A large number of south Carolina's original settlers were British planters from Barbados.
Initially sugar was the focus of the plantation industry. As it developed into the main commercial enterprise, Barbados was divided into large plantation estates which replaced the small holdings of the early English settlers as the wealthy planters pushed out the poorer.
The island was a British colony. The settlement was established as a proprietary colony which funded by Sir William Courten, a merchant in the city of London. He acquired the title to Barbados and several other islands. The first English settlers were thus tenants
