128-580: The Nathaniel Russell House is an architecturally distinguished, early 19th-century house at 51 Meeting Street in Charleston , South Carolina , United States . Built in 1808 by wealthy merchant and slave trader Nathaniel Russell, it is recognized as one of the United States' most important neoclassical houses. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1973. In 1765, Nathaniel Russell relocated from Rhode Island to Charleston, where he prospered as
256-486: 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
384-588: 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
512-466: 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 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
640-581: 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
768-461: A growing evangelical, revivalist faction, the "Low Church". Its leaders included William Wilberforce and Hannah More . It reached the upper class through the Clapham Sect . It did not seek political reform, but rather the opportunity to save souls through political action by freeing slaves, abolishing the duel, prohibiting cruelty to children and animals, stopping gambling, and avoiding frivolity on
896-535: A large and powerful Royal Navy, which not only protected the British colonies but threatened the colonies of the other empires, and sometimes seized them. The colonies were captive markets for British industry, and the goal was to enrich the mother country. Most of the companies earned good profits, and enormous personal fortunes were created in India, but there was one major fiasco that caused heavy losses. The South Sea Bubble
1024-436: A leaf motif. The adjacent office was where Russell conducted business. Separating the public rooms at the front of the house from the more private rooms used by the family, wide faux-grained double doors with glazed rosette patterned insets and an elliptical, fan-shaped transom give access to the golden-walled stair hall that showcases the house's best-known architectural feature, the cantilevered spiral staircase , which rises to
1152-506: 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
1280-578: 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
1408-795: A personal relationship with Christ through Bible reading, regular prayer, and especially the revival experience. Wesley himself preached 52,000 times, calling on men and women to "redeem the time" and save their souls. Wesley always operated inside the Church of England, but at his death, his followers set up outside institutions that became the Methodist Church . It stood alongside the traditional Nonconformist churches, Presbyterians, Congregationalist, Baptists, Unitarians, and Quakers. The Nonconformist churches, however, were less influenced by revivalism. The Church of England remained dominant in England but it had
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#17330943823261536-462: 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
1664-624: A prominent rice planter who lived there while he was governor of South Carolina. In 1870, Allston's executors sold it to the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, who used it as a boarding school until 1905, when the Mullally and Pelzer families converted it back to private use. In 1953, the owners offered the house for sale and in 1955, having failed to find a buyer, proposed subdividing the property. Historic Charleston Foundation , formed in 1947, resolved to preserve it intact, raised $ 65,000 (~$ 696,543 in 2023), bought
1792-573: 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
1920-399: A share to £1,000, with insiders making huge paper profits. The Bubble collapsed overnight, ruining many speculators. Investigations showed bribes had reached into high places—even to the king. The future prime minister Robert Walpole managed to wind it down with minimal political and economic damage, although some suffering extreme loss fled to exile or committed suicide. The beginning of
2048-547: A slave merchant. In 1788, at the age of 50, he married Sarah Hopton, the daughter of an affluent Charleston family. As one of Charleston's more prominent citizens, Russell required a residence commensurate with his status. He began construction of his house in 1803, and completed it five years later (at the age of 70). Nathaniel and Sarah Russell had two daughters, Alicia Hopton Russell and Sarah Russell Dehon. Dehon inherited her father's house and lived there until her death in 1857, after which her children sold it to Robert Allston ,
2176-516: 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
2304-415: A variety of geometrical shapes (square, circular, ovoid, elliptical), embellished with elaborate plaster decoration and striking polychrome. The Nathaniel Russell House has three main rooms per floor, each of different geometric designs: a rectangular room in front; a central oval room, and a square room in the rear. The rectangular entrance hall has a black-and-white diamond-patterned floorcloth edged with
2432-496: 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
2560-630: 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
2688-555: A year or more. This would eventually lead to the basis for the acquisition and spread of art collections back to England as well as fashions and paintings from Italy. The custom also helped popularise the macaroni style that was soon to become fashionable at the time. It was a time of immense social change in Britain, with the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution which began the process of intensifying class divisions , and
