Partisans Versus Loyalists: Encounters With the Other in Eastern South Carolina During the American Revolution

Summary

In 1781 Loyalist officer Colonel Robert Gray described the South Carolina landscape as a ‘piece of patchwork.’ By that time in the war, Whigs and Loyalists were living within separate, discrete, politically defined and physically bounded communities. Within these communities, partisans found support from the local population in the form of food, forage, ammunition, and recruits. Beyond their own regions, lay ‘other’ communities. The ‘others’ were ripe for exploitation or punishment. This paper examines the Whig community surrounding Snow’s Island that was the base of support for partisan leader Francis Marion. East of and adjacent to the Snow’s Island region, was a Loyalist community along the Little Pee Dee River. The two communities warred throughout the course of the Revolution in a fluid give and take civil war that was not settled until the British abandoned Charleston at the end of 1782. History, archaeology, and landscape analysis provide evidence of this conflict in the form of battlefields, camps, and fortifications.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Encountering the Other on the Field of Battle : Global Conflict, Identity, and Archaeology in the Era of the American Revolution   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2014

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): SYM-48,04