South Carolina / American Revolution

South Carolina / American Revolution

People are generally inclined to revolt when they feel that they are oppressed or when they are being taken advantage of. In time, there had been countless rebellions against unjust rulers, but one of the most significant examples of people wanting freedom is the American War of Independence. The war had started as a result of the people living on American soil being discontented with the British asking for unjust taxes. When thinking about the states which were involved in the American Revolution, one would most probably think about Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and the states in their immediate vicinity. However, South Carolina had been among the most important states in which the faith of the war was being decided.

The reason leading to such a conclusion, when regarding the war, is that the colony had been under siege until the end of the conflict while other colonies had long finished fighting on their territory.

The Americans and the United States are a symbol of freedom for people everywhere as they had proved that a community of people could successfully turn against one of the greatest nations in the world at the time. Most of the nations in the world which had have revolutions consequent to that in America had been inspired from writers, scholars and philosophers, politicians and common people who wrote about freedom and the right one must have to decide upon one's own destiny just as they had been inspired by the American Revolution.

The Revolution had its roots back in 1763, with the British colonists in America enjoying the taste of victory from the right to exploit the lands they ruled over. After having become certain of owning the lands previously claimed by the Spanish and the French, the colonists had now expected to settle for an easy life that offered them only the benefits of ruling over the rich lands over the Atlantic. All of these could have been made possible, at least for a while longer, had the British government accepted to grant the colonists their previous rights. It seemed that the people who left England now coming to settle in America had felt as if they had lost some of their British characteristics, on one hand and gained some new ones, on the other, gaining in diversity.

To their surprise, things had not turned out to be as the colonists had expected. Great Britain amassed debts which would influence the Empire into rethinking some of the plans concerning the American continent. The country had already been going through harsh conditions with King George III been succeeded by his inexperienced grandson, George II. This factor contributed in further perturbing the already difficult conditions in America.

Trying to deal with reconstructing the country's economy, King George II made public the Royal Proclamation of 1763. The deed irritated the settlers for the reason that it didn't recognize several of the lands taken by them in the west. Several colonists regarded the act as being unjust and decided to condemn the King's actions which practically ignored the recognition of the lands as being rightfully theirs. The decision had also alarmed some of the most influential colonists, including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Virginia Lees. From then on, the colonists would contest most of the acts issued by the new King in regard to the colonies.

The King continued to raise additional contestants among the colonists with several laws which spoiled the colonies of some of their resources. During a trial, one of the colonists claimed that the king had broken the convention between Britain and her colonies. Matters were becoming even more complicated with the number of unsatisfied colonists increasing.

The British officials did not take into account any of the dissatisfactions expressed among the colonists and continued to demand for exaggerated reforms. The American Revenue Act had been enacted in 1764 and it had been the first act which would clearly demand for the colonies to pay unreasonable taxes. The previous taxes which the British government had raised from the colonists had been explainable through the fact that they controlled trades. The Sugar Act, as the American Revenues Act had been called, adjoined a number of extra taxes for non-textile products. The colonists had been quick to react by condemning the act and through their attitude it had been made clear that the colonies were not going to accept being bullied by the crown. The government went further and planned for the building of a vice-admiralty court in Halifax which would basically deny one's right to a fair trial by having people trialed without juries. Another act that would surprise Americans was the Currency Act which forbade colonists the right of printing money within the colonies.

The Americans began to dynamically protest against the British acts as they generally still considered themselves to be British citizens. A main reason for the distress among the colonists was that the people in Britain could profit from the bills. The first real American campaign against the British had been held in Boston in 1764. After several negotiations within the members of the protest, the merchant colonists agreed to stop from importing some of the British products. Despite the fact that the measures taken by the colonists had been harmless at first, they would later prove to be extremely effective.

The first obvious act that would tax Americans is the Stamp Act which had been meant to produce approximately 60000 thousand pounds per year. Along with the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act would contribute to bringing the British a small part of the money that they expected from the colonies. The colonists did not accept the Stamp Act with a smile on their faces, but instead they persuaded most of their fellow citizens not to encourage the act. After the Stamp Act had been abolished by the colonists, the British were still in a desperate situation, with their debts unpaid.

After observing that the Americans had protested even louder against the Stamp Act than they did against the Sugar Act, the British decided to create a new act that would tax Americans indirectly. Thus, the Townshend Act had been enacted and it taxed Americans on glass, paint, paper, lead, and tea. The Colonists refused to accept the act and after intense protesting they managed to repeal the act and the taxes the British asked for. The only product which was still going to be taxed had been tea and colonists had not been content concerning the matter. It was not long until the colonists had shaken the tea tax with several actions across the country.

One of the most significant anti-taxation movements there was the "Boston tea party" in Charles Town. Discontented with the fact that they had to paid astronomical prices for the tea, the locals had unloaded a load of tea into the river. The other loads had been abandoned in a deposit with no one willing to buy British tea anymore. The incident had not remained singular, with a similar event happening in Charleston, South Carolina as the residents had taken possession of all the tea shipments coming from Britain.

Massachusetts had been the first colony to officially rise against Britain with its people asking for all of the colonies to unite against their mother country's oppression. After the harassing of several of the tax collectors in the colonies, the British government had sent soldiers to protect the tax collectors. With the presence of soldiers in the colonies in time of peace, the colonists had realized that the Townshend act had been a mere method for the British government to extort them.

