James Davant

The Survivor of the Lowcountry

James Davant was the elder statesman of the Davant family on Hilton Head Island. Born on Edisto Island in 1744, he moved to Hilton Head as a child and inherited his father’s plantation, Point Comfort, strategically located at the mouth of Broad Creek overlooking the Calibogue Sound. Before the revolution, James was a successful indigo planter, but as the clouds of war gathered, he committed himself fully to the Patriot cause, embarking on a military career that would see him through the most significant battles of the Southern Theater.

The Great Sieges and the Return to Resistance

Unlike many local militiamen who stayed close to their homes, James Davant saw service on a broader scale. He enlisted early in the Patriot militia and was present for the desperate defenses of both Savannah (1779) and Charleston (1780). He witnessed the crushing weight of British professional arms firsthand, but fortunately avoided the mass surrenders that crippled the American army after the fall of Charleston.

Returning to a British-occupied Hilton Head, James did not submit. He rejoined the local militia, which had evolved from a formal defensive force into a shadow army of “partisans.” These men operated out of the swamps and hidden creeks, conducting a “War of Posts” against the British and their Loyalist allies on nearby Daufuskie Island.

The “Bloody Legion” and the Night of Retribution

The war became a personal crusade for James on the night of October 21, 1781. After his brother Charles was mortally wounded in a Loyalist ambush at the “Big Gate,” the command to “Get Martinangele” fell squarely on James’s shoulders. James became a leading figure in the “Bloody Legion,” a unit of Hilton Head Patriots known for their uncompromising tactics.

On December 23, 1781, James led a strike team across the Calibogue Sound. Under the cover of total darkness, they infiltrated Daufuskie Island and surrounded the home of Captain Philip Martinangele. In a swift act of frontier justice, they executed the Captain in his bed—avenging Charles and sending a clear message that Hilton Head would not be intimidated. They burned the estate to the ground before rowing back across the sound, having effectively decapitated the Loyalist leadership in the district.

Architect of the Sea Island Era

Following the British evacuation in 1782, James Davant turned his formidable energy toward rebuilding the island. He assumed management of his late brother’s lands and successfully navigated the difficult transition from indigo to the lucrative Sea Island Cotton. By the time of his death in 1803, James had become one of the most powerful landowners in the region’s history, with over 6,500 acres under cultivation.

James Davant’s life serves as the bridge between the violent, fractured world of the Revolutionary Lowcountry and the prosperous, antebellum era that followed. He was a man who knew when to hold a musket and when to hold a plow, ensuring that the Davant name—and the Patriot cause—endured on Hilton Head Island.