Clinical Climatology in Colonial Carolina: 1670-1776 (Charleston and South Carolina)

CLINICAL CLIMATOLOGY IN COLONIAL CAROLINA: 1670-1776 (CHARLESTON AND SOUTH CAROLINA) BY VINCE MOSELEY, M.D. CHARLESTON The area that is now the State of South Carolina was as a province and colony under the rule of Spain, then France, Spain again, and finally England.' The first Europeans to attempt settlement and exploration were the Spanish who explored the coastline from St. Elenas to Cape Fear in 1520 on an expedition under command of Francisco Gordillo sent from Santo Domingo, or Hispaniola, by Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon. On June 21, 1521, the ship of de Ayllon and that of a second Spanish captain anchored and explored the area of Winyah Bay, now the site of George- town, South Carolina. The confluence of the four rivers at the head of this bay they named the River of St. John the Baptist. After exploring the country nearby and taking Indian hostages, they returned to Santo Domingo. This was the first Spanish landing on the North American continent north of Ponce de Leon's land explorations near St. Augustine in 1513. In 1525 further explorations of the coast were made, and ad- ditional Indian hostages from the Winyah area were taken by Pedro de Quexos to Santo Domingo. Although impressed with the country and delighted by the accounts of its wealth and abundance, as told by the Indians taken as hostages back to Santo Domingo, it was not until July, 1526, that de Ayllon was able to outfit and sail with his settlers to this land. He, with several of the Chicora Indian hostages from the Winyah Bay region to serve as interpretors and guides, along with five hundred men and women, three Dominican friars, several Negro slaves and eighty-nine horses, landed on the banks of the Gualdape River (?Pee Dee), and proceeded to establish the first European settlement, San Miguel de Gualdape, on the mainland of North America north of Mexico, and the first Spanish Mlission.1 Although the Spanish Mission posts of California have attained much fame in song and poetry, it is not generally appreciated that Spanish Mission posts were established in South Carolina, and later in Georgia, almost two hundred and fifty years before Junipero Serro's first Imlissionl, San Diego de Alcala inl 1769, in the eventual chain of some twenty-one foudled by himi inl California. It was niot until 1565, some forty years later, that the first Spanish Mission post in Florida was From the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina. 12 CLIMATOLOGY IN COLONIAL CAROLINA 13 started concurrent with the settlement of St. Augustine and the erection of a fort which was done in order to discourage earlier French encroachments which had taken place near there when Fort Caroline had been built by French Huguenots under Laudonniere in 1564, who claimed Florida for France. San Miguel was not a successful settlement. Indian warfare, a slave uprising and disease caused abandonment, and only one hundred and fifty survived to be eventually evacuated to Santo Domingo. Among the first to die in the settlement was de Ayllon, who expired from illness about three months after the settlement was begun. Although there were physicians, pharmacists, and surgeons with the settlers, we have no rec- ord of their observations or any descriptive accounts of the illnesses experienced by the settlers. The next records of Spanish explorations in South Carolina that we have are in relation to the account of De Soto's march through the State in 1540 in his search for gold. After landing on the west coast of Florida from Cuba, his march carried him across Florida and Georgia into South Carolina, where he continued along the banks of the Savannah River up into western North Carolina, then doubling back he traversed northern Georgia, and across to the Mississippi, and into what is now Arkansas before turning back towards the Gulf of Mexico, when he met his death from Indian attacks in the area of Upper Alabama. It was along this route of exploration that Juan Pardo in 1566 began to establish Spanish missions, military garrisons, and trading posts near the Indian villages visited by De Soto in his exploration of the westeril border of South Carolina. These missions were a part of a chain, taking origin from a Spanish fort and settlement San Felipe on what is now Parris Island, South Carolina, in Port Royal Sound, and previously named Santa Elena, or St. Helena's Sound, by the Spanish, and where they had made settlement attempts in 1558 and 1561. The establishment of San Felipe occurred to offset the abortive attempts made by the French when in 1562 Charles Fort was established on Parris Island by Jean Ribaut at a site about two miles above the site of the later Spanish settlement of San Felipe. In 1564, Fort Caroline, near present St. Augustine, Florida, was also established under Ribaut's direction