Abstract
Both travelers’ accounts and historiographic portrayals of the colonial southern Backcountry emphasize the paucity of material culture and the lack of refined manners of the inhabitants. Recent research at the South Carolina frontier settlement of New Windsor Township demonstrates that this stereotypical view of backsettlers is false. Archaeological material culture, probate inventory data, and contemporary letters strongly indicate that frontier settlers not only bought high-status goods associated with refinement and gentility, but they also understood the behavioral patterns associated with them. This new perspective suggests that gentility often associated with 19th-century antebellum cotton planters actually had roots in the early colonial history of the frontier. More importantly, gentility contained and directed relationships in the Backcountry in ways reminiscent of Lowcountry society.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Altman, Ida, and James Horn 1991 Introduction. In “To Make America”: European Emigration in the Early Modern Period, Ida Altman and James Horn, editors, pp. 1–29. University of California Press, Berkeley.
Bailyn, Bernard 1986a The Peopling of British North America: An Introduction. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.
1986b Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.
Bartram, William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida. Beehive Press, Savannah, GA.
Bridenbaugh, Carl 1952 Myths and Realities: Societies of the Colonial South. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, LA.
Brooks, Richard 1987 250 years of Historic Occupation on Steel Creek, Savannah River Plant, Barnwell County, South Carolina. South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina, Savannah River Archaeological Papers 1. Columbia.
Brown, Richard Maxwell 1963 The South Carolina Regulators. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Bushman, Richard 1992 The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.
Callahan, Helen 1986 Colonial Life in Augusta. In Colonial Augusta: “Key of the Indian Countrey,” Edward J. Cashin, editor, pp. 96–119. Mercer University Press, Macon, GA.
Carr, Lois G., and Lorena Walsh 1980 Inventories and the Analysis of Wealth and Consumption Patterns in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, 1658–1777. Historical Methods 13(2):81–104.
Carson, Cary, Norman F. Barka, William M. Kelso, Garry Wheeler Stone, and Dell Upton 1988 Impermanent Architecture in the Southern American Colonies. In Material Life in America, 1600–1860, Robert Blair St. George, editor, pp. 113–158. Northeastern University Press, Boston.
Cashin, Edward J. 1986 The Gentlemen of Augusta. In Colonial Augusta: “Key of the Indian Countrey,” Edward J. Cashin, editor, pp.27–57. Mercer University Press, Macon, GA.
Chesnutt, David R. 1989 South Carolina’s Expansion Into Colonial Georgia, 1720–1765. Garland Publishing, New York.
Crass, David, and Bruce Penner 1992 The Struggle for the South Carolina Frontier: History and Archaeology at New Windsor Township. South Carolina Antiquities 24(1&2):37–56.
Crass, David, Bruce Penner, Tammy Forehand, Lois Potter, and Larry Potter 1995 A Man of Great Liberality: Recent Research at George Galphin’s Silver Bluff. South Carolina Antiquities 27(1&2):25–42.
Crass, David, Bruce Penner, Tammy Forehand, John Huffman, Lois Potter, and Larry Potter 1997 Excavations at New Windsor Township, South Carolina. South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina, Savannah River Archaeological Research Heritage Series 3. Columbia.
De Vorsey, Louis, (editor) 1971 DeBrahm’s Report of the General Survey in the Southern District of North America. University of South Carolina Press, Columbia.
Elliott, Daniel T. 1988 Ebenezer: An Alpine Village in the South Georgia Swamp. Ebenezer Archaeological Report Series 1. LAMAR Institute, Watkinsville, GA.
1990 The Lost City Survey: Archaeological Reconnaissance of Nine Eighteenth Century Settlements in Chatham and Effingham Counties, Georgia. LAMAR Institute, Watkinsville, GA.
Fischer, David Hackett 1989 Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America. Oxford University Press, Oxford, England.
Friedlander, Amy 1991 House and Barn: The Wealth of Farmers, 1795–1815. Historical Archaeology 25(2): 15–29.
Groover, Mark 1992 Of Mindset and Material Culture: an Archaeological View of Continuity and Change in the 18th Century South Carolina Backcountry. South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina, Volumes in Historical Archaeology 20. Columbia.
1994 Evidence for Folkways and Cultural Exchange in the 18th-century South Carolina Backcountry. Evidence for Folkways and Cultural Exchange in the 18th-century South Carolina Backcountry 28(1):41–61.
Häberlein, Mark 1993 German Migrants in Colonial Pennsylvania: Resources, Opportunities, and Experience. The William and Mary Quarterly 50(3):555–574.
Horn, James 1991 “To Parts Beyond the Seas”: Free Emigration to the Chesapeake in the 17th century. In “To Make America”: European Emigration in the Early Modern Period, Ida Altman and James Horn, editors, pp. 85–130. University of California Press, Berkeley.
Isaac, Rhys 1988 Ethnographic Method in History: An Action Approach. In Material Life in America, 1600–1860, Robert Blair St. George, editor, pp. 39–62. Northeastern University Press, Boston, MA.
