History

A History of Colonial South Carolina
Teacher and Viewer Guide

CIRCLE OF INHERITANCE
A HISTORY OF COLONIAL SOUTH CAROLINA
Teacher and Viewer Guide By Anne Blythe Meriwether

There is a freshness, a fine savor, about the words Of those who write of a time Upon which they had an influence, Perhaps because they not only observed events But often shaped them.

Jeannette Thurber ConnorColonial Records of Spanish Florida; Letters and Reports of Governors and Secular Persons 1925

About This Guide
This booklet is both a viewer’s guide and a teacher’s guide to Circle of Inheritance, a South Carolina ETV television program that looks at the prehistoric and colonial history of South Carolina. The program will be seen by home viewers in a one-hour format and by South Carolinastudents in four 15-minute segments. This guide is divided into four chronological segments that mirror the video segments. Each chapter includes a brief chronology, a narrative about the content that includes a first-person account of some aspect of the time covered, vocabulary words, and student activities. The last two elements are designed for use in eighth-grade classrooms, but could be adapted forstudents studying South Carolina history in earlier or later grades. Maps for use in student exercises are included only in the guides sent to schools. The first segment, Native Land, Native People, focuses on the state’s prehistory, visiting a PaleoIndian dig in Allendale, petroglyphs near Table Rock, and a Catawba town council house. The next segment, A Struggle for Power, examines the earlySpanish settlements and the first English settlements at Charles Town Landing. The growth of Charles Town is explored in Carolina Medley, which looks at the ethnic influences of Barbadians, Scots, French Huguenots, and Germans. The final segment, A World Apart, highlights the growth of the rest of the state as a Royal Colony, the dominance of the Anglican parishes, and colonial life at the start ofthe Revolution. Following the four chapters is a list of resources and information about related activities for students and viewers.

Part I
Native Land, Native People
Pre-history to 1560
The first Americans came to the Western Hemisphere from Asia, following a land bridge across the Bering Strait, somewhere between 50,000 and 16,000 years ago. Most probably, they were following their chieffood source; as the Ice Age mammals migrated towards new sources of food, so did the earliest people who hunted them. Very little is known of these early huntergatherers, but what we do know about them is revealed through artifacts – stone tools primarily – that have been discovered. Even today, ancient arrowheads and spearheads can occasionally still be found in riverbends and newly cultivatedfarm fields. These relics tell the only story we know of these primitive people. We know that by the time Columbus landed here, there were Indian nations settled throughout the Western Hemisphere. These nations had learned to adapt to individual land and weather conditions and gradually developed distinct cultures of their own. They learned to plant corn, beans, pumpkins, squash, and other crops; tomake pottery and weave baskets from local grasses; and to fashion clothes from animal skins and furs. They also developed sacramental rituals and traditions, and had highly organized systems of tribal government. Codes of honor between adjacent nations were observed and treaties were held in respect. The price to pay for treason or treachery was severe. In South Carolina, the climate and foodsources were favorable for the Indians. Wild turkey, buffalo, deer, and rabbit were good sources of food. Fish were a reliable food source, too, not only for those living along the coast, but inland, where many freshwater rivers laced their way through South Carolina’s fertile valleys. Archaeologists have long been fascinated with these ancient peoples and their cultures, and have turned up further...