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#17330943823262816-556: Is 9,600 square feet (890 m) with 6,000 square feet (560 m) of living area. The house's interior exemplifies the neoclassical style (often called Federal style in the United States; late-Georgian or Adam style in Great Britain; and Louis Seize in France), popular during the last two decades of the 18th century and the first two of the 19th. In their interior design, neoclassical architects and craftsmen often created rooms in
2944-417: Is connected by a continuous stone string course, creating a kind of architectural necklace running around the house's east and south sides. The entrance facade's principal feature is its single-leaf, faux-grained, eight-paneled door, capped by an elliptical fanlite and flanked by four fluted pilasters. On the floor above, an elegant iron balcony with bowed, elliptical projections bearing the monogram "NR" spans
3072-530: 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 the Atlantic Ocean formed by the confluence of the Ashley , Cooper , and Wando rivers. Charleston had a population of 150,227 at
3200-399: Is typically used in the contexts of social and political history and architecture . The term Augustan literature is often used for Augustan drama , Augustan poetry and Augustan prose in the period 1700–1740s. The term Augustan refers to the acknowledgement of the influence of Latin literature from the ancient Roman Republic . The term Georgian era is not applied to the time of
3328-413: 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 the United States. Charleston was founded in 1670 as Charles Town, honoring King Charles II , at Albemarle Point on
3456-479: 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
3584-577: 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
3712-616: 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
3840-514: 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,
3968-732: The North American colonies (which became the United States during the period) and other parts of the British Empire . In England, the evangelical movement inside and outside the Church of England gained strength in the late 18th and early 19th century. The movement challenged the traditional religious sensibility that emphasised a code of honour for the upper class, and suitable behaviour for everyone else, together with faithful observances of rituals. John Wesley (1703–1791) and his followers preached revivalist religion, trying to convert individuals to
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4096-703: 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
4224-506: 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
4352-811: The Tower of London and overthrow the government. This too was thwarted, with the conspirators executed or transported to Australia. Historians have long explored the importance of the Scottish Enlightenment, as well as the American Enlightenment, while debating the very existence of the English Enlightenment. English historian Peter Gay argues that the Scottish Enlightenment "was a small and cohesive group of friends – David Hume, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, and others – who knew one another intimately and talked to one another incessantly". Education
4480-776: 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
4608-461: 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
4736-413: 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
4864-555: The humanist and rationalist outlook of the European Enlightenment of the same time period, the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment asserted the importance of human reason combined with a rejection of any authority that could not be justified by reason. In Scotland, the Enlightenment was characterised by a thoroughgoing empiricism and practicality where the chief values were improvement, virtue, and practical benefit for
4992-521: 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
5120-422: The 1640s and 1650s saw a revived economy characterised by growth in manufacturing, the elaboration of financial and credit instruments, and the commercialisation of communication. The gentry found time for leisure activities, such as horse racing and bowling. In the high culture important innovations included the development of a mass market for music, increased scientific research, and an expansion of publishing. All
5248-783: The 1791 Priestley Riots in Birmingham, the mob targeted Dissenters, including the prominent Radical Joseph Priestley . The Black Act of 1723 , sponsored by Robert Walpole, strengthened the criminal code for the benefit of the upper class. It specified over 200 capital crimes, many with intensified punishment. The crime of arson, for example, was expanded to include of burning or the threat of burning haystacks. The legal rights of defendants were something different from today. For example, suspects who refused to surrender within 40 days could be summarily judged guilty and sentenced to execution if apprehended. Local villages were punished if they failed to find, prosecute and convict alleged criminals, due to
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5376-483: 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,
5504-514: 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
5632-504: 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
5760-657: The Georgian era witnessed rioting by Jacobite and High Church mobs in protest against the Hanoverian succession and which included attacks on the Dissenters ' places of worship. These included the 1714 coronation riots , which occurred on the day of George I's coronation, and the riots of 1715 . In response, Parliament passed the Riot Act , which granted the authorities greater powers to put down rioting. Although religious toleration
