The settlement was first established at Albemarle Point on the west bank of the Ashley River (now Charles Towne Landing), but it was relocated in 1680 to its present site and within ten years grew to become the fifth-largest city in North America.

[14][15] These settlers established what was then called Charles Town at Albemarle Point, on the west bank of the Ashley River, a few miles northwest of the present-day city center.

[29] Devoted to plantation agriculture that depended on enslaved labor, South Carolina became a slave society: it had a majority-Black population from the colonial period until after the Great Migration of the early 20th century, when many rural Blacks moved to northern and midwestern industrial cities to escape Jim Crow laws.

[33] Runaways and minor slave rebellions prompted the 1739 Security Act, which required all white men to carry weapons at all times (even to church on Sundays).

The 1740 Negro Act also tightened controls, requiring a ratio of one white for every ten Blacks on any plantation (which was often not achieved) and banning enslaved people from assembling, growing personal food, earning money, or learning to read.

[36] When the moratorium expired and Charlestown reopened to the slave trade in 1750, the memory of the Stono Rebellion resulted in traders avoiding buying enslaved people from the Congo and Angola, whose populations had a reputation for independence.

Making the capture of Charlestown their chief priority, the British sent Sir Henry Clinton, who laid siege to Charleston on April 1, 1780, with about 14,000 troops and 90 ships.

[42] Although Columbia had replaced it as the state capital in 1788, Charleston became even more prosperous as Eli Whitney's 1793 invention of the cotton gin sped the processing of the crop over 50 times.

[45] Visitors commonly remarked on the sheer number of Blacks in Charleston and their seeming freedom of movement,[46] though in fact—mindful of the Stono Rebellion and the slave revolution that established Haiti—the whites closely regulated the behavior of both enslaved and free people of color.

[e] Over the next month, the city's intendant (mayor) James Hamilton Jr. organized a militia for regular patrols, initiated a secret and extrajudicial tribunal to investigate, and hanged 35 and exiled 35[55] or 37 enslaved people to Spanish Cuba for their involvement.

The first full battle of the war occurred on April 12, 1861, when shore batteries under the command of General P. G. T. Beauregard fired upon the US Army-held Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

[67][68] The Pacific Guano Company, established in 1861, opened a plant in Charleston which consumed immense quantities of menhaden scrap brought from the water by the vessels which carried on their return trip a supply of South Carolina phosphates for the Woods Hole, Massachusetts factory.

Gen. Sherman lent his support to the conversion of the United States Arsenal into the Porter Military Academy, an educational facility for former soldiers and boys left orphaned or destitute by the war.

After former Confederates were allowed to vote again, election campaigns from 1872 on were marked by violent intimidation of blacks and Republicans by conservative Democratic paramilitary groups, known as the Red Shirts.

[71] The Red Shirts were instrumental in suppressing the black Republican vote in some areas in 1876 and narrowly electing Wade Hampton as governor, and taking back control of the state legislature.

Charleston languished economically for several decades in the 20th century, though the large federal military presence in the region helped to shore up the city's economy.

[76] After having been a majority-minority city for most of its history, in the late 20th century, many whites began returning to the urban core of Charleston, and the area gentrified with rising prices and rents.

[79] The attack garnered national attention and sparked a debate on racism, Confederate symbolism in Southern states, and gun violence, in part based on Roof's online postings.

Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, founded in 1749 by Sephardic Jews from London, is the fourth-oldest Jewish congregation in the continental United States and was an important site for the development of Reform Judaism.

[103] Brith Sholom Beth Israel is the oldest Orthodox synagogue in the South, founded by Sam Berlin and other Ashkenazi German and Central European Jews in the mid-19th century.

[107] Charleston is known for its local seafood, which plays a key role in the city's renowned cuisine, comprising staple dishes such as gumbo, she-crab soup, fried oysters, Lowcountry boil, deviled crab cakes, red rice, and shrimp and grits.

[133][134][135][136] Sometimes known as Silicon Harbor,[137][138] the city is becoming a popular location for high tech and innovation,[139] and this sector has had the highest rate of growth between 2011 and 2012, due in large part to the Charleston Digital Corridor.

Notable companies include Blackbaud, Greystar Real Estate Partners, Evening Post Industries, Le Creuset, SPARC a Booz Allen Hamilton subsidiary, BoomTown, CSS, and Benefitfocus.

Coast Guard Station Charleston responds to search and rescue emergencies, conducts maritime law enforcement activities, and performs ports, waterways, and coastal security (PWCS) missions.

Personnel from Station Charleston are highly trained professionals, composed of federal law enforcement officers, boat crew members, and coxswains capable of completing various missions.

Today, the Port of Charleston boasts the deepest water in the southeast region and regularly handles ships too big to transit through the Panama Canal.

"Looking for a city that would provide the charm of Spoleto, as well as its wealth of theaters, churches, and other performance spaces, they selected Charleston, South Carolina, as the ideal location.

Our stories are very similar as reflected by our citizens of European, African, Caribbean, native descent, our cuisine, our architecture, and our mutual modern growth in meritime commerce.

As Panama City is enjoying a global surge of interest so is Charleston, being ranked as a top destination for travellers, commerce, technology, education, culture and fashion.Charleston is also twinned with Speightstown.

[170] Many indigo, tobacco, and cotton planters relocated their plantation operations and the people they enslaved from Speightstown to Charleston after the sugarcane industry came to dominate agricultural production in Barbados.