Jones, George F. and Renate Wilson, (editors) 1976 Detailed Reports on the Salzburger Emigrants Who Settled in America … Edited by Samuel Urlsperger, Volume 4. University of Georgia Press, Athens.
Kamphoefner, Walter D. 1987 The Westfalians: From Germany to Missouri. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Kercheval, Samuel 1902 A History of the Valley of Virginia. W. N. Grabill, Woodstock, VA.
Klein, Rachel 1979 The Rise of the Planters in the South Carolina Backcountry. Ph. D. dissertation, Department of History, Yale University, New Haven. University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, MI.
1981 Ordering the Backcountry: The South Carolina Regulation. The William and Mary Quarterly 38:660–680.
Kovacik, Charles F., and John J. Winberry 1987 South Carolina: A Geography. Westview Press, Boulder, CO.
Krawczynski, Keith 1996 William Drayton’s Journal of a 1784 Tour of the South Carolina Backcountry. South Carolina Historical Magazine 97(3): 182–206.
Lewis, Kenneth E. 1984 The American Frontier: An Archeological Study of Settlement Pattern and Process. Academic Press, New York.
Maness, Harold S. 1986 Forgotten Outpost: Fort Moore & Savannah Town, 1685–1765. Privately printed, Beech Island, SC.
Martin, Ann Smart 1989 The Role of Pewter as Missing Artifact: Consumer Attitudes Toward Tablewares in Late 18th Century Virginia. Historical Archaeology 23(2): 1–27.
McWhiney, Grady W. 1988 Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
Meriwether, Robert L. 1940 The Expansion of South Carolina, 1729–1765. Southern Publishers, Kingsport, TN.
Morrison, Alfred J., (editor) 1911 Travels in the Confederation (1783–1784). William J. Campbell, Philadelphia, PA.
Riley, Helene 1997 Arts, Crafts, and Old-Time Religion Among German Speaking Settlers in South Carolina. Paper presented at the Fine Arts Lecture Series, 5 February, Newberry College, Newberry, SC.
Robbins, Albert 1981 Coming to America: Immigrants from Northern Europe. Dell Publishing Co., New York.
Robertson, Heard, and Thomas H. Robertson 1986 The Town and Fort of Augusta. In Colonial Augusta: “Key of the Indian Countrey,” Edward J. Cashin, editor, pp. 58–75. Mercer University Press, Macon, GA.
Roeber, A. G. 1993 Palatines, Liberty, and Property: German Lutherans in Colonial British America. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD.
Ruddock, Ted, (editor) 1993 Travels in the Colonies in 1773–1775, Described in the Letters of William Mylne. University of Georgia Press, Athens.
Rush, Benjamin 1875 An Account of the Manners of the German Inhabitants of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, PA.
Scurry, James, J. Walter Joseph, and Fritz Hamer 1980 Initial Archaeological Investigations at Silver Bluff Plantation, Aiken County, South Carolina. Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina, Research Manuscript Series 168. Columbia.
Shakel, Paul A. 1994 Town Plans and Everyday Material Culture: An Archaeology of Social Relations in Colonial Maryland’s Capital Cities. In Historical Archaeology of the Chesapeake, Paul A. Shakel and Barbara J. Little, editors, pp. 85–96. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington.
Smith, Marvin T. 1986 Archaeological Testing of Sixteen Sites on the Fort Howard Tract, Effingham County, Georgia. Garrow and Associates, Atlanta, GA.
South Carolina Gazette 1760 No title. South Carolina Gazette 23 February, p. 1. Charleston.
South, Stanley 1977 Method and Theory in Historical Archeology. Academic Press, New York.
Swank, Scott T. 1983 Arts of the Pennsylvania Germans. W. W. Norton and Co., New York.
Thomas, Brian W. 1994 Inclusion and Exclusion in the Moravian Settlement in North Carolina, 1770–1790. Historical Archaeology 28(3):15–30.
Upton, Dell 1996 Ethnicity, Authenticity, and Invented Tradition. Historical Archaeology 30(2):1–8.
Voigt, Gilbert P. 1922 The German and German-Swiss Element in South Carolina, 1732–1752. Bulletin of the University of South Carolina, No. 113. Columbia.
Wallerstein, Immanuel 1989a The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy. Academic Press, New York.
1989b The Modern World System: The Second Era of Great Expansion of the Capitalist World-Economy. Academic Press, New York.
Witschi, Peter 1994 Appenzeller in aller Welt. Verlag Schläpfer & Co. AG, Herisau, Switzerland.
Woodmason, Richard 1953 The Carolina Backcountry on the Eve of the Revolution. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.
Zierden, Martha 1994 “Just Imported”: the Archaeology of Urban Life in 18th Century Charleston. Paper presented at the 25th Anniversary Meeting of the American Society for 18th Century Studies, Charleston, SC.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Crass, D.C., Penner, B. & Forehand, T. Gentility and material culture on the Carolina Frontier. Hist Arch 33, 14–31 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03373620
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03373620