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101-646: Little is known about the life of Gadsden, especially his early life. It is known that he was born in Charleston, South Carolina , during 1788, and that he was grandson of the American Revolutionary War hero Christopher Gadsden , for whom the Gadsden flag was named. It is also known that Gadsden earned his bachelor's degree from Yale University in Connecticut , completing this degree in 1806. In university, he

202-486: A yellow fever outbreak killed about 15% of the remaining inhabitants. Charles Town suffered between five and eight significant yellow fever outbreaks over the first half of the 18th century. It developed a reputation as one of the least healthy locations in the Thirteen Colonies for ethnic Europeans. Malaria was endemic. Although malaria did not have such high mortality as yellow fever, it caused much illness. It

303-588: A center for the inland colonization of South Carolina . It remained the southernmost point of the Southern Colonies until the Province of Georgia was established in 1732. As noted, the first settlers primarily came from Europe , Barbados and Bermuda . The Barbadian and Bermudan immigrants were planters who brought enslaved Africans with them, having purchased them in the West Indies . Early immigrant groups to

404-437: A colonial legislature and a governor sent by Parliament . Election districts were organized according to Anglican parishes, and some social services were managed by Anglican wardens and vestries . Charleston adopted its present spelling with its incorporation as a city in 1783. Population growth in the interior of South Carolina influenced the removal of the state government to Columbia in 1788, but Charleston remained among

505-581: A foreign port, and defend her against any attempt to dispossess the Customs Officers of her custody until all the requirements of law have been complied with." This federal action became known as the Charleston incident. The state's politicians worked on a compromise law in Washington to gradually reduce the tariffs. Charleston's embrace of classical architecture began after a devastating fire leveled much of

606-506: A majority of any church's parishioners be white. In June 1818, 140 Black church members at Hampstead Church were arrested, and eight of its leaders were given fines and ten lashes; police raided the church again in 1820 and pressured it in 1821. In 1822, members of the church, led by Denmark Vesey , a lay preacher and carpenter who had bought his freedom after winning a lottery, planned an uprising and escape to Haiti —initially for Bastille Day —that failed when one enslaved person revealed

707-578: A night attack on the USS ; Housatonic on February 17, 1864. General Gillmore's land assault in July 1864 was unsuccessful but the fall of Columbia and advance of General William T. Sherman 's army through the state prompted the Confederates to evacuate the town on February 17, 1865, burning the public buildings, cotton warehouses, and other sources of supply before their departure. U.S. soldiers liberated

808-517: A petition to the California legislature for permanent citizenship and permission to establish a rural district that would be farmed by "not less than Two Thousand of their African Domestics". The petition stimulated some debate, but it finally expired in committee. Following the war between Mexico and the United States, disputes over the boundary line brought the two nations near to renewed conflict in

909-462: A port in the coastwise trade, traveling to such ports as Mobile and New Orleans. Enslaving was the primary marker of class, and even the town's freedmen and free people of color typically enslaved people if they had the wealth to do so. Visitors commonly remarked on the sheer number of Blacks in Charleston and their seeming freedom of movement, though in fact—mindful of the Stono Rebellion and

1010-721: A proposed southern transcontinental railroad to California along the 32d parallel, just to the north of the Mexican border. Between 1878 and 1881, though, the Southern Pacific Railroad (now part of the Union Pacific Railroad ) built the section of the southern transcontinental between Yuma and El Paso within the Gadsden Purchase territory. At the same time, 1880–1882, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad completed

1111-549: A railroad and highway, originating in either San Antonio or on the Red River , that would transport people to the California gold fields. Toward this end, on December 31, 1851, Gadsden asked Green to secure from the California state legislature a large land grant located between the 34th and 36th parallels; it would eventually serve as the dividing line for the two California states. A few months after this, Gadsden and 1,200 potential settlers from South Carolina and Florida submitted

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1212-560: A second bank, the Bank of Hamburg, in 1823, backed by his Hamburg property which "faded into oblivion" within two years. Ten years later, a decade bank was founded with support from the General Assembly. This second iteration became one of the best-known banks in the country, reliable enough to be used by many families to pay colleges in the North. The establishment of the second bank coincided with

1313-573: A separate mosque . Enlavers sometimes provided them with beef rations instead of pork in recognition of religious traditions. The registered tonnage of Charleston shipping in 1829 was 12,410. In 1832, South Carolina passed an ordinance of nullification , a procedure by which a state could, in effect, repeal a federal law; it was directed against the most recent tariff acts. Soon, U.S. soldiers were dispensed to Charleston's forts, and five United States Coast Guard cutters were detached to Charleston Harbor "to take possession of any vessel arriving from