by Rene de Laudonniere. Charles Fort was abandoned, and Fort Caroline was captured by Menendez de Avilez in 1565, and who, then to guard against further encroachments by the French in Spanish Florida, established St. Augustine in 1565, and a settlement San Felipe, and a fort at Santa Elena's in 1566. This earlier fort was later replaced by Fort San Marcos. A chain of outposts and missions connected St. Augustine along the Georgia coast with San 14 4VINCE MOSELEY Felipe, and those establislhed along the Savannah River in South Caro- lina, anid these eventually extended over into upper Georgia and across into Alabama and Mlississippi. Spanish efforts to maintain these missions persisted until 1680 with varying degrees of success, despite many attacks by the Indians, and eventually also by the British colonists, and as late as 1663 extended as far up in South Carolina as Edisto Island. The last mission post of this original group on St. Catherine's Island, on the Georgia coast, was abandoned by the Spanish after attack by the English colonists of South Carolina and Indians in 1680. Except for the continuedl missionary attemipts by the Dominican friars and the military in main- taining outposts, no further Spanish settlements were attempted north of St. Augustine after 1586, the year in which St. Augustine was sackedl by Sir Francis Drake, and in which year also San Felipe and Fort San Marcos on Parris Island, South Carolina, were likewise reduced by the English. All efforts by the Dominican friars and the military to maintain mission stations and military outposts were discontinued in this area after 1680. Although Spain claimecd from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and to the Arctic all of the North Aminerican continent as Florida, named by Ponce de Leoni because of his landing near St. Augustine on Pascua Florida, or Easter Sunday, in 1513, the limits of attempted settlemeint or serious attempts by military or naval action to defend her claims on the Atlantic coast, were essentially, in addition to the mission district of Timuca, or the area of the Florida peninsula below the St. Johns River, limited to the mission district of Quale, or the South Atlantic coast region above the St. Johns River, extending north up to the region of the Albemnarle Sound in North Carolina.* (See map, Fig. 1.) Colonization attempts, however, were never made apparently above San 1\Iiguel in South Carolina, althouglh exploration of the area of the River Jordan (Cape Fear River) had occurred in 1521 and 1526, and raids on English settlements were made periodically until 1710 as far north as Albemarle Sound. A second attempt by the Frenchi to settle on the South Carolina coast in 1577 at Edisto Island was thwarted by Indians and Spanish who imassacred the entire group as they hadl previously done at Fort Carolinie near St. Augustine when it was captured in 1565. In 1583 English interest began in the colonization of North America. The initial attempts were made under the direction of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, his half-brother Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Richard Grenville, and John Wl'hite in 1583, and after neutralization of the Spanish forts of San * The Third Mission District of Florida was Appalachia, western Florida, and the region of the northeast coast of the Gulf of Mexico. CLIMATOLOGY IN COLONIAL CAROLINA 15 FIG. 1. The New World, 1600. Felipe and St. Augustine in 1586, the history of settlements in South Carolina, as with the remainder of the Atlantic seaboard, except for Canada and peninsular Florida, is that of the English, and to a lesser extent Dutch and Swedish colonists. Based on earlier explorations between 1497 and 1547, by Henry Cabot and his father and brothers, for which Cabot received support and rewards from Edward VI and Henry VIII, Charles I decided in 1629 to further support the initially unsuccess- ful English claims and settlemnents made by Queen Elizabeth I in 1584 and 1587 at Roanoke Island, then claimed as Virginia above Spanish Florida, and the later successful settlements at Jamestown in 1607, and in New England in 1620. A charter was given to Sir Robert Heath in 1629 by Charles I with instructions that Heath was to lay claiin to and settle that part of Spanish Florida which lay between North latitudes 31 and 36 degrees, or roughly from the region of the St. Johns River north to Albemarle Sound in North Carolina below the Colony of Virginia. This area he named "Carolana". A group of French Huguenot refugees were dispatched as settlers from England in 1630 by Heath, but landed in Virginia. No further attempts at colonization were made by Heath, and the revolution, deposition, and execution of Charles produced 16 VINCE MOSELEY a hiatus of further interest in the settlement of "Carolana" until after the restoration.

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