By adopting the non-importing attitude, the colonists had created discontent among the British merchants. As a result, the British traders asked for their government to withdraw the Townshend tea tax.

Between 1770 and1773 things remained relatively calm, not considering some minor events like the "Boston massacre," which in fact resulted in two deadly casualties. The Boston massacre had been largely publicized and most of the colonists have regarded the episode as an abuse from the British soldiers.

Matters went critical as Benjamin Franklin, which at the time was a committed supporter of the British, had found some letters in which some American officials had insisted on the fact that the British government should rule more strictly over the colonies. After some unhappy events, the British government had decided to condemn Franklin instead of removing the American officials from their posts. Outraged and humiliated, Franklin had most surely developed part of his revolutionary nature after the incident.

Furious after finding out about the disobedience in the colonies, the King had decided to introduce the Coercive Acts. The respective acts had most certainly been impossible for the colonists to accept as they involved the Americans having to break most of their principles, basically enslaving them. Through the introducing of the Coercive Acts, the British involuntarily called for a rebellion.

The colonists gathered people from nearly all the states except from the state of Georgia in the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia on the 5th of September. The colonists did not necessarily want independence from their mother country, but they wished for the British to return to the position they had before the 1763 war. Unintentionally, on the 10th of May 1775, the colonies had opened the road towards the war of independence instead of planning a simple rebellion.

As the war started, the British had been certain of obtaining victory in a short time. Clearly, all signs led people into thinking that it would not be long before the colonies would be defeated. However, after several clashes between the British small, yet professional, army and the untrained colonist group, fate appeared to have favored the Americans.

Next to the colonies which were desperate to escape from under the British government's command, there had also been colonies which truly enjoyed being part of the British Empire.

One of the colonies to benefit from her connection to Britain had been South Carolina. During the time of the beginning of the revolution, South Carolina had been regarded as being less likely to join the cause of the other colonies. This had been mostly due to people considering that the colony would only have to lose in a potential revolution. Nevertheless, as most colonies, South Carolina's people, among which had been nine of the richest top ten Americans at the time, had been unhappy with the way that the British wanted to rule over the colonies.

During the last two years, before the ending of the war, the number of people dying in South Carolina had exceeded one thousand by far. The colony had been witnessing more fighting than any other state in America at the time.

After having led numerous battles in the North, the British army had now wanted to bring their military campaigns in the south. The British had initially planned to conquer both South Carolina and Georgia. Being a port, and an influential colony in America, South Carolina had been regarding as being a crucial target for the British. Being determined to capture the port and the city of Charleston, the British had concentrated some of their forces in the area. After successfully conducting warfare in the south, the British had appointed Sir Henry Clinton to lead the South Carolinian assault. During 1780, the South Carolinians under General Benjamin Lincoln had lost their port and the city of Charleston after intense fighting between the two parties.

The Americans had received a significant strike with the lost of one of the major points in the south and the South Carolinians were now more vulnerable to an interior attack. Shortly after, the British under Lord Cornwallis had moved inland at Camden and defeated another American army under Horatio Gates.

The British had not been the only force to oppose the revolutionary South Carolinians, as the loyalist South Carolinians had taken the opportunity to attack their community. The war in South Carolina had turned into a true civil war between the revolutionaries and the loyalists and the fighting took place everywhere across the state. As the British army had attempted to further chase the small guerrilla armies, they encountered great resistance to a point that Cornwallis's army had stopped to a halt. The guerilla army formed in South Carolina from militia men had initially been developed in Britain as a mean for any community to provide defense against invaders.

The guerilla war did not take long. The Americans sent an army under Major General Nathanael Greene to assist the revolutionary South Carolinians in their campaign. As the reinforcements arrived, the war had turned the balance in favor of the Americans with Greene's army proving an excellent capacity of conducting warfare. Cleverly, Greene had planned to compensate the fact that Cornwallis's army had been more numerous by joining the revolutionary South Carolinian guerilla. By doing so, Greene hoped to strike several rapid assaults which would confuse Cornwallis. Proving his amazing military leader abilities, Greene had exhausted Cornwallis and made him take refuge in the colony of Virginia. After doing so, Greene set on chasing all of the British soldiers present in inland South California thus freeing the colony. (Cheaney)

The war in South Carolina had ended in 1782 with the British leaving by ship after several clashes with the Americans in the city of Charleston. During the American War of Independence, the colony of South Carolina had been witness to unimaginable atrocities as people had been fighting on the very streets of the city. Even more indescribable had been the image of former neighbors under the masks of loyalists now wanting to kill their fellow Americans under the masks of revolutionaries.

Despite the fact of being far from the North and particularly defenseless against both the British and the loyalists, the revolutionaries from South Carolina had managed very well in surviving and even in fighting back their tyrants.

The colony of South Carolina had ultimately played a vital part in the war, as the colonists had managed to keep Cornwallis's entire army until the arrival of Greene. Consequently, Cornwallis had to leave and South Carolina had obtained America's final victory in the American War of Independence.

South Carolina had been a theatre of war where the courageous revolutionaries had crushed all British hope to ever achieve victory in the American colonies. Despite the fact that Washington did not come to the colony during the war, he, as the British, had been certain that South Carolina would be a vital factor in winning the war. The reason for which South Carolina provided a superior strategic place had been that it could be host to the armies of all the neighboring states.