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'''Move to South Carolina'''
'''Move to South Carolina'''
Sumter had borrowed money to take part in the expedition, and soon after his return to Virginia, he was imprisoned for debt, the colonial legislature having refused to reimburse his expenses over the past year. He was only released from jail in 1766, after a fellow ex-soldier gave him some money to settle his debts. Not long thereafter, Sumter migrated south to the hilly region north of the Santee River in South Carolina (sometimes known as the "High Hills of Santee"), where a gift of ₤700 from the Crown for his services enabled him to set up a plantation. In 1767, he married Mary Jameson, and together they opened several businesses, including a store, sawmill, and grist mill.<ref>''Against the Barbarians'', M. E. Bradford (1992), p. 140-41
Sumter had borrowed money to take part in the expedition, and soon after his return to Virginia, he was imprisoned for debt, the colonial legislature having refused to reimburse his expenses over the past year. He was only released from jail in 1766, after a fellow ex-soldier gave him some money to settle his debts. Not long thereafter, Sumter migrated south to the hilly region north of the Santee River in South Carolina (sometimes known as the "High Hills of Santee"), where a gift of ₤700 from the Crown for his services enabled him to set up a plantation. In 1767, he married Mary Jameson, and together they opened several businesses, including a store, sawmill, and grist mill.<ref>''Against the Barbarians'', M. E. Bradford (1992), p. 140-41</ref>
==Revolutionary War Career==
Given that he could claim the Crown as a benefactor, it is not clear how or when Sumter drifted into the [[Patriot]] camp. He may have been involved in or sympathetic to the [[Regulator]] movement of the late 1760s and early 1770s that demanded greater representation for the backcountry districts in the colonial assemblies of the Carolinas. If this was the case, the principle of political representation may have led Sumter to support the broader cause of resistance to [[Parliament]] and the monarchy; however, this is only speculation.
Sumter was appointed a Justice of the Peace in 1773 for the Camden District, and won the esteem of his neighbors enough to be elected as representative for the District Eastward of Wateree River to the First Provincial Congress of South Carolina, which met in [[Charleston, South Carolina|Charleston]] on January 11, 1775. He was subsequently re-elected to the Second Provincial Congress later that year, and from 1776 to 1780, served in the First, Second, and Third General Assemblies after [[Declaration of Independence|independence was declared]]. Simultaneously, Sumter entered the South Carolina militia, being elected a captain in 1775 and serving that winter in the campaign against [[Loyalists]] organizing in the backcountry. In February 1776, he was made lieutenant colonel of the Second Regiment of the South Carolina Line, serving in the [[Battle of Fort Moultrie]] (June 1776), the campaign against Cherokees on the frontier (July-October 1776), and in several campaigns to protect [[Georgia]] (1777-78). In September 1778, Sumter, by now a brigadier general, resigned his commission, frustrated by the inconclusive and sporadic nature of the fighting and desiring to redress his financial affairs, left in disarray by his absence from home.
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