Page 19 →5 Antebellum Landscape
Population Change, 1800–1830
The economy and landscape of South Carolina changed dramatically after the Revolution. Rice was still important in the Lowcountry, but indigo and tobacco were replaced by cotton in the Back Country as the main plantation crop. Cotton spread quickly because of the high demand from England’s textile industry, the invention of the cotton gin, better transportation links like canals and railroads, and the merchant class in Charleston. More people, both free and enslaved, came to live in South Carolina as the plantation economy grew.
South Carolina’s population more than doubled during the antebellum period. This growth varied considerably over time, from place to place, and in racial composition. Between 1800 and 1830, the total population grew by about 68 percent with the highest growth rate occurring in the interior. Growth was much slower during the latter part of the antebellum period due to a stagnating economy. Few immigrants came to South Carolina and there was a strong outmigration of planters, farmers, and enslaved people. Many people left to find more fertile soils or cheaper land in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.
Population Change, 1830–1860
Page 20 →Agriculture and Industry, ca. 1840
Agriculture
Extended Description
Icons represent tobacco, cotton, rice, wheat, hay, swine, cattle, and dairy.
South Carolina’s antebellum economy was dominated by agriculture. Rice, tobacco, and cotton were the main crops, but farms also produced wheat, hay, vegetables and fruits, dairy products, cattle, and swine.
Manufacturing of textiles and associated mill villages emerged after 1830. Before this there was little manufacturing except for a few flour and saw mills. Railroads helped to sell South Carolina’s goods, but also brought competition from other states. Small-scale iron-making occurred in the Upstate, but it struggled against superior products made in northern foundries. Gold deposits were worked in Lancaster, Spartanburg, and Union counties. The map shows the leading areas for some of these products.
Industry and Mining
Extended Description
Icons represent textile, bricks, gold, iron, and furniture.
Brick manufacturing occurred throughout South Carolina, often as a small-scale activity on plantations. Larger industrial operations began to appear during the nineteenth century. An example from later in that period is the Guignard Brick Works near Columbia where the remnants of beehive kilns are still present. The kilns are now surrounded by apartment homes near the riverfront walkway along the Congaree River.
Page 21 →Slavery
Year In Which Enslaved Population First Exceeded 50 Percent
Some early English colonists from Barbados brought enslaved Africans to South Carolina, where they established commercial plantation agriculture. South Carolina’s main crop, rice, was very labor intensive. This demand for labor fueled the slave trade. The port of Charleston quickly became the hub and largest site of the slave trade in colonial America. By 1730, Blacks outnumbered Whites two to one in the Lowcountry, the main area of the plantation economy and enslaved population during the colonial period. In the antebellum period, upland cotton expanded the enslaved population to the Back Country.
Enslaved people from West Africa were valued for their rice cultivation skills. They knew how to clear river floodplains, build dikes to create fields, and use the ebb and flow of the tide for irrigation. They also brought diverse music, food, and folk craft traditions from different African regions to South Carolina’s culture. Gullah, a creole language that combines West African languages and English, is a unique part of South Carolina’s coastal geography. The language is still spoken today in the Sea Islands and coastal areas stretching from North Carolina to Florida.
Enslaved, 1860
One way that the legacy of slavery is still evident in South Carolina’s landscape is in the form of slave quarters. These small dwellings, often in rows, were separate from the main plantation house. They were usually made from wood, about 15 by 20 feet in area, with simple windows and a door. Brick piers raised them off the ground.
Page 22 →Gullah Geechee Communities in Coastal South Carolina
South Carolina’s cultural traditions have been infuenced by the legacies of enslaved Africans who were forcibly brought to the state to work on rice, indigo, and cotton plantations. Some who escaped the violence of slavery found refuge in South Carolina’s Sea Islands and remote interior places. The Gullah Geechee people, many of whom are descendents of enslaved West Africans, have developed and retained unique culinary, artistic, and linguistic practices that blend African, European, and Native American traditions. For example, Gullah is a unique language developed and spoken by Gullah Geechee communities, and their praise songs have infuenced musical genres like jazz. Their rural and isolated location around South Carolina’s Sea Islands helped to cultivate and maintain these cultural practices. Gullah Geechee communities continue to live in the state’s coastal areas, though many are threatened by expanding development of neighborhoods and tourism.
Hoppin’ John is a dish of rice, bacon, peas, onions, and spices. Likely a blend of West African and French food traditions, enslaved people brought this recipe from the Caribbean to the Carolinas where it remains an important regional dish. It is seen as good luck to eat a bowl on New Year’s Day.
Sea grass basketry is a folk art tradition in the state that blends cultural practices from West Africa, Europe, and Indigenous peoples. Sweetgrass baskets, seen here for sale in Mt. Pleasant, are the official state craft of South Carolina. Development along Highway 17 brings more traffic to vendors but also threatens to displace Gullah artists and limit availability of sea grasses.
The Penn School was the first school in the South for formerly enslaved African Americans. In order to learn skills like carpentry and interior design, students were tasked with building cottages on campus. Gantt Cottage, pictured here, was used by Martin Luther King, Jr. as a retreat between 1964–1967.
During slavery, praise houses were places where enslaved people could worship independently. After emancipation, these small buildings remained important sites for community meetings and worship, which often included singing, clapping, and shouts bridging Christian practices with those of African religions.
Page 23 →Canals and Railroads
Canals, ca. 1825
To bring more trade to Charleston, the city’s merchants helped build a railroad network that connected the port to the Savannah River and other regions of the state. The first railroad captured cotton shipments on the Savannah River and ran from Charleston to Hamburg, beginning operation in 1834. Connections to the Upstate came later via Columbia. The rail pattern at the end of the antebellum period resembled a river system with trade flowing from all corners of the state to Charleston.
The economic success of upland cotton plantations depended on the efficient transport of cotton from the Back Country to Charleston and then on to markets abroad. Canal systems were an important transportation project that supported these economic connections. The Santee Canal, financed by merchants in the 1790s, and a series of short canals financed by the state in the 1820s, bypassed rapids and expanded the navigability of the river system.
Railroads, ca. 1860
The Landsford Canal was designed by Robert Mills. Five granite locks moved river traffic around the rock-strewn portions of the Catawba River. The canal was only two miles long and is still visible along a hiking path at Landsford Canal State Park on the Chester County side of the river. Many visitors now come to view the rocky shoal spider lilies shown here.
Page 24 →Civil War
In 1860, South Carolina led the secession of seven southern states that depended on slavery for their economies in forming the Confederate States of America. The Civil War began in 1861 when the Confederates attacked Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor. The Union naval blockade was formed to choke South Carolina’s economy, and deployed wartime strategies like purposefully sinking older ships to block harbors. Union victories in South Carolina were few early in the war, until 1865 when the state came under Union control as a result of Sherman’s March. Union General William T. Sherman, already having laid siege to Atlanta and Savannah, marched with more than 60,000 men to Columbia and to North Carolina. Confederate forces were routed and much of Columbia was burned. General Edward Potter led a second force that destroyed cotton gins, railroads, and other property from Georgetown to Sumter to Camden.