1414-552: A simple day worker. But, by 1813, the business dealings of Shultz had elevated him to a position capable of building a long-lasting bridge across the Savannah River, a feat which one of the wealthiest South Carolinian of the 1790s, Wade Hampton I , had failed to accomplish on two previous occasions. Shultz would go on to become a leading citizen in the city of Augusta, owning part of the Steamboat Company of Georgia as well as

1515-516: A slave society: it had a majority-Black population from the colonial period until after the Great Migration of the early 20th century, when many rural Blacks moved to northern and midwestern industrial cities to escape Jim Crow laws . At the foundation of the town, the principal items of commerce were pine timber and pitch for ships and tobacco . The early economy developed around the deerskin trade, in which colonists used alliances with

1616-532: A transcontinental link through the Gadsden Purchase and then southwest to a terminus at the port of Guaymas , in the state of Sonora, Mexico . Completed October 25, 1882, this line was later acquired by the Southern Pacific. Today, the rail link across the Gadsden Purchase on the southern transcontinental is one of the busiest in the Western Hemisphere. The land bought by the Gadsden Purchase contained

1717-496: A violent hurricane passed over Charles Town. The Circular Congregational Church manse was damaged during the storm, and church records were lost. Much of Charles Town was flooded as "the Ashley and Cooper rivers became one." At least seventy people died in the disaster. From the 1670s, Charleston attracted pirates. The combination of a weak government and corruption made the city popular with pirates, who frequently visited and raided

1818-630: A violent incident in Cainhoy at an October joint discussion meeting. Violent incidents occurred throughout the Piedmont of the state as white insurgents struggled to impose white supremacy in the face of social changes after the war and the granting of citizenship to freedmen by amendments to the U.S. Constitution. After former Confederates were allowed to vote again, election campaigns from 1872 on were marked by violent intimidation of blacks and Republicans by conservative Democratic paramilitary groups, known as

1919-664: A wharf in Augusta. But, like many bank owners (Shultz used his bridge to back a bank which he called the Bridge Bank) in the 1810s, Shultz issued paper currency which led to his bankruptcy during the Panic of 1819 . After being sued by his creditors, the Georgia state officials seized the Augusta Bridge from Shultz. Shultz felt slighted by the city of Augusta and purchased a swath of land opposite

2020-479: The Atlantic slave trade , first as indentured servants and then as enslaved people . In the early 1700s, Charleston's largest slave trader, Joseph Wragg , pioneered the settlement's involvement in the slave trade. Of the estimated 400,000 captive Africans transported to North America to be sold into slavery, 40% are thought to have landed at Sullivan's Island off Charlestown. Free people of color also migrated from

2121-577: The Cherokee and Creek peoples to secure the raw material. At the same time, Native Americans kidnapped and enslaved each other in warfare. From 1680 to 1720, approximately 40,000 native men, women, and children were sold through the port, principally to the West Indies such as ( Bermuda and the Bahamas ), but also to other Southern colonies. The Lowcountry planters did not keep enslaved Native Americans, considering them too prone to escape or revolt. They used

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2222-616: The Continental Congress were elected in 1774, and South Carolina declared its independence from Britain on the steps of the Exchange . Slavery was again an important factor in the city's role during the Revolutionary War . The British attacked the settlement three times, assuming that the settlement had a large base of Loyalists who would rally to their cause once given some military support. The loyalty of white Southerners towards

2323-514: The First and Second banks were also located in Charleston. Throughout the Antebellum Period , Charleston continued to be the only major American city with a majority-slave population. The city's widespread use of enslaved people as workers was a frequent subject of writers and visitors: a merchant from Liverpool noted in 1834 that "almost all the working population are Negroes, all the servants,

2424-610: The Fort Huachuca Military Reservation of the U.S. Army. Gadsden was buried in St. Philips Church Cemetery in Charleston, South Carolina. Charleston, South Carolina Charleston is the most populous city in the U.S. state of South Carolina , the county seat of Charleston County , and the principal city in the Charleston metropolitan area . The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline on Charleston Harbor , an inlet of

2525-610: The Hamburg Massacre of July 8, 1876, the town declined for good. Augusta began construction of a river levee after a 1911 flood, but Hamburg remained unprotected. Particularly disastrous floods finally forced out the last residents in 1929. Occasionally styled as Hamburgh (especially after the American Civil War), the town was named after Shultz's home town in Germany . It was located at 33.4799°N, 81.9579°W directly across

2626-665: The Mesilla Valley of New Mexico, north of El Paso. In May 1853, President Franklin Pierce appointed Gadsden as the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Mexico, with instructions to purchase more land from Mexico as part of a settlement of the Mesilla controversy, for the prospective railroad route across southernmost parts of what are today New Mexico and Arizona , to end the possibility of disputes concerning control of

