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 Charleston
County and the city of Charleston, its county seat, are
the most historic locations in the state. English
settlers arrived in the colony of Carolina in 1670 and
established a town at Albemarle Point on the west bank
of the Ashley River. The settlement, named Charles Town
in honor of King Charles II of England, was subsequently
moved a few miles away to a peninsula between the Ashley
and Cooper rivers. Charles Town (renamed Charleston in
1783) was the political, social, and economic center of
South Carolina throughout the colonial and antebellum
periods, and it served as the state capital until 1790.
Charleston District was formed in 1769, but portions
were later split off to form Colleton (1800) and
Berkeley (1882) counties. Present day Charleston County
includes the old parishes of St. Philip, St. Michael,
Christ Church, St. Andrew, St. John Colleton, and part
of St. James Santee. English and French Huguenot
settlers and their African slaves built indigo, rice,
and cotton plantations along the area's rivers and on
its sea islands, while merchants of many nationalities
made Charleston one of the busiest ports on the
Atlantic. During the Revolutionary War the American
forces defeated the attacking British fleet at
Charleston in June 1776; a palmetto log fort (later
named Fort Moultrie) on Sullivans Island withstood the
British cannon balls, and the palmetto tree was
subsequently given a prominent place on the South
Carolina flag.
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