Kiawah

Kiawah was the country of an Indigenous people living near the Ashley River and the harbour that would become Charleston. Rivers, tidal creeks and barrier islands open here onto the Atlantic. In 1670 a Kiawah chief invited English newcomers to settle near his people, and they established Charles Town on the western bank of the Ashley. A decade later the colonial government moved the town across the river to Oyster Point, on the peninsula between the Ashley and Cooper.

Charles Town grew into a major Atlantic port. Merchants traded deerskins from the interior and exported rice and indigo grown on surrounding plantations. The colony's prosperity rested heavily on the labour of enslaved Africans and their descendants; ships brought increasing numbers of captive people directly from West and Central Africa. The port's wealth and its trade were inseparable from that forced labour.

During the American Revolution, defenders repelled a British attack on the harbour in 1776. The British returned in 1780, surrounded the city and compelled General Benjamin Lincoln to surrender its garrison after a siege. His surrender on 12 May included thousands of Continental soldiers and militia, a severe blow to the American cause in the South. British forces occupied Charleston until 1782, and the town adopted the shorter name Charleston in 1783. In 1786 the state assembly voted to move South Carolina's capital inland to Columbia, reflecting the growing influence of the backcountry.

The later city of Charleston lies here.