2727-703: The Reconstruction era . The war had shattered the city's prosperity. Still, the African-American population surged (from 17,000 in 1860 to over 27,000 in 1880) as freedmen moved from the countryside to the major city. Blacks quickly left the Southern Baptist Church and resumed open meetings of the African Methodist Episcopal and AME Zion churches. They purchased dogs, guns, liquor, and better clothes—all previously banned—and ceased yielding

2828-506: The Red Shirts . Violent incidents occurred in Charleston on King Street on September 6 and nearby Cainhoy on October 15 in association with political meetings before the 1876 election. The Cainhoy incident was the only one statewide in which more whites were killed than blacks. The Red Shirts were instrumental in suppressing the black Republican vote in some areas in 1876 and narrowly electing Wade Hampton as governor, and taking back control of

2929-564: The River Colorado at the eastern boundary of California. This treaty is known as the "Gadsden Treaty", and it resulted in the Gadsden Purchase from Mexico of about 30,000 square miles (78,000 km) of land in northmost Mexico for $ 10,000,000. In the fall of 1856 Gadsden retired as minister to Mexico, and returned to Charleston where he died in 1858. The sectional crisis of the late 1850s and subsequent Civil War delayed construction of

3030-705: The Savannah River from Augusta, Georgia. Population at its peak in the 1840s reached 2,500 (Haskel 1843:257), and exceeded 1,000 in the 1870s. For the most part the town was on the Savannah River floodplain. The town was originally accessible by a stagecoach road starting at the Edgefield County Courthouse , and later by the Edgefield and Hamburg Plank Road . Under protection of the Clarks Hill Dam and Lake , adjacent North Augusta has begun to develop on

3131-596: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that had been signed and ratified by the United States and Mexico during 1848. Gadsden would play an important role in revising the boundary, with the aim to build a southern transcontinental railroad (see below and the article on the Gadsden Purchase ). During 1850, Gadsden advocated secession by South Carolina when California was admitted to the Union as a free state. Gadsden considered slavery "a social blessing" and abolitionists "the greatest curse of

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3232-776: The Upper South to the Deep South in the antebellum years, as cotton plantations were widely developed through what became known as the Black Belt . Many enslaved people were transported in the coastwise slave trade , with slave ships stopping at ports such as Charleston. Charleston was significant in the American Civil War . As a pivotal city, the U.S. Army and Confederate States Army vied for control of it. The rebellion began in Charleston Harbor in 1861 and ended mere months after

3333-749: The War of 1812 against the British Army , and, from 1816 to 1821, in protecting the southern U.S. border from raiders — Native Americans , maroons (escaped slaves and their descendants) — based in Spanish Florida . As part of this effort, Jackson directed Gadsden, a member of the Army Corps of Engineers , to build a fort on the Prospect Bluff site . Jackson subsequently named it Fort Gadsden . Gadsden also helped to establish Fort Brooke with George Mercer Brooke at

3434-461: The West Indies , being descendants of white planters and their Black consorts and unions among the working classes. In 1767, Gadsden's Wharf was constructed at the city port on the Cooper River; it ultimately extended 840 feet and could accommodate six ships at a time. Many enslaved people were sold from here. Devoted to plantation agriculture that depended on enslaved labor, South Carolina became

3535-413: The cotton gin sped the processing of the crop over 50 times. Britain 's Industrial Revolution —initially built upon its textile industry —took up the extra production ravenously and cotton became Charleston's major export commodity in the 19th century. The Bank of South Carolina, the second-oldest building in the nation to be constructed as a bank, was established in 1798. In 1800 and 1817, branches of

3636-521: The slave revolution that established Haiti —the whites closely regulated the behavior of both enslaved and free people of color. The town fixed wages and hiring practices, sometimes required identifying badges, and sometimes censored work songs. Punishment was handled out of sight by the city's workhouse , whose fees provided the municipal government with thousands a year. In 1820, state law mandated that each act of manumission (freeing an enslaved person) required legislative approval, effectively halting

3737-499: The 1850s, strenuous overland hauls to Hamburg became unnecessary and the famous wagon traffic declined. Hamburg became a ghost town by the time of the Civil War . Following the war, Hamburg was repopulated and governed by freedmen, starting with Prince Rivers ; Samuel J. Lee , a free man before the war, who was elected as the speaker of the House and was the first black man admitted to

3838-562: The Apache along the border, and other more minor issues. Gadsden successfully performed this mission by negotiating with the Mexican government in Mexico City for the purchase of more land from Mexico for southmost New Mexico and Arizona, and by establishing the boundary between the United States and Mexico as two long line segments between the Rio Grande at the westmost tip of Texas all the way to

