Founded in 1670, Charleston—spelled Charles Town in the colonial era—was the only major city south of Philadelphia during the colonial period. Ideally situated upon the Atlantic coast at the mouths of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers. Charleston grew steadily, achieving a population of approximately six thousand by 1740. This population had doubled by the early 1770s, making Charleston the fourth-largest city in British North America.
More impressive than the population growth was the demographic and economic rise of the city. Originally settled by the English, Charleston's economic opportunities and tolerant religious and political policies attracted significant numbers of French, Scots, Irish, Germans, Catholics, and Jews, establishing it as the most cosmopolitan city in British America. Crucially, the most important source of population was Africa, as black Charlestonians—slave and free—always represented a significant proportion of the population and were a majority by 1750.
By 1770 Charleston was arguably the wealthiest city in British America. Benefiting from British policies and bounties, rice and indigo production made fortunes for the planters who produced the crops and for the Charleston merchants who marketed them. The institution of slavery provided a major cornerstone of this wealth and the leading Charleston merchants and planters were among the wealthiest men in the colonies. Charleston was the critical entry point in the North American slave trade, as hundreds of thousands of Africans landed there before being sold to the interior plantations, where they contributed their expertise and labor to rice, indigo, and, later, cotton cultivation.
Despite the economic benefits of the British connection, Charlestonians were generally supportive of the Revolutionary movement and, led by Christopher Gadsden and John and Edward Rutledge, were active in opposition to British policy from the time of the Stamp Act of 1765. Indeed, a major American victory was recorded at Charleston on 28 June 1776, when a combined British expedition under Sir Henry Clinton and Admiral Sir Peter Parker was defeated before the defenses of Sullivan's Island. Charleston, however, would later be the site of the greatest American defeat of the war, when on 12 May 1780, General Benjamin Lincoln surrendered the city and over 5,500 men to Clinton to conclude a forty-two day siege. Charleston suffered under British occupation for the next two and one-half years, before the British evacuated the city on 14 December 1782.
Charleston's joy at American independence and the end of the occupation was tempered by a series of new and difficult problems. Devastated by a vicious civil war, South Carolina prepared to rebuild without the labor of the approximately twenty-five thousand slaves whom the retiring British had carried off. Additionally, during the occupation, the mercantile leadership of the city had swung to Loyalists and British merchants, as the British had allowed only those who took the oath of loyalty to engage in trade. That these merchants now stood to monopolize the windfall profits from reconstruction caused serious rioting in the city. Finally, the collapse of the price of indigo, which had relied upon British bounties, now withdrawn, for its profitability, contributed considerably to the postwar depression of the 1780s.
With indigo in decline, planters turned their attention to the production of cotton. The development of the cotton gin in 1793 allowed the mass production of cotton and the revival of the fortunes of mercantile Charleston, bringing to the city a prosperity which surpassed even that of the earlier rice and indigo boom. Unfortunately, however, the cotton boom also contributed to future problems. As cotton production became "king" in the Deep South, the need for a cheap and unskilled labor force made slavery "queen." White Charlestonians had always been concerned by the large numbers of black residents who had dwelt among them. Nevertheless, from 1803 to 1808 the city was the main port of entry for the African slave trade, and approximately 40,000 slaves were imported during this brief period. Now, as the slave proportion of the population continued to grow and as the northern states abolished slavery and grew increasingly critical of the institution, Charlestonians grew more suspicious of the black population, particularly the free black seamen who visited from the North and regaled black Charlestonians with stories of their lives in the northern seaports. Thus, the hysterical reaction to the Denmark Vesey conspiracy of 1822 is more easily understandable, as is the transformation of Charleston from the most open and tolerant to the most closed and intolerant of American cities.
As Charleston found itself increasingly upon a collision course with the developing northern commercial interests after 1820, it also witnessed its own decline as a major port. Geographically, Charleston was not well situated to control the cotton trade as the plantations expanded westward. Increasingly closed-minded and suspicious of outsiders, Charleston lagged in the development and utilization of new opportunities and technologies in business and trade. For example, Charleston built a railroad line to the interior in 1830, yet instead of running the railroad directly to the wharves, the line was built only to the city limits, necessitating an expensive transfer to wagon transport to the docks. With the advantage of rail transport negated, Charleston soon saw itself eclipsed by New Orleans, Mobile, and Savannah in the export trade.