MY LAURENS ANCESTRY

The modern history of South Carolina began in 1663, when King Charles II of England gave a huge territory in southern North America to eight noblemen. By the 1700’s the eastern part of this territory has become the Carolinas. The first permanent English settlement was made near the present-day site of Charleston. The area separated into North and South Carolina some time between 1710 and 1719.

 

In the 1730’s, the royal governor established a plan to attract white settlers to the Upcountry, hoping to protect the frontier from Indians and discourage slave uprisings. Many of the settlers of the Up Country, of which Laurens is a part, came into the Carolinas from colonies further north, Virginia and Pennsylvania, along the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road, a route which had evolved from Indian trails. The first emigrants from Pennsylvania and Virgina started arriving in the 1750’s, pushed by the outbreak of the French and Indian wars on the one side and the lure of free land on the other side. Unlike the planters at the coast, many of whom owned large rice plantations based on slavery, most of the settlers in the Upcountry were small subsistence farmers, many of them Scotch Irish and non-slaveholders, at least at the beginning. There were also German and Swiss settlers who had begun to arrive in the 1730’s.

 

In 1769 seven original judicial districts were created in the South Carolina colony. The Ninety Six District included what is now Laurens County. Relations between England and her American colonies had begun to sour after 1763, leading to revolution in 1775. As elsewhere in the colonies, loyalties were split. Many South Carolinians, were loyalists, especially those in the Low Country. There was a similar splitting of loyalties in the Upcountry. The British left the Ninety-Six District in 1781. They burned and pillaged rebel property on their way to the coast, turning many of the colonists against them. The Revolutionary War ended in 1783 and the United States of America was formed.

 

In 1785 the Ninety-Six district was divided into six counties. Besides Laurens, there were Abbeville, Edgefield, Newberry, Spartanburg and Union. These counties served only as geographical divisions, all records still being kept in Charleston, until 1798 when each county became a functioning governmental entity.

 

Charleston had been the capital of the colony and had remained so because of the political clout of the planter class. In 1788, South Carolina officially became a state in the newly created United States. By 1790, the population and political power of the Upcountry had increased sufficiently to force the moving of the capital to its present-day site at Columbia, centrally located in the state.

 

The split between Upcountry and Low Country remained extreme until the 1790’s. Inhabitants of the Upcountry lived a marginal existence, while planters ruled society in the Low Country. The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 changed all that. Until then, long staple Sea Island cotton was grown only in the coastal areas. With the invention of the cotton gin, short staple cotton could be grown profitably almost anywhere. With the spread of cotton came the spread of slave culture. Laurens County had under 2000 slaves in 1800. By 1860, there were over 13,000.

 

By 1860 another change was in the wind. South Carolina became the first state to secede from the union. It should be understood that the passion for secession was not monolithic. There were many citizens, especially in the Upcountry and Appalachian areas that opposed secession. The Civil War began in 1861, ending in 1865. Although no battles took place in Laurens County, many men from the county served during the war. South Carolina was readmitted to the Union in 1870. Because of racial fighting in October 1870, Laurens along with eight other counties in South Carolina, was placed under martial law.

 

Reconstruction formally ended across the South in 1876 and Federal troops were withdrawn. The Republican party lost control of the government and along with the Democrats return to power came the suppression of the rights of African Americans known as Jim Crow. This period of suppression remained in effect until the Civil Rights era of the 1960’s.

 

It was against this historical background that our ancestors lived out their lives.