3939-525: The Atlantic Ocean formed by the confluence of the Ashley , Cooper , and Wando rivers. Charleston had a population of 150,227 at the 2020 census . The population of the Charleston metropolitan area, comprising Berkeley , Charleston , and Dorchester counties, was estimated to be 849,417 in 2023. It ranks as the third-most populous metropolitan statistical area in the state, and the 71st-most populous in

4040-483: The Caribbean showed the planter George Lucas's daughter Eliza how to raise and use indigo for dyeing in 1747. Throughout this period, enslaved people were sold aboard the arriving ships or at ad hoc gatherings in the town's taverns. Runaways and minor slave rebellions prompted the 1739 Security Act , which required all white men to carry weapons at all times (even to church on Sundays). Before it fully took effect,

4141-514: The Cato or Stono Rebellion broke out. The white community had recently been decimated by a malaria outbreak, and the rebels killed about 25 white people before being stopped by the colonial militia. As a result of their fears of rebellion, whites killed a total of 35 to 50 Black people. The planters attributed the violence to recently imported Africans and agreed to a 10-year moratorium on slave importation through Charlestown. They relied for labor upon

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4242-504: The Crown had largely been forfeited, however, by British legal cases (such as the 1772 Somersett case which marked the prohibition of slavery in England and Wales , a significant milestone in the abolitionist struggle) and military tactics (such as Dunmore's Proclamation in 1775) that promised the emancipation of people enslaved by Patriot planters; these efforts did, however, unsurprisingly win

4343-510: The Indian slave trade. The area's unsuitability for growing tobacco prompted the Lowcountry planters to experiment with other cash crops . The profitability of growing rice led the planters to pay premiums for enslaved people from the "Rice Coast" who knew its cultivation; their descendants make up the ethnic Gullah who created their own culture and language in this area. Slaves imported from

4444-491: The Market Hall and Sheds, where fresh meat and produce were brought daily, became a hub of commercial activity. The slave trade also depended on the port of Charleston, where ships could be unloaded and enslaved people bought and sold. The legal importation of enslaved Africans had ended in 1808, although smuggling was significant. However, the domestic trade was booming. More than one million enslaved people were transported from

4545-556: The Nation', the Marquis de Lafayette visited Hamburg on March 24, 1825. In a book recounting their trip, Lafayette's secretary wrote that Lafayette was invited to visit "a sort of prodigy", a "village called Hamburg", which was "not yet two years old and its port was already filled with vessels." Slave trading was banned in Georgia so planters crossed the Savannah River to purchase in Hamburg until

4646-578: The Revolutionary War and the Civil War, Charleston experienced an economic boom, at least for the top strata of society. Expanding cotton as a cash crop in the South led to massive wealth for a small segment of society and funded impressive architecture and culture. However, it also escalated the economic importance of enslaving people and led to greater and greater restrictions on Black Charlestonians. By 1783,

4747-404: The Savannah River which had previously been owned by Chickasaw indians in order to compete with the city. The following year, Shultz sought and procured loans from the South Carolina General Assembly to improve inland navigation between the town and Charleston. On top of this, the General Assembly exempted all taxable property within the town from taxation for five years. Shultz established

4848-418: The South Carolina Bar; and Charles D. Hayne , a freeman from an elite Charleston family. These three men were founders of Aiken County. They began to redevelop Hamburg, attracting freedmen. To celebrate Aiken County's 125th anniversary, a stone-and-bronze marker was installed at the county courthouse. Rivers, Hayne and Leeld are listed as founders but their race is not indicated. After the deaths and damage in

4949-400: The U.S. soldiers retook control of Charleston in 1865. Following the election of Abraham Lincoln , the South Carolina General Assembly voted on December 20, 1860, to declare secession from the United States , becoming the first state to do so. On December 27, the U.S. Army garrison of Castle Pinckney surrendered to the state militia. On January 9, 1861, Citadel cadets opened fire on

5050-427: The USS   Star of the West as it entered Charleston Harbor. The first full battle of the war occurred on April 12, 1861, when shore batteries under the command of General P. G. T. Beauregard fired upon the US Army - held Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. After a 34-hour bombardment, Major Robert Anderson surrendered the fort. On December 11, 1861, an enormous fire burned over 500 acres (200 ha) of

5151-415: The United States arrived in Charleston. In 2018, the city formally apologized for its role in the American slave trade . King Charles II granted the chartered Province of Carolina to eight of his loyal friends, known as the Lords Proprietors , on March 24, 1663. In 1670, Governor William Sayle arranged for several shiploads of settlers from Bermuda and Barbados . These settlers established what

