A French Huguenot expedition, led by Jean Ribault in 1562, was the first European group to attempt to colonize Parris Island.

The French expedition built an outpost named Charlesfort, and Ribault left a small garrison as he returned to France for colonists and supplies.

After a long absence because of Ribault's delay from wars in Europe, Charlesfort was abandoned after the garrison mutinied, built a ship on the island and sailed back to France in April 1563.

In 1566, the Spanish, led by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, founded a settlement named Santa Elena which became the capital of La Florida for the next decade.

During and after the Civil War, the island became home to freed slaves and was a site of freedmen schools taught by abolitionists such as Frances Gage and Clara Barton.

This function was taken up again after the war in large part because of the freedman-turned-Representative Robert Smalls, who fought for the creation of a federal military installation on the island.

Marines were first assigned to Parris Island on June 26, 1891, in the form of a small security detachment headed by First Sergeant Richard Donovan, two corporals and 10 privates.

Military buildings and family quarters constructed between 1891 and World War I form the nucleus of the Parris Island Historic District.

At the district center are the commanding general's home, a 19th-century wooden dry dock, and an early 20th-century gazebo, all of which are on the National Register of Historic Places.

[8] On October 11, 2002, the town of Port Royal annexed the entire island,[9] but most visitors still associate the installation with Beaufort, a larger community five miles to the north.