Synopses & Reviews
Using the New Social History method and examining nearly every document produced over the years covered, this study examines the growth of communities in the Upper Pee Dee region of the South Carolina backcountry in the 18th century. The study considers the emergence of a landed elite, slavery, and a mobile population, plus the disestablishment of the Anglican Church. Inhabitants of the Cheraws District had access to a river that flowed to the coast, allowing them to transport their agricultural produce to the market at Georgetown. This ease of transportation enabled the district to become more developed than other regions of the South Carolina backcountry. In the 1770s, local inhabitants built a courthouse and a jail, and members of the rising planter class formed St. David's Society to educate parish youth. Records from two of the oldest Baptist churches in the South provide clues to communal cohesion and ethnicity. These accounts, combined with land and probate records, provide information concerning settlement, wealth, and slaveholding patterns in the region.
Review
This is a well-done local study that has effectively mined available sources to provide an interesting picture of an eighteenth-century South Carolina community.The Journal of American History
Review
[T]he strength of this book is in its details and in the sensitivity of its discussions of such individual subjects as "Religious Diversity" and "Material Culture and Slaves"....Johnson's book represents a piece of valuable research, and this reviewer commends it to anyone who has a serious interest in the early history of the Pee Dee or in the backcountry in general.The Journal of Southern History
Review
Johnson's excellent account, served by his easily readable style and supported by the generous use of graphs, tables, and several of his won photographs, is about life in one rural backcountry area of South Carolina, namely the Welsh Tract of the upper Pee Dee. Johnson's rich history is highly recommended to all who are eager to read further about our social roots in the eighteenth century.South Carolins Historical Magazine
Review
Replete with tables and maps documenting economic growth and geographic expansion, this work should appeal particularly to specialists in the Colonial period, the South, or the frontier experience.Choice
Synopsis
Examines the forces that influenced the growth of communities in the South Carolina backcountry in the 18th century.
About the Author
GEORGE LLOYD JOHNSON, JR. is Associate Professor of History at Campbell University.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
The Early Settlers
Yeomen Farmers, Planters, Storekeepers, Merchants, and the Local Economy
Material Culture and Slaves
Transportation, Communication, and Education
The Regulator Movement and the American Revolution
Religious Diversity and Reconciliation among the Baptists
Conclusion
Selected Bibliography
Index