Mile 690 - Yamassee, South Carolina

South Carolina - The Palmetto State

As of March 5, 2008 at 8:30 AM
Steps: 1,635,990
Miles: 693.03
Miles to North Carolina: 149.97


Asked by the Revolutionary Council of Safety* in the fall of 1775 to design a flag for the use of South Carolina troops, Col. William Moultrie chose a blue which matched the color of their uniforms and a crescent which reproduced the silver emblem worn on the front of their caps. The palmetto tree was added later to represent Moultrie's heroic defense of the palmetto-log fort on Sullivan's Island against the attack of the British fleet on June 28, 1776.

*-Predates the Department of Homeland Security by quite a bit, eh?


This state has some unusual names - especially the rivers like Pee Dee. The Virtual Walker is somewhere near the "C" in Charleston, nearing the Edisto River.

The Yamassee were a tribe of Native Americans that were dealt a bad hand by fate and by white settlers.

In 1715, the Yamassee began to attack South Carolinian colonists, triggering the Yamassee War, which lasted until at least 1717. Many tribes allied themselves with the Yamassee. In 1716 the Cherokee Indians allied themselves with South Carolina settlers and began to attack the Creek Indians, which turned the tide of the war. While the South Carolina militia could not fight the powerful Creek, they did defeat the Yamassee in pitched battle at Salkehatchie on the Combahee River.

The Yamasee then migrated south to the area around St. Augustine, Florida, and became allied with the Spanish against the English. In 1727, the British attacked the tribe's settlement and slaughtered most of them; this and conflicts with the Creek decimated the Yamasee population. The survivors eventually assimilated into the Seminole tribe.