The settlers that inhabited South Carolina in the second half of the seventeenth century led lives that few in the Palmetto State today could recognize. Their land sat on the margin of a vast, largely unexplored continent, and the events and transactions that figured prominently in their daily lives reflect a frontier milieu that is both fascinating and historically significant. This book--a compilation of abstracts from the record book kept by the Secretary of the Province of South Carolina from 1675 to 1695--is an intriguing look into the inner workings of the fledgling colony. Family relationships, marriages, surnames, and the death dates of many colonists are made available to a wide audience for the first time here. Included is information illuminating the lives and social histories of masters, servants, slaves, Indians and women. Estate records, ships' manifests, inventories, apprenticeships and indentures are all represented. This primary-source material will be a boon for genealogists and historians, and a treasure for descendants and other readers alike. Editors Harriot Cheves Leland and Susan Baldwin Bates, through their exhaustive research, impart a bevy of genealogical data that will help to shed light on the history of many lines and families. Nowhere else can readers find such a wealth of information and insight into the personal lives of the first settlers of what would become South Carolina.

“The compelling story of a colony besieged by meteorological, epidemiological, economic, and manmade catastrophes only to arise like the phoenix.” —Orville Vernon Burton, author of The Age of Lincoln During South Carolina’s settlement, a cadre of men rose to political and economic prominence, while ordinary colonists, enslaved Africans, and indigenous groups became trapped in a web of violence and oppression. John J. Navin explains how eight English aristocrats, the Lords Proprietors, came to possess the vast Carolina grant and then enacted elaborate plans to recruit and control colonists as part of a grand moneymaking scheme. But those plans went awry, and the mainstays of the economy became hog and cattle ranching, lumber products, naval stores, deerskin exports, and the calamitous Indian slave trade. The settlers’ relentless pursuit of wealth set the colony on a path toward prosperity but also toward a fatal dependency on slave labor. Rice would produce immense fortunes in South Carolina, but not during the colony’s first fifty years. Religious and political turmoil instigated by settlers from Barbados eventually led to a total rejection of proprietary authority. Using a variety of primary sources, Navin describes challenges that colonists faced, setbacks they experienced, and the effects of policies and practices initiated by elites and proprietors. Storms, fires, epidemics, and armed conflicts destroyed property, lives, and dreams. Threatened by the Native Americans they exploited, by the Africans they enslaved, and by their French and Spanish rivals, South Carolinians lived in continual fear. For some it was the price they paid for financial success. But for most there were no riches, and the possibility of a sudden, violent death was overshadowed by the misery of their day-to-day existence.

"Completely fascinating, Pinney's History of Wine in America combines a myriad of facts about all the states that have endeavored to grow grapes at any time since colonial days into a readable and coherent story. The only study to approach wine through its historical aspects, it will be invaluable to wine writers who want to include historical perspectives in their articles and it will be seized upon by grape growers and wineries throughout the country who want to discover their region's historical roots in viticulture and winemaking. A significant contribution to scholarship, this book should have broad appeal."—John R. McGrew, USDA Agricultural Research Service (retired)