author
Alexander Hewatt
A Scottish-born minister and early historian, remembered for one of the first full histories of colonial South Carolina and Georgia. His writing draws on years spent in Charleston and reflects the sharp political tensions of the Revolutionary era.
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About the author
Alexander Hewatt, often listed as Alexander Hewat, was born in 1739 in Roxburgh, Scotland. He became a Presbyterian minister and later settled in Charleston, South Carolina, where he served the Scots Church. He is best known as the author of An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the Colonies of South Carolina and Georgia, a two-volume work that helped make him one of the earliest historians of those colonies.
His life was deeply shaped by the American Revolution. Hewatt remained loyal to Britain, and sources describe his property being seized and his removal from South Carolina during the conflict. That political upheaval also shaped the point of view found in his historical writing.
He died in 1824. Today he is mainly remembered for preserving early colonial history and for offering a close, contemporary view of the world he had lived in, even if modern readers may notice the loyalties and limits that came with it.