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Prior to the American Revolution, the British began taxing American colonies to raise revenue. South Carolina residents were outraged about the 1767 Townshend Acts that taxed tea, paper, wine, glass, and lamp oil. To protest the earlier 1765 Stamp Act, South Carolina sent wealthy rice planter Thomas Lynch, 26-year-old lawyer John Rutledge, and Christopher Gadsden to the 1765 Stamp Act Congress, held in New York. Other taxes were removed in 1766, but tea taxes remained. Soon South Carolinians confiscated the tea that arrived at Charleston Harbor and stored it in the Exchange and Customs House. It was later sold to help pay for the Revolution. Many of the South Carolinian battles fought during the American Revolution were with loyalist Carolinians and the part of the Cherokee tribe that allied with the British. This was to General Henry Clinton's advantage, whose strategy was to march his troops north from St. Augustine and sandwich George Washington in the North. Clinton alienated Loyalists and enraged Patriots by attacking a fleeing army of Patriot soldiers who posed no threat. Enslaved Africans and African Americans chose independence by escaping to British lines where they were promised freedom.〔Ramsay's ''History of South Carolina'' two volumes later published in one volume. Newberry, S.C., W. J. Duffie, 1858. p. 272 states that 25,000 slaves escaped to join the British Army during the Revolutionary War. Colonel Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee placed the number of slaves who went to the British side at more than 20,000 in his ''Memoirs of the Revolutionary War in the Southern Department'', Volume II, p. 456. These numbers have been estimated to be between 20 and 25 per cent of the slave population of the state at the time. William Jay in ''Miscellaneous writings on slavery'', Volume 3, 1853, p. 460 gives the slave population of South Carolina in 1790 as 107,00 to show the magnitude of the number of slaves who fled to the British side in the Revolutionary War. (Digital History Explorations Revolutionary War ) places the percentage of escaped slaves in South Carolina during the Revolutionary War at about 25 per cent.〕 Combined Continental Army and state militia forces under the command of Major General Nathanael Greene regained control of much of South Carolina by capturing the numerous interdependent chain of British held forts throughout the State, one-by-one, until the British and Loyalists were surrounded in Charles Town and completely dependent on food supplies by sea. After preliminary peace terms had been agreed, the British evacuated Charles Town on December 14, 1782, a day now officially designated as "South Carolina Independence Day". Greene was awarded a Congressional Medal and numerous other official awards from the State of South Carolina for his leadership in liberating the state and for restoring an elected government. In 1787, John Rutledge, Charles Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and Pierce Butler went to Philadelphia where the Constitutional Convention was being held and constructed what served as a detailed outline for the U.S. Constitution. ==Prewar causes== (詳細はrevenue to make up the costs of the French and Indian War and Pontiac's Rebellion, to protest the Stamp Act, South Carolina sent wealthy rice planter Thomas Lynch, 26-year-old lawyer John Rutledge, and Christopher Gadsden to the Stamp Act Congress. Gadsden, leader of the pro-Independence "Liberty Boys," is often grouped with James Otis and Patrick Henry as the prime agitators for American independence by historians. Gadsden designed the "Don't Tread on Me" flag, first used on December 3, 1775 on the ''Alfred'', featuring a rattlesnake with 13 rattles representing each colony. In 1767 the Townsend Acts made new taxes on glass, oil, wine, tea, paper, and other goods. Gadsden led the opposition and although Britain removed the taxes on everything except tea, Charlestonians mirrored the Boston Tea Party by dumping a shipment of tea into the Cooper River. Other shipments were allowed to land, but they rotted in Charles Town storehouses. Delegates from twelve colonies, all of the Thirteen Colonies except for Georgia, came together for the First Continental Congress in 1774. Five South Carolinians, including those who represented the colony in the Stamp Act Congress, headed for Philadelphia, and Henry Middleton served as president for part of Congress. The following January the South Carolina colonial assembly was disbanded by Royal Governor Lord William Campbell, and it was reformed as an extralegal Provincial Congress. During this meeting and following meetings, in June 1775 and March 1776, the South Carolinians created a temporary government to rule until the colony had settled things with Britain. John Rutledge was voted "president" of the state which was called the "General Assembly of South Carolina" (the term "Republic" or "Republic of South Carolina" was never used.) Most Loyalists came from the Upcountry, which thought that domination by the rich, elitist Charles Town planter class in an unsupervised government was worse than remaining under the rule of the British Crown. Judge William Henry Drayton and Reverend William Tennent were sent to the Back Country to gain support for the "American Cause" and Lowcountry's General Committee and Provincial Congress, but did not have much success. In September 1775, the Royal Governor dissolved the last-ever Royal Assembly in South Carolina and left for the safety of the British warship ''Tamar'' in the Charleston Harbor. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「South Carolina in the American Revolution」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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