Charleston Time Machine

Under the shadow of the Great War in 1918, Charleston was ill-equipped to counter a major health crisis when influenza spread throughout the community in a wave of acute sickness and death. Quarantine, isolation, and volunteer efforts soon arrested the disease, however, and the city rebounded from its first modern epidemic with a lamentable but limited death toll.

Yamboo was an African Muslim whose faith helped him endure a life of servitude in 18th-century South Carolina. His brief autobiography, published in 1790, provides valuable evidence of Islam among this region’s enslaved population as well a rare narrative of the journey from Africa and his struggle for survival and dignity in the face of oppression.

Between 1720 and 1775, a succession of British warships anchored in Charleston to protect the port’s valuable trade and to assist His Majesty’s government. Their presence forms a significant part of South Carolina’s maritime history that is not well remembered on these shores. Today we’ll jog the collective memory with an overview of this important nautical topic.

Can you put a monetary value on your freedom? South Carolina’s early laws trapped enslaved people in a life of servitude, but a handful of them managed to generate sufficient cash to buy their own freedom. Today we’ll explore the phenomenon of self-purchase and review a few cases of men and women whose perseverance unlocked the yoke of slavery.

The laws of early South Carolina allowed slave owners to set free an unknown number of men, women, and children with little or no interference from the government. Today we’ll explore the phenomenon of private manumission from the colonial era to the legislative interventions of the early nineteenth century that restricted and finally prohibited this traditional practice.

On several occasions between 1708 and 1822, the South Carolina General Assembly purchased the freedom of enslaved people who had performed remarkable acts of public service. These public manumissions were not simply altruistic expressions of gratitude, but also the calculated efforts of nervous white lawmakers to cultivate feelings of loyalty within the enslaved majority population.

Freedom and slavery were the opposing states of being that defined the lives of most early Charlestonians, but our community also hosted a small population of people who lived between those legal poles. The city’s “free people of color” enjoyed a modicum of liberty, but the law viewed their skin color and ancestry as a bar from full civil rights.

From the 1670s to the 1830s, the Carolina Coffee House in London’s Birchin Lane served as the epicenter for conversations about this colony and state, its opportunities and challenges, and its residents. To better understand its important role in Charleston’s past, let’s review the history of this old coffee shop and take a virtual stroll through Birchin Lane.

The phrase “Holy City” is often used to describe Charleston’s deep history of religious freedom and diversity. Contrary to popular belief, however, early South Carolinians did not enjoy the liberty of conscience that we take for granted today. In this program, we’ll consider the systematic religious discrimination that once legally divided the people of this community.

The secret confederacy that formed in November 1719 assembled as an elected Convention of the people that December. In a showdown with the proprietary government, the Convention staged a bloodless coup d’etat that unhinged the colony’s political landscape. Born of frustration with the Lords Proprietors, the Revolution of 1719 was won at the end of a musket barrel and crowned by the royal approval of King George.