South Carolina, one of the original states of the American Union, with an area of 30,570 sq. m., including 400 sq. m. of water-surface, is nearly triangular in outline, and is bounded on the N. and NE. by North Carolina, SE. by the Atlantic Ocean, and SW. by Georgia. Numerous islands near the southern part of the coast are separated from the mainland and from each other by shallow sounds and inlets. For 100 miles inland the land is generally low and level, much of it still covered with pine forests (Pinus palustris). West of this alluvial plain is a range of undulating sandhills about 60 miles in width. This 'middle country' was long the least fertile part of the state. Farther west the 'ridge-country' rises, generally abruptly, from the Savannah to the Broad River on the north, presenting a region of rare beauty and fertility. The average elevation of the western third of the state is nearly 2000 feet above the sea-level. Mount Pinnacle, Cæsar's Head, and Table Mountain, belonging to the Blue Ridge range, in the north-west part of the state, rise to the height of about 4000 feet. Geologically the eastern part of the state is quaternary or alluvial and the western is eozoic, with extensive tertiary and older formations intermediate. Most of the rivers—the largest the Santee (q.v.)—are navigable by steamboats nearly to the foot-slope of the ridge region, where they supply abundant water-power. South Carolina
Copyright 1892 in U.S. by J. B. Lippincott Company. has three customs districts, with ports of entry at Georgetown, Charleston, and Beaufort.
The state is rich in mineral products, which recent enterprise is profitably developing. The gold-belt extends from the North Carolina line in a south-westerly direction, the most productive mines being in York, Lancaster, Chesterfield, and Spartanburg counties. Granite is abundant in Abbeville, Fairfield, and Newberry counties; and itacolhnite, a flexible sandstone, is quarried for grindstones in Spartanburg. Kaolin of superior quality, and used for artificial teeth, is obtained in Chester county. Pliocene marl is abundant in Horry, Sumpter, and Marlborough counties. Post-pliocene is found in Edisto Island and near the Savannah, Santee, Ashley, and Cooper rivers. But the most important mineral product of South Carolina is its famous deposit of phosphate rock, extending about 70 miles from the mouth of the Broad River near Port Royal to the head-waters of the Wando, north of Charleston. Its direction is parallel with the coast, and its width in some places is 30 miles. It crops out near the Ashley River, where it was first observed. This immense phosphate bed is generally covered with quaternary clays and sands, and its nodular phosphatic layer rests upon deep strata of calcareous marl, beneath which cretaceous marls extend along the entire eastern part of the state. In 1892 about twenty companies found profitable investment for more than $4,000,000 capital in the mining and manufacture of nearly 4,000,000 tons of phosphate rock. It is obtained as a tribasic phosphate, and is used mainly in the manufacture of superphosphates. The average of lime phosphate is from 52 to 60 per cent. of the rock. Gray iron ore (magnetite) is found in Union, York, and Spartanburg counties; and copper pyrites (chalco-pyrite), galena, limonite, malachite, pyrolusite, and pyromorphite or phosphate of lead have been found in the western part of the state, and sand for glass in Aiken and Barnwell counties. Deer, wild turkeys, raccoons, foxes, squirrels, and other small game are still numerous in the forests; and the rivers, sounds, and inlets are stocked with a great variety of fish. Alligators of large size inhabit the tidal rivers.
South Carolina, called the Palmetto State from the growth of the cabbage-tree (Sabal palmetto) near the coast, ranks twenty-third in the list of forty-four states. By the census of 1890 the population was 1,151,149, consisting of 692,503 coloured persons, 453,454 white, 172 Indians, and 20 Chinese. Of the thirty-five counties (districts previous to 1868) Newberry alone failed to show increase from 1880 to 1890. Charleston, the largest city, had a population of 54,955 in 1890, and Columbia, the capital, 15,353. The mild climate is salubrious except in the rice-lands. The low islands along the coast afford desirable summer-resorts, as well as the western mountain-region known as 'the land of the sky.' The average rainfall in the eastern part is from 42 to 44 inches. The coast lies within the usual limits of West India cyclones, which are often destructive of life and property. Charleston (q.v.) suffered severely from a cyclone in 1885, and, much more terribly, from an earthquake in 1886, which caused twenty-seven deaths and over $6,000,000 of loss in property. The principal crops are maize, rice (on the coast), oats, yams, cotton (in 1894, 818,330 bales were harvested in this fifth of the cotton-growing states), and, since 1895, tobacco in increasing quantities.
In 1562 John Ribault, at the head of a party of French Protestants sent over by Admiral Coligny, built a fort on an island in the harbour of Port Royal, and named it Arx Carolina, in honour of the king Charles IX. The twenty-six colonists left by Ribault soon abandoned the fort to return to
France. In 1630 Sir Robert Heath obtained a grant from Charles I. reaching from latitude 36° to the Gulf of Mexico, but failure to colonise forfeited the title. In this grant the territory was named Carolina for Charles I. In 1662 Charles II. granted to Lord Clarendon and seven associates all the territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific lying between parallels 31° and 36° N. Two years later the northern boundary was made 36° 30'. In 1670 three ship-loads of English settlers under William Sayle landed at or near Port Royal, but the next year moved to the right bank of Ashley River. In 1680 they moved again to the present site of Charleston. The proprietary government under the 'model Constitution,' drawn up by John Locke (see NORTH CAROLINA), lasted till 1729, when George II. bought out the proprietors and divided Carolina into two royal provinces. Subsequently South Carolina became one of the most flourishing of the British colonies and attracted an intelligent and enterprising class of settlers from Europe, including many French Huguenots, who came soon after the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685. Hence the Gallic origin of so many distinguished names in the history of the state.
Sir John Yeamans, who had been appointed governor, brought from Barbadoes two hundred negro slaves in 1671. The blacks in a few years nearly equalled the whites, and since 1820 have been more numerous in the state. During the revolutionary war South Carolina furnished her full quota of men and means, and suffered much from British invasion and occupation. This state was the first to ratify the Articles of Confederation, February 5, 1788, and the eighth to ratify the constitution, May 23, 1788. In 1833 a convention called by the legislature passed the ordinance known as the Nullification Act (q.v.). South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union. A convention called by the legislature met on the 17th December 1860, and passed an ordinance of secession by a unanimous vote on the 20th. Six sister slave-states soon followed the example of South Carolina, and formed the Southern Confederacy, which was subsequently increased by four more. South Carolina was readmitted into the Union on June 25, 1865. Since the accomplishment of reconstruction the state has attained a high degree of prosperity. It sends seven representatives to the national congress. The excellent public school system affords good educational advantages to pupils of both races in primary and intermediate studies; and provision is made for industrial and higher education.
See UNITED STATES; Histories of South Carolina by Simms (new ed. 1860) and Ramsay (1867); and E. McGrady, The History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government (1898).