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5252-559: The United States to quash the practice; free Blacks were banned from returning to the state if they left for any reason; enslaved people were given a 9:15 pm curfew; the city razed Hampstead Church to the ground and erected a new arsenal . This structure later was the basis of the Citadel 's first campus. The AME congregation built a new church, but in 1834, the city banned it and all Black worship services following Nat Turner's Rebellion in Virginia in 1831. The estimated 10% of enslaved people who came to America as Muslims never had

5353-405: The United States. Charleston was founded in 1670 as Charles Town, honoring King Charles   II , at Albemarle Point on the west bank of the Ashley River (now Charles Towne Landing ) but relocated in 1680 to its present site, which became the fifth-largest city in North America within ten years. It remained unincorporated throughout the colonial period; its government was handled directly by

5454-403: The allegiance of thousands of Black Loyalists . The Battle of Sullivan's Island saw the British fail to capture a partially constructed palmetto palisade from Col. Moultrie 's militia regiment on June 28, 1776. The Liberty Flag used by Moultrie's men formed the basis of the later South Carolina flag , and the victory's anniversary continues to be commemorated as Carolina Day . Making

5555-429: The antebellum free black community, historian Melinda Meeks Hennessy described the community as "unique" in being able to defend themselves without provoking "massive white retaliation", as occurred in numerous other areas during Reconstruction . In the 1876 election cycle, two major riots between black Republicans and white Democrats occurred in the city, in September and the day after the election in November, as well as

5656-422: The area under a kind of siege. British Army officer Alexander Leslie , commanding Charlestown, requested a truce in March 1782 to purchase food for his garrison and the town's inhabitants. Greene refused and formed a brigade under Mordecai Gist to counter British forays. The British finally evacuated Charlestown in December 1782. Greene presented the British leaders of the town with the Moultrie Flag . Between

5757-442: The battles of Monck's Corner and Lenud's Ferry , Lincoln's surrender on May 12, 1780, became the greatest American defeat of the war . The British continued to hold Charlestown for over a year following their defeat at Yorktown in 1781. However, they alienated local planters by refusing to restore full civil government. Nathanael Greene had entered the state after Cornwallis's pyrrhic victory at Guilford Courthouse and kept

5858-400: The capture of Charlestown their chief priority, the British sent Sir Henry Clinton , who laid siege to Charleston on April 1, 1780, with about 14,000 troops and 90 ships. Bombardment began on March 11, 1780. The Patriots, led by Benjamin Lincoln , had about 5,500 men and inadequate fortifications to repel the forces against them. After the British cut his supply lines and lines of retreat at

5959-409: The carmen & porters, all the people who see at the stalls in Market, and most of the Journeymen in trades". American traders had been prohibited from equipping the Atlantic slave trade in 1794 and all importation of enslaved people was banned in 1808 , but American merchantmen frequently refused to permit British inspection for enslaved cargo, and smuggling remained common. Much more important

6060-437: The city included the Huguenots , Scottish , Irish , and Germans , as well as hundreds of Jews , predominately Sephardi from London and significant cities of the Dutch Republic , where they had been given refuge. As late as 1830, Charleston's Jewish community was the most prominent and wealthiest in North America . By 1708, most of the colony's population were Black Africans. They had been brought to Charlestown via

6161-434: The city within the month. The War Department recovered what federal property remained. Also, it confiscated the campus of the Citadel Military Academy and used it as a U.S. Army garrison for the next 17 years. The facilities were finally returned to the state and reopened as a military college in 1882 under the direction of Lawrence E. Marichak. After the defeat of the Confederacy, U.S. soldiers remained in Charleston during

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6262-472: The city's growth had reached a point where a municipal government became desirable; therefore, on August 13, 1783, an act of incorporation for Charleston was ratified. The act originally specified the city's name as "Charles Ton", as opposed to the previous Charlestown, but the spelling "Charleston" quickly came to dominate. Although Columbia had replaced it as the state capital in 1788, Charleston became even more prosperous as Eli Whitney 's 1793 invention of

6363-472: The city. U.S. Navy control of the North Atlantic coastline permitted the repeated bombardment of the city, causing vast damage. Although Admiral Du Pont's naval assault on the town's forts in April 1863 failed, the U.S. Navy's blockade shut down most commercial traffic. Throughout the war, some blockade runners got through, but not a single one made it into or out of Charleston Harbor between August 1863 and March 1864. The early submarine H.L. Hunley made

