Apologies if this question is too broad. I'm a history grad student reading about the Carolina colonies in the colonial period for an American history colloquium, and our book of choice extensively details the history of colonial Charleston and its importance to the Carolina colonies. That got me wondering why the city didn't develop into a major American metropolitan city later in its history like Boston and NYC did, especially considering how important it was early on. What kinds of historical events contributed to this? Westward expansion? Geographic limitations? The Civil War and the end of slavery? Seemingly after the colonial period, and especially the Civil War, as an American history student, you never hear about the city in an important location again.
If I'm wrong about that generalization, please correct me!
While /u/toetoe31 is correct that the Civil War had devastating effects on Charleston and other southern cities, the city's troubles started earlier.
In terms of relative population, Charleston was in decline by the Civil War.
Here's a table showing where Charleston ranked in population among American cities, according to United States census records.
| Year | Ranking |
|---|---|
| 1790 | 4th |
| 1800 | 5th |
| 1810 | 5th |
| 1820 | 6th |
| 1830 | 6th |
| 1840 | 10th |
| 1850 | 15th |
| 1860 | 22nd |
And the decline wasn't just in terms of relative population.
| Year | Population |
|---|---|
| 1830 | 30,289 |
| 1840 | 29,261 |
| 1850 | 42,985 |
| 1860 | 40,522 |
There are four things we can pinpoint as points of stress for the city during this time period.
First, there was an economic decline nationally during this period that notably included the Panic of 1837. They still felt residual effects from the Panic of 1819 that had hit the state particularly hard.
Second, Charleston was a majority black city in the plantation era. A major slave revolt was foiled in 1822, with the leader executed and hundreds of others jailed. Increasing tensions between whites and blacks was a contributing factor in Charleston being a less desirable place, especially for white landowners who had the means to move (and bring their slaves with them).
Third, South Carolina (including Charleston) became embroiled in a dispute with the federal government. In response to the heavy tariffs of the time, South Carolina passed a nullification law in 1832 that led to the state declaring the tariffs to be unconstitutional. This series of actions resulted in a full crisis between the state and federal government.
Finally, Charleston suffered a catastrophic fire on April 27-28, 1838. It devastated the city's commercial districts in particular. Many businesses and important buildings were ruined. Even some of the wealthy in Charleston lost everything they had.
It's hard to say how significant any single one of these things were by themselves.
Charleston wasn't the only place hit by the economic downturn, nor was it the only southern city with racial tensions. The nullification crisis was eventually resolved.
The city rebuilt itself well after the fire, all things considered.
But all these things did add up. Together, they explain why Charleston stagnated during the mid-19th century compared to other major population centers. And as /u/toetoe31 pointed out earlier, the Civil War created even bigger problems later on.
Charleston is in a climactic zone that was rather prone to outbreaks of Malaria and Yellow Fever. Both were often fatal to adults prior to modern medicine and mosquito remediation techniques. In “Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1612 to 1914” by John Robert McNeil, the author details the numerous and catastrophic outbreaks of these diseases in Charleston, SC. The warm mild climate and hot humid summers meant that the transmission vector mosquito was far more active in Charleston than in other Colonial cities, Philadelphia and New York per your examples. Philadelphia had an outbreak or two, confined to the summer months, through the 18th and 19th centuries. Charleston had many, many such outbreaks.
Local well to dos often migrated with their families inland, to the hilly country, where the lower temperatures and higher elevations made mosquitos rare to begin with, and less likely to bite. These areas were immune to the vagaries of mosquito bourn illness. As a result, Charleston experienced less organic population growth than cities further up the coast.
The book has its main focus on the ‘Greater Caribbean’ region encompassing Surinam in the south to the Chesapeake Bay region in the north as defined by the author. The book gets granular on the topic of how the disease spread, and which populations were most affected. Charleston was one of the case studies with detailed analysis.