With cultural roots as deep and colorful as the surrounding blue-green waters, Charleston is a rich mixture of early English, Scottish, Irish, French, Spanish, German, Swiss, Santo Domingan, African, Native American, and Caribbean influences.
While each of these cultures left its mark on the city in a unique way, no influence was stronger than that of the British. Archaeologists tell us countless generations of Native Americans lived on and around the land now called Charleston before the first permanent English settlers arrived, but little remains of their occupation outside of the archaeological record in the ground itself. The first English settlers, arriving in the spring of 1670, were adventurers coming to lands granted by King Charles II to eight lords proprietors, who claimed ownership of the “Carolinas”—presumably extending from the Atlantic to the shores of the Pacific.