. South Carolina was the last state to choose its electors in this manner. During Reconstruction, South Carolina maintained a majority-black government, which lasted until approximately 1876 when Democrats and former Confederates committed voter fraud to regain power. On October 19, 1871, President Ulysses S. Grant suspended habeas corpus in nine South Carolina counties under the authority of the Ku Klux Klan Act. Led by Grant's Attorney General Amos T. Akerman, hundreds of Klansmen were arrested while 2,000 Klansmen fled the state. This was done to suppress Klan violence against African-American and white voters in the South. In the mid-to-late 1870s, white Democrats used paramilitary groups such as the Red Shirts to intimidate and terrorize black voters. They regained political control of the state under conservative white "Redeemers" and pro-business Bourbon Democrats. In 1877, the federal government withdrew its troops as part of the Compromise of 1877 that ended Reconstruction.
Populist and agrarian movements
The state became a hotbed of racial and economic tensions during the Populist and Agrarian movements of the 1890s. A Republican-Populist biracial coalition took power away from White Democrats temporarily in North Carolina. To prevent that from happening, Democrats gained passage of a new constitution in 1895 which effectively disenfranchised almost all blacks and many poor whites by new requirements for poll taxes, residency, and literacy tests that dramatically reduced the voter rolls. By 1896, only 5,500 black voters remained on the voter registration rolls, although they constituted a majority of the state's population. The 1900 census demonstrated the extent of disenfranchisement: the 782,509 African American citizens comprised more than 58% of the state's population, but they were essentially without any political representation in the Jim Crow society.
The 1895 constitution overturned local representative government, reducing the role of the counties to agents of state government, effectively ruled by the General Assembly, through the legislative delegations for each county. As each county had one state senator, that person had considerable power. The counties lacked representative government until home rule was passed in 1975.
Governor "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman, a Populist, led the effort to disenfranchise the blacks and poor whites, although he controlled Democratic state politics from the 1890s to 1910 with a base among poor white farmers. During the constitutional convention in 1895, he supported another man's proposal that the state adopt a one-drop rule, as well as prohibit marriage between whites and anyone with any known African ancestry.
Some members of the convention realized prominent white families with some African ancestry could be affected by such legislation. In terms similar to a debate in Virginia in 1853 on a similar proposal (which was dropped), George Dionysius Tillman said in opposition:
If the law is made as it now stands respectable families in Aiken, Barnwell, Colleton, and Orangeburg will be denied the right to intermarry among people with whom they are now associated and identified. At least one hundred families would be affected to my knowledge. They have sent good soldiers to the Confederate Army, and are now landowners and taxpayers. Those men served creditably, and it would be unjust and disgraceful to embarrass them in this way. It is a scientific fact that there is not one full-blooded Caucasian on the floor of this convention. Every member has in him a certain mixture of ... colored blood. The pure-blooded white has needed and received a certain infusion of darker blood to give him readiness and purpose. It would be a cruel injustice and the source of endless litigation, of scandal, horror, feud, and bloodshed to undertake to annul or forbid marriage for a remote, perhaps obsolete trace of Negro blood. The doors would be open to scandal, malice and greed; to statements on the witness stand that the father or grandfather or grandmother had said that A or B had Negro blood in their veins. Any man who is half a man would be ready to blow up half the world with dynamite to prevent or avenge attacks upon the honor of his mother in the legitimacy or purity of the blood of his father.
The state postponed such a one-drop law for years. Virginian legislators adopted a one-drop law in 1924, forgetting that their state had many people of mixed ancestry among those who identified as white.
20th century
Early in the 20th century, South Carolina developed a thriving textile industry. The state also converted its main agricultural base from cotton, to more profitable crops. It would attract large military bases during World War I, through its majority Democratic congressional delegation, part of the one-party Solid South following disenfranchisement of blacks.
In the late 19th century, South Carolina would implement Jim Crow laws which enforced racial segregation policies until the 1960s. During the early-to-mid part of the 20th century, millions of African Americans left South Carolina and other southern states for jobs, opportunities, and relative freedom in U.S. cities outside the former Confederate states. In total from 1910 to 1970, 6.5 million blacks left the South in the Great Migration. By 1930, South Carolina had a white majority population for the first time since 1708. South Carolina was one of several states that initially rejected the Nineteenth Amendment (1920) giving women the right to vote. The South Carolina legislature later ratified the amendment on July 1, 1969.
The struggle of the civil rights movement took place in South Carolina, as they did in other Southern states and elsewhere within the country. South Carolina would experience a much less violent movement than other Deep South states. This tranquil transition from a Jim Crow society occurred because the state's white and black leaders were willing to accept slow change, rather than being utterly unwilling to accept change at all. Other South Carolina political figures, like Sen. Strom Thurmond, on the other hand, were among the nation's most radical and effective opponents of social equality and integration.
During the mid-to-late 20th century, South Carolina started to see economic progress first in the textile industry and then in manufacturing. Tourism also started to form into a major industry within the state during the 20th century, especially in areas such as Myrtle Beach and Charleston.
21st century
As the 21st century progresses, South Carolina has attracted new business by having a 5% corporate income tax rate, no state property tax, no local income tax, no inventory tax, no sales tax on manufacturing equipment, industrial power or materials for finished products; no wholesale tax, and no unitary tax on worldwide profits.
South Carolina was one of the first states to stop paying for "early elective" deliveries of babies, under either Medicaid and private insurance. The term early elective is defined as a labor induction or Cesarean section between 37 and 39 weeks. The change was intended to result in healthier babies and fewer costs for the state of South Carolina.
On November 20, 2014, South Carolina became the 35th state to legalize same-sex marriages, when a federal court ordered the change.
As of 2022, South Carolina had one of the lowest percentages among all states of women in state legislature, at 17.6% (only five states had a lower percentage; the national average is 30.7%; with the highest percentage being in Nevada at 61.9%).
Geography
Regions
The state can be divided into three natural geographic areas which then can be subdivided into five distinct cultural regions. The natural environment is divided from east to west by the Atlantic coastal plain, the Piedmont, and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Culturally, the coastal plain is split into the Lowcountry and the Pee Dee region. While, the upper Piedmont region is referred to as the Piedmont and the lower Piedmont region is referred to as the Midlands. The area surrounding the Blue Ridge Mountains is known as the Upstate. The Atlantic Coastal Plain makes up two-thirds of the state. Its eastern border is the Sea Islands, a chain of tidal and barrier islands. The border between the lowcountry and the upcountry is defined by the Atlantic Seaboard fall line, which marks the limit of navigable rivers.
Altogether, the state has a total area of 32,020.49 square miles (82,932.7 km2), of which 30,060.70 square miles (77,856.9 km2) is land and 1,959.79 square miles (5,075.8 km2) (6.12%) is water.
Atlantic Coastal Plain
The Atlantic Coastal plain consists of sediments and sedimentary rocks that range in age from Cretaceous to Present. The terrain is relatively flat and the soil is composed predominantly of sand, silt, and clay. Areas with better drainage make excellent farmland, though some land is swampy. An unusual feature of the coastal plain is a large number of low-relief topographic depressions named Carolina bays. The bays tend to be oval, lining up in a northwest to southeast orientation. The eastern portion of the coastal plain contains many salt marshes and estuaries, as well as natural ports such as Georgetown and Charleston. The natural areas of the coastal plain are part of the Middle Atlantic coastal forests ecoregion.