South Carolina Emigration and Immigration

Portal:United States Emigration and Immigration >South Carolina

The People

About 80 percent of the settlers of colonial South Carolina were of English origin. Many of them came by way of Barbados and other colonies rather than directly from England. A group of Dutch settlers from New York came to South Carolina in 1671. Another smaller group was of French origin, mostly descendants of Huguenots, who came to the area beginning in 1680. More numerous were the Scottish dissenters, who were brought in beginning in 1682, and the Germans, who arrived during the eighteenth century. Blacks constituted a majority of the population from early colonial times until 1930. Indian wars drove most of the native Americans from the state, but there are still a few Catawba Indians in York County.[[Image:

Overland migration routes in and around early South Carolina.

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In 1664, a "group of Barbadians joined in an agreement to settle in Carolina." In the twentieth century, this document was kept in the South Carolina Historical Society Collection (reference V/29).

Several histories chronicle these Atlantic World links:

• Alleyne, Warren and Henry Fraser. The Barbados-Carolina Connection. London: Macmillan Publishers Limited, 1988. FHL Collection 972.981 H2a
• Kent, David L. Barbados and America. Arlington, Va.: C.M. Kent, 1980. FHL Collection 972.981 X2b

Settlement Patterns

The earliest settlements were on the coastal plain low country of South Carolina. Pushed by a desire to escape the Revolutionary War and pulled by a desire for land, settlers eventually poured into the Piedmont up country. They were of Ulster Scots, German, and Welsh descent. In 1770 the population of South Carolina was less than 50,000; by 1790 it had reached 140,000.

Almost immediately after statehood, South Carolina began to lose population to the westward movement. In the early 1800s, slaveholders moved to new, more fertile plantations in Alabama and Mississippi. In the 1820s, antislavery Quakers moved to the Old Northwest, especially Indiana.

South Carolina did not attract many overseas immigrants during the nineteenth century. State-sponsored recruiting efforts brought in a few hundred Germans between 1866 and 1868 and about 2,500 northern Europeans in the early 1900s.

= English Immigrants

In lieu of official passenger lists regarding early settlers of Barbados, genealogists must rely on evidence gleaned from a variety of sources to successfully trace immigrant origins.

It is not uncommon to find monumental inscriptions and plaques in English churches memorializing family members who settled in Barbados. The Prerogative Court of Canterbury in London proved the wills of many residents of the island. For access, see Barbados Probate Records. Heraldic visitations list some members of prominent English families who crossed the Atlantic. Expert Links: English Family History and Genealogy includes a concise list of visitations available online. Online archive catalogs, such as Access to Archives, can be keyword searched for place names, such as "Barbados" and "Barbadoes," to retrieve manuscripts stored in hundreds of English archives relating to persons and landholdings in this island in the West Indies. These types of records establish links between Barbados residents and England, which can lead researchers back to their specific ancestral English towns, villages, and hamlets.

The multi-volume Calendar of Colonial State Papers Colonial, America, and West Indies (1574-1739), which is available for free online (see discussion in Barbados Public Records), highlights many connections between England and Barbados.

Three major immigration databases are:

1. Ancestry's Immigration & Travel Records ($)
2. Immigrant Servants Database
3. Virtual Jamestown

Remnants of passenger lists and other substitute sources are discussed below.

The major port of entry to South Carolina was Charleston. In the eighteenth century, many immigrants petitioned for headright lands in the Colony of South Carolina, see:

• Holcomb, Brent H. Petitions for Land from the South Carolina Council Journals. (1734-1774) 7 vols. Columbia, S.C.: SCMAR, 1996-1999. FHL 975.7 R2h v. 1

The Family History Library and the National Archives have fragmentary passenger lists for Charleston for 1820 to 1828 FHL 830232 and for Port Royal for 1865 FHL 830245. A few arrivals at Charleston are included in an index to passenger lists of vessels arriving at miscellaneous southern ports from 1890 to 1924 FHL 1324938-FHL 1324963.

Customs records for the ports of Charleston, Georgetown, and Beaufort are at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History. Several published records of pre-1900 immigrants are indexed in P. William Filby, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index (Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Company, 1981, 1985, 1986; FHL 973 W32p. Supplements are issued annually. There are cumulative indexes.

More detailed information on immigration sources is in the United States Emigration and Immigration. Records of other major ethnic groups, including French Huguenots, Ulster Scots, Jews, Quakers, and Catawba Indians exist.

