The definitive study of the Huguenot influence in South Carolina First published in 1928, The Huguenots of Colonial South Carolina is the authoritative work on the Huguenot presence in one of the most important American colonies. Arthur H. Hirsch provides a thorough description and analysis of the Huguenot migration and settlement in South Carolina throughout the colonial period. He describes how the Huguenot communities and churches throughout the state were founded and how the first-generation Huguenots integrated into the religious, political, and socioeconomic fabric of early South Carolina. Although the first group of Huguenot settlers numbered no more than six hundred, they arrived in the colony at a time when they could exert a disproportionate and fundamental influence on early colonial institutions. Hirsch explains how they quickly became a political force and aided the Anglicans in establishing the Church of England in South Carolina. He also traces the ways in which successive generations left an indelible mark on the cultural and economic development of the colony and the new state. Bertrand Van Ruymbeke's new introduction places Hirsch's book in its historiographical context as the product of a 1915 University of Chicago dissertation and the intellectual heir of Charles W. Baird's groundbreaking work on the subject. He examines the book's strengths, notably its accurate identification of assimilation as the major theme of Huguenot history in South Carolina and its integration of archival and family history research. Van Ruymbeke also brings to bear his own prodigious research in French archives on the backgrounds, number, and manner of immigration of the early arrivals. He provides a new look at the way the Huguenots found a place in the political economy of colonial South Carolina.

Traditionally known as le Refuge, the Huguenot diaspora is one of the most important dispersions of a religious minority in early modern Europe. This migration led to the exodus of nearly two hundred thousand Protestants out of France in 1685 at the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Memory and Identity offers a comparative perspective on this event and its repercussions by an international group of historians. This collection is the first look at the Huguenot diaspora in a broad Atlantic context rather than as a narrowly European or Colonial American phenomenon and sheds new light on the Protestant experience both in and outside of France. The volume explains why some Huguenots chose to emigrate instead of being assimilated by the dominant Catholic group, while others recanted their faith and remained in France. Revealing how minority status at home affected the creation of refugee communities outside France, scholars trace the Huguenots' eventual integration into different host societies. Comparing Huguenot diasporic experiences on both sides of the Atlantic, essays focus on Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, British North America, the French Caribbean, New France, and Dutch South Africa. Finally, several essays study the long-term impact of the Revocation and of le Refuge in examining nineteenth-century Huguenot memory in France and in the diaspora and the maintenance of a Huguenot identity.

From New Babylon to Eden traces the persecution of Huguenots in France and the eventual emigration of a small bloc of the French Calvinist population to colonial South Carolina. Once there, rather than isolate themselves as a separate religious enclave, they chose instead to integrate into the Southern strain of nascent Anglo-American society, dominated by slavery and the Church of England. Through intermarriage and adaptation to the new economic and political environment, Huguenots rapidly numbered among the most influential and successful colonists, leaving a persevering legacy throughout Charleston and the lowcountry. In a volume devoted to the first generation of Carolina Huguenots, Bertrand Van Ruymbeke describes in detail their gradual transformation from French refugees to South Carolina planters. Van Ruymbeke recounts the escalating abuse that led to the Huguenot exodus from France and tells how approximately five hundred emigres settled in South Carolina. He credits their decision to relocate to the vigorous marketing efforts of the Lord Proprietors, the owners and rulers of the province, who promised the French Calvinists a veritable Eden. The Huguenots quickly discovered the colony was not paradise, but they adapted to the new environment by abandoning the silk, olive oil, and wine trades for the more lucrative pursuits of Indian trade, cattle ranching, and rice planting. Placing the Carolina migration in the context of the larger Huguenot diaspora, Van Ruymbeke proffers an account that challenges accepted history. Describing their settlement as a process of acculturation and creolization rather than simply assimilation, he contends that the majority of Calvinists were adamant about creating their own churches but were thwarted by an Anglicized elite eager to carve itself a niche within Anglo-Carolinian society. He also reveals that most members of the initial generation were moderately - though not exceptionally - prosperous and, rather, that it was their descendants who acquired the wealth often associated with lowcountry Huguenots. Van Ruymbeke concludes with an epilogue describing the Huguenot legacy in South Carolina and the construction and maintenance of a local Huguenot memory since the 1880s.