Arrival in South Carolina (mid-1750s – 1779)

Upon surviving the Middle Passage, Joseph would have arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, one of the major slave ports in the American colonies. Here, he would have been sold at an auction to a plantation owner in the Goose Creek area, a small but economically significant settlement just outside Charleston. Goose Creek was a hub for rice and indigo plantations, where enslaved labor was essential to the colony’s economy. The climate and geography of South Carolina were ideally suited for rice cultivation, but it was grueling, labor-intensive work that required extensive knowledge of water management and planting techniques—skills that many enslaved Africans brought with them from regions like West Africa.