5888-524: The Government a petition. The Luddites destroyed and damaged machinery in the industrial north-west of England. The Peterloo Massacre in 1819 began as a protest rally which saw 60,000 people gathering to protest about their living standards, but was quelled by military action and saw eleven people killed and 400 wounded. The Cato Street Conspiracy of 1820 sought to blow up the Cabinet and then move on to storm
6016-510: 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
6144-491: 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
6272-521: The Netherlands overwhelmed Britain, which stood alone without allies. The loss of the 13 American Colonies was a national disaster. Commentators at home and abroad speculated on the end of Britain as a great power . In Europe, the wars with France dragged on for nearly a quarter of a century, 1793–1815. Britain organised coalition after coalition, using its superb financial system to subsidise infantry forces, and built up its Navy to maintain control of
6400-578: 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,
6528-618: The Sabbath; they read the Bible every day. All souls were equal in God's view, but not all bodies, so evangelicals did not challenge the hierarchical structure of English society. As R. J. Morris noted in his 1983 article "Voluntary Societies and British Urban Elites, 1780-1850," "[m]id-eighteenth-century Britain was a stable society in the sense that those with material and ideological power were able to defend this power in an effective and dynamic manner," but "in
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#17330943823266656-528: 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
6784-628: 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
6912-660: 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
7040-662: The West Indies. China would be next on the agenda. Other powers set up similar monopolies on a much smaller scale; only the Netherlands emphasized trade as much as England. Mercantilism was the basic policy imposed by Britain on its colonies. Mercantilism meant that the government and the merchants became partners with the goal of increasing political power and private wealth, to the exclusion of other empires. The government protected its merchants—and kept others out—by trade barriers, regulations, and subsidies to domestic industries in order to maximise exports from and minimise imports to
7168-403: 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
7296-532: 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
7424-576: 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
7552-419: The base are painted to resemble lapis lazuli . The fireplace mantles' Adam-style ornamentation are among the city's most detailed. The curved entry doors are faux-grained to resemble flame-grained mahogany on the exterior and tortoise shell on the interior. Curved, mullioned mirrors on one side of the room balance the windows on the other and reflect light into the room. The large rectangular withdrawing room at
7680-442: 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
7808-450: 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
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#17330943823267936-511: 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
8064-600: 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
8192-434: 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
8320-472: 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
8448-472: 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
8576-401: 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
8704-399: 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
8832-402: 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
8960-484: The culture had accepted political liberalism, philosophical empiricism and religious toleration of the sort that intellectuals on the continent had to fight for against powerful odds. The coffee-house culture provided an ideal venue for enlightened conversation. Furthermore, England rejected the collectivism of the continent, and emphasized the improvement of individuals as the main goal of enlightenment. The British sponsored numerous scientists who made major discoveries in
9088-417: The demise of classical architecture. Victorians typically were disapproving of the times of the previous era. By the late 19th century, the "Georgian era" was a byword for a degenerate culture. Charles Abbey in 1878 argued that the Church of England: Note: In the twentieth century, the period 1910–1936 was informally called the Georgian Era during the reign of George V (following the Edwardian Era ), and
9216-531: The emergence of rival political parties like the Whigs and Tories . In rural areas, the Agricultural Revolution saw huge changes to the movement of people and the decline of small communities, the growth of the cities and the beginnings of an integrated transportation system but, nevertheless, as rural towns and villages declined and work became scarce there was a huge increase in emigration to Canada,
9344-668: The emergence of the Gothic Revival style, which hearkened back to a supposed golden age of building design. The flowering of the arts was most vividly shown in the emergence of the Romantic poets, principally through Samuel Taylor Coleridge , William Wordsworth , Percy Bysshe Shelley , William Blake , John Keats , Lord Byron and Robert Burns . Their work ushered in a new era of poetry, characterised by vivid and colourful language, evocative of elevating ideas and themes. The paintings of Thomas Gainsborough , Sir Joshua Reynolds and