6464-401: The city. Charles Town was besieged by the pirate Blackbeard for several days in May 1718. Blackbeard released his hostages and left in exchange for a chest of medicine from Governor Robert Johnson . Around 1719, the town's name began to be generally written as Charlestown and, excepting those fronting the Cooper River, the old walls were largely removed over the next decade. Charlestown was

6565-399: The city. On April 27, 1838, Charleston suffered a catastrophic fire that burned more than 1000 buildings and caused about $ 3 million (equivalent to $ 84,910,000 in 2023) in damage at the time. The damaged buildings amounted to about one-fourth of all the businesses in the main part of the city. A great cultural awakening occurred when many homes and businesses were rebuilt or repaired. Before

6666-420: The coast, in what in a few years would be newly acquired American land, after the 1846–1848 war with Mexico. In 1852, the SCRR followed the philosophy laid out by Gadsden during his tenure and moved the railroad's terminus from Hamburg, South Carolina , signaling the end of South Carolina's focus on economic sovereignty. Much of the boundary between the United States and Mexico had been left unreasonably vague by

6767-480: The construction of a southern transcontinental railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans . He urged Georgia and South Carolina to abandon their rivalry and to "discover their true policy in the harmony of a free and unrestricted trade." A late 1840s map shows this railroad would hypothetically have been by way of the southern route from Charleston through Georgia, Alabama , Mississippi , Louisiana , and Texas to El Paso, Texas , and then through Mexico to

6868-402: The conversion of the United States Arsenal into the Porter Military Academy, an educational facility for former soldiers and boys left orphaned or destitute by the war. Porter Military Academy later joined with Gaud School and is now a university-preparatory school , Porter-Gaud School . In 1875, blacks made up 57% of the city's and 73% of the county's population. With leadership by members of

6969-433: The decline of the South Carolina wagon trade. From 1819 to 1823, the trade shrunk to one-fourth its former size as steamboats became the cheaper form of transportation for upcountry harvests. The emergence of steamboats led Hamburg and other towns strategically located at the fall lines of major rivers such as Camden and Columbia to become economically important for the first time. During his American tour as 'Guest of

7070-558: The enslaved Africans brought to North America between 1700 and 1775, and about half up until the end of the African trade. The plantations and the economy based on them made this the wealthiest city in the Thirteen Colonies and the largest in population south of Philadelphia . In 1770, the city had 11,000 inhabitants—half enslaved—and was the 4th-largest port in the colonies, after Boston , New York City , and Philadelphia. The elite began to use their wealth to encourage cultural and social development. America's first theater building

7171-484: The expulsion of most of the Seminole Indian Tribe from their homes in Florida and southern Georgia , along the Trail of Tears to land reservations that had been reserved for them in what is now Oklahoma . Years later Gadsden County, Florida , was named in his honor, and also the city of Gadsden, Alabama , and the town of Gadsden, Arizona . Later, Gadsden served as the president of the South Carolina Railroad company from 1840 to 1850. When first completed in 1833,

7272-443: The fire, few homes were styled as Greek Revival; many residents decided to construct new buildings in that style after the conflagration. This tradition continued, making Charleston one of the foremost places to view Greek Revival architecture. The Gothic Revival also made a significant appearance in the construction of many churches after the fire that exhibited picturesque forms and reminders of devout European religion. By 1840,

7373-561: The land south of Phoenix where tentative plans had been made to build a transcontinental railroad is desert land that is not suitable for much human inhabitation. Nearly all of this federally owned land was eventually reserved as a large, sparsely inhabited American Indian reservation, testing and combat-practice ranges for the U.S. Air Force , Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument , Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge , Coronado National Forest , Sonoran Desert National Monument , Ironwood Forest National Monument , Saguaro National Park , and

7474-570: The late 1870s, industry was bringing the city and its inhabitants back to a renewed vitality; new jobs attracted new residents. As the city's commerce improved, residents worked to restore or create community institutions. In 1865, the Avery Normal Institute was established by the American Missionary Association as the first free secondary school for Charleston's African American population. Gen. Sherman lent his support to

7575-706: The line was the longest railroad in the world under one management. As an engineer he directed the construction of the branch to Columbia, completed 1842, surveyed a proposed extension to the Ohio River, and helped promote the Memphis & Charleston Railroad, incorporated 1845 (completed in 1857, it was the first U.S. railroad link between the Atlantic and the Mississippi River, but long after Gadsden had turned his attention elsewhere). By 1846, Gadsden and his associates promoted

7676-531: The moratorium expired and Charlestown reopened to the slave trade in 1750, the memory of the Stono Rebellion resulted in traders avoiding buying enslaved people from the Congo and Angola , whose populations had a reputation for independence. By the mid-18th century, Charlestown was the hub of the Atlantic slave trade in the Southern Colonies . Even with the decade-long moratorium, its customs processed around 40% of

