At Charles Towne Landing State Historic Site visitors can explore the exact location where
colonists established the first successful English settlement in the Carolinas. The ‘birthplace of South Carolina’ and a settlement that defined the culture and destiny of America, Charles Towne Landing is one of the most significant colonial historic sites in the South.
Charles Towne Landing State Historic Site is back and better than ever. The grand opening of the renovated park across the Ashley River from downtown Charleston was held on Thursday, August 17. A state park since 1970, the site is where a ship full of British settlers and their servants arrived from Barbados and established the first permanent European colony in the Carolinas in 1670.A highlight of the 664-acre park is the new Visitor Center, which includes extensive, interactive exhibits describing how settlers, slaves, traders and Native Americans came together on this spot to forge the beginnings of what would become the plantation system of the American South.The park also includes a full-scale replica trading ship, protective palisades, a garden that includes crops from that time, a natural habitat zoo, ongoing archaeological activity, walking paths and full visitor amenities.
The decisions of the early settlers helped to determine the future course of South Carolina and even the region. These men and women left us important legacies, including an early history of religious tolerance and traditions of cultural refinement in Charleston. They also deliberately introduced a slave-based plantation economy, a cruel legacy that spread from Charles Towne and had a profound influence on the development of the American Deep South.