9472-608: 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
9600-471: The exact ending, with the deaths of George IV in 1830 or William IV in 1837 as the usual marker. In most social and cultural trends, the timing varied. The emergence of Romanticism and literature began as early as the 1780s, but religious changes took much longer and were incomplete until around a century later. The 1830s saw important developments such as the emergence of the Oxford Movement in religion and
9728-428: The facade's full three-bay width. The south side's principal feature is the polygonal bay rising the full height of the house. A second balcony, as light and elegant as the first but lacking the monograms, wraps around the bay, emphasizing the preeminence of the second story. An elaborate tripartite window dominates the north facade, placed to sit indoors between landings of the house's elliptical staircase. The house
9856-443: 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,
9984-419: The front of the house has soft gray walls and white wainscoting topped by a multilayered gilded cornice. The windows are surrounded by tall slender pilasters and overhanging entablatures that give the walls character. With windows on three sides, the room was used primarily during the day to take advantage of the daylight and breezes. At the rear of the house is a square master bedroom; additional bedrooms are on
10112-528: The homeland from invasion) was building a worldwide trading network for its merchants, manufacturers, shippers and financiers. This required a hegemonic Royal Navy so powerful that no rival could sweep its ships from the world's trading routes, or invade the British Isles. The London government enhanced the private sector by incorporating numerous privately financed London-based companies for establishing trading posts and opening import-export businesses across
10240-429: The house and grounds, and soon thereafter opened the house to the public. In 1995, the foundation began a multi-year program of research and reconstruction to restore the house's architectural details and interior finishes to their 1808 appearance. Grants and donations have enabled the foundation to acquire a significant collection of objects with a Charleston provenance, allowing it to show visitors an interpretation of
10368-586: The increase in crime at the time. With the ending of the War with France in 1815, Great Britain entered a period of greater economic depression and political uncertainty, characterised by social discontent and unrest. The Radical political party published a leaflet called The Political Register , also known as "The Two Penny Trash" to its rivals. The so-called March of the Blanketeers saw 400 spinners and weavers march from Manchester to London in March 1817 to hand
10496-775: The individual and society as a whole. Among the fields that rapidly advanced were philosophy, economics, history, architecture, and medicine. Leaders included Francis Hutcheson , David Hume , Adam Smith , Dugald Stewart , Thomas Reid , William Robertson , Henry Home, Lord Kames , Adam Ferguson , John Playfair , Joseph Black and James Hutton . The very existence of an English Enlightenment has been debated by scholars. The majority of textbooks and standard surveys make no room for an English Enlightenment. Some European surveys include England, others ignore it but do include coverage of such major intellectuals as Joseph Addison , Edward Gibbon , John Locke , Isaac Newton , Alexander Pope and Joshua Reynolds . According to Derek Hirst ,
10624-570: 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
10752-480: The lifestyle of Charleston's early 19th-century merchant class. The Nathaniel Russell House was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. In December 2023, after a year-long self-study, the board of Historic Charleston Foundation decided to sell the house and use the proceeds to support its other interests. Following an intense backlash from
10880-741: 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 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
11008-582: 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
11136-734: The most prominent of the many explorers and geographers using the resources of the Royal Navy to develop the Empire and make many scientific discoveries, especially in Australia and the Pacific. Instead of trying to recover the lost colonies in North America, the British built up in Asia a largely new Second British Empire. That new empire flourished during the Victorian and Edwardian eras which were to follow. The era
11264-475: 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,
11392-521: 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
11520-460: 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
11648-521: The preservation community, donors, and others, the board of directors of Historic Charleston Foundation reversed course and voted to retain the museum house in January 2024. Russell commissioned an unknown architect to build a large townhouse in the then fashionable Federal style . Sited on a large lot in downtown Charleston, the house is rectangular in plan, three stories tall, and faced in gray Carolina brick. A bracketed cornice and paneled balustrade separate
11776-887: The primary enemy. Major episodes included the Seven Years' War , known in America as the French and Indian War (1754–1763), the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802), the Irish Rebellion of 1798 , and the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815). The British won most of the wars except for the American Revolution, where the combined weight of the United States, France, Spain and
