South Carolina in The American Revolution - Prewar Causes

Prewar Causes

After Parliament began taxing the North American colonies to raise revenue to make up the costs of the French and Indian War and Pontiac's Rebellion, to protest the Stamp Act, South Carolina sent wealthy rice planter Thomas Lynch, 26-year old lawyer John Rutledge, and Christopher Gadsden to the Stamp Act Congress. Gadsden, leader of the pro-Independence "Liberty Boys," is often grouped with James Otis and Patrick Henry as the prime agitators for American independence by historians. Gadsden designed the "Don't Tread on Me" flag, first used on December 3, 1775 on the Alfred, featuring a rattlesnake with 13 rattles representing each colony.

In 1767 the Townsend Acts made new taxes on glass, oil, wine, tea, paper, and other goods. Gadsden led the opposition and although Britain removed the taxes on everything except tea, Charlestonians mirrored the Boston Tea Party by dumping a shipment of tea into the Cooper River. Other shipments were allowed to land, but they rotted in Charles Town storehouses.

Delegates from twelve colonies, all of the Thirteen Colonies except for Georgia, came together for the First Continental Congress in 1774. Five South Carolinians, including those who represented the colony in the Stamp Act Congress, headed for Philadelphia, and Henry Middleton served as president for part of Congress. The following January the South Carolina colonial assembly was disbanded by Royal Governor Lord William Campbell, and it was reformed as an extralegal Provincial Congress. During this meeting and following meetings, in June 1775 and March 1776, the South Carolinians created a temporary government to rule until the colony had settled things with Britain. John Rutledge was voted "president" of the state which was called the "General Assembly of South Carolina" (the term "Republic" or "Republic of South Carolina" was never used.)

Most Loyalists came from the Upcountry, which thought that domination by the rich, elitist Charles Town planter class in an unsupervised government was worse than remaining under the rule of the British Crown. Judge William Henry Drayton and Reverend William Tennent were sent to the Back Country to gain support for the "American Cause" and Lowcountry's General Committee and Provincial Congress, but did not have much success. In September 1775, the Royal Governor dissolved the last-ever Royal Assembly in South Carolina and left for the safety of the British warship Tamar in the Charleston Harbor.