Christopher Gadsden (February 16, 1724 – August 28, 1805) was an American politician who was the principal leader of the South Carolina Patriot movement during the American Revolution. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress, a brigadier general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina, a merchant, and the designer of the Gadsden flag. He is a signatory to the Continental Association.
Early life
Gadsden was born in 1724 in Charleston, South Carolina. He was the son of Thomas Gadsden (b. 1701), who had been in the Royal Navy before becoming customs collector for the Port of Charleston. His grandfather, Edward Gadsden, was born in Wiltshire, England in 1672 and emigrated to South Carolina in 1695. He was sent to school near Bristol, England. He returned to America in 1740 and served as an apprentice at a counting house in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He inherited a large fortune from his parents who died in 1741. From 1745 to 1746 he was a purser on a British warship during King George's War. He entered into mercantile ventures and by 1747 had earned enough to return to South Carolina and buy back the land his father had sold because he needed the money to pay off debts. He built Beneventum Plantation House in about 1750.
Views on slavery
While Gadsden vehemently supported John Adams, who was opposed to slavery and promoted a gradual approach to abolition, the U.S. National Park Service writes that "by 1774, Christopher Gadsden owned four stores, several merchant vessels, two rice plantations, a residential district in Charleston called Gadsdenboro, and a large wharf on the Cooper River." Of all the colonies, South Carolina received the highest number of slaves from Africa, and most of these came ashore on Gadsden's Wharf. Gadsden himself held slaves, as did many rice plantation owners in South Carolina who used the labor of enslaved Africans to grow and sell agricultural products. In A Forgotten Founder: The Life and Legacy of Christopher Gadsden, Kelcey Eldridge states that, "at the time of his death, he owned enough slaves to 'divide my Estate real and personal as well as my negroes as otherwise into nineteen equal parts or shares; but it is unknown just how many enslaved people he purchased, owned, or used.
Seven Years War
Gadsden began his rise to prominence as a merchant and patriot in Charleston. He prospered as a merchant and built the wharf in Charleston that bears his name. Between its completion in 1767 until 1787 and 1803 to 1808, it is estimated that 40% of all African slaves (about 100,000 enslaved people) were brought to America through his wharf. He was captain of a militia company during a 1759 expedition against the Cherokee. He was first elected to the Commons House of Assembly in 1757 and began a long friction with autocratic royal governors. His re-election to the Commons in 1762 was beset with minor voting irregularities, which resulted in Governor Boone refusing to administer the oath of office for Gadsden and dissolving the entire Commons. This perceived excess of gubernatorial power led to a political culture in South Carolina of legislative dominance over the executive branch.
In 1766, the assembly made him one of their delegates to the Stamp Act Congress in New York City, which was called to protest the Stamp Act. While his fellow delegates Thomas Lynch and John Rutledge served on committees to draft appeals to the House of Lords and Commons respectively, Gadsden refused any such assignment, since in his view the British parliament had no rights in the matter. He was outspoken in his support of the Declaration of Rights and Grievances produced by the Congress. His addresses brought him to the attention of Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, and the two began a long correspondence and friendship. Gadsden was eventually known as "the Sam Adams of the South".