11904-564: 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
12032-490: The realm. The government had to fight smuggling, which became a favourite American technique in the 18th century to circumvent the restrictions on trading with the French, Spanish or Dutch. The goal of mercantilism was to run trade surpluses, so that gold and silver would pour into London. The government took its share through duties and taxes, with the remainder going to merchants in Britain. The government spent much of its revenue on
12160-470: The relatively short reign of William IV , which ended with his death in 1837. The subperiod that is the Regency era is defined by the regency of George IV as Prince of Wales during the illness of his father George III. The transition to the Victorian era was characterized in religion, social values, and the arts by a shift in tone away from rationalism and toward romanticism and mysticism. The term Georgian
12288-615: The seas. Victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) and the Battle of Waterloo (1815) under Admiral Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington brought a sense of triumphalism and political reaction. The expansion of empire in Asia was primarily the work of the British East India Company , especially under the leadership of Robert Clive . Captain James Cook was perhaps
12416-680: 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
12544-482: 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
12672-425: 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
12800-418: The small laboratories. Joseph Priestley investigated electricity. Chemist Henry Cavendish identified hydrogen in 1772. Daniel Rutherford isolated nitrogen in 1774, while Priestley discovered oxygen and ammonia. Antiquarians and archaeologists mapped the past. In medicine, in 1717 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu introduced inoculation against smallpox to Britain, and by 1740 it was in wide usage. Guy's Hospital
12928-457: The south of the house is the garden that was originally laid out in a geometric arrangement with patterned beds of flowers, ornamental shrubs, and large orange and grapefruit trees. Today there is a formal English garden with gravel paths, boxwood hedges, and plants favored in the 19th century. In the rear of the house is the two-story slave quarters where many of the house's estimated 18 slaves lived. Charleston, South Carolina Charleston
13056-529: The state legislature. Another riot occurred in Charleston the day after the election when a prominent Republican leader was mistakenly reported killed. Georgian era The Georgian era was a period in British history from 1714 to c. 1830–1837 , named after the Hanoverian kings George I , George II , George III and George IV . The definition of the Georgian era is also often extended to include
13184-474: The third floor. The asymmetrical hall is illuminated by a Palladian window and ornamented by trompe-l'œil painting resembling a plaster cornice and an elliptical medallion painted by Charleston artisan Samuel O'Hara. Off the central stair hall is the oval dining room, with turquoise walls that appear painted but are small squares of unpatterned wallpaper bordered with red and gold interlocking rings above cypress wainscoting painted white. The heart-pine floors and
13312-540: The third floor. Though most of the art and furniture displayed in the house is not original to the Nathaniel Russell House, it is from the period when the Russell family inhabited the house, and much is of Charleston origin. The house and grounds are separated from the street by a wrought iron fence set atop a low brick wall, with an iron entrance gate flanked by tall brick piers capped with limestone ball finials. To
13440-458: The trends were discussed in depth at the newly established coffee houses . Education was also a priority in England. English institutions expanded rapdly, including the formation of the Royal Society , which is the oldest national scientific institution in the world. Roy Porter argues that the reason for the neglect was the assumption that the movement was primarily French-inspired, that it
13568-664: The twenty years after 1780, this consensus structure was broken." Anglican Evangelicalism thus, as historian Lisa Wood has argued in her book Modes of Discipline: Women, Conservatism, and the Novel After the French Revolution , functioned as a tool of ruling-class social control, buffering the discontent that in France had inaugurated a revolution; yet it contained within itself the seeds for challenge to gender and class hierarchies. The Georgian period saw continual warfare, with France
13696-436: The two 20th-century British kings of this name, George V and George VI . Those periods are simply referred to as Georgian . Georgian society and its preoccupations were well portrayed in the novels of writers such as Daniel Defoe , Jonathan Swift , Samuel Richardson , Henry Fielding , Laurence Sterne , Mary Shelley and Jane Austen , characterised by the architecture of Robert Adam , John Nash and James Wyatt and
13824-449: The walls from the low hip roof, concealing it from view to better express the pure geometrical shapes of the house. The more important facades—the entrance facade, facing east, and the garden facade, facing south—are treated formally and arranged symmetrically. The windows of the second, most important story, the "bel etage", are the tallest; all 11 are capped with marble voussoirs and set into niches with red brick arches. The whole ensemble
13952-548: 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
