Johnson

The Frontier in the Colonial South: South Carolina Backcountry, 1736-1800. By George Lloyd Johnson, Jr. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997).

In explaining the settlement of South Carolina’s colonial frontier, George Lloyd Johnson, Jr. states his conclusions quite matter-of-factly, identifying three major forces that “contributed to the early development of cohesive communities in the upper valley of the Pee Dee River”: the Baptist Church, advanced cultivation of indigo, and a substantial transportation network.

The region studied by Johnson was originally settled in the 1730s largely by Welsh Baptists from Pennsylvania. Johnson contradicts nineteenth century sources which identified the area as poor, finding instead a thriving frontier community. Church records and genealogical research indicate that, as in other Southern colonies, settlers who moved into the interior enjoyed better life expectancy and suffered less from diseases like malaria than those living in the tidewater. Indigo flourished as a cash crop, subsidized by Britain. Johnson contrasts the circumstances of Welsh Tract settlers with Richard Beeman’s Virginians in The Evolution of the Southern Backcountry as much more advantageous for the former, since their river (the Pee Dee) flowed in the right direction to ship goods to the wealthy lowcountry. Trade was further enhanced by a transportation network of roads, bridges, and ferries, built with labor required from the settlers or their slaves. Johnson uses probate records and other material culture sources to illustrate that the region had a fairly well-to-do planter class as well as humbler yeomen farmers. Additionally, he argues that as Calvinistic Baptists the Welsh tract settlers were less egalitarian than other Baptists thus more comfortable with slaveholding.

The demographics of the settlement began to change in the 1760s as Scots-Irish settlers began to arrive, bringing with them the more rough-and-tumble culture we might normally associate with the colonial backcountry. New settlers might rely more on hunting than full-time farming, and among them emerged “bandits, robbers, horse thieves, and squatters.” Colonial officials in the lowcountry were reluctant to provide courthouses and jails in the backcountry itself, prompting anxiety amongst established settlers and social unrest. The result was the Regulator movement, a vigilante force of planters and yeomen “aimed at punishing horse thieves and criminals and reforming hunters and gatherers with the threat of force in order to persuade them to settle down and plant crops” (168). Lowcountry officials ultimately acquiesced to Regulator demands and took necessary measures making it possible to better enforce law and order locally in the backcountry.

George Lloyd Johnson offers a sound analysis of a specific region of the South Carolina backcountry. His detailed research makes excellent use of sources related to genealogy and material culture to establish the relative prosperity of the region and in general paint a realistic picture of life in the settlement. Findings from these sources are sophistically detailed in a good number of tables and charts throughout the text. Johnson casts his work as a case study of a frontier community, but oddly he does not seem to fully explore what may or may not be the uniqueness of the frontier experience in the Welsh Tract. Johnson’s narrative is one of a settlement begun as an organized project begun by fairly prosperous colonists. Only several decades later do the Scots-Irish arrive and upset the social order. The American frontier narrative traditionally begins with savagery and roughness and ever progressing levels of civilization, yet in the Welsh Tract this process seems to happen in reverse until after the Regulator movement and the Revolution. Johnson does not indicate whether or not this process was unique for the rest of the Southern backcountry. In general, reviewers have criticized the book for not going further than a community study and demonstrating its significance by relating its findings to the region as a whole. Others have questioned just how new Johnson’s findings are, as well as criticizing the relatively brief coverage of the Revolution, which has to share a chapter with the more extensively covered Regulators.

Jonathan Steplyk

The Frontier in the Colonial South: South Carolina Backcountry, 1736-1800. By George Lloyd Johnson, Jr. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997.

In The Frontier in the Colonial South, George Lloyd Johnson, Jr. reports his findings pertaining to the South Carolina backcountry between 1736 and 1800. The book is a narrowly focused social history from the bottom up. It sets forth the thesis that, “there were three concurrent forces that contributed to the early development of cohesive communities in the upper valley of the Pee Dee River in South Carolina. These forces included the Baptist Church at Welsh Neck, the early advancement of commercial agriculture through the cultivation of indigo, and an extensive transportation network” (p. 1). Johnson elaborates writing that, “these three forces . . . made the region less isolated than other regions of the South Carolina backcountry” (p. 1). Thus, the author believes that the Welsh Tract provides a unique case study.

Johnson examines numerous aspects of life on the South Carolina frontier. He begins by discussing the early settlers in the region. Following this, Johnson examines the local economy describing how the indigo crop promoted development. According to Johnson, “indigo became more than just another crop in the Welsh Tract. Like tobacco in Virginia, indigo instead of money was used for barter” (p. 44).

Next, the author analyzes both the material culture and slavery in the region. This segment provides an excellent example of Johnson’s meticulously compiled sources. He uses previously neglected primary sources such as probate records in order to explore the property, slaves, wealth, and social status of 155 residents from the Cheraws District between 1750 and 1800 (p. 65). Johnson provides forgotten nineteenth century South Carolinians with a voice by using these untapped resources.

Indigo alone did not promote the economy. Johnson acknowledges that transportation and communication played an important role. He writes, “roads, bridges, ferries, and rivers provided the physical linkages that connected backcountry inhabitants with the low country. These physical linkages enabled this once isolated colonial frontier region to become less isolated from the more densely populated urban centers” (p. 93). In sum, tangible links enabled growth to take place in this region (p. 107).

The last two chapters examine the Regulator movement, the effects of the Revolution, and religion. The Regulators served as a vigilante group that enforced order in the backcountry after pleas for judicial reform went unanswered. Subsequently, the Revolution caused indigo sales to decline after its primary customer, Great Britain, lost the war. Tobacco and cotton replaced indigo and promoted slavery in the region.

