South Carolina is a state in the southeastern region of the United States of America. The Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution. It was the first state to secede from the Union to found the Confederate States of America. The state is named after King Charles II of England, as Carolus is Latin for Charles. According to 2005 estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau, the state's population is 4,321,249.
South Carolina is one of the original states of the United States of America, and its history has been remarkable for an extraordinary commitment to political independence, whether from overseas or federal control. As a cornerstone of mercantilism and the slave trade, as the powder keg of the American Civil War, as the home of Jim Crow, and as the heart of the Dixiecrat movement, South Carolina's history has been the epitome of decentralization (Anti-federalism) in the U.S.
Although the area that is now the contemporary U.S. state of South Carolina has been populated since at least 13,000 BC (when tool-making nomads began to leave material remains), the documented history of South Carolina begins in 1540 with the visit of Hernando de Soto. The proprietary colony of Carolina was first settled at Charles Town in 1670, mostly by immigrants from the English colony of Barbados. There was discontent with the Lords Proprietors from the earliest years of the colony, which erupted into a general overthrow after the Yamasee War of 1715-1717. In 1719 the colony was officially made a crown colony, although the Lords Proprietors held their rights until 1729.
Differences between the northern and southern parts of Carolina were recognized during proprietary rule and separate governors established. The de facto separation of the two colonies was made official when they were admitted as crown colonies in 1729.
South Carolina declared independence from Great Britain and set up its own government on March 15, 1776. It joined the United States by signing the Declaration of Independence. For two years its president was John Rutledge who became governor. On February 5, 1778, South Carolina became the first state to ratify the first constitution of the U.S., the Articles of Confederation.
With the election of Abraham Lincoln on an anti-slavery platform in 1860, South Carolina immediately and with considerable unanimity decided to secede. On December 20, 1860 it became the first state to leave the Union and in February it joined the Confederate States of America. In April the American Civil War began when Confederate forces attacked the American fort at Fort Sumter, in Charleston, 1861. After the Confederate defeat, South Carolina underwent Reconstruction. Freed slaves benefited from this, gaining numerous civil rights; however, the gains were short-lived, and were eventually taken away by the Jim Crow laws that were especially severe in South Carolina. Civil rights for South Carolina's African Americans would remain diminished until the Civil Rights struggle of the mid-20th century.
From 1865 to 1940 the state was poor and educational levels were low. Most people lived on farms and grew cotton. The more affluent were landowners, who subdivided the land into farms operated by tenant farmers or sharecroppers, along with land operated by the owner using hired labor. The Piedmont area industrialized, with textile factories that turned the raw cotton into yard and cloth for sale on the national market.
Politically the state was part of the Solid South, with no elected black officials between 1900 and the late 1960s. Segregation was rigidly enforced in the Jim Crow era. The Civil Rights laws of the 1960s ended segregation and allowed the blacks to vote. By 2000 South Carolina was solidly Republican at the presidential level, but state and local government was contested by the two parties. The cotton regime ended by the 1950s. As factories were built across the state, the great majority of farmers left agriculture. The population continued to grow, reaching 4 million in 2000, as coast areas became prime locations for tourists and retirees. With a poverty rate of 13.5%, the state was only slightly worse than the national average of 11.7%.