• Motes, Margaret Peckham. Migration to South Carolina, Movement from the New England and Mid-Atlantic States, 1850 Census. Baltimore, Md.: Clearfield, 2004. FHL 975.7 X2mm 1850; digital version at World Vital Records ($).
• Revill, Janie. A Compilation of the Original Lists Protestant Immigrants to South Carolina, 1763-1773. Columbia, S.C.: State Co., 1939. FHL 975.7 W2r; 1968 reprint: FHL 975.7 W2r 1968; digital version of 1996 reprint at World Vital Records ($).
• Scott, Kenneth. British Aliens in the United States During the War of 1812. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1979. FHL 973 W4s; digital version at Ancestry ($). [Identifies many British immigrants living in Charleston during the War of 1812.]
• Stephenson, Jean. Scotch-Irish Migration to South Carolina, 1772: Rev. William Martin and His Five Shiploads of Settlers. Strasburg, Va.: Shenandoah Publishing House, 1971. FHL 975.7 W2s; digital version at World Vital Records ($).

A standard work on early South Carolina immigrants, which includes some passenger lists, is now also widely available on the Internet:

• Hotten, John Camden. The Original Lists of Persons of Quality: Emigrants; Religious Exiles; Political Rebels; Serving Men Sold for a Term of Years; Apprentices; Children Stolen; Maidens Pressed; and Others Who Went from Great Britain to the American Plantations, 1600-1700, with Their Ages, the Localities Where They Formerly Lived in the Mother Country, the Names of the Ships in which They Embarked, and Other Interesting Particulars; from MSS. Preserved in the State Paper Department of Her Majesty's Public Record Office, England. London: the author, 1874. Digital versions at Ancestry ($); Google Books and Internet Archive; 1983 reprint: FHL Collection 973 W2hot 1983

Brandow published an addendum to Hotten's work:

• Brandow, James C. Omitted Chapters from Hotten's Original Lists of Persons of Quality ... and Others Who Went from Great Britain to the American Plantations, 1600-1700. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2001. Digital version at Ancestry ($).

Peter Wilson Coldham has published several volumes of English records that identify, among other American immigrants, those destined for South Carolina. Coldham's works are indexed in Filby's Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s (digital version at Ancestry ($)).

• Coldham, Peter Wilson. British Emigrants in Bondage, 1614-1788. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Pub. Co., 2004. FHL Collection CD-ROM no. 2150.
• Coldham, Peter Wilson. The Bristol Registers of Servants Sent to Foreign Plantations, 1654-1686. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1988. FHL Collection 942.41/B2 W2c; digital versions at Ancestry ($); Chronicle Barbados (Barbados entries only); Virtual Jamestown.
• Coldham, Peter Wilson. The Complete Book of Emigrants: 1607-1776. n.p.: Brøderbund, 1996. FHL Collection CD-ROM no. 9 pt. 350; digital version of select portions at Virtual Jamestown.

African Immigrants

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database Internet site contains references to 35,000 slave voyages, including over 67,000 Africans aboard slave ships, using name, age, gender, origin, and place of embarkation. The database is about the slave trade between Africa, Europe, Brazil, the Caribbean, and the United States.

Records of blacks are listed in the Family History Library Catalog Place Search under the heading SOUTH CAROLINA - SLAVERY AND BONDAGE and under the heading SOUTH CAROLINA - MINORITIES.

Scottish and Irish Immigrants

David Dobson has dedicated many years to establishing links between Scots and their dispersed Scottish cousins who settled throughout the world. For South Carolina connections, see:

• Dobson, David. Directory of Scots in the Carolinas, 1680-1830, Volume 1. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1986. FHL 975 F2d; digital version at World Vital Records ($).
• Dobson, David. Directory of Scots in the Carolinas, 1680-1830, Volume 2. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2004. Digital version at World Vital Records ($).
• Motes, Margaret Peckham. Irish Found in South Carolina 1850 Census. Baltimore, Md.: Clearfield, 2003. FHL 975.7 F2mm; digital version at World Vital Records ($).

The following internet site has potentially useful information: German Roots (Port of Charleston). 

Westward Migrants

• Robertson, Clara Hamlett. Kansas Territorial Settlers of 1860 Who were Born in Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina: A Compilation with Historical Annotations and Editorial Comment. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1976. FHL 978.1 H2ro; digital version at World Vital Records ($).

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