Through Time

Africans likely first arrived in the area that would become South Carolina in 1526, as part of a Spanish expedition from the Caribbean. For the next century, ongoing struggles between Spanish, French, and indigenous groups in the region involved enslaved Africans who accompanied, and sometimes escaped from, European rivals.

After the English settled Charleston in 1670, the early colonists struggled to find a crop that would produce sufficient revenue for England, but by 1700 they discovered that rice was best suited for South Carolina’s semi-tropical climate. Early attempts to capitalize on this discovery failed due to the settlers’ ignorance of the intricacies involved in rice cultivation. Planters soon realized that using slave labor from the traditional rice-growing region of West Africa to perform this complex, arduous work, they could build economic stability.

Ultimately, the agricultural skill, ingenuity and technology of enslaved Africans made coastal South Carolina rice planters with the largest enslaved labor forces very rich. The floods fertilizing the inland and tidal rice fields also created deadly work conditions, from which tens of thousands of enslaved men, women and children perished in the stagnant and mosquito-and-disease-infested swamps, paying the ultimate price for an economic empire.

By 1708, the number of enslaved Africans and their descendants in South Carolina had grown to the point that they were the majority of the colony’s population. With some temporary fluctuations, this Black population majority would continue in the colony and later state of South Carolina until the Great Migration of the mid-twentieth century.

As horrendous as the enslavement of African people was in terms of how men, women and children were treated inhumanely, its role in stabilizing European (French, Spanish and English) settlements was based on it being a system of great economic advantage for whichever country utilized it. Building empires on the backs of the less powerful has roots throughout human history, but distinct differences emerged in the ways “New World” slavery not only defined bondage by color of skin, but also as a permanent status to assure keeping a multi-generational unpaid labor force. According to South Carolina historian, Walter Edgar, “Money/profit was at the root of the system.”

The mounting tensions between slaveholding and non-slaveholding states date back to the nation’s very beginning. By the time of the Civil War, African descended people looked to multiple strategies and alliances to gain emancipation, caring less about which side would win than which side would offer greater advantages to their communities seeking relief from the current conditions.

Examples of Black heroism and valor are found on both sides of the confrontation. At the war’s conclusion, it was clear that expectations were raised not only for a new way of life, but hopefully a recognition that Black people had proved themselves worthy citizens and able to perform tasks beyond the narrow limits imposed by slavery.

Putting a divided nation back together after so brutal a conflict (an estimated 750,000 war-related deaths) would be made more difficult because of uncertainty over the new status of emancipated Blacks. The success in painting African descendants as “inferior” and “sub-human” for so long meant a new set of warring parties (Black versus White) faced off in battles of citizenship, land ownership and other access to resources.

The Lowcountry offered some of the best examples of Black efforts to change the deeply seeded images and limits on people of color, although they were given that opportunity for only a few years. Many of the social, economic and political transformations of this era were designed to offer relief from rule by a few landed gentries, to a more democratic society. However, attitudes towards race took those changes in directions looking backward to a South relying on second class placement for people of color. Successes during the era can only suggest what a 20th and 21st-century region, state and nation could look like, and offer a model for future political and economic adjustments embracing all citizens.

Putting a divided nation back together after so brutal a conflict (an estimated 750,000 war-related deaths) would be made more difficult because of uncertainty over the new status of emancipated Blacks. The success in painting African descendants as “inferior” and “sub-human” for so long meant a new set of warring parties (Black versus White) faced off in battles of citizenship, land ownership and other access to resources.

The Lowcountry offered some of the best examples of Black efforts to change the deeply seeded images and limits on people of color, although they were given that opportunity for only a few years. Many of the social, economic and political transformations of this era were designed to offer relief from rule by a few landed gentries, to a more democratic society. However, attitudes towards race took those changes in directions looking backward to a South relying on second class placement for people of color. Successes during the era can only suggest what a 20th and 21st-century region, state and nation could look like, and offer a model for future political and economic adjustments embracing all citizens.

Many of the initiatives and strides for national recognition of African Americans as first-class citizens, entitled to the same rights and privileges as other residents, were reflected in Charleston’s own local history. Petitioning, boycotting, mass mobilization, law suits, voter registration drives and labor strikes are examples of the multiple approaches taken over decades to achieve equal rights.

One of Charleston's best known civil rights activists, educator Septima Poinsette Clark, fought for equal pay for Black teachers, and became the first Black woman elected to the Charleston School Board in 1975.

Today’s Charleston retains its beauty – and its complexities: historic and current. Since 2010, it has consistently been voted the No. 1 travel destination in the U.S. and Canada based on its historic sites and landmarks, culture and arts, restaurants and food, people, friendliness, and shopping. The roots of much of Charleston’s unique built environment, food, music, arts, and culture are found in the African American community – and the generations of enslaved Africans on whose backs an economic empire was built.

From fine art, craft, social justice, gospel music, and jazz to architecture, ironwork, poetry, cuisine, education, law, and medicine, the African American community enriches and influences every part of Charleston culture. We invite you to explore Charleston’s historic sites, exhibits, artifacts, archives, places, and people – to deepen your understanding and experience of this incomparable city.