“As I am now, so you must be. Prepare for death and follow me.” —Tombstone inscription of Thomas Roberts, died March 6, 1818, Black Swamp–area cemetery, southern Hampton County.
THE YAMASEE WAR, 1715-1718 — The Native American legacy lives on in the place-names of the South Carolina Lowcountry. That legacy flows with the currents in the rivers Savannah, Edisto, Ashepoo, Coosawhatchie, Salkehatchie and Combahee. It still rides like a midnight ghost along the Spanish-moss-draped, wooded road known as Pocotaligo. It lingers in lonely places called Palachuchola and Huspah.
Sadly, that legacy and its people were destroyed by greed, murder and even torture.
A legacy of European greed
They were our first Lowcountry families, but their days began coming to an end when Europeans arrived as early as 1521. After Native Americans wiped out invading Spanish, French and Scottish settlements here, the English began to settle what is now known as lower South Carolina around 1670. At first, coastal Natives were friendly with the English venturing in and even helped protect them from the warring Spaniards. But hostilities soon grew after disputes sparked by a Pocotaligo government agent and other unscrupulous traders, causing the terrible Yamasee War…