The last religious census re turned 655,933 members of different religious denominations; the Baptists being strongest with 341,456 members, the Methodists next with 249,169. There were 35,533 Presbyterians, 12,652 Lutherans, 10,317 Roman Catholics and 8,557 Episcopalians.
Charities and The State maintains several charitable institutions, in cluding a hospital for the insane at Columbia and an asylum for the deaf, dumb and blind. There are besides 9 orphanages, 10 hospitals and 10 homes for adults and children main tained mainly by private charity. A State Board of Charities and Correction was created in 1915. There is a State penitentiary at Columbia, where there is also a reformatory for negro boys. A State farm is located at Boykin and an in dustrial school at Florence.
The first settlement on the con tinent of North America took place 27 May 1562 on the southeastern extremity of Paris Island in Port Royal Harbor. A colony of French Huguenots landed there and built a fort, naming it in honor of their king, Charles IX, Carolina (aboriginal name, Chicora). Their ships having returned to France for reinforce. ments, a fire broke out, which destroyed their barracks and magazine. In this plight they con structed boats, with the assistance of the In dians, and went back to France. In 1665-69 Charles II, of England, claiming Carolina by reason of the discovery of North America by John Cabot, in 1497, when sailing under a patent from Henry VII, granted all that "tract of ground" in America between the 36th degree and 31st degree north latitude, and to the west as far as the South Seas (Pacific Ocean) to eight English noblemen as Lords Proprietors. The grant covered about 1,020,000 square miles or more than one-third the area of the present United States, a region since largely peopled from the South Carolina of to-day. The first colony sent out landed in 1670, as the French had, at Port Royal, but removed shortly after to the confluence of the Ashley and Copper rivers, where they founded the city of Charleston. The Proprietary government was conducted under a royal charter and certain "Fundamental Constitutions" drawn for that purpose by the famous metaphysician, John Locke. In order
to avoid "erecting a too numerous democracy" Locke designed a territorial aristocracy of land graves. caciques and barons. The colonists, however, insisting upon the clause of the king's charter directing the Lords Proprietors to "gov ern according to their best discretion by and with the advice, assent and approbation of the Freemen of said territory, or their deputies or delegates," prevented from first to last this aristocracy from taking root in the colony. The Proprietary government, without adaptability to the circumstances and Necessities of the colony, promoted endless discussions and dissensions as to the interpretation of the charter and the "Constitutions." A succession of "heats and broils" during 49 years culminated in 1719. The Proprietors expressed their inability to aid the colonists, refused petitions addressed to them on important matters and repealed acts of the assembly laying taxes for the discharge of the public debt and for the freedom of elections. The assembly thereupon voted itself a conven tion and unintimidated by the threat of the Proprietary governor to bombard Charles ton from a British war vessel, elected James Moore governor in the name of the king, and the Royal Government of the Province sup planted that of the Proprietors.
Bancroft and Dana place the highest esti mate of the aborigines south of the Great Lakes ancLeast of the Mississippi River at 180,000, or one person to four and one-half square miles, a terri tory now supporting a population of 67 to the square mile, or 301 for one Indian. John Law son 1703 and Governor Glen in 1743 agree in estimating the Indian population of Carolina at about one to eight square miles. They were generally friendly to the colonists except when incited to sudden outbursts of hostility by the Spaniards, the French or the British, and formed a more or less important contingent in war, as when •James More in 1702-03 in vaded the Appalachian region with 25 whites and 1,000 Indians and returned with 1,300 cap tives, who were sold into slavery to the northern colonies and the West Indies.