Tequila Rose

Written history began 500 years ago with the discovery of the area by Spanish Captain Diego Guilarte de Salazar in 1514. Thus, Beaufort County was the site of the second landing on the North American continent by Europeans, in 1514. The Lowcountry region had been subject to numerous European explorations and failed attempts at colonization before the British founded the city in 1711. The city initially grew slowly, subject to numerous attacks from Native American tribes and threats from the powerful Spanish Empire to the south. It flourished first as a center for shipbuilding and later, when the colony was established as a slave society, as the elite center for the Lowcountry planters through the Civil War.