Early travelers in South Carolina, like John Lawson, describe a variety of canoes and more spacious canoe-built vessels (also referred in historical literature as dugouts, periaguas, pettigaurs and perrigaers) which were poled, rowed, sailed, and paddled through the lowland waterways.  Lawson describes his African guide paddling a canoe "...the most difficult Way I ever saw, occasioned by Reason of the Multitude of Creeks lying along the Main, keeping their course through the Marshes, turning and winding like a Labyrinth."  These narrow-beamed, shallow-draft, maneuverable vessels were extremely useful watercraft for the swampy, riverine network of the low country rivers when roads and bridges were still poor or non-existent.

Traders shipped huge loads of animal hides from the settlement of Dorchester down the Ashley River to Charleston in periguas propelled by both sails and oars.  A perigua rowed by a crew of seven or eight slaves could carry a cargo of 500 to 700 deerskins.  A common sight at trading venues like Dorchester was a busy wharf jotted with periaguas and schooners landing and loading their cargoes, and merchants and planters conducting business transactions.  In return for these deerskins, merchants traded a variety of items with the Native Americans.  This included guns, gunpowder, agricultural implements, liquor, and clothing.  To make the larger canoe, or periagua, the sides of the log was built up with planking, or two logs were joined along the keel line giving the boat additional beam for cargo without significantly increasing its draft.  Fifty to 100 barrels of tar or rice could be ferried along shallow creeks and shoals in these vessels.  They were frequently equipped with one or even two portable masts for sailing and often ventured out into the open water.  A great deal of information on the boats used by the native Americans and the early traders is contained in the early journals and documents of the Commissioners of Indian Trade. 

Frequent references to these watercraft are made in a number of historical documents.  Canoes were some of the most popular vernacular vessels used in the southeast during the 18th and 19th centuries for general transportation, fishing, scouting, piloting, recreational, and plantation purposes.  Quite possibly, canoes represented a combination of boat-building cultures of the Native Americans, Africans, and Europeans who came from coastal or riverine areas.  Long before the Europeans or Africans arrived in South Carolina, native Americans carved dugout canoes using fire and stone tools.  African slaves came from coastal and riverine environment in Sierra Leone and Angola where boats were also important commodities.

Lawson describes how the vast cypress trees, of which "...the French make canoes...are innumerable between the French settlement and Charleston."  Another reference about the French in the Caribbean islands states that "...the French learned from the Savages to hollow out trees to make canoes–they did not learn from them to row them, steer them, or to jump overboard to right them when they are overturned wetting their clothes, losing anything, or drowning, but most French fear all these things...everyday one sees disastrous accidents."  While the ethnic complexity and exact origins of canoe-building may be too difficult unravel, it is most likely that these building practices merged through time to represent the South Carolina tradition.  An important part of the story about these vernacular craft is how they were used here and the social and economic interactions that these vessels symbolize.