With regards to religion, the Baptist faith flourished in this part of the backcountry. According to Johnson, the Regular Baptists in the region impacted slavery on the South Carolina frontier, “Many of the Welsh Neck Baptists were slaveholders and their views represented those of the rising planter elite” (169). In addition, “The influence of the Baptist churches in the upper Pee Dee was never isolated from the main currents of South Carolina, particularly the slaveholding values held by the planter elite in the South Carolina lowcountry. The slaveholding Baptists in the upper Pee Dee served as a bridge that made slavery acceptable among the yeoman farmers throughout the South Carolina backcountry” (p. 158). The influx of slaves provided leisure time for landowners. Welsh Neck slaveholders used this time to engage in civic pursuits such as establishing a courthouse, constructing highways, and building an academy designed to promote learning (p.169).

Johnson’s conclusion adequately summarizes his argument. He writes that, “There were three forces that contributed to the early development of the upper Pee Dee in the South Carolina backcountry prior to the American Revolution. These forces were the church, commercial agriculture based on indigo and expanding transportation. These forces enabled the upper Pee Dee region to become less identified with South Carolina’s remote frontier, and more connected with the colonial urban centers of Charleston and Georgetown” (p. 165).

The author states that his goal is to stimulate interest in other backwater communities throughout colonial America. Thus, the book should not be regarded as a definitive study of the South Carolina backcountry (p. 6). Johnson achieves this goal but, the book is not void of weakness. The primary flaw of Johnson’s study is that the author fails to draw larger conclusions. Although one learns minutia about seventeenth century life in South Carolina’s upper Pee Dee, how this information benefits the academic community needs to be articulated. Using the study as a microcosm that could potentially speak for a larger phenomenon would have made this book more useful. As a result, this book is recommended to those interested in the details of seventeenth century social history in South Carolina’s Welsh Tract. Unfortunately, those interested in a broader study of the colonial South Carolina frontier need to look elsewhere.

The Frontier in the Colonial South: South Carolina Backcountry, 1736-1800. By George Lloyd Johnson, Jr. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997.

George Lloyd Johnson Jr., an associate professor of history at Cambell University, provides a study on the development of the frontier in South Carolina. “The overall thesis of this study is that there were three concurrent forces that contributed to the early development of cohesive communities in the upper valley of the Pee Dee River in the South Carolina backcountry. These forces included the Baptist Church at Welsh Neck, the early advancement of commercial agriculture through the cultivation of indigo, and an extensive transportation network (p. 1).” Johnson also attempts throughout the book to destroy some myths and reinforce some others about the southern frontier during the last two-thirds of the seventeenth century.

Initially settled by Welsh Baptists from Pennsylvania in 1736, the region quickly prospered because of its rich soil, a good navigable river, and a long growing season. Though initially settled by Welsh, the dominating characteristic of the region is the Baptist Church since the Welsh culture quickly diminished when Scots-Irish immigrants moved into the region starting in 1745. Contrary to traditional views, the frontier of the Upper Pee Dee region was exciting and not filled with poor backwoods people. The region developed a diverse and flexible economy based on cattle, indigo, rice and cotton. Indigo proved to be the greatest cash crop planted during colonial times, but with independence and the development of the cotton gin led to a switch to cotton. The agricultural prosperity brought merchants to the region, developing further the economy of the region.

Contrary to traditional views, with prosperity came ambitions to live like the people in the South Carolina low country. Wealth varied in the region and never reached the level enjoyed by planters in the low country but did bring a lot of slaves to the area. Slaves gave their owners an advantage over the non-slaveholders. For that latter it was impossible to achieve any significant amount of wealth. Another contradiction includes the lack of isolation. From the time of the early settlers to the 1800s, transportation was an issue on many of the people’s minds. During colonial times, they had difficulty getting roads and bridges built because the British government concerned itself more with the low country than the frontier. Even with poor transportation, the people of the region were not isolated from the low country and freely traded with them. Once acquired, transportation brought not only more economic prosperity, but also improved social stability.

Social stability proved to be difficult for the people of the Pee Dee region. With a large influx of people to the backcountry, law and order became difficult to maintain. To keep order and protect their financial interests, farmers, planters, storekeepers and merchants took matters into their own hands until the government established a courthouse. The courthouse brought social stability to the region but not religious solidity. Initially the major denominations included the regular and separate Baptists and the Anglicans. Religious dissention existed between the regular and separate Baptists over the issue of predestination. This is not true between the Anglicans and the regular Baptists, who cooperated because they both consisted of wealthy slaveholders. During the American Revolution the Anglican Church lost its state sponsorship, which led to a rift between Anglicans and regular Baptists and united the Baptists against them. This unity prospered in the years after the war.

George Lloyd Johnson Jr. provides a well-organized Turnarian view of the South Carolina backcountry. Johnson clearly explains that the frontier region the Welsh settled influenced and changed them. It developed them into a people similar to those living in the low country. Another good aspect of the book is that it incorporates a large amount of historiography to point out the differences in his research to those that have studied the frontier South. Though it is a good work, it does have some shortcomings. A major flaw of the book is that the author does not incorporate the Pee Dee River region into the larger picture of the other colonies and states. In addition, Johnson incorporates a great amount of details. In several parts of the book, the author details every possession of several people and businesses. his is effective in proving his point but can be very distracting to the reader. Overall, this is a good book to explore how frontier regions developed and flourished in colonial and early republic times.