A land of tides, conflict and reinvention

Lowcountry history was shaped by dreamers, conquerors, profiteers and the fierce resistance of the people who were already here.

The South Carolina Lowcountry entered global history as Spain, France and England battled for control of its coastline. Spanish explorers arrived in the early 1500s, kidnapped Indigenous people collectively known as Chicora and unsuccessfully attempted to establish settlements near Port Royal. The French followed with a short-lived Huguenot colony on present-day Parris Island. Only with the founding of Charles Towne in 1670 did the English secure a lasting foothold. Their profit-driven plantation economy generated immense wealth, but it also brought instability: violent clashes with Indigenous nations, waves of piracy and a Revolutionary War that divided neighbors as much as it defied the British.

During the late 1600s and early 1700s, the Port Royal Sound region — Beaufort, Hilton Head Island and modern-day Bluffton — formed the southern military frontier of the English colony, a buffer against Spanish Florida.

Beaufort, chartered in 1711, was the only formal town. It was destroyed during the Yamasee War of 1715-17, and the entire area was abandoned for nearly a decade. Only after the Yamasee were pushed into Spanish territory did the English return, rebuild and transform Beaufort into the Lowcountry’s military and administrative center.

Hilton Head Island and Bluffton were not yet towns, but they were critical ground in the struggle among English settlers, Spanish forces and Indigenous nations.

After the Yamasee War, the English began granting land for plantations, laying the foundation for the rise of indigo and Sea Island cotton. Bluffton would not emerge as a community until the early 1800s, yet its high river bluffs and deep tidal access were already recognized as valuable.

Rice cultivation surged during this era, turning the Lowcountry into one of the wealthiest regions in North America. Africans soon outnumbered Europeans in many coastal areas, giving rise to the enduring Gullah/Geechee culture.

The first shots of the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter in 1861, but Bluffton had been moving toward secession for years. The Secession Oak was a live oak in Bluffton known as the birthplace of the Bluffton Movement, where, on July 31, 1844, wealthy planters known as the Bluffton Boys, along with about 500 supporters, first organized support for South Carolina’s secession from the Union. “Fire-Eater” Congressman Robert Barnwell Rhett spoke to the crowd, advocating secession in response to federal tariffs, threats to slavery and perceived violations of states’ rights.

Other prominent Bluffton Boys included James Henry Hammond, John McQueen and William F. Colcock. The more than 300-year-old oak collapsed during a heavy storm in 2020, but several large branches remain on private property and are inaccessible to visitors.
When Union forces captured Hilton Head and Port Royal Sound in November 1861, Confederate troops retreated to Bluffton, using its high bluffs to watch for Union gunboats on the May and Colleton rivers. Union forces retaliated by burning about two-thirds of the town on June 4, 1863, in what is remembered as the Burning of Bluffton.

The French dreamed. The Spanish converted. The English profited. And the Lowcountry keeps evolving with every newcomer.

Tamela is a proofreader and book editor; she hosts paint parties for adults, art and drama camp for kids, and is the art teacher at May River Montessori. www.tamelamaxim.com www.artposseproductions.com