<Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> The history of the colonial period of South Carolina focuses on the English colonization that created one of the original Thirteen Colonies . Major settlement began after 1651 as the northern half of the British colony of Carolina attracted frontiersmen from Pennsylvania and Virginia, while the southern parts were populated by wealthy English people who set up large plantations dependent on slave labor, for the cultivation of cotton, rice, and indigo . </P> <P> The colony was separated into the Province of South Carolina and the Province of North Carolina in 1712 . South Carolina's capital city of Charleston became a major port for traffic on the Atlantic Ocean, and South Carolina developed indigo, rice and Sea Island cotton as commodity crop exports, making it one of the most prosperous of the colonies . A strong colonial government fought wars with the local Indians, and with Spanish imperial outposts in Florida, while fending off the threat of pirates . Birth rates were high, food was abundant, and these offset the disease environment of malaria to produce rapid population growth among whites . With the expansion of plantation agriculture, the colony imported numerous African slaves, who comprised a majority of the population by 1708 . They were integral to its development . </P>

South carolina one of the original 13 colonies