14080-659: 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 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
14208-440: The wood interior shutters are original. At the rear of the house is a square parlor that was enlarged at a later date to connect the house to the kitchen, and was used by the family for everyday dining. The second-floor oval drawing room, to which the women of the house retired after dinner, is the house's most decorated room. Papered in apricot, its elaborate plaster moldings are embellished with 24-karat gold leaf. Plinth blocks at
14336-662: The world. Each was given a monopoly of trade to the specified geographical region. The first enterprise was the Muscovy Company set up in 1555 to trade with Russia. Other prominent enterprises included the East India Company , and the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada. The Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa had been set up in 1662 to trade in gold, ivory and slaves in Africa; it
14464-645: The young J. M. W. Turner and John Constable illustrated the changing world of the Georgian period – as did the work of designers like Capability Brown , the landscape designer . Fine examples of distinctive Georgian architecture are Edinburgh's New Town , Georgian Dublin , Grainger Town in Newcastle upon Tyne , the Georgian Quarter of Liverpool and much of Bristol and Bath . The music of John Field , Handel , Haydn , Clementi , Johann Christian Bach , William Boyce , Mozart , Beethoven and Mendelssohn
14592-465: Was a business enterprise that exploded in scandal. The South Sea Company was a private business corporation supposedly set up much like the other trading companies, with a focus on South America. Its actual purpose was to renegotiate previous high-interest government loans amounting to £31 million through market manipulation and speculation. It issued stock four times in 1720 that reached about 8,000 investors. Prices kept soaring every day, from £130
14720-455: 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.),
14848-525: Was a priority in Scotland, both at the local level and especially in four universities. The Enlightenment culture was based on close readings of new books, and intense discussions that took place daily at such intellectual gathering places in Edinburgh as The Select Society and, later, The Poker Club as well as within Scotland's ancient universities ( St Andrews , Glasgow , Edinburgh and Aberdeen ). Sharing
14976-405: 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
15104-552: Was extensive by the standards of continental Europe, hostility to religious minorities was widespread in Britain during the eighteenth century and sometimes expressed itself in rioting. The Jewish Naturalisation Act 1753 was repealed a year after it had been passed because of widespread opposition and the 1780 Gordon Riots in London were directed against Catholics after the Papists Act 1778 removed some of their legal disabilities. During
15232-641: Was founded in 1721; the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh in 1729; Queen Charlotte's maternity hospital in 1739 and the Middlesex Hospital in 1745. Asylums for the mentally ill were established, notably Bethel Hospital in Norwich (1713); a ward for incurable lunatics at Guy's Hospital (1728); and lunatic hospitals in Manchester (1766) and York in (1777)—York was the first to be called an asylum. Historians debate
15360-467: Was largely a-religious or anti-clerical, and it stood in outspoken defiance to the established order. Porter admits that after the 1720s, England could claim thinkers to equal Diderot, Voltaire or Rousseau. Indeed, its leading intellectuals, such as Edward Gibbon , Edmund Burke and Samuel Johnson were all quite conservative and supported the standing order. Porter says the reason was that Enlightenment had come early to England, and had succeeded so that
15488-400: 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
15616-408: 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
15744-605: 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
15872-580: Was prosperous as entrepreneurs extended the range of their business around the globe. By the 1720s Britain was one of the most prosperous countries in the world, and Daniel Defoe boasted: While the other major powers were primarily motivated towards territorial gains, and protection of their dynasties (such as the Habsburg and Bourbon dynasties, and the House of Hohenzollern ), Britain had a different set of primary interests. Its main diplomatic goal (besides protecting
16000-536: Was re-established as the Royal African Company in 1672 and focused on the slave trade. British involvement in each of the four major wars, 1740 to 1783, paid off handsomely in terms of trade. Even the loss of the 13 colonies was made up by a very favourable trading relationship with the new United States of America. British gained dominance in the trade with India, and largely dominated the highly lucrative slave, sugar, and commercial trades originating in West Africa and
16128-566: Was some of the most popular in England at that time. The height of the Grand Tour coincided with the 18th century and is associated with Georgian high society. This custom saw young upper-class Englishmen travelling to Italy by way of France and the Netherlands for intellectual and cultural purposes. Notable historian Edward Gibbon remarked of the Grand Tour as useful for intellectual self-improvement. The journey and stay abroad would usually take
16256-596: 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
16384-585: 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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