Naturally Kiawah Magazine Volume 41 | страница 10

The Early Days of Kiawah Welcoming Native Americans, a pirate, a governor, generations of enslaved persons and an overseer named Quash Stevens have all played roles in Kiawah’s long and colorful history. A By Christine Sudell  lthough our Island bears the name of its first inhabitants, the Kiawahs, they moved to the island only after the English usurped the territories near the Ashley River (known then as the Kiawah River) that belonged to this friendly tribe. Soon, the English sought the tribe’s new lands, as well, and persuaded its members to relinquish their rights to Kiawah and other nearby Sea Islands for items of relatively little value, such as cloth, hatchets and similar goods. The first Englishman to own Kiawah was a former privateer and suspected pirate, George Rayner, who used the riches he gained at sea to buy entry into Charleston society. He received the island as a grant from the Lords Proprietors of Carolina in 1699. After passing through several other owners, Kiawah was acquired by John Stanyarne. He initially used it to raise cattle and provisions for the plantation including corn and wax myrtle (used for candles). Later, he began cultivating indigo, a crop which had become popular in the Sea Islands because it had considerable commercial value and could be grown in areas not suitable for the cultivation of rice. Producing indigo for the market was a labor-intensive effort which caused Stanyarne to increase the number of enslaved persons on his plantation. To house them, he created a small settlement on the southwestern side of the island. Upon Stanyarne’s death, his daughter Mary Gibbes and his granddaughter Elizabeth, wife of Arnoldus Vanderhorst II, each inherited half the island, dividing Kiawah into two plantations. During the Revolutionary War, these two plantations fared quite differently. Robert Gibbes, who had been a patriot at the start of the war, switched his allegiance to the British side. As a result, British troops left the Gibbes house untouched. In contrast, they burned the Vanderhorst house as punishment for Arnoldus Vanderhorst IV’s loyalty to the American cause. Arnoldus fought in the war as an officer under Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox. Later, he served in both houses of the South Carolina legislature, as mayor of Charleston and Governor of South Carolina. 8