7777-542: The nation." When the secession proposal failed, Gadsden, working with his cousin Isaac Edward Holmes , a lawyer in San Francisco since 1851, and the California state senator Thomas Jefferson Green , attempted to divide California in two. They proposed that the southern half would allow slavery. Gadsden planned to establish a slaveholding colony there based on rice, cotton, and sugar. He would use slave labor to build

7878-531: The original Charles Town in 1680. (The original site is now commemorated as Charles Towne Landing .) The second location was more defensible and had access to a fine natural harbor. The new town had become the fifth largest in North America by 1690. A smallpox outbreak erupted in 1698, followed by an earthquake in February 1699. The latter caused a fire that destroyed about a third of the town. During rebuilding,

7979-581: The plot to his enslaver. Over the next month, the city's intendant (mayor) James Hamilton Jr. organized a militia for regular patrols, initiated a secret and extrajudicial tribunal to investigate, and hanged 35 and exiled 35 or 37 enslaved people to Spanish Cuba for their involvement. Hamilton imposed more restrictions on both free and enslaved Blacks: South Carolina required free Black sailors to be imprisoned while their ships were in Charleston Harbor, although international treaties eventually required

8080-460: The practice. The effects of slavery were pronounced on white society as well. The high cost of enslaving people in the 19th century and their high rate of return combined to institute an oligarchic society controlled by about ninety interrelated families, where 4% of the free population controlled half of the wealth, and the lower half of the free population—unable to compete with enslaved or rented people—held no wealth at all. The white middle class

8181-564: The proceeds of their sale to purchase enslaved Black Africans for their own plantations . The slave raiding—and the European firearms it introduced—helped destabilize Spanish Florida and French Louisiana in the 1700s during the War of the Spanish Succession . But it also provoked the Yamasee War of the 1710s that nearly destroyed the colony. After that, South Carolina largely abandoned

8282-536: The repeal of the anti-trading law in 1856. At the completion of the South Carolina Railroad in 1833 (at the time the largest railroad under single management in the world) Hamburg became the railroad's western terminus. In its heyday, 60,000 bales of cotton worth $ 2,000,000 were brought by wagon to Hamburg each year. With the completion of the Augusta Canal (1848) and general expansion of railroads in

8383-499: The same name . The town was one of the state's primary interior markets by the 1830s, due largely to the fact that the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company chose Hamburg as the western terminus of its line to Charleston. The enervation of the town, which relied on its in-land port being the destination of cotton headed toward the ports of Charleston or Savannah for business, began in 1848 after Augusta siphoned much of

8484-680: The settlers declared war in October 1671. The settlers initially allied with the Westo , a northern indigenous tribe that traded in enslaved Indians. The settlers abandoned their alliance with the Westo in 1679 and allied with the Cusabo instead. The initial settlement quickly dwindled and disappeared while another village—established by the settlers on Oyster Point at the confluence of the Ashley and Cooper rivers around 1672 —thrived. This second settlement formally replaced

8585-482: The sidewalks to whites. Despite the efforts of the state legislature to halt manumissions , Charleston had already had a large class of free people of color as well. At the onset of the war, the city had 3,785 free people of color, many of mixed race, making up about 18% of the city's black population and 8% of its total population. Many were educated and practiced skilled crafts; they quickly became leaders of South Carolina's Republican Party and its legislators. Before

8686-575: The site of Arizona's second largest city, Tucson , a one-time Spanish presidio town, the minor cities and towns of Casa Grande , and Yuma, Arizona , Lordsburg , Deming, New Mexico , and New Mexico's second largest metro area at Las Cruces, New Mexico , in the Mesilla Valley, and it defined the status of the area north of the Gila River , that later became the metropolitan area of Phoenix , Scottsdale , Mesa , Glendale , and Tempe, Arizona . Most of

8787-637: The site of the present-day city of Tampa, Florida . He was appointed Adjutant General in August 1821, but this appointment was not confirmed by the Senate, causing it to expire the following year. Gadsden next decided to quit the U.S. Army, and became a planter in Florida; he served in the Florida Territorial Legislature. Gadsden was appointed as a commissioner during 1823 to help with the organization and

8888-425: The slave communities they already held. The 1740 Negro Act also tightened controls, requiring a ratio of one white for every ten Blacks on any plantation (which was often not achieved) and banning enslaved people from assembling, growing personal food, earning money, or learning to read. Drums were banned because Africans used them for signaling; enslaved people were allowed to use string and other instruments. When

