Hilton Head & Daufuskie Island.(South Carolina)

History

It has been established that native Indians lived in the area for many millennia and, indeed, the Indian Shell Ring, in the Sea Pines Forest and dating back to 1450 BC, is on the National Register of Historic Places. It was not until the early 16th century, however, that Spanish forces explored these coastal waterways. Later that century, in 1562, Captain Jean Ribaut, a French Huguenot, established a small settlement at Charlesfort, almost within sight of present day Beaufort, naming the area "Port Royal." This, the first Protestant settlement in the United States, was ill fated, however. Upon Ribaut's return to France for reinforcements, the soldiers who remained revolted and built a ship, considered to be the first vessel built in America to cross the Atlantic, and they returned to France.

A hundred years later in August of 1663, an English captain, William Hilton, spotted the high bluffs of the island while exploring the Port Royal Sound. After visiting this 12-mile-long and five-mile-wide, foot-shaped Barrier Island, and modesty notwithstanding, he named it "Hilton Head Island," with "head" being the maritime word referring to headlands visible from the sea. In 1698, King Charles II granted several islands and some of the mainland to John Bayley. This area, with the exception of Hilton Head Island, was subsequently known as Bayley's Barony. The first white settlers did not arrive, however, until 1717, when the Lords Proprietors, in recognition of his actions in subduing the rioting Yemassee Indians granted Colonel John Barnwell substantial acreage on the northwest corner of the island. By the time the Revolutionary War broke out, up to 25 families lived on the island, enduring frequent raids by the British, who burned plantations and captured slaves--which they later sold in the West Indies.

It was not until after the war that Hilton Head Island gained international recognition. Then, in 1790,William Elliott, an island planter, raised the first, and soon to be famous, longstaple Sea Island cotton. Working with his neighbor, William Seabrook, he discovered a new procedure for fertilization--alternating, annually, marsh mud and oyster shells, which produced record crops. Both cotton and rice crops, with the brief interlude caused by invasions during the War of 1812, brought prosperity in abundance until, by 1860, there were 24 area plantations in operation. This, though, this was not translated upon this island into the typical rise of mansions. In most cases the plantation owners, loathing the hot summers and fearing the diseases caused by mosquitoes, spent little time on the island. They preferred to keep their main residences, many of which can still be seen today, in the more comfortable surroundings of Beaufort or Charleston.

The Civil War, however, was as disastrous to Hilton Head's way of life as it was for that of the state. On November 7, 1861, in the Battle of Port Royal, the largest naval battle fought in American waters, Union forces won a decisive victory. As panicked plantation owners fled, 1,000 or more slaves were freed, and by the end of the war over 50,000 Union troops, support personnel and slaves were based on the island.

As an interesting footnote, black males on the island and in the immediate area were forced into uniform, thus becoming the first blacks in the Union forces. Later, these same slaves were able to purchase land with the money they had earned in their country's service. General Ormsby Mitchel, a Union commander who would die of malaria in 1862, had the foresight to establish, in the same year, the nation's first freedman's town, appropriately named Mitchelville. Home, at one time, to over 1,500 people, it slowly disappeared after the Federal troops departed.

The island remained home, however, to small communities of former slaves. In fact, Special Field Order Number 15, issued by General William Tecumseh Sherman on January 15, 1865, granted the Sea Islands territories, from the Carolinas to northern Florida, to the now-freed slaves and prohibited whites from settling there. The inhabitants survived on what they could raise on their small farms, and by hunting and fishing. Because they remained in a communal environment with little or no influence from American culture, these peoples, who have come to be called the "Gullah," have retained to this day the culture, traditions and language of their native West Africa. For a more detailed explanation of the Gullah and their link to West Africa, see a discussion of the Penn School on page 277. This unique culture is celebrated each February when the month-long annual Native Islander Gullah Celebration, www.gullahcelebration.com, showcases the fascinating arts, crafts, history, music and food of these people. Alternatively, Gullah-N-Geechee Mahn Tours, [telephone] 843-838-7516 and Gullah Heritage Trail Tours, [telephone] 843-681-7066, both offer year round opportunities to experience this unusual culture.