The metropolis and the backcountry: The making of a colonial landscape on the South Carolina frontier

Abstract

The colonial settlement of South Carolina in the 18th century resulted in the emergence of two largely separate economies, the organization of which gave rise to distinctive frontier landscapes. The commercial rice economy of the Lowcountry was characterized by dispersed plantation production facilitated by riverine transportation. The urban functions of this largely rural landscape were centered on entrepot of Charleston, a city whose size and material wealth reflected the region’s commercial success. The Backcountry initially lacked access to the entrepot’s urban and export markets and its regional isolation fostered insular economic institutions dispersed among smaller nucleated settlements linked by overland routes. Commercial investment by Charleston interests eventually established the infrastructure of specialized production in the Backcountry and incorporated its resources in the larger export economy. The settlement system that emerged in the interior reflected these changes, but did not emulate the Lowcountry. Rather, it bore the imprint of the frontier landscape, components of which merely acquired new roles as regional nodes in South Carolina’s expanding economy, the focus of which remained the older entrepot that emerged as the South’s major port in the post-frontier period.