To these came settlers direct from England, such emigrants as the proprietors could persuade to the undertaking, and such as were impelled by the evil state of England in the last days of the Stuarts, or drawn by the promise of religious liberty.
South Carolina, on the other hand, was settled direct from Europe, first by cargoes of emigrants shipped on speculation by the great real-estate "operators" who had at heart not only the creation of a gorgeous aristocracy in the West, but also the realization of fat dividends on their heavy ventures.

Members of the dominant politico-religious party in England were attracted to a country in which they were still to be regarded before the law as of the "only true and orthodox" church; and religious dissenters gladly accepted the offer of toleration and freedom, even without the assurance of equality.

One of the most notable contributions to the new colony was a company of dissenters from Somersetshire, led by Joseph Blake, brother to Cromwell's illustrious admiral.

Among these were some of the earliest American Baptists; and there is clear evidence of connection between their arrival and the coming, in 1684, of a Baptist church from the Massachusetts Colony, under the pastorate of William Screven.

This planting was destined to have an important influence both on the religious and on the civil history of the colony.