South Carolina TIMELINE

1526: First Africans arrive in what will become South Carolina

1663: King Charles II of England grants the Carolina region to friends and political allies

1670: First permanent settlement is established in South Carolina region

1729: Separate royal colonial governments are established for North and South Carolina

1739: Stono Slave Rebellion exposes need for black codes to control the slave population

1740: South Carolina Assembly enacts the Negro Act establishing South Carolina's slave code

1788, May 23: South Carolina ratifies the Constitution and joins the Union

1800: Act of 1800 strengthens the South Carolina slave code

1819: Black anti-immigration laws are further strengthened

1822: Denmark Vesey slave revolt rocks South Carolina—36 conspirators are hanged

1860, December 20: South Carolina becomes the first slave state to secede from the Union, setting in motion the steps leading to the Civil War

1861, April 12: Confederate forces commanded by General P.G.T. Beauregard bombard Ft. Sumter, beginning the Civil War

1865, April 26: Surrender of Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston at Durham Station, North Carolina, ends the Civil War in the east; slavery officially ends in South Carolina; the Freedmen's Bureau soon controls 300,000 acres of abandoned lands

1868, June 25: South Carolina is readmitted to the Union; South Carolina Assembly establishes the Land Commission to finance land distribution

1868-1877: South Carolina is subjected to congressional reconstruction; federal military units occupy the capital of Columbia

1877, April 10: President Rutherford B. Hayes withdraws the remaining federal troops from Columbia and former Confederate General Wade Hampton becomes governor; white “redemption” in South Carolina is complete.