Page xv →Chronology

1660

First Navigation Act is passed, governing the terms of trade within the British Empire. Further acts in 1663, 1673, and 1696 codify and reinforce the strictures.

1670

Foundation of North and South Carolina follows the granting of land between Virginia and Spanish Florida by King Charles II to eight English aristocrats, the Lords Proprietors, and the arrival of the first English settlers.

1680

Charles Town, named in honor of the king, is relocated from its original site at Albemarle Point on the Ashley River to its current site on a peninsula between the Ashley and Cooper Rivers.

1690s

The first successful experiments in cultivating rice in the colony are made through a combination of European and African knowledge and techniques and the labor of slaves brought to South Carolina from Africa and the West Indies.

1704

Rice is added to the Navigation Acts’ list of “enumerated commodities.”

1710

South Carolina’s enslaved black residents first outnumber the colony’s white settlers at this approximate date.

1712

South Carolina’s first official agent in London, Abel Kettleby, is appointed with instructions to secure the continuation of a bounty on naval stores and to gain South Carolina the right to export rice to foreign markets.

1714–27

George I reigns.

1715

The Yamassee War breaks out. During 1715 and 1716 as many as four hundred traders and settlers living south of Charles Town are killed in an uprising of the region’s Yamassee Indians, in alliance with Creeks, Choctaws, and Cherokees.

1727–60

George II reigns.

Page xvi →1727–31

Samuel Wragg serves as South Carolina’s agent in London.

1729

South Carolina becomes a Crown colony after the colonists rejected proprietorial government a decade earlier and the Lords Proprietors formally surrendered ownership of the Carolinas to the British government.

1730

Rice Act permits direct rice exports from South Carolina to European ports south of Cape Finisterre (that is, Spain and Portugal).

1732

Georgia is founded on South Carolina’s southern frontier.

1733–49

Peregrine Fury serves as South Carolina’s agent in London.

1735

Rice Act is amended to allow direct rice exports to Spain and Portugal from Georgia.

September 1739

Stono Rebellion, South Carolina’s largest slave insurrection, occurs. As many as one hundred slaves seek to escape to Spanish Florida and kill about forty white settlers living south of Charles Town before the revolt is suppressed.

1739–48

War of Jenkins’ Ear and the War of the Austrian Succession: Britain is at war with Spain (1739–48) and France (1744–48) in continental Europe, the Mediterranean, North America, and the Caribbean.

late 1740s

Large-scale cultivation of indigo begins in South Carolina.

1748

London’s Carolina lobby, led by James Crokatt, secures a bounty of sixpence per pound on imports of indigo from South Carolina.

1749–55

James Crokatt serves as South Carolina’s agent in London.

1750

Growth of Raw Silk Act removes the duties on silk imported from the American colonies.

1751

Pot Ash and Pearl Ashes Act removes the duties on potash and pearl ashes, used in glass and soap making and in the textile industry, which are imported from America.

1753

James Crokatt attempts to resign metropolitan agency but is retained in the post for a further two years.

Page xvii →1756–63

Seven Years’ War: Britain is at war with France and Spain in continental Europe, North America, the Caribbean, and India.

1757–60

James Wright serves as South Carolina’s agent in London.

1760–1820

George III reigns.

1762–75

Charles Garth serves as South Carolina’s agent in London.

1764

Rice Act permits rice to be exported directly from South Carolina and Georgia to foreign colonies in the West Indies and South America.

1764

Hemp Act places bounties on imports of hemp and flax, essential to rope making, from the American colonies of eight pounds per ton.

1765–66

Charles Garth and London’s Carolina merchants lobby against the Stamp Act, which requires that printed material in the colonies should bear official stamps produced in Britain; and the Mutiny Act, which contains provisions relating to the quartering of troops in America.

1767

Parliament passes the Townshend Duties (Revenue Act), which impose new duties on colonial imports of tea, glass, lead, paints, and paper.

1770–82

Lord North is prime minister.

1774

Parliament passes the Coercive (or Intolerable) Acts, four punitive acts made in response to the Boston Tea Party.

1775–82

American Revolutionary War takes place.

January 1775

South Carolina’s Provincial Congress meets for the first time, succeeding the colonial assembly.

September 1775

British control in Charles Town ends with the departure of Governor Lord William Campbell.

December 1775

Parliament passes the Prohibitory Act, which outlaws British trade with the thirteen colonies in rebellion and permits the Royal Navy and British privateers to seize American produce as prizes of war.

March 1776

General Assembly of South Carolina succeeds the Provincial Congress.

May 1780

British forces under Sir Henry Clinton recapture Charles Town from Patriot control.

Page xviii →February 1782

South Carolina’s General Assembly, meeting in Jacksonborough, passes legislation penalizing Loyalists and owners of Carolinian land living in Britain, including confiscations.

March–June 1782

Marquess of Rockingham is prime minister.

June 1782–February 1783

Lord Shelburne is prime minister.

December 1782

British forces evacuate Charles Town, leaving it to Continental troops under General Nathanael Greene and the establishment of civil government led by Governor John Mathews.

1783

Charles Town is formally incorporated as a city and becomes Charleston.

April–December 1783

Fox-North coalition forms British government.

July 1783

An Order-in-Council limits trade between the United States and the British West Indies to vessels built and owned in Britain or its colonies.

September 1783

Treaty of Paris is signed, formally ending the war between Great Britain and the United States.

December 1783–1801

William Pitt the Younger is prime minister.

1791

British merchants present their claims for prewar debts in the United States to the British government.

1794

Jay Treaty between Great Britain and the United States attempts to resolve the two countries’ ongoing territorial, commercial, and financial disputes but arouses hostility in Charleston and elsewhere in the United States.