page_title: Georgetown, South Carolina
section_title: Pre-Revolution
hierarchical_section_title: Georgetown, South Carolina / History / Pre-Revolution
caption_attribution_description: English: View of the north (front) elevation from the northeast of the Winyah Indigo Society Hall — at Prince &amp; Cannon Streets, in Georgetown, in Georgetown County, South Carolina. 1958 image: HABS—Historic American Buildings Survey of South Carolina.
context_page_description: Georgetown is the third oldest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina and the county seat of Georgetown County, in the Lowcountry. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 9,163. Located on Winyah Bay at the confluence of the Black, Great Pee Dee, Waccamaw, and Sampit rivers, Georgetown is the second largest seaport in South Carolina, handling over 960,000 tons of materials a year.
  Georgetown was the commercial center of an indigo- and rice-producing area. It is the birthplace of former First Lady Michelle Obama's grandfather, Fraser Robinson. Many of Michelle Obama's Robinson relatives still reside in Georgetown.
context_section_description: In 1526 a Spanish expedition under Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón founded a colony on Waccamaw Neck called San Miguel de Guadalupe. The settlers included enslaved Africans, and was the first European settlement in North America with African slaves. The colony failed for multiple reasons including a fever epidemic and a revolt of the slaves, who escaped to join the indigenous Cofitachequi Indians in the area. Having failed as farmers, the surviving Spanish built a ship from local cypress and oak trees and sailed to the Spice Islands in Maritime Southeast Asia.
  The next settlement in the area was by English colonists. After settling Charles Town in 1670, the English established trade with regional Indian tribes. Trading posts in the outlying areas quickly developed as settlements.
  By 1721 the colonial government granted the English residents' petition to found a new parish, Prince George, Winyah, on the Black River. In 1734, Prince George, Winyah was divided; and the newly created Prince Frederick Parish congregation occupied the church at Black River. Prince George Parish, Winyah encompassed the new town of Georgetown that was developing on the Sampit River.
  In 1729, Elisha Screven laid the plan for Georgetown and developed the city in a four-by-eight block grid. The original grid city is listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places. It bears the original street names, lot numbers, and has many original homes.
  The Indian trade declined soon after Georgetown was established. Planters established large plantations and cultivated indigo as the cash commodity crop, with rice as a secondary crop. Both were labor-intensive and dependent on slave labor, primarily workers imported from Africa in the Atlantic slave trade. Agricultural profits were so great between 1735 and 1775 that in 1757 the Winyah Indigo Society, whose members paid dues in indigo, opened and maintained the first public school for white children between Charles Town and Wilmington. Rice became the chief commodity crop by the early 19th century, and a staple of regional diets as well.
  In the American Revolution, the father and son Georgetown planters, Thomas Lynch Sr. and Thomas Lynch Jr., signed the Declaration of Independence. During the final years of the conflict, Georgetown was the important port for supplying General Nathanael Greene's army. Francis Marion (the "Swamp Fox") led many guerrilla actions in the vicinity.
caption: Winyah Indigo Society Hall, Georgetown
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