8989-598: The state legislature. Another riot occurred in Charleston the day after the election when a prominent Republican leader was mistakenly reported killed. Hamburg, South Carolina Hamburg is a ghost town in Aiken County, South Carolina , United States. It was once a thriving upriver market located across the Savannah River from Augusta, Georgia in the Edgefield District. It was founded by Henry Shultz in 1821 who named it after his home town in Germany of

9090-515: The ten largest cities in the United States through the 1840 census . Charleston's significance in American history is tied to its role as a major slave trading port. Charleston slave traders like Joseph Wragg were the first to break through the monopoly of the Royal African Company and pioneered the large-scale slave trade of the 18th century; almost one-half of enslaved people imported to

9191-477: The town's river traffic with the completion of the Augusta Canal . The town's decline was finalized in the 1850s when the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company extended its line into Augusta. After the American Civil War , Hamburg was repopulated mostly by freedmen and was within newly organized Aiken County . The town became notorious in 1876 as the site of a massacre of blacks by whites in what

9292-548: The war, men who had been free people of color comprised 26% of those elected to state and federal office in South Carolina from 1868 to 1876. The Pacific Guano Company , established in 1861, opened a plant in Charleston which consumed immense quantities of menhaden scrap brought from the water by the vessels which carried on their return trip a supply of South Carolina phosphates for the Woods Hole, Massachusetts factory. By

9393-455: Was a major health problem throughout most of the city's history before dying out in the 1950s after the use of pesticides cut down on the mosquitoes that transmitted it. Charles Town was fortified according to a plan developed in 1704 under Governor Nathaniel Johnson . Both Spain and France contested Britain's claims to the region. Various bands of Native Americans and independent pirates also raided it. On September 5–6, 1713 (O.S.),

9494-613: Was a member of the debating and secret society, Brothers in Unity . One of his siblings, John Gadsden , served two terms as the Mayor of Charleston , and another sibling, Christopher Edwards Gadsden , was the fourth Episcopal Bishop of South Carolina. Gadsden joined the U.S. Army in December 1812. He served as a commissioned officer commanded by General Andrew Jackson , who was later elected president in 1828 . Gadsden served Gen. Jackson both during

9595-456: Was constructed in 1736; today's Dock Street Theater later replaced it. St   Michael's was erected in 1753. Benevolent societies were formed by the Huguenots , free people of color, Germans, and Jews. The Library Society was established in 1748 by well-born young men who wanted to share the financial cost of keeping up with the scientific and philosophical issues of the day. Delegates for

9696-400: Was minimal: Charlestonians generally looked down upon hard work, considering it as labor meant for enslaved people. All the enslavers taken together held 82% of the city's wealth and almost all non-enslavers were poor. Olmsted considered their civic elections "entirely contests of money and personal influence" and the oligarchs dominated civic planning: The lack of public parks and amenities

9797-408: Was never ratified, however, Charles Town was never incorporated during the colonial period. Instead, local ordinances were passed by the provincial government, with day-to-day administration handled by the wardens and vestries of St   Philip's and St   Michael's Anglican parishes . At the time of European colonization , the area was inhabited by the indigenous Cusabo , on whom

9898-605: Was noted, as was the abundance of private gardens in the wealthy's walled estates. In the 1810s, the town's churches intensified their discrimination against their Black parishioners, culminating in Bethel Methodist 's 1817 construction of a hearse house over its Black burial ground. 4,376 Black Methodists joined Morris Brown in establishing Hampstead Church , the African Methodist Episcopal church now known as Mother Emanuel . State and city laws prohibited Black literacy, limited Black worship to daylight hours, and required

9999-501: Was one of a number of violent incidents by Democratic paramilitary groups to suppress black voting in that year's elections. The Democrats regained control of the state government and federal troops were withdrawn the next year from South Carolina and other states, ending the Reconstruction era . The founder of Hamburg, Henry Shultz, was a parvenu until his origin was discovered in 2016 by Jürgen Möller. Born in Germany in 1776 as Klaus Hinrich Klahn, Shultz arrived in Augusta in 1806 as

10100-596: Was the domestic slave trade, which boomed as the Deep South developed into new cotton plantations. As a result of the trade, there was a forced migration of more than one million enslaved people from the Upper South to the Lower South in the antebellum years. During the early 19th century, the first dedicated slave markets were founded in Charleston, mostly near Chalmers and State streets. Many domestic slavers used Charleston as

10201-640: Was then called Charles Town at Albemarle Point, on the west bank of the Ashley River, a few miles northwest of the present-day city center. Charles Town became the first comprehensively planned town in the Thirteen Colonies . Its governance, settlement, and development were to follow a visionary plan known as the Grand Model prepared for the Lord's Proprietors by John Locke . Because the Carolina's Fundamental Constitutions

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