This essay focuses on the political and economic history of Georgia and South Carolina. I discuss the early Native American habitation, the British colonial government and economy (1670-1776), and the political and economic evolution of these two southeastern states within the United States (1776-2001). I wrote these lectures for Stanford’s Intracoastal Waterway College, March-April 2002.
I first discuss the livelihoods of Native Americans before European settlement in what became Georgia and South Carolina, the evolution of British colonial governance from royal charters to crown colonies, and the economic bases in colonial Georgia and South Carolina. I next look at how the American Revolutionary War was waged in Georgia and South Carolina, how slave-based cotton production affected the two states, and how differing economic outlooks underpinned the Sectional Conflict in the first half of the 19th century. I then analyze the impacts of the US Civil War on Georgia and South Carolina, why incomes declined in the two states between 1860 and 1940, and why the states had rapid economic progress during and after World War II. I append a time line, a bibliography, and a description of the sites that I visited in Georgia and South Carolina.
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Intracoastal Waterway College, St. Augustine, Florida, Ft. Caroline (near Jacksonville), Jekyll Island, Georgia, St. Simons Island, Savannah, Beaufort, South Carolina, Charleston, Cumberland Island National Seashore,Land-based